Oh this is great! Cerys, doing what Cerys does so well on a Sunday morning. One to dance round your living room too. If that's your thing.
Sunday, March 21, 2021
Big Star - Radio City
While we're in 1974, here's a great review, (not written by me, I hasten to add). Of a great record from that year. Second on my list:
Bruce Eaton on Big Star
One day I'll write at length about Big Star on here. But it won't be about Radio City, their second and I think best record as Bruce Eaton, (in his book about the album which forms part of the wonderful 33 1/3 series), has got there before me and written about it better than I ever could. In addition to that, this is as good a piece of music criticism as I know. About the whole lore of record collecting and record shops.About what it feels like to stumble across a piece of music that changes your life. About being utterly smitten by something the first time you hear it. About wishing to share your new found love with others. And about trying to describe that beloved object years after the event to a wider public than your own personal circle. By the way, the Radio City album is every bit as good as Eaton's feverish prose makes it out to be. Here's the introduction to the book:
_________________________________________________________________________________
'The light of the vinyl junkie is that most days you have to settle for something less than great. Like a true wax fanatic, it was psychically impossible for me to leave a record store empty-handed. Entering Play it Again, Sam I'd conduct a ritualistic search, starting with a beeline for the new releases bin, hoping it contained heretofore unseen treasures of black gold. If there were a couple of hot new imports along with a rare bootleg to top off the haul the day might be as good as Christmas. More often than not, there would be the same exact records as the day before. That meant that there was work to do.
Play it Again, Sam specialised in used records - sorted and priced by a combination of condition and desirability and marked accordingly by a colored dot sticker. You'd start by combing through the red dots - the primo records that sold for two dollars and fifty cents.Here you'd find the latest releases that had been traded in by a local record promo man for his pizza and gas money. If you didn't find anything in the reds, you'd slide over to the two dollar blue-dot bins.,maybe settling for a used J.Geils Band album you'd once owned in college and had passed over on your previous 34 visits. If you still weren't in the mood to hear Full House again, you'd have to take desperate action and thumb through the dollar fifty yellow-dot bins. It was here you'd find the records that were one step from being put out to curb - either worn out and abandoned college dorm hits of yore (Carole King and Cat Stevens lived here), albums that even an artist's hard-core fans couldn't swallow, (Steven Stills was releasing direct-to-yellow-dot at that point), or records that for one reason or another never garnered a following (April Wine were the Led Zeppelin of the Yellow Dots).
On this particular day I had made it all the way to the Yellow-Dots empty handed. Starting at the "A" bin, I flipped past Ace and April Wine, a worn copy of The Band's Stage Fright, beat up Beach Boys and Beatles albums, and the first wave of Bee-Gees trade-ins. Some of these albums had been there for months - I could almost tell you what was going to come next. And then there it was. An album I'd never seen before. Unless a record had been released just yesterday, this alone was reason to pause.Across the top it read in black letters, "Radio City Big Star" in a way that made it apparent that the album was Radio City and the band was Big Star.
If you spend enough time looking at records, you develop a sixth-sense about how good a record might bejust from looking at the cover. On first glance Radio City looked quite promising. The front cover featured a big picture of a bare light bulb against a bright red room and struck me as being at least several notches above your typical album art. It would be a few years before I knew that the photographer - William Eggleston - was a wold-renowned artist and friend of the band. Curious- okay, desperate - I picked up the album.Like a vintage Blue Note jazz LP, it felt like a record made by people who cared about music and knew what they were doing. On the back cover there was another color photo -this one an informal shot of three guys - presumably Big Star - hanging out in a club (the original T.G.I. Friday's it turned out). They had an air of cool and confident informality - a band tat didn't bother with rock star poses. Below the picture was some minimal information; song titles and a few credits. Nothing rang a bell except the words "distributed by Stax," a de facto seal of approval for any self-respecting rock snob.
In the back of my mind I vaguely remembered having read something about Big Star in Creem four years earlier - that their sound was somehow connected to The Beatles (which in 1976 seemed to be way more of a thing of the past than they do today), and The Byrds, and that the reviews were positive. I had a good feeling that Radio City might be worth the six quarters.Holding the record up I caught the attention of the clerk behind the register. I was just getting to know Bill, a friendly fellow who looked like he had once been a roadie for Quicksilver Messenger Service and whose taste in music leaned toward raw Detroit rock and roll with a psychedelic edge. The sort whose opinion you might value even if you were inclined to believe that yours was the only one that mattered. I gave Bill a quizzical "what's the deal?" look. "You might like that," was his offhand response, one that would prove to be an understatement to say the least. "Take it, and if you like it, pay me next time." I secured the record under my arm and headed home.
That evening I put the record on my turntable and sat down to write a few letters. It would be dramatic to seay that hearing Radio City for the first time altered my life but the redirection came later. What actually happened is that, song by song, it pulled me in until by the end of the first side had stopped writing and was propped back in my chair with my feet on the desk, listening as the sun set behind the woods outside my window, feeling the June breeze blowing in through the window screen. I flipped the record over to Side Two and by the time the needle reached the middle of "September Gurls" five cuts in, I was riveted. The song was, on first listen, as perfect as any two minutes and fifty-six seconds of rock and roll that I have ever heard. Three years later to the month I would be on stage at McVan's Rock Castle in Buffalo playing that very song with Alex Chilton - the guy who wrote it, sang it, and played what sounded for all the world like an entire symphony of chiming guitars.
I played Radio City over and over for a few hours (it clocks in at just over 36 minutes- unlike the interminable CDs of today, listening to an album from start to finish back then wasn't a major life commitment). I stared at the jacket - wondering who Big Star was and why Radio City hadn't risen to the top of the charts, or even crossed my path. By the time I went to sleep, I had a new favorite band, albeit one I knew nothing about. (For rock snobs, the more obscure your favorite band, the better.) All I knew as that I had hit the vinyl jackpot. I had found a great record in the bargain bin.
At the time I was somewhat frustrated about the lack of information about Big Star but now I look at it as a blessing. For the next eight months or so, the only in-depth information about the band was what was stamped in vinyl. The grooves contained everything the musicians wanted me to know - a direct line of unfiltered communication. I could let the sound speak to me without any interference or preconceptions, form my own opinions and let the music fill my imagination, taking me to unexpected places. I could listen without having to decide if Big Star really was the future of rock and roll or if Radio City was the most important album of the year.
It's sometimes hard to remember but there was once a time when sound - not image, gossip and hype - was indeed first and foremost in rock and roll. When Memphis deejay Dewey Phillips spun a new 45 by a local teenager on the night of July 7th 1954, the listeners who jammed up the request lines had nary a clue about Elvis Presley Phillips himself didn't even know if Elvis was black or white (he obliquely found out by asking him which high school he attended). Elvis could have been 30 pounds of sweating human sausage packed into a bejeweled white polyester casing and it wouldn't have mattered. All that mattered was the sound of "That's All Right."
Recorded less than three miles away from the Sun Studio where Elvis had recorded his first hit, Radio City also had a singular, almost otherworldly sound that exerted a mysterious pull.
Trying to describe how a record sounds and why it grabs you can be like trying to pick up a blob of mercury off a tile floor. But here's where I would describe the visceral appeal of Radio City in a roundabout way. When I was teenager in the 1960s, my family spent a part of each summer at a beach out on the northern fork of Long Island, 90 miles out from New York City.. he sound of WABC-Am - the Top Forty titan in New York - was virtually everywhere, pumping out the Super Hits from the All-American survey around the clock. Lying on the sand in the hot afternoon sun, half-drifting off to sleep, you could always hear it half in the distance amidst the sounds of bathers and motorboats. But when you tried to zero in and follow along, your ears and brain would play tricks on you - turning a song you knew inside out into something completely different. . You might have started with something that you thought was "Help!" and before you knew it there was an entirely new-and equally perfect - song coming to life in your head, taking unexpected twists and turns. And then, like a mirage in the summer heat, it would vanish at the first sound of the Yoo-Hoo jingle that inevitably followed.
Radio City captures the sound of those illusory moments on the beach. It's as if all of the music coming out of all the luttletransistor radio speakers - Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Beach Boys, Sam and Dave, 5th Dimension, Lovin' Spoonfu;, Question Mark and the Mysterians, Supremes, Young Rascals, Sonny and Cher, Four Tops, Sam the Sham, Napoleon XIV - had somehow been beamed into outer space to some distant planet and then transformed by bunch of musical alchemists into something both fresh and yet familiar and sent back to earth in a stream of glowing super-charged electrical particles by a wizard of sound. In a very real sense though that's exactly what happened. Even on first listen Radio City sounded like pure magic.
If Radio City sounded like an album that had been created in the past and then beamed to a time and place somewhere in the future for the world to eventually discover, it never really did have much of a present. It sold few copies when it was released in March of 1974 - somewhere under 10,000 is a reasonable guess. If you had a copy, the cover most likely had a promo sticker or a corner cut off.What copies there were that made there way out into the world found their way into the hands of people who played it over and over. Radio City became much sought after, and once secured, treasured. Odds are that if you had a copy, it wasn't just another record in your collection. It was a directive for a mission - you had to spread the word. You had made a point of playing it for your friends and gladly made a cassette copy hen hey shook their heads in amazement. When you met somebody who already knew about Big Star, it was like a musical handshake that made you part of an underground of true believers. A lot of those handshakes were the beginning of new bands. Some of those bands went on to enjoy the success that their inspiration had optimistically hoped for - even expected - during its brief life. If influence could be measured, Radio City would have now gone platinum many times over.
Eventually Radio City was reissued on LP and then CD- enjoying progressively far better distribution than it did upon its initial release.. Listeners across several generations around the world discovered the music - finding it to be as fresh and captivating as it was on the day it was recorded. And improbably, Big Star reunited with a retooled lineup in 1993, released a new album in 2005, and still performed on occasion before Alex Chilton's death in 2010.
The story of Big Star has been told from a lot of different perspectives - virtually all involving a familiar cocktail of tragedy, drama, Southern gothic, mojo, mystery, drugs, personal chaos, sex, booze, bad luck, youthful recklessness, mental disorder, dashed dreams and thwarted ambitions. If you're reading this book, you likely know all the stories, rumors, and outright slander repeated over and over as gospel truth in liner notes, books ad magazine articles. When offered an opportunity to correct any falsehoods, Alex Chilton responds, " I'm sure there are hundreds and thousands of misconceptions out there that I've learned just to not bother with." Bandmate Andy Hummel adds, "An awful lot of what you read in the press about over the last ten years or however long it's been since it suddenly dawned on them that Big Star existed is highly colored by who they're talking to. Generally speaking they're not talking to anyone in the band - "anyone" being sort of the creative energy behind the band. They're talking to people who were involved on the periphery. That's the story that's out there.. It's not the story of what happened with the band - it's the story of what other people say happened to the band."
What gets lost in the familiar retelling of the Big Star story is how the music and the sound came to be in the first place. A record like Radio City doesn't just appear out of nowhere via totally happy accident. Rock and roll is somewhat slave to the notion that anyone with enough desire can learn enough chords, somehow stumble into a hit record and be a star. The reality is that great records are made by really talented people (even geniuses although that word has been used enough to render it virtually meaningless) who work long and hard at their craft until the day when the magic suddenly enters the studio.
Talent - God-given natural ability - is an unpopular, even cruel notion, in a world where it's widely believed that anyone can make it to the top if they have enough ambition, blonde of otherwise. But most of us don't have great musical talent.Instead we get to buy the records and the concert tickets, write books and reviews and even play in bands that allow us to have fun and dream a bit (hopefully avoiding delusions of grandeur.
Beyond talent, there's the often dismissed importance of experience - in music and in life. Does an artist have something interesting to say and the ability to say it in a unique and interesting way? The answer is usually "Not really". One of the chief reasons that rock and roll from the 1960s and early 1970s still looms large is that its creators had deep reserves of experience to draw upon when the time finally cameo go to the well in the recording studio. Take The Beatles or The Stones, Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen. Each knew hundreds upon hundreds of cover tunes a disparaged concept today but vital to learning how music works - and had played endless gigs trying to sell them to indifferent, if not downright hostile audiences. That experience takes patience but it can eventually get you to a point where you can write songs of your own that become a meaningful and permanent part of other people's lives. Alex Chilton, with deep family roots in the Mississippi Delta and a dad who infused his youth with jazz, may have been only 22 when Radio City was recorded, but he'd hit the road at the age of 16 - playing shows all across the country, surrounded by masters of the craft soaking up everything he could. It doesn't require any stretch of the imagination to believe that a kid who grew up listening to Mingus Ah Um and Birth of the Cool, learned how to play guitar from a Beach Boy, and got to watch Wilson Pickett and The Staple Singers burn down the house night after night is going to have a few more interesting colors in his artistic palette than a kid who grew up watching music videos in his bedroom while copping shred licks in dropped D tuning. You can't see them but you can definitely hear them.
My goal in writing this book was to shed light into how the sound got into the grooves of Radio City and why, to the confoundment of many, it never happened quite that way again. After all, the sound is why we care about Radio City, not any surrounding six-string opera. I love to pore over musical biographies and Mojo alike but one can take it to a point where the actual music becomes a mere soundtrack to an oft-repeated mythologized tale of dysfunction. Looking back some 35 years ago, I got heavily into the music of Nick Drake and Gram Parsons when their albums were being released for the first time - without knowing a thing about either of them. I don't really feel that all that's been subsequently detailed about their respective struggles has added much beyond a whit to my listening experience. If you can accept the premise that genius almost always comes with a price tag, then you're free to concentrate on why you ultimately care about the artist. In one word: music. Listen carefully and you'll hear all their personal stories buried in the grooves anyway.
Some pieces of the creative puzzle are obvious: how a song was written or a particular part recorded. Other parts of the story are below the surface or even in the distant past. When you read the words of the people who were actually in the room, in one way or another, for the creation of Radio City, you'll find a lot of dots to connect. You won't be able to draw an exact roadmap - that would be impossible - but you'll be able to sketch out a rough blueprint of how Radio City was built and why, improbably, it still stands tall nearly three and a half decades after the final note was nailed into place. The 33 1/3 series doesn't use subtitles for individual books- none are necessary. But if pressed,I'd offer this one for Radio City: How To Make A Great Record - If Only You Could.'
Albums of the Year 1974
I'm going to struggle slightly for the next three years. My record collection isn't blessed with many albums from '74, '75 and '76. Mainly because I don't feel they were very good years for music. The most exciting scene in the world at the time was probably happening in CBGB's in New York City, where the big players there were preparing their initial statements. Anyhow, back to '74. I'm pleased to report that I'm still able to post a pretty decent Top Ten. Here's the list from the Best Ever Albums site.
1. King Crimson - Red
2. Neil Young - On the Beach
3. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
4. Supertramp - Crime of the Century
5. Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
6. David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
7. Joni Mitchell - Court & Spark
8. Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
9. Queen - Sheer Heart Attack
10. Jorge Ben - A Tabua De Esmerelda
Here's my own. Composed solo of things in my vinyl record collection. I don't own On the Beach or Rock Bottom and do covet those but here's my own personal best of the things I do own list:
1. Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel
2. Big Star - Radio City
3. Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
4. Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece
5. Sparks - Kimono My House
6. Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
7.. David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
8. Roxy Music - Country Life
9. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
10. Mott - The Hoople
In many ways, , this could be described as Sparks year. They put out Propaganda, another very good album ,in the same year. They pointed forward in some ways. To Punk and also to Disco. There were other decent albums. From John Cale, Kraftwerk, Can, Richard & Linda Thompson, Tom Waits and others. But generally this was quite a restless year for music and '75 and '76 would get even more troubled. Waiting for '77
Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 220 Johnny Dowd - Pictures From Life's Other Side
'The shocking and extraordinary Johnny Dowd.'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,614 Wurld Series
What's Growing, the second album from Christchurch, New Zealand trio Wurld Series sets off off from a familiar base. The skewed, independent guitar heroics of Dinosaur Jr., early Teenage Fanclub and Pavement. Back from there naturally to Neil Young and Crazy Horse and all the fun they had over the years. Melody, but twisted melody. The sound of a group of friends having great fun together, playing guitars.
This, as I've said, is instantly familiar. But it's a familiarity for things that I've got a lot of time for. From opening tracks Harvester and Nap Gate which set that particular scene, What's Growing begins to wander off into more unusual and original paths in the alternative rock forest. Always predicated by a love of guitars and the things they can do but determined to establish a niche position for Wurld Series in this slightly overcrowded thicket.
I'd say they do so. These songs, with their determinedly asymmetrical perspectives and angular valour, make a good argument for not always attempting to reinvent the wheel. I was charmed and drawn in. At the moment Wurld Series might be essentially a support band, but they're one who you enjoy and appreciate, all the time wondering where life might take them next.
As the record unfolds,What's Growing takes in floral flute and becomes more reminiscent of outsider Folk, the textures of early Julian Cope, Syd Barrett and the likes of Caravan and the Canterbury Scene. This is whimsical stuff for those who are partial to whimsy but Wurld Series have the good sense to change the pace and put their foot on the gas whenever you feel this might be getting a little self-indulgent. Fun is clearly high on their agenda.
What's Growing is a record I've been looking forward to hearing for a while and it hasn't let me down. I know exactly what's in Wurld Series record collection. They make little effort to hide their sources, or rub away their fingerprints, but ultimately this record is accomplished enough on its own terms, and certainly enjoyable enough to mean a plagiarism viva should not be arranged.
Not as good a record of this particular type as Kiwi Jr's exemplary Cooler Returns from earlier in the year. But certainly worthy of exploration. It's a happy reminder of wonderful things that inclines this particular listener to revisit and wonder once again at some of its source texts.
Saturday, March 20, 2021
David Sylvian - Brilliant Trees
A memory. A very happy one. How listening to Climate of Hunter by Scott Walker, on a Facebook group which I'm a member of, which didn't quite do it for me, led me to listen to David Sylvian's brilliant Brilliant Trees from the same year and wallow in this happy memory for an hour:
'Everyone should have a girl or a boy next door in their youth. I did. Emma Kate Pailthorpe was her name. We both liked each other. But I was too shy to do anything about it. I was eighteen. Teddington. One evening in 1984, (the year this came out), I was alone in the house, (my parents and sister were elsewhere for some reason). I watched Top of the Pops.
The Smiths played Heaven Knows, Morrissey with a small tree hanging out of his back pocket. They also played the video for Sylvian's Red Guitar. The most beautiful man in the world and he came from Catford. There was a ring on the doorbell and it was Emma-Kate.One of the most beautiful girls in the world. At least at that point in my life.
Her cat had killed a bird and she was very upset and had it in a matchbox. We went round and buried it in her garden. Then we went in and watched Some Like it Hot. She made some cookies. A friend of hers came round and we all watched the film together. This anecdote is not a Pulp song. Nothing happened at all. Still one of my very favourite memories though. 'I'm drowning in my nostalgia' as David sang on Brilliant Trees. Enjoying listening to this more than Climate of Hunter I'd have to say. Tracks Three, Five, Six. Really. Hardly likely to attract the youth vote back in '84 when they had Sylvian and Morrissey. Sylvian particulaly took Scott's place as the most beautiful man in the pop world.'
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 227 New Order
'A legendary band reborn without Ian Curtis in the room.'
Song(s) of the Day # 2,613 Middle Kids
Now here's something unexpected. On a day when I was disappointed by the new Lana Del Ray album I chanced upon this, a record that seemed much more genuine in terms of its intention and successful in its emotive achievement , Today We're The Greatest, the second album from young Australian trio Middle Kids.
The record is made up of a series of emotionally intense and ambitious pop songs. Perhaps made for people a lot younger than me primarily, but they definitely struck a chord with me . The band's name seems plain but has some resonance too when you come to think of it. Can't be easy being a middle kid. But it's something you're pretty much stuck with.
Today We're The Greatest is a record of modest but definite worth. It won't change your world in all probability but it doesn't seem to me to be trying to. It's an album that seems to be attempting to extract joy and solace despite all the pain we have to go through. It wants to be normal, despite it all.
I'm not sure I'll return to this too often. Ultimately, in the continuing mission of writing this I am looking most for records that change my world. To throw in a few from this year alone that have done that this year I'd mention Jane Weaver, Weather Station, Cool Ghouls, Goat Girl, Besnard Lakes and James Yorkston. Those are the ones that have stunned me in some small way in 2021 so far.
Today We're The Greatest is unlikely to join that list. It ranks somewhere lower. But I'm glad I listened to it yesterday and I'll listen to it again. It's a record that's very much its own statement. It's not overcome by influence. They are some very sweet and moving songs on here. Songs that are trying to make their way in a world that is often difficult and maintain their essential grace and dignity. Listen to Golden Star, a song in the middle of the record that encapsulates what this record is about and manages to stand out too. It gets the ahem, Gold Star, but really the whole album gets a big tick from me. Hats off to Middle Kids. Today at least they are the greatest on It Starts With a Birthstone.
Friday, March 19, 2021
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 226 Depeche Mode
'The first to suggest that they were more than synth poppets.'
Lana Del Ray - Chemtrails Over The Country Club
One thing you have to give to Lana Del Ray, regardless of what you think of her is that she's certainly prolific. She has another album out. She's someting of a production line. Exploring the same themes every time since she first appeared. Longing, loss, memory. She doesn't seem to be an artist that offers many happy endings.
Her latest album Chemtrails Over The Country Club, starts with a song called White Dress. The white dress Lana was wearing was a waitresses one at 19, but all the time clearly thinking in her head of another kind of white dress.
For the record , I have a fair bit of time for Lana though I'm not sure she'll ever top the first song I heard from her, Video Games. In many ways it encapsulates all that was and is great about her. But on first play of Chemtrails I found myself wanting to stop listening to it and put Video Games on instead.. That was the one that established her formula and I have to say she's being just a bit formulaic here. No I'll rephrase that. Utterly formulaic
It's a formula that sells and will continue to sell. If you ever want to go all dewey eyed and nostalgic. Think about your first love and what you've lost. Think about America in the Fifties and early Sixties, Probably things that you've never experienced. But life is surely about going forward if you can and I'm not sure Lana's going anywhere new here. I've heard this Lana Del Ray record before and frankly it sounds desperately tired to me.
This kind of thing is quite common these days. I'm constantly hearing albums that want to take me back to 1972. To 1981. This one, like so many of Lana's has 1958 in mind. Picket fences. Troubled teens. Technicolor. Coming from a small town and wanting to get out of it. Into a cadillac and out onto the highway. But frankly by Track Four I was wanting to get out and go somewhere else.Even if it meant running back to the small town.
If this was my first Lana Del Ray experience I would probably have perservered. But it isn't and I wasn't willing to. I wanted to hear something fresh and inspirational. This is hackneyed and listless. If you want to listen to a Lana Del Ray album, go elsewhere. She's done far better. Chemtrails Over The Country Club is yesterday's papers. Who wants yesterday's papers. Nobody in the world. Indeed.. It's a very, very poor record. Possibly worse than that. 'Making out in the parking lot' Lana. Oh no. No thanks! Strictly for the birds
Thursday, March 18, 2021
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 225 The Eurythmics
'a sinister anthem of loner pessimism and search for meaning...'
Song of the Day # 2,611 The Quivers
Australian guitar light. Impossible to get too much Australian guitar light.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Goat Girl - On All Fours
Where to start with Goat Girl and why I've neglected their second album, the unfortunately named, On All Fours. There is only one place to start for me. With Susie Fenn. Susie Fenn was a girl I went to secondary school with. Almost forty years ago. Susie was an assured and attractive girl who poured a packet of sugar over my head in a Domestic Science for absolutely no reason. Simply because she could. Such stuff can cause lifetime scars of minor kinds. I'm fine of course, but I'll never forget it. It felt like a small and slightly painful initiation ritual into the world of adult relationships.Kids games of course compared with the incredible pain that can come later.
Now Susie Fenn really has nothing to do with Goat Girl at all. But when I saw them play at Cluny 2 in Newcastle a few years back, supporting someone, (I can't remember who), their stage demeanour reminded me of Susie Fenn. Of all the cool, surface confident and sometimes scary, (and certainly scarily attractive girls), I went to school with. I have a good friend who wonders why I like Siouxsie & the Banshees, or at least the early Siouxsie & the Banshees. It's because almost all of those girls made themselves up, or tried to make themselves up like Siouxsie did back in those days. Ready for battle.
So I've finally got round to On All Fours and I love it. I heard a song from it on the radio the other day which finally made me take the plunge. I've been playing it ever since. It's a small but specific marvel. A very interesting record. One of the best albums I've heard this year and that's a high compliment. There have been some really great ones already. It doesn't really remind me of Siouxsie and the Banshees at all. It reminds me most of all of Warpaint. Also the glossy surfaces of early and later Roxy Music. But really this is all Goat Girl's and its enormous credit to them. A mighty achievement so early in their career.
It's an enormous shift and expansion of sound and scope from their first, eponymous album, which came out a couple of years back. That was good in its way, a small quirky record, that made plenty of friends. This is something else. One which reaches and attains a grace and assurance they only hinted at there. This should win them a lot more and take them on to a new level if there's any justice in this world at all.
Some similar themes emerge here as with their first. Irritating men. Worse than irritating men and how to deal with them without submitting to their bullying ways. Not being down on all fours I suppose, there must be a reason for choosing a title like this, but I wonder what their mothers think! Goat Girl are certainly not submissive but they're not aggressive either. Their's is a swirling, immersive sound, glossy and seductive, enhanced by the neat electronic touches the band have added to and enhanced their sound with.
Politics too. The strange times we find ourselves in. In many ways the spiritual home of Goat Girl are the late Seventies and early Eighties. The height of Post Punk when similar ideas were being fielded on a regular basis. Round about the time Susie was pouring a packet of sugar over my head in the Domestic Science lab. But what differentiates Goat Girl from the usual Post Punk pack that so abound these days are that their influences are so difficult to trace and that's incredibly unusual these days.
Apart from Warpaint, and Warpaint are the obvious contemporary comparison, Goat Girl pretty much make their own scene. I'm sure they've listened to and taken notes from Warpaint records but there's nothing slavish here, (oh dear the submission thing again).Theirs is very much South Coast rather than West Coast. They inhabit their own space.
Thirteen tracks here but its a smooth and pleasurable ride. No jagged edges. Goat Girl have well and truly arrived and it will be incredibly interesting to see where they go from here. Time for me to put away foolish preconceptions and irrational prejudices. To forgive Susie Fenn, wherever she is and keep listening to this. It's fabulous. Simply!
Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 214 Depeche Mode - The Singles 86-98
Oops late!
'the overall best thing about the Mode is their understanding of the evryman nature of Dave Gahan's voice, and how that deadpan English croon could make themes of depression, decay and dominatrixes sound like dance-pop rather than tiresome old goth.'
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 224 Prince
'The first classic Prince single still stands.'
Song of the Day # 2,610 The Telephone Numbers
The Telephone Numbers is first and foremost a great name for a group. And this is a very lovely song that makes me want to hear more from this particular band. They're from San Francisco, which is apt, because I'm still delighting in hearing the new album from Cool Ghouls, another band from that part of the world, last Friday. But while The Ghouls seem more intent on stirring happy memories of Haight Ashbury and The Byrds, The Telephone Numbers appear to have their feet set firmly in the mid-Eighties and the C-86 sound, although that scene too was one that was immersed in revivalism and memories of ... yup The Byrds, as well of course as Buzzcocks.
Anyhow, The Telephone Numbers do what they do very well. They 'ring' if you'll excuse, or even if you won't excuse, the pun. They can also play, in a way that many of those first C-86 bands couldn't. You're Nowhere comes on initially like a song from one of the first couple of Julian Cope albums, then goes on to remind me of Grant and Amanda harmonising with The Go Between. It's Right Here. Another wonderful song that looked back, to be in the here and now, while looking forward to future's promise.
The lyrics here may talk of sadness but the tune only reminds me of happiness. It's heavenly. It's sunny. It's lovely. It's love. It's one of the best songs I've heard in a year where there has already been so much to love music wise. Let's hope The Telephone Numbers have anything in their saddle bag or in the works that is anything like as good as this. Why shouldn't they on this evidence. In their own words, 'What's life without some kindness...' Yes indeed.
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 215 Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
'If ever an album felt like an ecstatic release of tension, it's this...'
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 223 Michel Jackson
'Time has not diminished the strangeness of Billie Jean.'
Song of the Day # 2,609 Todd Briefly
I can tell you nothing about Todd Briefley. This is the only thing he has on Spotify and I can't find a biography of him anywhere. This though is one of the best things I've heard this year. Musically, lyrically and in every other way. Also its title. Its guitars remind me of the Gang of Four's full on assault. Pretty much everything else is its own. I look forward to hearing more from Todd Briefly.
Monday, March 15, 2021
Songs Heard on the Radio # 394 Goat Girl
It's clear, listening to it through properly for the first time, that I've really neglected the second Goat Girl album, the rather unfortunately named, On All Fours. Must get round to writing about it on here. In the meantime, just heard this on the radio.
Songs About People # 1,267 J.B. Priestley
Rather sprightly number for one of the great observers of the English.
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 222 Malcolm McLaren
'The Buffalo Girl video brought a technicolour explosion of breaking and bombing and scratching into every pop kid's living room. And they loved it.'
Song of the Day # 2,608 Minor Moon
Under an Ocean of Holes is a fascinating title. Song's pretty nice too. Good way to start the week.
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Albums of the Year 1973
1973 seems to be some kind of gap within my own personal record collection. I don't care for much of the Top Ten here and didn't have a huge number of great albums of my own to fill in the gaps. Anyhow, here's the list from the Best Ever Album chart.
1. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
2. Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
3. Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
4. Genesis - Selling England by the Pund
5. The Who - Quadrophenia
6. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
7. Paul McCartney and Wings - Band on the Run
8. Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power
9. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
10. Can - Future Days
Here is mine. Just records I own on vinyl. Still a pretty good list I'd say. A year of transition:
1. Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
2. New York Dolls - New York Dolls
3. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
4, Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On
5. Tom Waits - Closing Time
6. Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power
7. Al Green - Call Me
8.Bruce Springsteen - Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.
9. Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
10. Toots & The Maytals - Funky Kingston
Fear of Music - The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk & Disco # 213 Depeche Mode - The Singles 81-85
'Thirty six devilishly catchy and enormously influential nuggests of electronic pop.'
This is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk & Disco # 221 Madness
Song(s) of the Day # 2,607 The Fallen Angels
A group with a sound and ambience that you would probably need to make up if it didn't actually exist. The Fallen Angels, (and what a name that is) an American Psychedelic band from Washington D.C and the late Sixties. They had a sound to match their name. Very much of their time and perhaps not having enough about them to mark them out as true cult geniuses, they're still worth investigating.
Their eponymous, debut album from '67 is where you want to start. Baroque, in the way that Left Banke and Zombies were, reflective but not indulgent. At least not generally. They do have some moments which are and mark it very much as a record of its time that falls just short of being essential.
But it's still a record that has much to recommend it.. The sounds of Pop from these years is at such a remove from the concerns of our times that it seems like almost a lost garden and a highly attractive one at that.
The Fallen Angels is a really rather lovely record in many ways. Change of mood, carefree innocence, a reminder of times long gone and ones highly unlikely ever to be repeated. Alongside those mentioned above I'd also throw in Lovin' Spoonful, Kinks, Cryan' Shames, Manfred Mann and Turtles. That all adds up to a small feast to me. The kind of record Anton Newcombe should hear if he hasn't already though I imagine as an arch completist in this respect that he already has. Many times.
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