More 1980 I guess. A song for one of the main men of that year.
Friday, February 21, 2020
1980 Albums My List
This is me in round about 1980 with four of my best friends. From left that's Garth, Andreas, Ben, (RIP Ben,) myself below and Eddie. I was fourteen then fifteen, awkward and shy, not really quite myself yet. Music helped me very much to become myself in the next few years, certainly as much as anything else..
I probably only bought the XTC album in the actual calendar year. I also wasn't listening to much of this at the time, I've accumulated all thirty albums since. This is a fabulous list of records, mostly white and guitar driven, but I'd say that reflects generally what the best albums that year were. We were so spoilt for great stuff that year that excellent records by The Clash, UB40, The Human League, Adam & the Ants and Grace Jones among many others didn't make my list
- Talking Heads - Remain In Light
- Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
- The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
- The Beat - I Just Can't Stop It
- The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
- David Bowie - Scary Monsters
- The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
- Prince - Dirty Mind
- Joy Division - Closer
- The Jam - Sound Affects
- Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
- XTC - Black Sea
- Suicide - The Second Album
- Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
- Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles
- Specials - More Specials
- Magazine - The Correct Use of Soap
- Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids
- Pylon - Gyrate
- The B52's - Wild Planet
- Pretenders - Pretenders
- Tom Waits - Heartattack & Vine
- The Undertones - Hypnotised
- Simple Minds - Empires & Dance
- Blondie - AutoAmerican
- The Psychedelic Furs - The Psychedelic Furs
- The Monochrome Set - Strange Boutique
- The Selecter - Too Much Pressure
- Peter Gabriel - III
- The Passions - Michael & Miranda
1980
Forty years. needless to say since 1980. It was probably the year that I became a sentient music listener, starting my record collection and beginning to develop my own tastes as a fourteen and then as a fifteen year old. It was a good time to start, being a particularly fabulous year for music as were the two previous years and the couple that followed. So with this in mind, I'm going to commence a little 1980 series on here. Starting with this, the Best Ever Album sites rundown of the best albums of that year, as voted by its readers.
Overall, it's a rather drab Top 30, not really reflecting the diverse and thrilling year it was musically. I have no objections to the first two records on the top of the list. They probably were the outstanding albums of the year. But elsewhere there's a lot of drab metal stuff that really doesn't appeal to me. You can keep your AC/DC. Dead Kennedys, Rush, Motorhead, Sabbath, Maiden, Ozzy and Queen. There was much more exciting stuff going down. I'll return with my own Top 30 presently.
- Talking Heads - Remain In Light
- Joy Division - Closer
- AC/DC - Back in Black
- The Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
- David Bowie - Scary Monsters
- Bruce Springsteen - The River
- Peter Gabriel - III
- Dire Straits - Making Movies
- The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
- Pretenders - Pretenders
- Rush - Permanent Waves
- The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
- The Clash - Sandinista
- U2 - Boy
- Elvis Costello & The Attractions
- Black Sabbath - Heaven & Hell
- Motorhead - Ace of Spades
- Steely Dan - Gaucho
- The Jam - Sound Affects
- Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
- The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
- Prince - Dirty Mind
- Ozzy Osborne - Blizzard of Oz
- Bauhaus - In the Flat field
- Kate Bush - Never for Ever
- Genesis - Duke
- Queen - The Game
- Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
- John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy
- X - Los Angeles
Song(s) of the Day # 2,221 Son Little
Tasteful, old school Soul album aloha just out from Los Angeles born Son Little. The description, 'worthy' can be something of a double edged depiction of a record in that it might bring forth assumptions of 'taste' in the slightly anodyne sense. This record does fall into that trap occasionally but there is enough genuine soul and unashamed sincerity as well as poise and grace to make much of this an absorbing listen.
As the record winds on its grip gets tighter. Some very good songs and an utterly soulful projection of them in the sense that you can almost hear the record weeping at points. There's much here that demands to be heard even for those who know the genre back to front. aloha re-tells tales that need to be re-told. In the end judgement it's 'worthy' in the sense that it's worth something and certainly worth listening to.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Songs About People # 1,075 Oliver Postgate
This gets rather lively considering its title references the none gentler maker of classic British children's TV programmes Oliver Postgate. Fish tank were formed in Broadstairs where Postgate also lived. Surely no coincidence.
The Singing Detective # 20 Vera Lynn
All good things come to an end. Including this one. Appropriately, with Vera.
Song(s) of the Day # 2,220 Polyrock
Probably all but forgotten now, Polyrock are little more than a footnote in the annals of late Seventies and early Eighties Post Punk. All jerky rhythms and syncopated intensity, they released a couple of albums in the early Eighties which are very much of their time yet still reward being listened to forty years on.
Polyrock stood out, if at all, for their Philip Glass influence and connection. He appeared on both their albums. Otherwise they were part Talking Heads, part Feelies, part Wire, part Devo, part Pylon. Never entirely themselves but likeable enough anyhow. Their eponymous 1980 debut is the place to start.
The songs here are diverting though hardly outstanding but it's a record I'll return to and might visit Discogs to purchase. Much of the time they're 'doing the robot' thang, a preoccupation of the time/ A slightly repetitive compilation playlist on this theme could easily be compiled with them on it somewhere. Somehow what was considered 'adult' at the time seems rather innocent at this remove.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Songs About People # 1,074 Odilon Redon
Appropriately free form and very, very French tribute to the great symbolist artist.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Songs About People # 1,073 General Sun Tzu
One from Joe Henry, who has a nice touch of Randy Newman about him. He has a new album out soon on the wonderful Gare Du Nord. This is, at least nominally, about the great Chinese Genral, strategist and philosopher.
Song of the Day # 2,218 Grimm Grimm
Sounds good. London based project steered by Koichi Yamanoha. New album in the pipeline.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Songs About People # 1,072 Scott Carpenter
A while back I had a mini-series within this series for Americans who walked on the moon. This man was not one of those but he was closer associated with the whole NASA programme and was second American to orbit the moon among many other achievements. here's a nice tribute to him from Brooklyn's Jane Herships. Neat promo too.
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 463 Warpaint
Great to import a Warpaint favourite onto the jukebox. Apparently they're back this year. Hope so!
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Songs About People # 1,071 Claudia Cardinale
The Third Mind is a band featuring Dave Alvin formerly of The Blasters and some remarkably named bandmates; Victor Krummenacher, David Immergluck, Michael Jerome and Jesse Sykes. Together they've just released a self-titled debut album. It's immaculately played but slightly cold though it definitely has its moments. Here is one, an instrumental for the Italian screen icon.
Chopchop - Everything Looks So Real
I've been listening to three new releases over the last couple of days. All noteworthy in quite different ways. The latest Tame Impala which I'll write about shortly. The first from Mush which I posted about yesterday. And this, Everything Looks So Real the astonishing debut album from Brighton Jazz Punkers Chopchop. I've been looking forward to hearing it since I first heard tracks from them last year. It doesn't disappoint for a moment.
Grounded in great musicianship of the Miles Fifties and Sixties school this could probably be an exercise in taste if it chose to be. Instead it takes a far more adventurous and riotous road, both in terms of its playing and most of all, the fabulous, demented free-form delivery of vocalist and frontman Xelis De Toro. One part Peter Sellers' Indian Doctor, one part Manuel from Fawlty Towers, one part his madcap self, he's a perfect focal point for the raging storm Chopchop brew up. Making perfect sense yet none at all at one and the same time.
This is beatnik politico expressionism of the finest order. De Toro and compadres deliver the kind of record you've probably never quite heard before. Anarchic, surreal, angry, literate, taking it's cues from John Lydon and David Byrne as well as Andre Breton and Franz Kafka while tipping its hat to Cannonball Adderley. It's also very timely, painting a vivid and striking picture of the moment of flux we find ourselves in.
Full of questions that demand to be answered about the direction we seem to find ourselves going in. De Toro voices the agonies of a man swimming against the torrent of a river in full flow. In Lifetime he takes his lead from Talking Heads Once in a Lifetime to rail against the madness of multicultural societies in denial of the fact that whatever happens they will remain multicultural societies. In This is Not Your Home he continues on the same theme quoting from P.J.Harvey's astonishing Glastonbury appropriation of John Donne. The bell tolls for thee mate. It tolls for thee. It's all equally apposite, thought provoking, amusing, stirring and highly, highly enjoyable.
I really hope this album breaks out beyond the confines of Brighton hipster-ism. Because it's a record that deserves to be heard. Never resting for a moment, raging against the dying of the light. Funky, funny, full on and full of fire. As Bob Dylan and Johnny Nash both knew. there are more questions than answers. Enjoy yourselves. It's later than you think. Altogether absolutely fabulous! Make sure you hear it.
Song of the Day # 2,216 The Bachs Lunch
I can tell you nothing about The Bachs Lunch except that this comes from 1967 and is the B Side of a version of Will You Love Me Tomorrow that is not diverting as this. Bach is the key. A companion piece for Left Banke and Zombies devotees.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Mush - 3D Routine
So how is it? The first thing Mush might have going against them is singer Dan Hyndman's delivery. It's annoying. It might almost be meant to be annoying. It's certainly goofy. Bands who present themselves as a humorous concern almost inevitably leave themselves a mountain to climb. There's a reason why Joy Division are more revered than The Rezillos.
What Mush have definitely got going for them is an astonishing Post Punk angular guitar scaffolding. Part Television, part Wire, part Gang of Four, part Josef K. They are really quite bewilderingly inventive throughout the twelve tracks on show here. You would have thought that this particular seam was quite exhausted but Mush prove this is far from the case.Some of the guitar explorations here are thrillingly bruising.
So how to equate Hyndman's quirky approach with the excellence of the musical framework. Perhaps by imagining what Television would have sounded like had Richard Hell ousted Tom Verlaine from the band rather than the other way round. Because Hyndman certainly sounds rather like Hell and he was a man whose intent was certainly serious even though his approach often made it seem like he was primarily playing for laughs.
There's certainly seriousness in the record's lyrical concerns. Brexit Britain, island mentality, chlorinated chicken, alternative facts. We're living in a world that is almost beyond parody. Perhaps this goes some way to explain their modus vivendi. By the end of the record where they give Alternative Facts another run out, (and why not, it's an astonishing statement), I was convinced. Certainly enough to make sure I check the band out when they come to my home town next month. 3D Routine may appear on the surface to be wacky but don't let that put you off. There's much more here than meets the eye.
Bowie's Books # 46 Alberto Denti Di Piranjo - A Grave For a Dolphin
'I wish you could swim. Like the dolphins, like the dolphins can swim...'
Song of the Day # 2,215 The Great Scots
Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1965. Some Byrds. Some Stones. Some melody.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Melbourne's Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have a really safe pair of hands. Sturdy and reliable rather than spectacular this doesn't stop them being damned good. Like the baseball player who rarely hits the ball out of the park but consistently notches singles and doubles and helps runners into home base. This, Cars in Space, keeps their average buoyant and comes ahead of their second album a few months down the line.
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 462 The Velvet Underground
I'm gradually importing my record collection into The Newcastle Arms as is my wont. Great to have The Velvet Underground's 1969 Live album there. It reminds me of my first term at university having just turned twenty, as well as being simply my favourite live album of all. This, an absolutely barnstorming nine minute version of What Goes On is a real highlight, far superior to the studio version and an indication of how the late Velvets managed to ride even the loss of John Cale to become a quite superlative road band and lay down the template for the entire recorded career of Dean Wareham at the same time.
Song of the Day # 2,214 Bell Streets
Nick Batterham and Josh Meadows used to be in Australian bands like Blindside, The Earthmen, The Supergliders and The Steinbecks in the Nineties. No, me neither. Now they're together as Bell Streets and this is some appetiser for their forthcoming album Monument, which arrives in April. This pitches its tent somewhere between a less cynical Luke Haines, Grant McLennan and The Clientele.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Songs About People # 1,069 St. Boniface
Staying Dutch, I've spent the last few days playing and playing The Homesick's wonderful The Big Exercise, and also familiarising myself with their equally addictive first album Youth Hunt. This is from that. St. Boniface was born in Crediton, Devon and was a leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Frankish Empire during the 8th Century. He has quite some story. Respect to the guy.
Lewsberg
Continuing the Dutch theme, here's something from Rotterdam's Velvet Underground and their forthcoming second album In This House which is with us in a couple of months.
Song(s) of the Day # 2,213 Korfbal
Holland day on here today.
Twisting familiar materials into startling new shapes. That's what seems to be going on with Dutch alternative guitar pop right now. First, The Homesick, whose wonderful new record The Big Exercise, I wrote about at the weekend. Now, compatriots Korfbal, whose exuberant debut album, Special Agent I've just chanced upon. This seems to be just the tip of the iceberg of the scene out there at the minute. Evidently plenty going on in The Netherlands at the minute.
Special Agent is a really thrilling record. Inspiration points are not obvious by any means. Korfbal plot their own journey. The guitars are sparky, the tunes positively bouncy. Korfbal is an odd Dutch ball game that has never caught on anywhere else. Korfbal the band are equally idiosyncratic, but with luck will attract greater international recognition.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 461 Creedence Clearwater Revival
Had a brief online conversation with one of Arbor Labor Union following my review of their latest record New Petal Instants. They thanked me for it and confirmed that this particular song is an inspiration for them. The barnstorming opener to Cosmo's Factory.
Bill Baird
Texan oddball Bill Baird continues to put out interesting leftfield missives. Here's his latest, I would assume ahead of a new album.
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