Saturday, February 24, 2024
Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 10 The Velvet Underrground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
This race is almost run. Prepare yourself for a Top Ten of the finest albums ever made that's largely made up of Beatles, Radiohead and Pink Floyd records. I'm glad to see this here at least. It's the starting point for so much of my record collection. There doesn't seem to be much actual production. It sounds like Warhol, or whoever was actually responsible, largely just left the tapes running. But that doesn't prevent the songs and the fantastic set of people and life that inhabit them shining through. Larger than life and every inch as vivid. There's so much here it's difficult to know where to start or imagine the world today without it.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,658 Prize Horse
We don't always use those crucial teenage years quite as productively as we might looking back. Spending our time with similarly surly and uncommunicative kids at High School or College. Kicking stones around down the sidewalk or hanging round for hours at the cornershop. Avoiding parental eye contact at the dinner table. Passing the time hiding behind your hair and staring at your shoes mostly. Possibly not fully investing in life.
Glum Minneapolis Indie trio Prize Horse. Why the long face. Or faces perhaps? It's a joke kids geddit? I doubt if Prize Horse would laugh, judging by the sound of their debut album Under Sound. . It's a morose product and no mistake.
I like a down in the mouth album as much as the next man. I regularly choose to play records by Joy Division or The Smiths. The Replacements and Husket Du. But all of these bands were inspired by the hormonal teenage maelstrom ahd classic literature rather than overcome by the challenge of grappling with Ian Curtis and Dostoevsky as seems to be the case here.
I tried with Under Sound but I'm afraid I didn't get very far. It didn't provide the soundtrack to my morning bath that I had been hoping for. I had to mute the TV as soon as I entered the living room and search for something more amenable to listen to while I made my breakfast.
So here is a record that doesn't really have a proper review. Largely because the reviewer couldn't face listening to the whole thing. In my defence, I haven't posted this in, I've thought about it, so at least Under Sound made some impression. It made me think. I'm sure Prize Horse may go on to win several prizes, at country fetes,music festivals and the like. I'm afraid they're getting no awards from me this morning.
Friday, February 23, 2024
Steely Dan - Their Thirty Greatest Songs # 30 Trans Island Skyway
One series ends and another must begin. Mojo come to my rescure with their countdown of Steely Dan's best in their current issue. Should keep me happy anyhow and be educative, We start with a song fron a 1993 Donadl Fagen album. It certainly sounds like a Steely Dan song.
Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Past Is Still Alive
It's comforting to wake up on a Friday morning to find two immediately wonderful freshly released albums waiting for me. Like birthday gifts on the doormat. Laetitia Sadler's Rooting For Love which I've already reviewed. And this, the latest from Hurray For The Riff Raff.
Alynda Segarra HFTRR's alter ego, has maintained an excellent hitting record in recent seasons which immediately led to my antennae rising in anticipation of the arrival of The Past Is Still Alive. Expectations were immediately met. Another excellent record.
She's in laidback mood here. The album cover shot of her sat in her living room window. Or else at a corner table at a favourite diner, hat elegantly cocked over her eyes. The record more than matches and then surpasses this immediate impression. All said this is a fluid, masterful set of guitar driven songs with engaged but tempered lyrics.
Segarra's well aware of the pitiful state of the world. End days. But also aware of exactly how much, or perhaps how little she can do about it. .She's resigned. But that's an elightened, not a questionable stance to arrive at I'd say. There's never a moment's doubt that she still cares about the things that matter as much as she ever did.
This is more than enough. Hurray For The Riff Raff were due to play at a favourite venue near me last time round but pulled the gig at the last minute. I hope they reschedule though the world doesn't always work out that way. I'd love to see them live and witness the fire in their eyes. Fantastic stuff. And I've only played the reccord once. More than enough to know. Think I'll give it another play. Invest in its narrative.
* Oh and that's some album title too.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 455 Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Doc At The Radar Station
I remember this popping up as a point of discussion late in my secondary school years.One of the cooler music kids. Paul Brett I think. This album was out. I seem to remember Paul brought it to school. I might be mistaken.
Captain Beefheart meant nothing to me but the name was immediately attractive. The songs I heard from the record less so I recall.
The Captain showed up on The Old Grey Whistle Test. A wild eyed man with a wild moustache. He seemed more interested in selling his paintings than his records.
Listening this morning I was inclined to turn to his art too. Too much here reminded me of the opening riff to Television's Friction coiled in on itself and repeated like a madman's violent and vicious assault in a deserted car lot in the middle of the afternoon. I love that riff but a whole album needs greater light and shade I'd say. This wore me down quite quickly this morning and I had to go off and do something else.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,657 Laetitia Sadler
I find it comforting when a new record featuring Laetitia Sadler turns up in the New Release schedules on Fridays. Like spotting the first shoots of primroses in a fresh meadow in Spring. It makes me think of an old friend turning up in town suddenly and suggesting you meet up for a pot of tea and a plate of macaroons in a local tearoom.
Is there anything that resonates so much as sharing a plate of macaroons and swopping confidances in the company of someone whose company you treasure and always enjoy.
Sadler is someone who always brings something new to the table. Even if her records are instantly familiar. Latest album Rooting For Love finds her tending a garden not disimilar from ones she cultivated and cared for with Tim Gane for many records and tours during the Stereolab years. Ye Ye Pop, Motorik rhythms, Situationist Manifestos. A refusal to dumb down to demands of market forces.
To the right of me on my work desk as I write is the populist alternative. A copy of the latest issue of Mojo. With a rather distressing image of Liam Gallagher and John Squires on the front cover, looking like bedraggled refugees from a long forgotten war that was fought on unjustifiable terms in the first place.
I'd rather Sadler was there myself but we must resign ourselves to the ways the world actually is and then try to work out what we can do about it. Rooting For Love is consolation enough for the time being. Inspiration, too. A record that employs ba dee dah melodies and smart responses to the world and puts them to the most functional and comforting purposes. This was a wonderful soundtrack to accompany the rise of Friday's sun, Ne desperez pas. Le printemps est a horizon.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Green Day - Saviors
'The American Dream is killing me...'
I need to put my hands up immediately here. Green Day have made barely a blip on my life, despite being one of the world's biggest bands for many years and selling millions. I haven't really had much of an opinion on them either way for amost thirty years.
This may not qualify me to write a review of their latest album Saviors really, but this here's my blog. I've listened to it a few times over the last few weeks and here's what I think.
'Don't know much about history. Cos I never learned how to read...' Look Ma No Brains.It doesn't seem that Green Day have any intention of growing up or getting thoughtful at this late stage. This is how they bought their swimming pools after all and let's face it the last thing the band's fanbase would generally want them to become ..... is adults.
They certainly don't do this here. What they do is serve up an album that is surprisingly similar to the albums that the band made their names and fortunes with all those years ago.
Good tunes here in the strictly Ramones tradition. The Ramones are the band thar Green Day most obviously modelled themselves on first time round along with mindless daytime TV and nothing has changed much in either respect.
The songs mostly sound like mindless advertising jingles. You get the impresson that if Green Day hadn't decided that they wanted to be in a Punk band they might have made a reasonable living working out of some marketing office instead. The guys in the corner of the open plan who regularly came up with the best slogans but insisted on working with their sleeves rolled up every day to show off their Misfits tattoos.
Saviors is a perfectly amiable listen but like every other Green Day album I've ever heard it doesn't really have me singing the Hallelujah Chorus. I still find them rather workaday I'm afraid. Plenty will nail it to their record players and relive their youths.
Middle Kids - Faith Crisis Part 1
Faith Crisis Part 1 Sydney's emotive trio Middle Kids third. Their own description. Good to have a band from Sydney rather than Melbourne to focus on for a change. And a nice record to wipe the sleep from my eyes on a Thursday morning.
Middle Kids have an interesting, thought provoking name. They also have a slightly more Mainstream directed sound than many of their more leftfield contemporaries.
This leads to a certain blandness a few tracks in which possibly means I won't return to this record as much as I will to Spft Covers Soft Serve for example. Solid album nonetheless.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 456 The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in The Sky
I lasted precisely thirty seven seconds. I like to think of yself as having an open mind. I don't always make it I'm afraid.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,656 Varsity
Chicago's Varsity have been round the block a few times. Playing the circuit and putting out records for over a decade now, becoming the Windy City's 'leading indie pop band' according to their Bandcamp page. No mean claim.
I'm not even going to dispute it. I'm in a liaidback mood these days. Varsity have a lean and measured sound. You'll find them in Alvvays, 10. Maniacs and Fleetwood Mac's neighbourhood.. Latest record Souvenirs is a measured and confident record that wins you over within a couple of minutes and maintains good relations from thereon.
Not a startling album but a very likeable on. It's worth perservering if you make an early assumption that this is going to be rather generic. They know how to vary their serve and there are some interesting song structures and interesting twists and turns as the record progressed which definitely drew me into theor camp.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 457 Michael Rother - Fernwarme
The Neu! Seventies albums remain projectiles into the future, Still. Michael Rother's Fernwarme, from1982 is a charming and less urgent record the discovery which made my morning a peaceful, reflective experience. It felt like a journey. Something I always like. Recommended. .
Song(s) of the Day # 3,655 Porcelain
'History repeats itself. Isn't that a shame...'
Porcelain is just your posh crockery isn't it. The plates and bowls you keep at the back of your kitchen cabinets for the rare occasions when you're planning something really special for honoured houseguests and need to really impress.
Like the episodes of Bewitched when Darrin's boss Larry Tate came round to dinner and Samantha needed to pull out all the stops. Which Sam generally did by breaking the cardinal rule and casting some spells, much to Darron's obvious distress amd acute embararassment.
Porcelain are a noise band from Austin, Texas. Their singer sounds quite a lot like Protomartyr's singer Joe Casey. This resemblance and impression is so instant, enduring and overwhelming that it prevents me from liking their itherwise commendable eponymous album as much as I might.
It's an excellent Post Punk complaint and gesture exercise in almost every respect apart from the Protomartyr factor which drifts over the record almost incessantly for the record's forty minute duration like a sad and depressed black cloud hanging overhead .The rest of the band clearly love those Detroit noisnik mieces to pieces too and tailor their drum, guitar and bass patterns accordingly.
Don't get me wrong Porcelain put on a splendid show. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery and all that. This is a finely wrought melidrama and I enjoy it immensely.In fact more and more every time as an exercise in undiluted passion about the state of play right now. They're just best advised to fotge their own path more fully next time round.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 458 The Wonder Stuff - Hup
I was to old for The Wonder Stuff really. They were a band to full for when you were sixteen, discovering the joys of getting drunk with youe sill mates over cheap cider. This was their hitting the big time record I seem to recall. Sounded fine to me this morning.
Coming Up - Vampire Weekend
I was pleased to see this posted on social media yesterday and enjoyed both the song and the accompanying video. It's been a while with Vampire Weekend. They've taken some time to absorb and fully process the loss of a key founding member Rostam Batmanglij. But they might have done so judging by this.
Rostam left the Vampire fold in 2016 and for a while it seemed as if he might have taken the special colour that they'd invented with him. Not so, Capricorn first song from the forthcoming album, due in April is promising indeed.
Lustening to this and thinking about it reminded me of why Robert Forster of all people, (and let's face it, he's someone who would know) took to Vampire Weekend from the off. Robert marked them as ones to watch immediately and he was right to do so. This is one of the very best things I've heard this year. It concerns itself with moon landings. And why not,concern yourself with wonder. We are alive after all.
1984 Singles # 1 R.E.M.
A Number One song in an invented chart where the chorus is an apology. A song which didn't have a title for a while. One which the band who wrote it played twice on television, on their American and UK debuts before it was laid down on record anywhere and released. Even though they were hardly lacking strong, recorded material by any means.
R.E.M. were a band that did things their way and eventually and highly oddly and unexpectantly became the biggest band in the world for a while. I go on about them a lot on here but am not about to apologise for doing so because they're worth it.
In 1984 they might as well have been my band. Although they'd made a splash in the music papers, I didn't have any friends at that time that read the music papers. I was waiting to meet and find them without knowing I was in need of doing so. I felt alone, though I was happy being that. I was something of a solitary dreamer in suburban, South West London when it came out, carving out my cultural tastes and obsessions almost as an act of assembly. I had a sense that it was the thing to do and the books, art and records I chose were vital investments in myself and the person I dreamed of becoming and was subconsciously in the process of constructing.
R.E.M when I discovered them fitted me like a hand to a glove. Southern Literature, CBGB's Punk, Sixties dreaming. Songs with lyrics you couldn't make out. Melodies with an intangible dramatic and romantic tug towards a world you longed to be a part of. Albums you listened to hundreds of times and which told a different story every time. Cultural artefacts of the deepest and most important kind. Investments in soul.
When I finally got to university in Autumn 1985 I made important friends. One of the best was Rod who roomed in the next room to mine in our university halls. He was the first person I met who loved R.E.M. like I did, heard me playing Murmur and Reckonng through the wall before we really met and recognised something in the other immediately. We bonded instantly over music, literature, politics and dreams about what our lives might turn out to be. Meeting people like this is an important part of life's journey.
Rod has since described those early R.E.M. records and their magic as a palimpsest. He's always had a better vocabulary than mine and I had to look the word up. A place where you layer on your own meaning. A meaning that may or may not be accurate. And this process of active and engaged interaction with the record you are listening to deepens the bond and mystery of the relationship you find yourself in with a set of musicians and their artistic creation. The stories they're telling. The best love affairs last a lifetime. Mine with R.E.M. is not quite over yet.
As for the song itself. I've written about it on here before:
'For its thrilling guitar figure. For it's brevity. Not a moment is wasted. For its wonderful title, So. Central Rain is not mentioned in the lyric. Because its chorus refrain is simple 'I'm Sorry...' not a common Rock sentiment at the time or since. For its almost biblical tone. Cities washing away, building things on rocks, which reminded me of The Band, The Byrds and Creedence when I heard it. Not common denominators in 1983. For Mike Mills extraordinary wordless backing vocal towards the close of the song which conveys the ultimate, most incredible desolation. it's a song that still regularly makes me cry. I applaud my youthful taste.
Also because it was clearly an important song to the band. Because they were plainly proud of it. With good reason. I'm not remotely tired of it almost forty years on after relentless playing and replaying of it down the years, It, along with so many of the bands early songs, brought back some eternal verities that were in danger of being forgotten. One of Michael's favourites.'
So that's my Number One I've enjoyed the last month and a half. Memory Lane is great. So long as you don't get lost there. I imagine I'll be back in 2025. To relive 1985.
Post Script: This song of course when it was released, never featured in any actual chart to the best of my knowledge. Sometimes it's best that way.
'
Song(s) of the Day # 3,654 Friko
Get your Friko on. A poor attempt at a gag perhaps . But there are clearly worse things you could do on a dark Tuesday moving towards the end of February than listen to the new album by said band. Whar else have you got planned? Cupping your ears to the latest IDLES album. Personally I haven't summoned the courage for that yet. Are they still angry about everything.
Friko, artisticyoung Chaicagoans with slightly unkempt hair are clearly foals of a different colour. Their new album Where We've Been, Where We Go From Here, concerns itself with precisely that and I found it invigorating watching them getting agitated and passionate. They're young. And they're good at it.
The album, I'm sorry I'm not about to repeat its title, (it's listed above), reminded myself of the first time I heard The Waterboys and James when they themselves were young and so was I. It was a bracing exercise spending half an hour with Friko. They have artistic urges and credentials. Watching them hurl themselves into the 9 songs here like inmates bouncing in straightjackets around padded cells was infectious.
Friko are complaining about something. That's always a good start. There's always plenty to complain about. They're embroiled in the melodrama of their own youth which is great. I still remember mine. Importantly, they're also are aware of beauty. Listen to For Ella. The standout here for me.Another one to watch. Another fine record. They're everywhere I look.
Monday, February 19, 2024
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 459 Robyn Hitchcock - I Often Dream of Trains
I listened through to this earlier this morning. Hitchcock often vexes me. He's often just a little to cute and clever for his own good though I love a lot of his songs and Soft Boys most of all. Solo, I think he could do with an editor sometimes.
But I listened to I Often Dream of Trains this morning and it resonated. From its deeply imposing opening piano chords with Nocturne which spoke of Central Europe. Then onwards. The whole record in fact. The important influence with Robyn of course is Syd Barrett. But there's nothing wrong with that. Syd laid down tracks that needed to be augmented and amplified. I Often Dream of Trains does that and more. It's a fine record. Whimsical and attention seeking as is always the way with Hitchcock. But it all works here.
1984 Singles # 2 The Go Betweens
'Wait. Yes he'll wait. The engine's waiting at the gate...'
Countdowns such as these are inevitably problematic for geeky types like myself. I always find myself as we fall or else rise to Number One in some kind of quandry. I've invariably miscalculated and there just isn't room for everything I've wanted to write about. Every band, or song or album I wished to include,
In 1984's case this means no Prince. How appalling and unforgivable. Prince ruled in 1984 in some respects. He was probably at his peak that year and for the next couple as well. It was one of those rare moments in Pop history where one of the biggest artists on the planet is also one of the best. To say he was 'gifted' doesn't even begin to describe matters,
It would have been When Doves Cry, had I chosen a 1984 Prince single. But it's not to be. But as consolation in this exercise of personal indulgence the Go Betweens get a Number 2 placing in this chart this morning. This is proper consolation and justifiable recognition to one of the greatest bands of the Eighties.
The Go Betweens of course never had any actual chart hits. It doesn't quite seem like it these days. Thanks to the sterling work of Robert Forster to raise their profile and public appreciation. Forster their founder of course, and a man who has worked tirelessly in their cause since his friend and writing partner Grant McLennan died so tragically young in 2006. I'd have to say he's been highly successful in his mission. People know who the Go Betweens are now.
That wasn't really the case in 1984 when I discovered them. Probably through the Music Press, where they were already a notable cause celebre. The music press always loved The Go Betweens. They were acute, layered. Sharp but sensitive. Both of these are important. Music critics saw themselves in Forster and McLennan. Fancied their chances with Lindy Morrison though they probably would never have had the actual courage to pursue their desire. Music critics were mostly ungainly males back then.
I saw Spring Hill Fair, the album The Go Betweens released on Sire that year in a record shop close to Richmond College in Twickenham, and bought it. I loved it immediately though I didn't necessarily understand its young adult concerns which were mostly engaged with the trials of first love and how best to negotiate them. But I definitely aspired to these nuanced and honourable emotions and principles.
Bachelor Kisses should have been a hit single and put the band on record covers and on Top of the Pops. But Sire didn't know what to do with the band and had other matters engaging them. Madonna was also on their roster. Enough said. The Go Betweens had already had their bridesmaid experience on Rough Trade where The Smiths had supplanted them in label boss Geoff Travis' affections. They soldiered on. Continued putting out wonderful records and playing thrilling concerts for the next few years. I witnessed several.
Bachelor Kisses is about sticking to your principles. Not being a cad and seeking out true love through romance and courtship. I love it just as much as I did then. It's still worth listening to again. Listen to it. Then listen to When Doves Cry. They teach you all you really need to know.
Sunday, February 18, 2024
Song(s) of the Day # 3,653 The Goin' Nowheres
The Go Nowheres 'consider themselves a Punk Rock Group and dedicate their work to Kenneth Patchen, Karen Carpenter and Terrence McKenna.'.
I am immediately interested in a band called The Goin' Nowheres, This and the quotation above on their Spotify bio led me to believe them Punk. Theirs is a name that draws from Richard Hell's Blank Generation mission statement principle. Hell is as good a person to go to if you are looking or any guiding principle of what that movement was all about. History can be misleading. Some might conclude that it was all about gobbing.
Not so. Blank Generation. Here we go. If I don't care about myself or what's going to happen to me, why on earth should you? And once we've wiped the slate completely clean of given methods of meaning we might have some earthly chance of coming up with new ways of forging forward into a slightly more interesting shared experience and future.
So now we've done 'Punk in a paragraph' let's get back to The Goin' Nowheres and their album Hot Moonlight Album. It's an exciting and unorthodox listen. A record I can see myself listening to quite a bit and getting to know. Like someone you meet and immediately decide you want to meet again. Because they're not quite like anyone you already know.
Not all of it is actual Punk as you expect it by any means. Living Dangerously for example just screams Graham Nash, probably the least Punk Rock musician who ever lived.
It's an eclectic and interesting record that's for sure. The Goin' Nowheres are out of Seven Devils, California, which sounds like an interesting place in itself and recorded this at Asheville North Carolina which seems like one of the epicentres of the music world right now. It's all very current in some ways. Though with plenty of reminders of the past too.
In the end I decided that this was only really Punk if you considered Ray Davies, Warren Zevon, Andy Partridge, Robyn Hitchcock. Mark Linxous, the early Beck. Punks.They wrote their own script. So does this.It's a terrific record frankly.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 460 This Mortal Coil - It'll End in Tears
The first This Mortal Coil album from 1984. The first of a number of great musical gifts to the planet. Chamber Goth. Exquisite and agonised originals and covers. The covers were the important things for music lovers back then.. Covers of forgotten artists and songs which weren't readily available in those Pre Internet days before everything became readily available. It's an intersting question. Should everything be readily available?
Anyway, back then these covers inspired an unscratchable itch which inspired the likes of me to hunt the originals down.I'm not a huge fan of Cocteai Twins but Liz Fraser's cover of Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren is just exquisite. It was many years before I heard Tim's original. Both are objects in beauty and awe. I wouldn't care to choose between them. We're lucky to have both.There's plenty more to wonder at on here.
Songs About People # 1,380 Ricki Tarr
Amother from Soft Covers. Am agonised and passionate fictional character in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but one so vivid and well drawn that he might as well have been flesh and blood,
1984 Singles # 3 The Smiths
Oh Morrissey. What have you done. I always suspected that you were just too enamoured of Oscar Wilde for your own and everybody else's good. Don't get me wrong, Oscar was incalculably great, but that doesn't mean any devotee, even the most obsessive one, has to wed themselves to the narrative so rigidly. That's unwise. And self indulgent. Sure Morrissey has always been unwise and self indulgent but it's possible to take obsession and love of poetry and literature too far in a direction that's not always healthy. Still Ill? I know. I know.
. Wilde had an incredibly tragic and appalling end and it strikes me as foolish to conclude that just because you love him you need to try to be him. Not to mention the grubby and repeated racism that has come along in its wake in recent years. Racism is beneath any great artist. I still think Morrissey is that though. Despite all that's happened. Just listen to the records. Those are his true legacy. Despite the tripe of his utterances these days. Listen to the songs that made his name. Particularly The Smiths.Those songs still speak as loudly and clearly now as the day they were first heard.
Here was Morrissey in 1984. On Top of the Pops fronting his band in a hearing aid, NHS specs and a sensible jacket and floral blouse and swaying like Mata Hari on tranquillisers on a busy night in The Rovers Return. One of the truly greatest and weirdest, (albeit mimed), performances I've ever witnessed. The other Smiths TOTP performances were all up there. It was one of those cases where you had to be there to truly understand and embrace it all I'm afraid. Seen from forty years on on, archive footage it inevitably loses context.Though not magic.
That turned out to be one of the most memorable evenings of my teenage years. My parents and sister were not around for some reason that evening. I was sitting downstairs in the living room, watching the TV alone, just as Morrissey would probably have wanted it. Shortly after TOTP finished Emma Kate Pailthorpe, the quite gorgeous girl from next door knocked on our front door. She was teenage beauty personified. Slightly plump. But all the better for her plumpness. She had incredible character to complement her beauty. I sometimes imagine courting and marrying her. Even now.
She was incredibly distressed when I answered the door. In tears. Her ghastly piebald cat had leapt upon, teased mercilessly and eventually smothered a small bird in their garden. It had breathed its last and lay forlorn and quite dead in Emma Kate's outstretched palms. I did my best to calm her and accompanied her to her back garden. We found a matchbox and buried the poor thing. Then we went inside.
Emma Kate baked some cookies. A friend of hers came round and the three of us watched Some Like it Hot together. There was no actual romantic ritual enacted like the kind you read about in comic books, hear in songs and watch in movies. It was better than that. It didn't matter that there was not so much as a peck on the lips. Never mind a full on impassioned teenage snog. It doesn't matter. The evening was far better and more memorable without it. It was the stuff that memories are made of. They don't come any better.
Back to Mozza and his band. He soundtracked teenage memories as they were being made and that evening they soundtracked mine. This was the guiding principle and mission statement of The Smiths. They knew exactly what they were doing as they were doing it. Bands don't come any better either.
Listen to the song. Watch the performance. The defiance and determination to make both an immediate and enduring statement is clear. Ennui and self pity worn as emblems. Badges of pride. Such grace in awkwardness and conviction in sartorial style. They're flying flags but unlike U2s ones with genuine resonance and immense lasting value . As long as there are teenagers they'll be relevant. I'm glad to have experienced it all when I was precisely that. A teenager.
Omni - Souvenir
I had enormous fun yesterday giving a couple of spins to Souvenir, the latest album from Atlanta, Georgia wonders Omni. They're a band I've always enjoyed listening to previously and ir's good to have them back.
Their first album came out in 2016 and Souvenir is their fourth. Omni can only really be described as a Post Punk band and in their case it's a relief to be able to say that this doesn't come across as a slur.
It's fair to say that 2016 is a fairly long time ago now. Back in those days when I first started listening to Omni, being Post Punk seemed almost an exciting thing ro be. That's no longe. the case I'm afraid. There are whole flocks of Post Punk bands munching the grass of the pastures on the Pop horizons with no intent apparent apart from sounding as much like one another as possible and frankly being as featureless and dull as they possibly can be.
Omni meanwhile still sound brittle and fresh. Their take their cues from Wire, Television and Josef K. Always a good idda, let's face it. They impose their own mathematical twist on these bands template and the result is invariably mightily invigorating. Feast on their heart.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,652 Soft Covers
I prescribe Soft Covers,They have the remedy for all your maladies. In the words of their Spotify bio,' 'Homemade and well loved Pop from Naarm, Melbourne, taken out of the oven a little too early and left out on the line a little too long.'
Debut album Soft Serve deals up eleven even and dreaming two or three minute charmers that make it feel like it's always going to be sunny, even if the actual sun has just gone behind the clouds wherever you happen to be.
Sweet. This is sweet. But never saccharine. Brightly Poppy. Good natured and laced with wit and generosity, Firmly in line with Courtney Barnett and Go Between their antipodean forbears. I'd wager they've listened to a bit of Lemonheads in their time too. Never a bad idea.
I love it when leftfield beatniks sing out of tune. Pretend not to care when they care deeply/ A book should be written about this but I'm leaving that to someone else, Soft Serve isn't soft at all. I'd say it's a winner. Male and female lyricists harmonising as if Mamas & the Papas never went out of fashion and a law has hust been enacted ensuring they never will be allowed to ever again. In a word. Axe!
Saturday, February 17, 2024
Grandaddy - Blu Wav
I took me a while with Grandaddy. But then it took them a while too. For the Modesto, California band to identify their vision and cleave the path they've walked with such grace and majesty for almost twenty five years since the release of The Sophtware Slump in 2000. A timely release. In the marketplace at a remarkable moment in human history,
A remarkable record too. I'm thinking about it as I listen to Blu Wav their quite beautiful new album which came out yesterday and sounds like another instant classic to me. Grandaddy have marked out their own dignified space over the years. Even if when they first arrived you could bracket them relatively easily with any number of plaid shirted cosmic Post Grunge American dreamers; Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Buffalo Tom and Red House Painters, who set out a few years before them. Now Grandady are out on their own.
Grandaddy in The Sophtware Slump spoke with astonishing clarity in a singular way about what had been lost. How strange and alienating it felt to be cast adrift in a confusing and reasonless digital age. Sat on a barstool in a modern neon lit bar in the Sunshine State with Neil Young & Crazy Horse coming out of the jukebox and coyotes howling at the moon outside in the night. Lost in your thoughts. Freshly dumped by the love of your life and having drunk several too many. Not sure how you would find yourself home. I'm not sure they ever did. They sound all the better for not doing so listening to this now.
Blu Wav paints new variations on the path eked out all those years ago on The Sophtware Slump. The album title is appropriate. They're still working on their essentially blue period. Their blue seam. These songs are gentle but quite essential additions to their canon. Glass half empty perhaps but nonetheless.majestic. This is a record that appreciates beauty and understands it intimately. You won't hear albums more dignified or sadly melodic or worldly wise in 2024..
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 461 Swell Maps - Jane From Occupied Europe
Not an album I care for. Even though I have a vinyl copy an of course respect its enormous cult cachet. You can't hear an embrace them all. Much as you'd like to.
1984 Singles # 4 Madonna
Yesterday evening I made something of a night of it. It's not a bad idea once in a while. Just to remind yourself that you're still alive, even though I've been being highly frugal, sensible and stay at home of late. Thinking of my health and future, sticking to my flat and being sensible.
But as it was Friday night I pushed the boat out a bit. And I'm glad I did. I met up with my good friend Ian and we wandered down to Newcastle Quayside. Had a few pints and great discussions about life. When Ian took his metro back to Monkseaton, I thought I'd go on for one more. Headed off to one of my former haunts back in the days, The Newcastle Arms where I really used to push the boat out far too often back in the day.
I bought myself a pint, put some songs on the jukebox an got myself a window set to watch the nightlife outside. My choices were mostly my general obscure fare. Television, R.E.M, Velvet Underground, The Chills, The Go Betweens, Can, (one belatedly for Damo Suzuki). The revellers in the bar probably didn't notice. If they did they were probably surprised I didn't just put on five Oasis songs. I thought everything sounded just great.
For my last song I put on Madonna's Borderline. Probably with the thought of writing this half in my head. Also because it's a song I love and have been thinking of and listening to a lot recently. It's my favourite Madge moment and still speaks to me all these years down the line.
When it came on, a couple of things struck me. One it's still a great song. It tugs on the heartstrings in a way very few Madonna songs do. It's clearly written with someone in mind, from the time when you're getting embroiled in your first love affairs. The ones that really matter.
The second thing that struck me is that it both is and isn't a great vocal delivery. Madonna is straining for the notes and not hitting them. But it doesn't matter because it's all coming from her heart and aiming to hit a place in yours.
Whatever you think of Madonna, and she's one of the more divisive performers Pop music has produced, I think this is a special moment, for me her most special one. She was someone who had to fight hard to make it and I think the fight is evident here. A sense that she had to leave something behimd, and that it was very painful for her to do so, in order to get to the place where she wanted to go.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,651 San Fermin
Familiar guitar minor chords, a warm emotive passionate voice. Not a bad way to start a Saturday morning. San Fermin are a band of brothers like the E Street Band used to be. They're out of Brooklyn just as you might suspect. Their latest album Arms is testament to the E Street Band's greaat idea and guiding pronciple. Pile yourself into a big car, put your hands on the wheel and your foot on the pedal and see where it takes you.
I enjoyed listeing to Arms just now. It's sincere and heartfelt, gifted and easy in its skin. It doesn't attempt to reinvent any wheels but that's not always necessary. It's not a patch on the new Grandaddy record which is already my pick of this Friday's new releases. But it's more than good enough for today's Song of the Day slot. Give it a try over your morning tea, ceral and croissant. You might find something that takes your fancy,
Friday, February 16, 2024
1984 Singles # 5 Echo & The Bunnymen
'In starlit nights I saw you...'
Ian McCulloch apparently thinks that Ocean Rain is better than Hunky Dory, Erm Mac, I'm not quite sure how to put this. OK. No point pussy footing around. It just isn't. There are some records you must retain an innate respect and awe for no matter how happy and proud you are of the ones you come out with and Hunky Dory is one of those.
Don't get me wrong. I love the Bunnymen still. They came along at just the right time for me. I coiled myself around The Back of Love and The Cutter particularly when they were released, burst into the charts like 7 inch literary masterpieces, musical molotov cocktails, and showed up virtually every 45 around them in the Top Forty countdown as underfed and useless. I still find those two songs utterly thrilling. Every time I hear them.
By 1984 McCulloch had seized the controls of the Bunnymen space shuttle. Ocean Rain featured him at the wheel like some Scouse Han Solo with a gravity defying and quite remarkable hairdo, guiding proceedings when Will Sergeant's had probably been the key vision on Heaven Up Here and Porcupine though the Bunnymen had always been a genuine band where each of the four members of the band made a recognisable and signficant contribution to every record.
But Ocean Rain remains divisive among long term Bunnymen fans. many of whom preferred them when they were brittle and existentialist and not meant for genreral consumption and appreciation. A cult concern for sallow teenagers who pretended not even to love their mums or siblings and sulked around in long overcoats all day and refused to look at the lens when family photos were taken, instead staring off to the distant horizon and pretending they were Peter De Freitas.
Ocean Rain still has icy, angular moments. but despite its poetry is generally accessible and bound for the charts and daytime Radio One play. The cover of Smash Hits and Top of the Pops appearances. It's a record for your younger sister. And I should know. I had and still have a wonderful younger sister,She loved it. And was right too.
Mac is still protective of Ocean Rain because it's his finest moment. He thinks Killing Moon is the finest single ever released, Listen to it, You may nor agree completely. But it's still easy to see why he this it might be, He had one of the finest voices of his generation. Perhaps, along with Billy MaccKenzie the finest. He has every right to his pride.
Song(s) of the Day # 3,650 Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague laid out their stall precisely right from the off with their eponymous debut twenty years and haven't really altered their product, pitch or delivery one iota.Perhaps youmight quibble. But let's face it. They're hardly The Beatles in terms of their quest for growth and change.
They have a new album called Should I Stay Or Should I Go just out with arch cocktail bar takes on Punk, Post Punk and New Wave favourites and incredibly it doesn't sound tired just yet which is credit to them. Not to my ears anyhow. I loved listening through to it this morning
They keep things fresh, teasing out the camp. ludicrous quality of faves like What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend and People Are People while retaining an inner respect for what great songs they are too. Sometimes the recasting of things so essentially familiar is quite startling and it takes you a while to even recognise what is being played. Here with their take on Atomic. Probably the stand out here.
It's a collection that makes listeners of a certain age revisit all their yesterdays and reflect on their feelings on a set of classics while appreciating their new settings .. it makes younger listeners probably wish they'd been around in the Eighties themselves. Trust me it wasn't as great as it might sound regardless of the music. It was a horrible and regrettable decade in many ways. I was there. Its true history is yet to be written. I'm not even going there.
There are some interesting takes on forgotten songs. I particularly liked the remodelling of She's In Parties a Bauhaus oddity I hadn't thought about in years . Also a version of Associates Breakfast which is an exercise in the most exquisite melodrama. I recommend this to readers of a certain age but also to younger ones. This made my Friday morning.
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