Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,936 Tim Hecker - Harmony In Ultraviolet
Award winning Canadian composer and sound artist. Harmony In Ultraviolet is an album of light and space.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 603 The Strokes - Is This It
'Depending on which sie of the fence you sat in 2001, The Strokes were either a shameless cookie-cutter rehash of any number if New York rock bands from the 70s or the greatest thing to hapen to rock and roll in two decadesHowever, those who considered Is This It, he bands first LP to be anything less than an outstanding LP are simply kidding themselves.'
Myself and a good friend of mine considered moving to New York City on the basis of the power and resonance of this record.
'The Strokes managed to cultivate the perfect grouping of accessible subversion and rock & roll pose with an unconscious yet impeccable cultural timing.'
Song(s) of the Day # 3,731 Penny Arcade
When Ultimate Painting split so sadly a few years ago, Jack Cooper seemed the one of the band's core pair to keep an eye on. His records with Modern Nature have proved interesting Jazz and Folk abstractions and there's surely more to come.
But James Hoare's projects have been equally fruitful. He has quite a CV to his name now. Veronica Falls, Ultimate Painting, Proper Ornaments now Penny Arcade and an album called Backwater College.
Ot's a slightly downcast, mournful recird as you'd half expect with Hoare given his legcay. In a line from Ray Davies, Robyn Htchcock, Peter Astor and other great English wordswmiths.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 9 Specials
The sad story of Coventry. Its wartime destructuction under Hitler's bombs. It's post-war rebuild into a concretete and unsightly landscape. Inevitable soundtracked by the finest band and one of the best the country ever produced.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 381 Stiff Little Fingers - Nobody's Heroes
Big band at my secondary school way back in the mists of time. They're a great band to get into when you're fourteen. I have this album but don't play it often. Irish Clash. Not a patch on The Undertones. Some fantastic singles.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 602 Mercury Rev - All Is Dream
I've never had a problem with the sound of Mercury Rev albums. They're magnificently wide screen and ambitious. Fantastic. Whole vistas of the great American landscape. It's the guys voice. He's a whining drip cast out on the American prairie. It ruins the whole experience for me, much as I love the sound of the records.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,937 Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers
A listen to Volunteers is a journey to another time and place. Battle lines. Jefferson Airplane sound like refugees by the end of the Sixties.The hippiws were making their way to the communes in the valleys. Vietnam still raged. This might as well be the soundtrack.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,730 Pet Shop Boys
'Everyone's dancing to Roxy and Bowie.'
In my last year at university I met the biggest fan of the Pet Shop Boys I've ever known. He didn't half go on about the Pet Shop Boys. He's since told me that I introduced him to the joys of John Coltrane which he's grateful for, but Pet Shop Boys have plenty to recommend themselves too. And I'm thankful for his enthusiasm and input during this last year of education before we both made our way out into the cruel world of work.When I hear the Pet Shop Boys I will always think of Matt. .
I remember him saying that Being Boring might as well have been the band's definitive moment. You could always have accused the band of being boring.It was a huge part of their persona and appeal. The way that Neil Tennant sang. Their austerity and sensibility. They embraced the accusation.
Never more so than on new album. Nonetheless. An archetypal Pet Shop Boys album title.The Phatic Filler.The understated. The droll, English wit. And language. And sound.
Pet Shop Boys have not really been about enormous change down the years and they're not starting here. This sounds like a Pet Shop Boys record that might have come out in 1994. Every bit as much as 2024. They still look young. Why not?
All their standard tropes are here. Minimisalism. Spareness. Wit. That sound. The light. The space. Generally I'd consider myself an advocate of change. Of growth. In some cases if it ain't broke don't fix it is actually the right approach. Much of Nonetheless comes across as a prolonged curtain call. Tennant and Heath. Masters of their art.
Monday, May 6, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 382 Guy Clark - Old Friends
An old school C & W craftsman that Robert Forster speaks highly of. A little prosaic this morning for the most part for my tastes by comparison with Gram and Townes.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 601 Starsailor - Love Is Here
Starsailor, like Kasabian seemed almost like a stuio or possible computer generated band to fill a gap. In the wake of Oasis an Verve once they ha worn their inspiration dry. There were still arenas to fill an lighters to hold aloft. Starsailor, like The Verve, came out of Wigan and took their name from a fantastically visionary and out there album. Their records were rather more formulaic.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,938 Kasabian - Kasabian
Kasabian seemed custom designed to fill a gap when Oasis seemed utterly to have exhausted whatever steam they had and there was need of another provincial thross and pills generator. What they had to offer did very little for the likes of me. I liked Shoot The Runner (a true Yobboe moment in the sun classic), but most of their fuelled anthems an their hellbent desire to 'get out of Leicester' left me pretty instantly cold, so I didn't last very long with their debut this morning.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,729 Tara Jane O'Neil
Tara Jane O'Neil has been plying her trade as an artistically inclined musician since she turned 20 in 1990 playing bass for Louisville, Kentucky Punks Rodan.
Thirty years and more on and with an incredibly varied and mutifaceted body of work to her name, she has a new record out, intriguingly entitled The Cool Cloud of. Okayness. It's one of the most blatantly abstracted and obscure album titles you're likely to come across ths year and the record itself lives up to the title and more.
I love chancing across records like this. Which plant themselves firmly in the quirky, bohemian traditon of the likes of Rickie Lee Jones and Laurie Anderson. Aristic, strange and completely unwilling to bend themselves and run with the herd.
It's an easy one to listen to though you may not be abe to grasp meaning so much as enjoy the abstraction, like a contemporary exhibition you wander around on a Sunday afternoon and take a fancy to without delving deeper.
The Cool Cloud of.Okayness floats on its own currents. It's the first record of this sort which has come my way since Cassandra Jenkins An Overview of Phenomenal Nature. A pleasuredome
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Camera Obscura - Look ToThe East, Look To The West
Camera Obscura are a band that chime with my own tastes, my past my sensibility. Very, Glasgow, even if they are named after an Edinburgh landmark just down the road from Edinburgh on the Golden Mile. But in terms of their musical heritage they're very Glasgae. A little sister band to Belle & Sebastian. Solid in the musical tradition of Postcard. Orange Juice, Axtec Camera, Lloyd Cole.
The band suffered a terrible blow with the loss of core member Carey Laner who passed in 2015. It's difficult for bands like them to maintain the forward momentum in the face of such a loss. Look ToThe East, Look To The West is their first album since 2013. It's spiriting to see it so richly and solidly in their romantic and melodic tradition.
It's made up of excellent, lovingly crafted songs first and foremost. You can't go far wrong if you get that bit righ. This is as good a collection of pure, swooning and delicate Pop songs as you'll hear all year. Great to see them back in the saddle.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 383 Elvis Costello - Spike
A pleasure to hear this for the first time possibly since the decade it came out in. It's a ragbag collection. Almost wilfully. There are some terrific songs on here. Costello is essentially a song and dance man and would surely be happy with that description. He has a particular vision of life
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 600 The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
There was enormous peer pressure to fall under The White Stries spell when they emerged. I tried with White Blood Cells when it came out and was championed by all an sundry. John Peel and the rest. I could see how good it was and how special they were. It just never chimed with my personal tastes and allegiances as closely as The Strokes did. .Listening to it this morning again, there's plenty to ring my oorbell. Oh that one comes later.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,939 Pink Floyd - The Endless River
Pink Floyd rear their unwelcome and rather ugly head on here in here more often than is palatable to be frank. They're probably the one band in the canon that I simply cannot stomach, apart from the Barrett incarntion, but every few days they seem to pop up on one of the ascending or descending charts I chronicle on here. Hey, a man's gotta do. I lasted about five minutes on The Endless River their final studio album from 2014. I'm afraid I found it mournful, portentious and slightly ghastly. Look at the cover. I rest my case.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,728 Corridor
Corridor is a word I struggle to spell for some reason, I have no idea why. but I'm an English teacher and it bothers me. A weird phonemic blind spot in my consciousness along with other words I struggle with. Such a bicycle, and soldier for some reason. And continuous. As in the present continuous.
Never mnd my flaws. To Corridor the Canadian band from Montral, Quebec. And their triumphant new album Mimi. On Sub Pop records. Another peach sent my way by Darren Jones, first mate and best mate of It Starts With a Birthstone.
Corridor are a new name to me, though this turns out to be their fourth album, They're a fabulous band in a given tradition, Most immediately, obviously that of Stereolab, Broadcast and Jane Weaver and the older traditions of Sixties and Seventies of Psychedelia, Prog, Krautrock and childhood ephemera which they drew on.
Richly detailed adn textured. Mimi charts a gorgeous journey on buoyant ocean waves. Fantastic stuff Darren!
Saturday, May 4, 2024
Lemon Twigs - A Dream We All Know
Be careful not to over egg the pudding. It strikes me as good advice. Nobody needs relentless eggy pudding. It just wouldn't do.
Not over egging the pudding I supect has never been a problem for The Lemon Twigs. The oddball Long Island D'Addario brothers who seem to actually believe they're living in a Wes Anderson movie.
A Dream We All Know, their latest sounds to me like the ultimate Lemon Twigs record. They've pulled out all the stops on this one. It's the whole Power Pop Beach Boys, Raspeberries Big Stars, Todd Rundgren symphony retro trip in full effect.
Some of the songs here are among the best they've ever written.They clearly have no shame in the ham and cheees departments. Personally I'm pleased. I like ham and I like cheese.
This autumn The Lemon Twigs are coming to my home town in a venue I haven't been to. I'll pop down if I can. In the meantime I have A Dream We All Know a place where it's forever 1973.
Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 8 Dexys Midnight Runners
'Birmingham city centre, or at leaast the area around the Bullring shopping station an New Street Station is the half-revived corpse of a peculiarly dated kind of spaceage streetscape, one that originated in the twentieth century.
A trek through the streets of England's second city. Municipal politics. Immigration. Steel Pulse, Black Sabbath, Dexys.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 384 Art Bears - The World As It Is Today
Avant Garde torch songs from the ashes of Henry Cow. Fronted by Dagmar Krause. Roots in Brecht and Weil. Agit prop.Nur mein tasse tee..
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 599 Nitin Sawhney - Prosphesy
An album that achieved Mercury Music status in 2000. Symphonic Asian soul and a great soundtrack to Saturday morning's sunrise.
.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,940 Snow Patrol - Final Straw
Dundee's finest, Unless you'd give that crown to Associates. I cerainly would. These sound like comfortuing, slightly rwee bedtime stories by comparison. Moments of urgency. But generally plays to the mainstream.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,727 Kamasi Washington
A fresh release from Kamasi Washington in the recording calendar really feels like something special these days. Something to set aside the time it takes in your life and immerse yourself in. Here's Fearless Movement. .
These guys work on a different plane from most of the Rock an Indie players you might go to. The Astral one. Really the best way to experience this is to let go of every other distraction from your everyday life an cast yourself adrift in its river of sound.
Fearless Movement. manages a remarkable balancing act. It's transcendental in the best traitions of the classic Miles, Coltrane, (Alice and John), Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra Records. It's also contemporary, with generous space for guest performances from all kinds of musical fields of Black American experience. It pushes the envelope without pause for breath for the best part of ninety minutes,
I long ago resigned myself to the fact that I can't write about a really great Jazz record and attempt to do it justice. If you can't why bother to try. But this is some feast. Some achievement,
Friday, May 3, 2024
Songs About People # 1,389 Baby Huey
RAdrienne Lenker - Bright Future
In the near ten years since their inception, originally Brooklyn based Big Thief have become something of a phenomenon. A string of quite spectacular albums, fantastic shows and spin off projects. There's no other band quite like them. At least not that I can think of.
I've been tardy abut neglecting this; Adrienne Lenker's latest, Bright Future which came out several weeks ago. Lack of appreciation was not the basis of my neglect. It's brilliance is immdeiately evident.
A factor which stands against Big Thief and the imminent global dominance thay is surely their birthright is their inbuilt prolific nature. Back in the Sixties, bands like Creedence could put out three records in a calendar year and it was accepted as a kind of given.
This is no longer the case given modern market forces. Bands put out an album every couple of years then tour it for a further year, It's difficult to process artists still working to the demands of the more strenuous treadmill of yesteryear.
Bright Future has a leaner instrumentation than Big Thief. The songs are no less impressive and memorable. Lenker's talent is astonishing frankly,
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 598 Rufus Wainwright - Poses
Listening to Poses again is a reminder of the fully formed arrival of a particular talent. Arch, decadent, camp and extravagant. Gay of course. And not apologetic about any of these things for a moment. It's an extravagant record and beautiful record. A coat of many colours.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,941 Beirut - The Flying Cup
I'm still very taken with Beiruit and the vision of Zach Condon. His records are the soundtrack of an American wandering abroad. Intoxicated and intoxicating.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,726 The Girl With The Replaceable Head
A Post Script to my gig of last Friday. When I went to see The Girl With The Replaceable Head at The Cumberland Arms where I had a brief but memorable encounter with their drummer Lindy Morrison, once of The Go Betweens of course. Where she helped to get me into the gig.
The album itself is called Sometimes She Lives in the Dark, Sometimes She Lives in the Light. You'll need to go to its Bandcamp page to hear it because it's not on Spotify. But its worth chasing down. It's an excellent record as well as a curiosity that drags some of us back to some things that were fundamental to us in our youths. . A reminder of a bygone age. The time before the Internet when you had to make an effort to track down the music you fell in love with. The time when falling in love as it transpires meant doing so forever.
The band is a meeting, a reunion of Hurrah! and The Go Betweens. Two bands who shared bills back in the Eighties Dave Taffy Hughes, once guitarist of the former. Lindy Morrison once drummer of the latter. A singer Sylvia whose voice quivers and trembles.
It's a record and and it was an evening that took me back. Hughes may not have the most faithful singing voice but he has a faithful heart. The record casts a spell. Some things which did not make the charts feel a lot more memorable and treasurable than things that did. For those this interests there is a lengthy podcast with Hughes discussing the story of Hurrah! and the genesis of the record here.
Thursday, May 2, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 385 Prince - Dirty Mind
Strange to think now that Dirty Mind was Prince's third album. He took a while to break. For Prince himself and his record company to martial his almost uncontainable talent into a viable, commercial proposition.
This is such a dynamic album right from the off. It almost sounds like a New Wave record. The obsessive, almost consuming fixation with sex is already in place. As is his songwriting genius. Some of these songs are beyond belief.
Listening to it this morning, it felt most of all like a Pop album showcase for a prodigy who could easily have done everything himself should he have chosen to. One off.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 597 Rachid Taha - Made In Medina
French Algerian Punk Dance rage.from 2000. A fascinating, urgent record.Uncompromising.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,942 Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht
Leading light of the Krautrock movement. I'm not personally familiar with Tangerine Dream or Ash Ra Tempel. But I gave Irrlicht a listen this morning. It's a beautiful record. Long, atmospheric, meditative instrumental pieces. I listened on headphones but I imagine this would be just as effective and impressive on vinyl in a spacious living room at substantial volume.I didn't do the whole trip this time but I can fully appreciate why many are so enamoured with this man's muse
Song(s) of the Day # 3,725 Joyer
Slightly opiated marriage between Galaxie 500, Codeine, Joy Division and My Bloody Valentine. Apply the labels that you see fit. I'd say complimentary adjectives are the most appropriate ones here..
Driving through the night from Brooklyn to Boston. With the radio on. Brothers Nick and Shane Sullivan understand this journery better than most. One of them lives in Brooklyn. The other in Boston. The have several albums under their belt. Night Songs is just their latest. As good a place to start as any.
They slow things down and speed them up when they feel the mood fits. Some of this is almst uplifting. Other parts seem gently stoned. A wonderfu,l warming, independent record with plenty of fire in its belly.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 386 The Fall - Grotesque
' Hang out with Gary Bushell. Go on Roundtable... I like your single...'
Early Fall. By far my favourite Fall. When Mark E. used to let others get a word in edgeways. Before he decided that he'd rather like to spend most of the rest of his life in the pub. And attempt to become Albania.This is tight, taut and lean., Northern Poetry. My. What is Mark E. banging on about. There are plenty of people who would be more than happy to tell you. And bang on about their youths at great length. Such people are sometimes best avoided. This is genius though..Frequently just hilarious. Musically inspired. One to struggle to maintain your dignity to when you fall off your stool at the bar of your local Working Men's Club. Don't spill your pint.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 596 Lambchop - Nixon
Kurt Wagner has one of the most treasurable Alternative visions of the last thrirty years. C & W tinted. Deeply romantic and lovingly wrought. Nixon is generally the Lambchop album you're directed to first. It's a sumptuous, maverick record..
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,943 The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good
Not the kind of record I'd generally play first thing in the morning. But it turned up on here so I gave it a go. It's a clamourous, discordant album. Largely remarkable now for introducing Bjork to the world.
I probably bought it when it came out because Melody Maker told me too. Peel adored it, but I never cared for Birthday, the break out single which he played non-stop. Life's Too Good is still divisive I imagine. Much probably depends largely on what you think of Einar, Bjork's loopy sparring partner. Birthday sounded great this morning. As did much else.
It doesn't really hang together as a record but it was intended I imagine primarily as a statement of difference which it certainly remains. Most of the Indie bands of the time were clearly indebted to The Velvet Underground, Byrds, Buzzcocks, Beefheart and The Fall. This certainly wasn't. I'm glad I have this. Even if I generally play it once a year at most.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,724 Callum Easter
Willy Wonka had his 'little helpers' and I've got mine. Willy had his Oompa Loompas, I've got my first mate Darren 'Starbuck' Jones and my Bury correspondent Jo 'Napoli' Adkin. Invaluable advisors both. I'm very grateful for their direction and support. And pleased to spread the word further.
Here's Jo's latest suggestion. Callum Easter an Edinburgh based maverick who she caught in his support slot for Nadine Shah few days ago. I've been listening through to his latest record Get Forever .... Delete Don't Want since. It's idiosyncratic stuff which shares some DNA with early Beck and early Baxter Dury I'd say.. I like it.
It's a protest record of the best sort. There's a lot to make a stand against these days. We appear to living through unhinged times. But there are also plenty of good times to be had here too. An eccentric and cherishable vision. Out now on Lost Map Records. Nice work Jo.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 595 Outkast - Stankonia
I really only know Hey Ya! and the one about your shit not stinking. I know I should know more. So I listened to this yesterdday. It's pretty much exceptionally funky and I should have been listening to it at the time. Too long for non converts but this is pretty damned good.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 387 INXS - Listen Like Thieves
Look I'm sorry that Andrew Hutchence is no longer with us. I really am. But does this really mean I have to struggle through one INXS album after another. This might have been one of the better things on daytime radio at the time. Iy wasn't a good time for daytime radio. Anyhow there were better things around that couldn't get on the radio. In Australian terms I refer you to The Triffids and The Go Betweens.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,944 Caetano Veloso - Caetano Veloso
A quite staggering, blazing statement in a staggering, blazing musical journey that is not done yet. If this wonderful debut album had been sung in English it would probably be as lauded as Forever Changes by Love or Oddessey & Oracle by The Zombies. It surely has a good claim to be mentioned in the same regard as either record. If you're a Portuguese speaker or even better a Brazilian, you know. Fenomenal !
Song(s) of the Day # 3,723 The Lostines
Meet The Lostines. Appropiately a debut alvum. Recording in Lostines home town New Orleans.Pure old school. 'Where the swampland meets the sock hop. Where golden age crosses paths with old school country.'
Theres no better place for this to take place than The Crescent City. Where the past is always alive. Harmonies and heartbreak. Beautifulyl done.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 594 Roni Size Reprazent - In The Mode
I only dipped my toe with Roni Size Reprazent records back in the day. This was a little too frantic and I suspected fuelled for an extended morning listen. It was a soundtrack of the times. But halfway through the firsst track I switched to Massive Attack's Mezzanine as the sun made its rise.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 388 Snakefinger - Manual Of Errors
'Like fingers snapping at a beatnik party.'
An English born sideman of The Residents. I had no idea what to expect of after this doing a small bit of research before listening just now. I like what I've heard of The Residents without ever threatening to become a fully immersed obsessive. Never strays far from the tree. Curious and interesting but I always struggle with something which reminds me of Zappa too much. Still, definitely worth a listen.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,945 Free - Fire & Water
Derided unfairly by many as a second rate Stones. Let's face it there were many who ransacked the Stones wardrobe of riffs and gestures in the late Sixties and early Seventies; this lot, New York Dolls and Aerosmith off the top of my head. But all three brought plenty of their own stuff to the table. This kind of white R&B Heavy Rock has not aged too well perhaps but Fire & Water is a reminder of a time when male twenty somethings grew their hair, wore denim and bared their chests without fear ofgeneral public ridicule. Tony Blair for example.Probably every other young man of a cerain age and dispotion. Those were the times. This is actually extremely skilled and nuanced. I enjoyed this thorughly earlier on todaywhile my bath ran.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,722 Next Time Passions
Next Time Passions apparently are 'one of the most important groups of the Greek Indie Pop scene of the 90s.'
I imagine it's an enormous relief to you to discover this information. This seems to be the kind of niche information and interest which the Internet.increasingly caters for these days. Once, and not so recently we used to visit car boot sales and antique markets. Go to the library.
Now the Internet is here to allow us to browse and indulge from our sitting room desks. So if you're in the process of joining the dots and seekng the Greek Go Betweens, Orange Juice, June Brides, Felt or Belle & Sebastion. Aegean Indie Romantics. Look no further. Next Time Passions are your guys.
Coffee & Regrets collects their stellar moments from their peak '91 to '95. The band regroup occasionally to satisfy those for whom they provided the sountrack to their youths. In the meantime this is an altogether lovely start to your working week.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop # 7 Van Morrison
On the trail of Astral Weeks. I posted my thoughts on this with my account of seeing The Girl With The Replaceable Head yesterday.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 391 Black Flag - My War
Black Flag are an experience in a field of their own. It can be a bit relntless and one note for my liking. They don't compromise.
Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 593 LemonJelly - KY
A dance music sample generated record from 2000. Diverting, but largely decorative.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 -1,946 The Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk
A clamorous and slightly fussy second albu from 1981 and Teddington's finest. I enjoyed listening this morning on vinyl as recor's like these are best experienced. I loved the Furs at the time and still do. They have a sound that draws from Lou and David. And most obviously here from Andy McKay's Weimar sax swoon of the first two Roxy albums. The songs require work. The sound is instantly distinctive.
What I Did on Friday Night - The Girl With The Replaceable Head at The Cumberland Arms.
'and now my life has changed in oh so many ways..'
I woke up with a jolt just after midnight on Friday morning. To the realisation that The Girl With The Replaceable Head were playing that evening at The Cumberland Arms and that I needed to go. I'm going through a very strange phase in my life right now. Undergoing an odd mental transition and processes, Shifting through thoughts of the past, trying to live in the present and plan for the future.
I made my way downstairs in my flat in the darkness. Made myself a cup of tea and listened to Dreamers On The Run the splendid new album from BMX Bandits reviewed on Friday on It Starts. It was an apt record to set off my Friday morning with. I've just come back from Glasgow which is the city the band are most readily associated with. I was feeling slightly anxious for one reason or another. Aware that I've got lessons to plan and teach when the sun rises. But I have loyalty to the ritual of letting a record run its course. You can't interrupt a good record.
I went back to bed and managed the three hours sleep that made all the difference and set me up to function for the rest of the day. I'm my mother's son and I suppose always will be. Like she does I worry in the darkness. Founded and unfounded anxieties. I live alone and it's probably for the best. I imagine I would drive anyone I cohabited with slightly mad and I wouldn't wish to do that. I like being in relationships. It's exciting and challenging. But I'm not involved or engaged with anyone else at the minute and quite happy and content with that.
I wake again at five and write my BMX Bandits review and prepare mentally for the couple of lessons I have to teach later in the morning. I like this part of the day, Listening to records for the ascending and descending lists I catalogue on here. Reading if I'm making my way through a book. I like and appreciate the routine. It gives me time to organise and document my thoughts. I like the process of writing. This blog is an ongoing journey of discovery and I'm determined to enjoy it and keep going. Unfinished business.
I bathe and put a record on my player. I've had to endure six months without access to a record player. It's not the best state of affairs. Given the records which cover almost the entire floorspace of my living room I probably have a couple of thousand albums. I bought them in order to listen to them and it's frustrating not to be able to for an extended period of time. I don't feel like counting, but I have enough frankly for a lifetime now and I probably have a record somewhere which you would enjoy listening to with me.
I've had some week. My life is good right now. Last Sunday I embarked on a working holiday. Actually the first real holiday I've had for years. I caught a train from Newcastle, changed at Edinburgh for Glasgow and stayed in a hotel in the heart of that great Post Industrial city. Taught classes to German business people on Monday and Tuesday morning and explored the city in the afternoon and evening.
It was the first time I'd been to Glasgow and I fell completely in love with the place. I like exploring cities, I'm essentially urban in terms of my tastes. But this was a rare event for me to fall so immediately and become so deeply smitten as soon as I became acquainted with a space. Falling in love remains one of the best experiences there is. This happened as soon as the initial four hour deluge that greeted my arrival finally lifted..
Rennie Mackintosh and Argyle Street. Gritty architecture and Glaswegian accents that you have to cling onto as best you can and do your best to decipher. Bath Street and the Howlin' Wolf basement Blues Bar where I met and chatted to a cool young female woolyback Liverpudlian barmaid who had been drawn to Glasgow by Skunk Anansie. A splendid way to spend a couple of hours on a Monday afternoon.
I warmed to the place so much and at one point, wandering up Buchanan Street, my head spinning, I wondered if I could move here. And I'm perfectly happy in Newcastle. But I've lived in Prague and Budapest. And Barcelona. And Catania. I know when a place has the magic that inspires me. I soaked up the essence and will come back for the detail at some point soon.
I arrived back in Newcastle on Wednesday at just after midday. Marek my record player guy showed up almost immediately and fixed my record player, drove me down to the station in his battered Volvo so I could nip out to the cashpoint in the foyer and recompense him.
Marek is my sort of person. In his mid to late sixties but still doing the job he clearly loves but is too oddball to ever admit it. Running RPM, the best record shop in Newastle. Dealing with antique record players of various descriptions. Helping punters like me dream their dreams.
I muddled by without it for six months. Listened to Spotify on my headphones and on my TV. It's only when you have the whole vinyl experience restored and your flat is filled with colour and light by your reconnection with your records of a lifetime you realise that you've been deprived of your soul for too long.
On Friday morning I listen to The Go Betweens Liberty Belle & The Black Diamond Express. I'm planning to go to The Cumberland Arms to see the album launch of the latest record from The Girl With The Replaceable Head. This is the band that Lindy Morrison is drumming with now.
Anyhow, I never need an excuse to listen to The Go Betweens. They're one of my first and important discoveries and enduring loves. Later on in the morning I grab the chance to play Astral Weeks again. It has to be done as soon as I'm reunited with my player. I'll come back to this later.
In the meantime I have a couple of online lessons to teach. I realise I have time for an hour in the fitness centre first. I meet Dave the cool guy with the racist uncle that mans the counter desk on a minimum wage. The counter people at my Fitness Centre are invariably cool. University students generally. I tell Dave about Glasgow. He says he'll put it on his bucket list.
I get back just in time for my 9.30 cover. Two pretty and smart young professionals but first and foremost great people who It's very easy to spend 90 minutes with. A cool young Proficiency Polish woman and a cool young Proficiency Russian woman. Working for Boston Scientist in Dussledorf.
We chat about the Germans. About their English and where they want to go next and what they want to do with their lives. About what it's like to be Polish. What it's like to be Russian.We solve the problems of the world. I'm sad when the ninety minutes comes to an end
Then Astral Weeks and my second lesson. Deichmann, the shoe people. Another couple of bright, attractive and able young women. There are worse ways to make a living. I chat to Lisa a young single mother in her mid twenties who I'm' meeting for the first time. She's immediately my kind of person. Bubbly, vivacious and funny.
Then Jasmin who I've taught a few times and is also my kind of person. More grounded and less potentially dippy than Lisa I suspect. We occupy ourself with trying to work out how to find a decent bloke for Lisa. I love the way you can seriously occupy yourself in this way and global corporations will pay you for your time.
When I'm done I call mum and then wander into University where I've until recently worked. I have arranged a meeting with Stephen, a Library Manager. I've never really spoken to him though I've always liked him. We have a great chat.
I've recently left the teaching and management related post I occupied for fifteen years. I'd hated my job for over ten years but issues had escalated dramatically in recent years and a company culture which had once resembled Groundhog Day came to more closely put one in mind of Shawshank Redemption, LA Confidential or a busy episode of I Claudius. I kid you not. Lets put it this way. I'm glad I'm out. I still wake blinking from my sleep sometimes and wait a few moments before I tell myself that it's all over now and I can relax..
Anyway, it's time to prepare myself for my night out. It's a lovely Spring evening. Perhaps Spring is here.. I make my way to The Bridge Hotel. Perched on the edge of The High Level Bridge in the shadow of the New Castle itself. It's one of Newcastle's finest pubs.
I get out my books and start reading in the sunlight of the early evening. I always like it when they don't have intrusive music playing on the in house system at The Bridge. You can lose yourself in the chatter instead. It's one of the features that makes the place so treasurable.
I read the chapter from Hit Factories - A Journey Through The Industrial Cities of British Pop about Belfast. It mostly focuses on a pilgrimage from the author in the steps of Van Morrison and the genesis of Astral Weeks. So much has been written about this record in an attempt to locate, itemise and in some respects make sense and contain a record that has inspired so many.
Personally, having listened to it again myself during the day I think it's a record that defies interpretation and I simply appreciate the fact that it's there. 'It breathes in and breathes out.' It captures the magical and essentially mysterious journey amd passage of life.
I finish my pint and make my way down the Quayside. Up the hill and down the slope to the Ousebourne. Pause for a bowl of meatballs in the company of the evening revellers at The Cluny and then up the steep staircase to The Cumberland Arms another of Newcastle legendary, and to my mind increasingly mythical venues.
I might have fallen for Glasgow's charms earlier in the week but Newcastle is my home now and will be until I eventually move on to what comes next. It's a special city and one that makes you feel at home and part of a community. Even if you venture out alone.
Tonight in the backroom, the fiddlers are playing. In the frontroom punters are sampling the fine range of ales The Arms offers. Lindy Morrison and her band are gathered at a sunlit table n the Terrace. I don't like to bother people when they're reparing for their set. But this is Lindy and The Go Betweens and I'm determined to pay my dues.
The Go Betweens and their legacy means more to me than pretty much any other band. Others measure out their lives in coffee spoons. I've measured out mine in Go Betweens records, gigs and moments among other things. This blog takes its name from a Go Betweens line. I'll never stop playing their records.
I approach the table where she's stood with members of her band. I catch her eye and introduce myself as one of those Go Betweens fans. She grabs my hand, it's an immediately touching gesture and she holds her soft hand on top of mine and asks me my name. I tell her and recount a memory of seeing The Go Betweens in 1986 at The Kingston Poly in 1986 with tickets for £1. The band did their soundcheck in a fully lit room before their actual set. It's one of the fundamental musical memories of my youth, I know I'm babbling.
I tell her I love Tracy Thorn's memoirs of her friendship with her, In some ways a settling of scores. . Female solidarity. Her response is typically Lindy. 'I don't like that book.' The moment couldn't be bettered. It's the Lindy I know and expect and I don't wish to intrude on her any longer. I've had my moment. I tell her I don't have a ticket for the gig. It's sold out. She says, 'Oh hang around. I'll get you in.' I retreat to another table with my beer.
Twenty minutes later the band make their way into the venue and I latch myself onto Lindy again as she's my entry ticket. We make out way into the venue and she gets momentarily confused as to her way to the top room bar where the bands play. She is her age. A woman in her early seventies. Someone who's lived the life. Reportedly shared a spoon, and not one intended for stirring coffee with Nick Cave, but one that went with a needle. Back in the London bedsit days. I direct her and we ascend.
It's the kind of Indie evening that I love and relish at The Cumberland Arms. Friendly, approachable people of a similar age and sensibility to myself. You imagine with similar tastes, sensibilities and approaches to life. Pauline Murray from Penetration pushes past me in a neat beret. Pauline is always at events like this. Always immaculately dressed. The evening is a celebration of a certain strand of cultural taste.. The records play Aztec Camera's Back on Board. Nick's Red Right Hand. Then the Girl Wth The Repaceable Head ascend the low stage and begin to get their gear tigether. Lindy assembles her kit.
The Girl have a new album out. Sometimes She Lives in the Dark. Sometimes She Lives in the Light. She's playing with a couple of members of Hurrah! A band from this part of the world who were on the Kitchenware label. David 'Taffy' Hughes, the bands guitarist fronts the group and gabbles between songs in broad Geordie. He's a Seventies refugee with corkscrew hair a cap and a leather jacket, He never stops gabbling. Its what you want. They have an elfin female vocalist who reminds me of Sandy Denny and Judy Dyble.
The band start to play and I love their sound. Lindy's only had a few rehearsals after a long flight but she's razor sharp now she's behind her kit. They're a gritty melodic band. Punky but also casting their net wider. Garage Psychedelia as well as Seventies Punk and Indie Eighties. They take their name from a Richard Hell song but they're distinctively English.
I can't keep my eyes off Lindy. She may have seemed slightly confused when we tried to find our way to the venue but now she's in her element. She's still a completely fantastic drummer, a mould of her own. Kinetic, sharp as nails. A joy to behold.
At the end of the set which is sharp, varied and alogether rather great, they play a Hurrah! song and to close, one of Go Between's Apology Accepted. One of the bands most nakedly honest and emotive moments. It's all beautifully wrought. Thoughts of departed Grant and bygone days and we're done. I'm off into the night to catch my bus.