Sampled on Johnny Ryall.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Song(s) of the Day # 1,350 Zara McFarlane
Zara McFarlane stands resplendent on the front cover of her new album Arise like some Cuban revolutionary, but one who finds herself on a leafy backstreet of Dagenham rather than Havana. The record is a splendid mix of Kamasi Washington style jazz and rootsy reggae. Here are two highlights.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Songs About People # 475 Marc Bolan
Luke Haines is getting a Box Set of recent albums released shortly. Not sure that this is entirely merited. However, this tribute to Marc from his latest album is worth remembering.
Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent
Detroit's Protomartyr have entered their imperial phase with their new album Relatives in Descent which is released today. It's an astonishing record, building on their already remarkable body of work but this time going nuclear, surging into a mode of monumental assurance and sheer power beyond anything they've ever done before, (raw power indeed), that marks this down as an instant and unassailable modern classic. Twelve songs in all, each streaked with a staggering confidence and an ability to shift gears mid-track to take you somewhere you were never expecting to go.
It's not easy listening. Nor should it be. These are troubled and troubling times. A new dark fear seems to be stalking the world and Protomartyr understand that only too well and are here to soundtrack it all. Or certainly as much as they can. As reference points, think Pere Ubu, think Joy Division and The Fall, their songs are reminiscent of the troubled surfaces and dank murky seabeds of all three bands, and they're not shamed for a moment by the comparisons. They're that good!
Three troubled teens who chose to form a band with their alcoholic uncle, (Joe Casey, one of the best frontmen of modern times), who strangely resembles a David Cameron who's let himself go. Altogether too smart for words, they understand the darkness but also appreciate the light. There are some utterly glorious melodies at play here. I've just listened through to the whole album at one sitting before heading into work, unable to tear myself away from my headphones. Like the very best books, I was sorry and slightly shocked when it came to an end. Undoubtedly one of the records of the year. I need to say more but wanted to post now. I'll return here at greater length later on. In the meantime, make a point of hearing it!
Song of the Day # 1,349 Luxembourg Signal
Splendid, sparkly indie guitar pop from Luxembourg Signal who have their debut album out next month. Altogether makes a great deal more sense than Twin Peaks nowadays.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Songs About People # 474 Mike Tyson & Buster Douglas
Perhaps the greatest shock in modern boxing. Buster Douglas knocks down Mike Tyson and takes his World Heavyweight crow in 1990. The moment is eulogised on for me, the best moment on The Killers new record.
Thirty Days of Things Sampled on Paul's Boutique # 3 Harvey Scales
Another sample from Track 2 Shake Your Rump.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,348 The Bronx
The Bronx, a band who can switch from Hardcore to Mariachi in consecutive sets go slightly to the metallic edge of punk on their newly released fifth album, appropriately entitled V.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Songs Heard on the Radio # 227 62 Miles From Space
Always happy with nice, new Stereolab sounds late at night!
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 247 Flamin' Groovies
Very glad to see Flamin' Groovies at long last on the jukebox at Rosie's. The mighty Teenage Head album too. Here's the title track.
Songs About People # 473 Cato the Elder
Song from an Of Montreal album from 2007. Does he mean Cato the Elder? You'd have to assume so judging by the lyric.
Song of the Day # 1,347 Morrissey
So what do you think of this? The new single from Morrissey, Spent the Day in Bed, from his forthcoming album Low in High School. It's difficult to know what to make of Morrissey in 2017. He's inevitably sullied his reputation in the eyes of some lifelong supporters with many of his utterly ludicrous and borderline offensive proclamations of recent years. I'd have to say, I'm among these types. I'm fed up of what he says in most of his public statements. There's a smallness and rankness to so many of them that doesn't reflect well on his legacy. But then you listen to a song like this and it reiterates why he is utterly alone in the world in being able to articulate an essential worldview. Something we need. The picture sleeve has a boy standing with a banner for the song outside Buckingham Palace. For this unshakeable resolve alone the man is still necessary. Then just listen to the lyrics if further proof is required.
It's another of his manifestos. So it's something he's sung on umpteen occasions since Still Ill where perhaps he sung it best. It says that the world is ridiculous and a cruel trick on us all and we should not participate at all in its machinations, instead doing exactly as we please. The lyric's a pearl. Ten out of ten for that. Nevertheless, I'm going to work today. He's an artist. Writing this is his right and responsibility. I'm not. Doing as I should in return for money is mine. But I'm glad he's there and at least this can go round my head all the while today that I'm at my desk.The arrangement is more problematic, sounding oddly synthetic, not something you'd expect of the man and not for the first time since 1986 the thought crosses my mind that he misses Johnny Marr. That being a glib thing to say doesn't prevent it from being true. I'd give that side of things six. So the end score averages out as an eight. Regardless, if this were a Smiths song it would not be out of place. Here are the words:
'Spent the day in bed
Very happy I did, yes
I spent the day in bed
As the workers stay enslaved
I spent the day in bed
I'm not my type, but
I love my bed
And I recommend that you
Stop watching the news!
Because the news contrives to frighten you
To make you feel small and alone
To make you feel that your mind isn't your own
I spent the day in bed
It's a consolation
When all my dreams
Are perfectly legal
In sheets for which I paid
I am now laid
And I recommend to all of my friends that they
Stop watching the news!
Because the news contrives to frighten you
To make you feel small and alone
To make you feel that your mind isn't your own
Oh time, do as I wish
Time, do as I wish
Oh time, do as I wish
Time, do as I wish
Oh time, do as I wish
Time, do as I wish
Oh time, do as I wish
Do as I wish
I spent the day in bed
You can please yourself
But, I spent the day in bed
Pillows like pillars
Life ends in death
So, there's nothing wrong with
Being good to yourself
Be good to yourself for once!
And no bus, no boss, no rain, no train
No bus, no boss, no rain, no train
No bus, no boss, no rain, no train
No emasculation, no castration
No highway, freeway, motorway
No bus, no boss, no rain, no train
No bus, no boss, no rain, no train
No bus, no boss, no rain, no train'
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Songs Heard on the Radio # 226 Eddie Gale
Playing catch up on 6 Music leads me to the uniformly excellent Henry Rollins, filling in one Friday night for the absent Iggy Pop. And one of his selections from the late sixties when black music was at its funkiest and most radical.
Thirty Days of Things Sampled on Paul's Boutique # 1 Ildris Muhammed
Released in 1989, Beastie Boy's Paul's Boutique was initially considered a failure, (at least by the record company that put it out), but over time has been re-assessed as a landmark album and their finest achievement. Almost completely composed of samples from an incredibly broad and surprising base, it's also sold consistently in the decades since being certified double platinum ten years after it initially came out. Here are thirty things sampled on it, starting with Ildris Muhammed on the opening track To All the Girls.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,346 Shannon Lay
A lilting, unadorned folk album from Los Angeles artist Shannon Lay called Living Water came out last Friday. It's mostly Lay's clear vocals, accompanied by acoustic guitar and the occasional violin. It's all as minimalist as can be, the two songs posted here should give you a good taste of what's going on. Altogether something of a balanced and upbeat Pink Moon, Lay's second solo album in less than a calendar year and a million miles away from the punky stuff she's known for from her band Feels.
Monday, September 25, 2017
Songs Heard on the Radio # 225 Houndstooth
Great to hear coming out of the radio this from one of my favourite bands of recent years.
Kolsch
Strange that calling your album, 1989 can at this distance seem like an act of dreaming nostalgia. I was almost half the age I am now, not yet out in the world of work. Never mind that, this is a fine record of electro, classical and trance moments just out from Kolsch, a Copenhagen based mixer and producer. He seems to be embarked upon a series. His last two albums, entitled 1977 and 1983 were released in 2013 and 2015. We await 1995 in 2019.
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 246 Vampire Weekend
When you wake up with this song, (which you played the other evening at Rosie's), going round your head. And you've also just had a dream where you were having a chat sat at a table with lead singer Ezra Koenig, you complementing him on the band's records and him whispering into your ear about what they planned to do next, though you couldn't hear a word he was whispering and didn't feel you could ask him to repeat himself. All this needs to be recorded somewhere and here is as good a place as any.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,345 Amadou & Mariam
Joyous new album La confusion from veteran Malian couple Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia. A pair of blind musicians, they've been putting out records since the eighties but if you're not familiar with their work this will serve nicely as an entree. A sound that Wikipedia told me mixes 'traditional Mali sound with rock guitars, Syrian violins, Cuban trumpets, Egyptian ney, Indian tablas and Dogon percussion. In combination these elements have been called 'Afro-Blues'. It's a heady mix, rising miraculously like a souffle in an oven.
Twelve songs, six written in the morning by Amadou, six at night by Mariam, sung in French and Bambara, the celebratory tone of everything is a defiant response to the war-torn times the record documents. Following on from their 2012 album Folila, where they collaborated with Santigold, TV on the Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeah's Nick Zinner. In the words of the Mojo review of this record, 'a genuine masterpiece documenting the Malian unrest that is poignant, passionate, and directed equally at the head, feet and heart.'
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Pop Culture Documentaries # 4 George Harrison: Living in the Material World
George Harrison is no longer Living in the Material World and hasn't been for getting on to sixteen years now. He's the subject of a very long documentary by that name from Martin Scorsese, released in 2011 and made with the co-operation of Harrison's close family and friends. It's almost three and half hours long but Harrison is well worthy of lengthy scrutiny as he's a figure that represents a particular set of values and attitudes that's quite unique in the history of Rock & Roll.
Initially 'the quiet one' in The Beatles and the lead guitarist responsible for neat, indispensable but hardly genius embellishments to their records and live performances, he began to come out and establish a greater role for himself from the moment that he, Lennon and their partners first tried LSD together and began to explore the inner self for greater and more lasting meaning than the Beatles fame bubble had allowed them.
The film documents his life pretty much chronologically, pausing at all the landmark moments you'd expect if you have anything more than a passing familiarity with this particular story. Harrison goes from being a slightly surly traveller in the early days of Beatlemania, the member of the band who clearly enjoyed it all least of all, to a sage, thoughtful seeker, albeit one who wore some of the worst clothes, haircuts and moustaches of the entire seventies.
Living in the Material World honours Harrison and you can't help but feel that he would have appreciated it, because it pays its respects to his intelligence, his humour, his inner toughness to everything the world had to throw at him and the questions he asked of himself and everyone else throughout his life. It's no surprise really that he's Scorsese's favourite Beatle, given that the great director has been a similar quester for deeper truth and meaning throughout his own creative life.
Everybody is there to comment that you'd expect: brothers, Beatles, Astrid and Klaus, George Martin, Clapton, Patti and Olivia, Pythons, Jackie Stewart and Dhani and there's a reverence love and humour for the man from each and every one of them. The film doesn't skirt around the moments when he's less than saintly, he's sometimes tetchy and irritable but constantly seeking peace. It's all decorated and commented on by Harrison's exceptional music both with and after The Beatles and is a resonant document, entertainment first and foremost but also posing the deepest imaginable questions about this life that we're living and the moment that's waiting for us all when we come to leave it all behind.
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 245 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The best thing this band has ever done. Utterly timeless.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,343 Tricky
A few years ago at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival I caught Tricky, playing in a small upstairs bar venue, a decade and a half on from Maxinquaye, the debut album that made him a star and still largely defines him for most people, along with his work with Massive Attack. He was a wired and confrontational performer who ended the gig as I remember offstage, crawling all over the audience. Definitely a man who follows his own path.
A few years further on and his new album ununiform is just out, and though I imagine it won't get an enormous public profile, it should do, as it's an excellent record, utterly faithful to the man's special legacy. Brooding, paranoid and dark just as you'd expect but Art in the best sense possible in that it shines a light and explores mercilessly a certain aspect of the human condition
There are any number of collaborations with guest vocalists, including Martina Topley-Bird who made such an impression on Maxinquaye. In some respects this record recalls that one, though that's always an easy option to turn to when reviewing Tricky, But there's the same lush orchestration, a surprising, reinvented cover, (Hole's Doll Parts, here entitled simply Doll). and the same dark dance heartbeat at the core of everything. Recorded in Berlin, Tricky's new base and reflecting the internationalism of the man, Jamaica and Roma, and here Russian Gangster Rap. He's still writing soundtracks for films you don't need to see to experience.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Songs About People # 471 Joseph Cornell
And another from The Clientele in gratitude for the hour I'm spending with their splendid new record. This comes from their 2000 album Suburban Light and honours the American Surrealist artist, (though he wasn't altogether happy with the label), and film-maker Joseph Cornell.
Song of the Day # 1,342 The Clientele
Shifting the day for new album releases from early in the week to Fridays has been a nice move. It's almost the weekend after all, a moment and a feeling that everybody treasures. As we transition towards Autumn from where I'm writing there are a number of good records to enjoy on the morning of the 22nd which I hope to get round to over the coming weeks.
Not least the return of The Clientele, that most English, and appropriately Autumnal of bands after a seven yeas absence. Their new album Music in the Age of Miracles finds them getting back together after years of domestic responsibilities and frankly it's as if they've never been away. The clock ticks slowly in Clientele songs, they chart the emotions of being immersed in particularly English landscapes, the spirit of Beatles, Zombies and early Floyd breath again to beautiful crafted, dream immersed melodies. There's a strange, contented longing going on here. The right record for this time of year.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Songs About People # 470 Amanda Lear
Appropriately glacial disco tribute to Salvador Dali muse, gender mystery, actress, singer and artist Amanda Lear.
Pop Culture Documentaries # 3 Mick Rock : SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock
How do you make a documentary where a rock photographer, albeit one of the truly great ones, is the centre of attention? This is the dilemma only partially answered by SHOT!, a film about and largely narrated by Mick Rock the man responsible for almost all of the iconic photographs you'll remember of Syd Barrett, David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop and The Stooges in the early seventies.
These, above all others, are the pictures that made Rock's reputation even though he's taken any number of fine ones since. The film is at its best when exploring his personal and working relationship with Bowie and Reed, represented by recorded discussions with them both and their thoughts on fame stardom and artistic endeavour. Rock talks about his Cambridge education and how his fascination with the French Symbolist poets, particularly Rimbaud, prepared him for his adventures in the rock world. After all Bowie, Reed and Pop are similar imaginative figures for the late twentieth century.
Where its grip lessens is when it tackles the problem of what to do when Rock's fabulous images are not filling the screen and it needs to document his own personal narrative. His dive into New York decadence at the end of the seventies, his cocaine addiction, his brushes with death and heart attacks, his fall from grace and his eventual rehabilitation in the noughties when he comes to work with everybody worth working with from Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem and back again with Iggy Pop. There are only so many shots you need of Rock doing yoga in his hotel room, lying on a hospital stretcher with a respirator over his face or sitting in a chair staring back at you in his omnipresent shades. Ultimately, his photos tells the story best of all. As Rock himself says, 'You can almost smell this stuff. But you can't really describe it...' Tellingly as that is exactly what the film that has preceded this has tried, mostly in vain to do. The film is dedicated fittingly to Bowie and Reed who both passed shortly before its release. Rock's friends, but also his heroes.
Sparks - Newcastle Boiler Shop 19/09/17
You can't see them all. This gig took place a couple of nights ago in my hometown and was apparently something of a classic!
Song of the Day # 1,341 Gun Outfit
American band who favour cool interlocking guitar adventuring with a song that goes ahead of their new album, Out of Range, coming up in November.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Songs About People # 469 Robert Ford
'He only did it 'cos of fame...'
In the excellent 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the Ford character is portrayed as a figure of shame, never the person he would like to be, motivated by a burning desire to be somebody and ultimately only able to be so by killing his hero, an act he regrets for the rest of his life. In the song bearing his name, (at least in the brackets of its title) Bernie Taupin, Elton John's lyricist describes a similar sense of shame about the failure of his first marriage to Maxine Feibelman, (also the subject of Tiny Dancer). This comes from John's 1975 album Rock of the Westies.
Song of the Day # 1,340 The Electric Chairs
Later Wayne or Jayne County & the.... but at the point of this release, (it's from their 1978 debut album), just the Electric Chairs. Like a Sweet Soul Music for the New York Punk scene.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Songs About People # 468 Antonin Artaud
'The young man has a gun to the head of God..'
Bauhaus prostrate themselves before Theatre of Cruelty guy, proto-Goth Jim Morrison fave. Gets rather odd lyrically towards the close.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,339 Surfing Magazines
The Surfing Magazines are playing in a small but excellent Newcastle pub near to me this coming Sunday. If I have the energy, I'll go down and see them because on the basis of their fine, eponymous debut album, released a couple of weeks back, they should be well worth the effort.
Made up of members of Wave Pictures and Slow Club , they take their name from a Go Betweens song but sound little like them except for an occasional Forster tremble in the lead singer's delivery. They have a certain amount of Link Wray to their sound, a bit of that Bo Diddley beat, and I'm also minded of Crazy Horse sometimes in terms of the way their guitars speak to each other. At times they genuinely rock like you're in the company of early Stones, Yardbirds or Manfreds. They also have occasional, surprising sax and country-ish female backing vocals to fill out the mix.
Mostly, they're leftfield lo-fi indie, literary types with good record collections, wending their way to middle age and domesticity. Doing what they do for themselves and the small but loyal following who listen to BBC 6 Music and make a point of coming out on a Sunday night to experience and support this kind of thing before work beckons on Monday evening. Splendid! I'll report back.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Songs Heard on the Radio # 224 Little Richard
Sublime! I Don't Know What You Got, But It's Got Me... (Part 1) worthy of inclusion for its title alone, . A 1965 single, as good as anything I've ever posted on here. Hendrix is playing in his band and it seems as good a way as any of marking the anniversary of his passing this day in 1970.
Songs About People # 467 Wild Bill Hickok
From one of those fifties American Wild West compilations that you kind of want to own. By Tex Johnson & his Six Shooters!
Song of the Day # 1,338 Colter Wall
Real old school Country in the vein of Waylon and Kris, released earlier on this year.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Covers # 88 The Bonzo Dog Band
For no valid reason apart from silliness. An outtake from The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse.
Songs About People # 466 Dorothy Parker
Pince pays tribute to one of the great American wits on Jay Leno in 2001.
Song(s) of the Day # 1,337 Offa Rex
Two tracks from the Offa Rex album, released earlier this year. An offshoot project from The Decemberists, they deal in frighteningly authentic replications of early seventies British Folk music. so with a 'hey nonny no' and no further ado...
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Songs About People # 465 Angie Dickinson
Funky thing for sixties and seventies screen and TV siren now astonishingly in her mid-eighties.
The Heart of Rock and Soul # 484 Arthur Alexander
'Absolutely gorgeous early soul, its gently swinging rhythm set up by drumming as tough as it is syncopated, and capped with a vocal that makes of a lover's kiss-off something like the end of the world.'
Song(s) of the Day # 1,336 The Lemon Twigs
Much acclaimed 4AD recording artistes from Long Island, New York, absolutely nail that Beach Boys / Todd Rundgren early seventies thing with a couple of songs off their forthcoming EP out next week. You might have mixed feelings about anybody wanting to do this in 2017 but you can't knock the sheer verve and ability to do so!
Friday, September 15, 2017
Swimming Tapes - Soft Sea Blue
London band Swimming Tapes doing very much what they've done before on new four track EP Soft Sea Blue. Previous recipients of a Song(s) of the Day slot on here in March of this year for their previous four track EP, this release doesn't push the envelope out but nor does it intend to. It's highly more-ish!
Shimmering guitars, honeyed, indistinct vocals, the sound of an endless summer. Like impressionist painters back at their palate, the Swimming Tapes seem intent on creating a body of work where everything is essentially the same but also different. I'm not complaining!
Bob Mould on Grant Hart
'It was the Fall of 1978. I was attending Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. One block from my dormitory was a tiny store called Cheapo Records. There was a PA system set up near the front door blaring punk rock. I went inside and ended up hanging out with the only person in the shop. His name was Grant Hart.
The next nine years of my life was spent side-by-side with Grant. We made amazing music together. We (almost) always agreed on how to present our collective work to the world. When we fought about the details, it was because we both cared. The band was our life. It was an amazing decade.
We stopped working together in January 1988. We went on to solo careers, fronting our own bands, finding different ways to tell our individual stories. We stayed in contact over the next 29 years — sometimes peaceful, sometimes difficult, sometimes through go-betweens. For better or worse, that’s how it was, and occasionally that’s what it is when two people care deeply about everything they built together.
The tragic news of Grant’s passing was not unexpected to me. My deepest condolences and thoughts to Grant’s family, friends, and fans around the world.
Grant Hart was a gifted visual artist, a wonderful story teller, and a frighteningly talented musician. Everyone touched by his spirit will always remember.
Godspeed, Grant. I miss you. Be with the angels.'
Covers # 87 Weezer
And to close this little mini-feature, a song both band were at one point mooted to cover for the Shrek Forever soundtrack with Vampire Weekend refusing to capitalise on Weezer's initial inability to do it due to a bus accident. They eventually got there.
Songs About People # 464 The Beach Boys
Weezer, perhaps a band that perhaps supplied an early blueprint, with that geeky, blissed-out attitude, for what became Vampire Weekend, are back. A new album, Pacific Daydream, is out on October 27th and this is a nice taster, nailing the feel of the band they sing about and their particular charm.