Song(s) of the Day # 3,398 Karen Took The Kids

 

Rich pickings in terms of new album releases this week. And as if it's not rich enough here come another gang from Melbourne. Melbourne has seemed like on of the best places to be music wise since Courtney showed up clutching Avant Gardener like some entirely new colour over ten years back now.

Karen Took The Kids, and what a name that is, seem pretty fresh themselves, Fever te opening track of their latest EP Career Pulp is one of the most invigorating things I've hears so far this year, and the three remaining tracks more than rise to its challenge.

Like Courtney they've learned something from Kurt. We all should. Their songs surge, and rise and fall like early Nirvana with considerable energy and passion. This will more than do and we can but wait for what comes next.

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 34 Dea di un sogno (Versione tromba e organo)

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 310 ABBA - Arrival

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 276 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Exodus

 

Jeremy Tuplin - Orville's Discotheque

 

At university, way back in the Mid-Eighties during the first term of  my second year, I had a rather singular seminar Literature tutor named Jeremy Tambling. He guided us with expert care through a course about the Nineteenth Century Novel, still for me the absolute peak period of this wonderful artform.  On the way, he introduced me, and several others within the class, to the joys of Post-Structuralism. To Foucault, Althusser and other critical titans. To Bakhtin as well. I'm eternally grateful to him. He taught me a lot that I've fed on ever since.

Rather less fortunately, his class, to my eternal shame, led to my head being turned to the considerable charms of a sweet American brunette in the group named Lynn. This is turn led me to damage and badly bruise the heart of my lovely girlfriend at the time, for which I have no excuse, and still upbraid myself all this time later. I try not to think about it frankly. I shouldn't have done that to her. I just shouldn't. I was a proper bastard. 

Fortunately she forgave me and took me back. And we went on to have a number more happy years together before we eventually were virtually obliged by circumstances to go our separate ways and brave the world without each other. Something we both found very difficult in different ways for a number of years

But focus, Bruce. Because this post is not about Jeremy Tambling, Lynn, the cute American brunette, or indeed about my first and dear true love and how I hurt her. It's about Jeremy Tuplin and his new album Orville's Discotheque just out. I've made acquaintance with this Jeremy too. He played the Cobalt Studios in Newcastle, the last live gig I witnessed back in February 2020 before the curtains were closed and the doors shut, and I was obliged, along with much of the rest of the world, to retreat into isolated existence in those incredible  Lockdown months. That world and character and perspective changing experience from which we are only now emerging, if we ever really will.

I spent a lot of time with Jeremy and his band that evening. They couldn't have been friendlier or more accommodating to me and they played a blinding set. I don't take this friendliness and approachability for granted with musicians if I go up to them before or after they play their sets. I'm naturally slightly shy myself and they've, not unnaturally, got other things on their minds apart from talking to people they've never met. But Jeremy and his band really couldn't have been nicer and I found the chats we had that evening really instructive. 

For Jeremy is one of those best of things. A young man with wisdom, far, far beyond his years. This is  quite clear from any  exposure to any one of his records. He's got something to say and he says it very eloquently each and every time he puts out a record. 

It sometimes takes me a while to warm to them and fully clutch them to my heart, because they're dense, like a good novel or a set of short stories. But I'm generally determined to do so because I like the guy so much and think he's such a talent. Orville's Discotheque is his fourth album and it strikes me as Jeremy becoming more his own man and transcending his influences in a similar way to how Baxter Dury has over the course of his career in a similarly determined fashion.

At the time I met him and chatted to him in 2020, he was fresh from the recording of his second album Pink Mirror . His approach to his art struck me as persona driven. This is one of the great British Pop traditions and I saw him at the end of a line that contained such greats as Ray Davies, Marc Bolan, Kevin Ayers, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Jarvis Cocker, Brett Anderson and Luke Haines. Phew!  He didn't seem to mind. I also mentioned Jack Thackray and he didn't seem to mind that either.

That's a pretty daunting and remarkable list but I didn't feel it out of place to place him there because he had all the louche charm, talent and intelligence to deserve comparison it. He deserves it still. Orville's Discotheque is as fine a record as Pink Mirror but it's one that's content to inhabit its own skin in a similar way in which Seventies celebrity impressionist Mike Yarwood used to say at the end of each show, 'and this is me.'

There's something rather wonderful about his transformation like a butterfly boldly chipping its way from its chrysalis. To do the record full justice I can do no better than quote the man's Bandcamp page, which describes the nature of the end result far better than I can. It's a literary one but goes back way further in time than the Eliot, Bronte and Dickens novels, we discussed in my University days under Tambling's tutelage while I, devoid of shame and decency, tried to attract the cute brunette's attention and admiration. Wanker!

Meanwhile, thirty five years and more down the line in Orville's Discotheque, something is stirring. The record is best listened to from the start as I just mentioned, to cotton on to its concept, and refer to that Bandcamp page for it's narrative thread: 'An Orphic Tale,  Orville's Discotheque and its multitude of characters - Orville (loosely Orpheus, Eugenie, (loosely Eurydice), Hermes, Hades and Persephone, - takes inspiration from Greek Mythology, but is also very much a story unto itself. Set in a world slightly left of reality, the record tells the story of a flawed disco-enthused anti-hero and his romantic travails. Possibly taking place in the 70's. the 80s, present day or maybe far into the future, Sad disco, dark disco, devilish dico, whatever he chooses to call it.  Orville's Discotheque is a quirky underworld, or dancefloor, for you to step on the dancefloor and slide through.'

Jeremy is there on the cover, resplendent in his Disco gear. Like some dancefloor Lothario, dancefloor Jesus. It looks great on the wall of my local record shop. This is the kind of record we need in 2023. One that allows us to dream. He is the kind of Pop Star we need. One who dares to. Come back to Newcastle Jeremy. So we can have another chat. Your imagination and bravery are something else. All power to that imagination, that bravery. And those elbows. 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,397 Foyer Red

 

The influence of Cate Le Bon. And not before time. Cate has been a constant joy since she first showed up fifteen years or so back, and now, just as she turns a regal 40, her legacy is starting to emerge.

Take Brooklyn's Foyer Red's debut album Yarn the Hours Away is generously spattered with Kate's DNA. But not to the extend of coming across as plagiarised. Merely inspired.

They in turn inspire with their quirks and jerks. They have idiosyncratic geek energy. Powered seemingly by Duracell batteries like the drumming rabbit in the ads of my youth. Not perhaps the stuff of workouts. Their rhythms are too weird.

Still, it's really energising in the way B-52's, Bush Tetras or Pylon must have been back in the day. It makes you long for New New Wave rather than Post Post Punk.  The call and response of the male and female vocalists. crazy rhythms. Doing the Pop thing rather than aping Ian, Mark E. or the Captain as so many seem to be resorting to in these strange, strange times. To the degree that something that was once the ultimate alternative, now is becoming the sad norm.

Foyer Red are anything but the norm. This is an encouraging record and I'm convinced that they would be the most enormous fun live. They're not bad on record either. I thoroughly enjoyed my forty minutes with Yarn the Hours Away. It's not just promising. It's admirably realised.

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 33 Atmosfera di night

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 309 Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 277 Eminem - The Marshall Mahers LP

 

Tinariwen - Amatssou

 

Tinariwen are truly one of the most wonderful musical phenomena of our age. Something to check the time on the clocks of your house by. They've been riding the dunes of their spiritual desert for over twenty years now and show no sign of stopping now. If anything they seem to be gathering pace.

Originally a collective of Tuareg musicians from the Southern Desert of Northern Mali, they've come to evoke something entirely larger and more enveloping down the years, for those of us unfamiliar with their specific region. Their's is a sound of spiritual defiance and freedom. 

For their latest album Amatssou, (and they're not particularly prolific), they're working with Daniel Lanois, which seems entirely natural and perhaps dilatory. Still, better late than never. Because the band are in rude health here, giving us a glimpse of a world and anima that most of us will never experience entirely.

Amatssou conjurs up a whole visual and spiritual universe of the sort we only really know from the TV and Cinema screen. It rises and falls like the hot and hostile world they hail from, but you always know you're in very safe hands and they will guide you with care and wisdom and an infallible inner compass, until you find yourself at your destination, ready for a bathe and the comforting sheets of your hotel bed..

I'm not well enough versed in Tinariwen's back catalogue to place this record within it. I only know it's another damned good one. Hot off the desert press as they say.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,396 Paper Bee

 

I've found another one! You can play this game at home too.  It's not difficult to do. Just skim down the new releases playlist each Friday, pick a name that takes your fancy and you may well find yourself dragged into a world you never imagined ,of beauty and wonder. It's one of my very favourite things to do.

Yesterday morning I was been wandering around the world of Paper Bee and their latest album, their second I think. Thaw, Freeze, Thaw. It's truly an enchanted world, Originally out of New England, they now find themselves in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and what they've crafted here is genuinely lovely and genuinely magical.

Think the early Eighties. Cherry Red  and Factory Records, Eyeless In Gaza, Durutti Column, Felt. All being played on late night radio by John Peel. Well, perhaps not Felt. Lawrence was foolishly deeply rude to him and the deeply sensitive Peel never forgave him and rarely played them. Much to their detriment.

This record revisits that world. It's like a walk through the woods at dawn. Dew on the grass, sunlight breaking through the trees, the insect world coming to life. It really captures that whole world so precisely.

The record is immediately incredibly arresting and sustains its rapture. A quite glorious discovery. Wonderfully realised female harmony. Something of a small classic. I always await the discovery of my underground American classic on here every year. Perhaps this is the one for 2023. Words are inadequate to explain how good this record is.

Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 562 Gloria Gaynor

'At first I was afraid. I was petrified...'

 

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 32 Milano Blues

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 278 Lana Del Ray - Norman Fucking Rockwell!

 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,395 bar italia

 

Post Punk seems to have become a totally meaningless catch all label as we make our way to the mid point of 2023. Tracy Denim, the third album in all from London's bar italia, and their first for the distinguished Matador label was described by the NME as Post Punk. It may well be, but I'd like to see the definition they're attaching for this judgement because I don't get it anymore. It just strikes me as laziness.

Whether it's a Post Punk record or not, and I'm not sure why it should be, it's a fascinating one. It reminded me of a number of things and none of them were The Fall, Gang of Four or Joy Division. This is far more difficult to define and all the better for that. The songs throughout are dense, fractured and broken up, melancholy and slightly druggy. That strikes me as an excellent recipe for repeat play. 

bar italia have female and male vocalists whose voices intertwine, clash and mesh. Their voices drawls all over the bands jagged, freeform textures and collages. He swoons like Robert Smith, (OK a Post Punk connection, there are others, serrated PiL guitar and so on), but also Damon Albarn. her voice, and the way it collides with his, actually reminded me of Senser, the Post Rave London band who always seemed to flirt with danger and evoked their angry times before Brit Pop arrived to take us back to the Sixties where we'd all been safe.

So Post Punk is not a label that makes any sense to me in this case. bar italia are far too smart to allow themselves to be stamped so brazenly on the forehand by the man. The record has a claustrophobia and woosiness that is closer in spirit to Bummed, Loveless, Maxinquaye or Blur than it is to Unknown Pleasures, Dragnet or Entertainment. It's splendid and strikes me as a keeper.

Billy Idol & Siouxsie

 

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 31 Concorso per giovani attrici

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 309 Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 279 The Beach Boys - The Smile Sessions

 

Mega Bog - End of Everything

 

And, like buses, so's the case with slightly loopy Folk ladies. No sooner has one arrived than another is looming on the horizon. This time Mega Bog, who are back with their latest, End Of Everything.

Mega Bog are American and their name to English ears sounds rather unfortunate. A 'bog' to us is, among other things a toilet, private or public. So whenever I think of them I immediately also think of a large public lavatory, probably in an enormous mall. Like I said, it's a bit unfortunate, but probably only for my tawdry, small mind.

Mega Bug themselves are anything but tawdry. They, or more specifically, their leader and focal point, Erin Elizabeth Birgy, can be quite extraordinary and have been, at least since I discovered them personally a few years back. 

Birgy has a wonderful voice. There's something witchy about her and I always like that. She's Folky, but she's also synthy, which is a nice touch and End Of Everything.finds her questing, as she always does, for fresh ways of expressing new pathways of self-expression for a pretty remarkable muse.

The first thing you'll probably notice about the record is its sleeve. It features an arresting shot of Birgy herself, naked as the day she was born, although she's clearly no longer a baby. It's an incredible and brave image, hovering somewhere between Egon Schiele art... and pornography frankly.

Anyway, that's an immediate talking point, but the record has any number of others. It's another stunning record that asks more questions than it answers, but I always love records that do that.

In short it's another winner. Birgy is one of the most treasurable talents we have. If you haven't discovered her yet, now's as good a time as any.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,394 Amy May Ellis

 

A couple of slightly loopy Folk ladies to kick off the weekend. I like slightly loopy Folk ladies. I don't think it's the official label. But you know what I mean. Breathy, intimate, slightly kooky. Joanne Newsom, Aldous Harding, Nadia Reid. Going back to Kate, who set this particular ball rolling all that time ago. She's essentially Folk too.

The latest of these I've discovered is Amy May Ellis. In my quest for new things to see in a live setting, I chanced upon Over Ling & Bell  her debut album from earlier on this year yesterday this year. She's playing The Cumberland Arms, which is a couple of miles away from me in ten days. I've determined to be there.

Over Ling & Bell is a small wonder. Determinedly and self- consciously small. But no less wonderful for that. In fact more wonderful. Simple, rolling melodies and rhythms. Almost whispered, enigmatic vocals. Perfect. 

Amy grew up in the middle of the North York Moors. This experience will surely have made their mark on her. She's now based in Bristol. This is probably just about all you need to know. The record is just enchanting. When she gets to The Cumberland Arms I'll be there. In the meantime I've got this.

Marc Bolan

 

Andy Rourke 1964 - 2023

 

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 30 Batticuore

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 308 Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 280 Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run

 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,393 The National Honor Society

 

It seems Seattle's National Honor Society were weaned on The Stone Roses rather than Nirvana. Debut album To All The Distance Between is bizarre product indeed. Housed in a sleeve of a pair of Edwardian looking bathing beauties, it certainly hops about.

One minute sounding like a bunch of Eighties Mods inclined types like the Prisoners, Monochrome Set or The Jasmine Minks, the next like a Singalong early Seventies outfit Edison Lighthouse, the one thing they sound nothing like is a band that lives in Seattle. I wonder if they get strange looks from their neighbours. I raised an eyebrow at this but it's curiosity more than anything else.

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 29 Giallo Club

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 307 Rush 2112

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 281 Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick

 

What I Did Last Night - Tapir! & The Golden Dregs at The Cluny

 

    My friend Jo during her time in Korea with her Korean superhero boyfriend. She's the lovely lass on  the left. I was very upset that she never told me about this.

I have a very good and very dear friend who's quite an inspiration to me. Her name's Jo. She's a bit younger than me. I worked with her for a year in Katowice, Poland, twenty years ago, and she now has a house in Bury near Manchester, and she makes it sound like the most exciting place imaginable, which is almost certainly not how I'd think about it if I didn't know her.

                                                The Telegraph. Where the lovely Amy works.

Jo is one of the most full on pleasure and thrill seekers that I've ever met, and I'm in full admiration of that, there's not a smidgeon of criticism in that comment. I think it's a very good thing to be. Someone who knows me very well, once described me as a hedonist and I was very grateful, because it told me something about myself that I hadn't realised before. I always thought that I was just in big trouble.

Jo is surely a hedonist too. She has two main pursuits apart from holding down a number of pretty demanding jobs. Firstly her house is a menagerie of rabbits, rodents, felines and birds of various types. Picture a scene not unlike Doctor Doolittle with Jo as a modern and far more interesting version of Rex Harrison shrieking, (Jo has always shrieked a lot), and probably treading on pets in some new, entirely self-generated drama.

Jo's other passion is gig going. Every other night it seems, her social media page has news of her latest gig going adventure. Along with her set of female mates who she meets up with for these. She posts  lovely pictures of them all, grinning uncontrollably from ear to ear, before, during and after the latest Shed Seven gig, or whoever they've used as the latest excuse to meet up and make merry.

                                                      My meal in the French Quarter yesterday.

I'm conducting a similar experiment in living this year. I'm going to as many gigs as I can, in an 'enjoy yourself, it's later than you think' spirit that I don't doubt the late great Terry would be in whole hearted approval of. After the closed down, locked down years we've all endured, and in my case I confess rather enjoyed, because I needed a break from what I was going through, in terms of work in particular. But now the doors seem finally as if they're open for business once more, and in the words of Saint Lou, 'We're coming out',  though I realise that he was talking about something slightly braver and riskier than just going to a gig of an evening.

So yesterday I went to see The Golden Dregs and as it turned out Tapir! at Cluny 2 in Ouseburn, Newcastle. I had a great pre-gig pre-amble. I went to see my darling Amy. The barmaid with the finest beehive in the Newcastle at The Telegraph where she works . Put some songs on the jukebox. Read my Mojo.

                                            The Free Trade Inn. Where Billy hangs.

Then, a truly wonderful meal at The French Quarter, a restaurant I've walked past a hundred times and frequently admired its menu without venturing in. An error I'll make amends for.. Next, a walk down the Quayside on a wonderful, bright afternoon, up the stone staircase to The Free Trade. Billy, my artistic mate is there as I'd hoped.

Billy is well into his early evening session. Drinking sensibly and highly responsibly I hasten to add. We talk about the art he produces and posts on social media. It's getting better and he knows it. He's with his mate Paul, who seems a thoroughly good bloke too. Then it's time to go, I suspect the support will be on, so I bid them farewell and take the short walk from the Free Trade to The Cluny.

Tapir!

The support are on. I wonder whether to see them or nip up to The Cumberland Arms for a quick drink. I choose the former option and it turns out to be one of those opportune decisions that allows you to come upon a small musical wonder you hadn't expected.

Because the support band Tapir! in their small unassuming way are quietly magnificent. A six piece, of very nice looking people, set out neatly across the stage. They're wonderfully young, but the best kind of youth, the type with obvious wisdom beyond their years. Their singer mid-stage with longish hair and a cap, blessed with a quite exquisite voice that hits quite astonishing high notes with great ease.

                                                                      The Golden Dregs

The rest of the band offers support to a beautiful set of songs that have space and rapture and reminded me a bit of Grizzly Bear and Beirut which, let's face it, are not bad things to be compared to. The band features a quite beautiful, young female trumpeter who my heart went out to until I remembered my advanced years. She also contributes backing vocals to some songs. Tapir! are altogether a special gift and I made sure to tell a couple of them afterwards and they seemed grateful for my praise.  Watch them. They seem capable to me of something really special. But please remember, you read it here first!

Then a short break, an opportunity for me to have a look at the merch stand. The Golden Dregs gradually assemble, make technical adjustments to their gear and are off.

I've listened to the band's latest record On Grace & Dignity a number of times this year and it's clearly something special. I'll be going back to it a lot more after tonight. I'm delighted to discover immediately that they're a band in the real sense, a six piece. But their main and overriding objective is to support and shine a spotlight on leader Benjamin Woods.

Comparisons are spurious, but also sometimes necessary. For Golden Dregs think, a slightly cheerier Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Or Tindersticks. Or Lloyd Cole with or without his Commotions. Woods has a rather uncanny physical resemblance to a young Lloyd strangely. He's also keen to make an impression tonight. In the second song he steps off the cup of the stage and patrols the area around the first few rows of the audience like a restless panther. The audience are a little more reticent than Newcastle audiences generally are I notice. Usually they're half cut frankly, but tonight they're not and they watch with a quiet but appreciative respect. Deserved because the band put on a proper show.

That's all you can ask for. That a band give you a show and something to think about and talk about afterwards. That's certainly the case here. The Golden Dregs are in a uniform of sorts. All in white though this is composed of white clothing of various items rather than all wearing exactly the same thin . They don't go as far as the whole Alex and his droogs Clockwork Orange look. That would be slightly sinister.

They look good though. They have a male keyboardist with a closely shaved head and a rather fetching white ball dress. Very 2023. He also contributes arresting and beautiful backing vocals as the set progresses. Three more of the backing players chip in with backing vocals of their own and the effect is calming and impressive. They're tightly drilled but easy going.

Woods is quite Cave and Cole in terms of his imagery. There are a lot of religious moments. Quite deliberately. These are songs you can enjoy and immerse yourself in at one and the same time. They don't reveal all their secrets and that's always a good idea. Keep some mystery.

I've enjoyed it a lot. I tell Woods that afterwards when he comes to the merch stand and I buy a £10 t-shirt. Something I don't always do. I talk to him briefly about the influence issue. Not really an issue here. I mention the Cave thing and he admits they get it a lot but he doesn't mind because he loves the man. I also tell him that despite the reminders there's a definite originality about what they do and that's admirable these days. Another great evening. My friend Jo knows. In the words of Big Country, (and as this is coming to a close, you'll be pleased this is the last of these quotes from the greats)., Stay Alive! It's important.  I take my bus home.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,392 Oval

 

Another instrumental record. After Craven Faults, which I'll be playing in its entirety for some while, I'm in the mood for them. This is from Oval, composer Markus Popp, who's been doing this, or similar things to this, since the Nineties.

Traditionally  I've always been somewhat impatient with instrumental records that aren't Classical or Jazz ones. I got a bit impatient listening to this record, Romantiq. I was waiting for it to open up its wings and truly fly.

Unlike Craven Faults Standers it never truly does. It's a diverting record but never a truly wonderful one or one I'll book time to go and revisit. It's one for others.

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 28 Gangsters

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 308 Parliament - Mothership Connection

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 282 The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out

 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,392 Greg Mendez

 

Another of Darren Jones recommendations. I'm not quite sure how he does it. He's been dropping me a line on here and letting me know what he's listening too for a while. Generally, my response has been to listen to the records he directs me to myself and then pass them on to you. That's what I'm doing now.

Here's another. Greg Mendez. An eponymous record that has also attracted Pitchfork's attention and received a 7.8 review, remarkably generous for them. He's from Philadelphia, if such factoids are important to you. On his Spotify page he sits, crouched in a burgundy hoodie and John Lennon spectacles. He's obviously the sensitive type.

This is a good record, but I'm not sure It's a 7,8. We've heard its like for many years, many times now down the years. Mark Kozelek, Mark Linkous, Elliott, Bon Iver. Mendez doesn't add unheard layers of pain or nuance to what we've heard but there may be some poor kid in the American suburbs who is owning this record on repeat play as we speak so I'm not going to knock it. Anyway, the cover's a neat one. Definitely worth a listen if you think of yourself as sensitive yourself.. Don't we all?

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 27 Le notti della violenza

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 307 David Bowie - Low

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 283 Genesis - Foxtrot

 

White Denim - Relaxed

 

Last week I was very surprised to see a young and highly Punky band Fashion Tips warm up for their gig with a run through Steely Dan's Dirty Work. Now I like Steely Dan. Very much. But they seem to operate at cross purposes with anything with even the basic aspirations to Punk credibility which is surely something bands still aspire to. Maybe I'm completely out of the loop, but that was certainly the case once.

But this is 2023 and it seems everything is allowed. The Internet has democratized things to the degree that artists and bands feel free to wear a mish mash of influences on their sleeves that was hardly possibly in my day when people chose their beds and lay in them. These were barricades set up most obviously by Punk and maintained and  patrolled to a greater or lesser degree until the millennium.

Now it seems, anything goes. Take the new White Denim album, as first case for the prosecution. it's hardly 'cool' in the conventional sense. But I'm increasingly wondering whether any such thing exists anymore.

In the Eighties and you were an alternative band and you wanted to be considered cool, things were fairly straightforward. You just sounded like the Velvet Underground or The Byrds. Possibly, if you were slightly more adventurous, The Buzzcocks or Orange Juice. Nowadays, that's not the case at all.

White Denim come from Austin, Texas, a city with some musical heritage and a damned good musical scene now. They sound absolutely nothing like 13th Floor Elevators, the first significant band to emerge from here. In fact they sound like polar opposites. WD sound more like Steely Dan, and if that's an acceptable thing to do because everybody will admit the Dan were pretty good, they also sound like a lot of far more dubious things. West Coast mid-Seventies Jazz Funk atrocities that made right thinking Punks froth at the mouth. But, it all sounds perfectly OK in 2023.

I wouldn't buy Relaxed and I'd probably tire of its chord changes and slick, satisfied air after a few plays. I'd rather wait for the new Protomartyr album. This is alright. But now I want to listen to something else.

Song(s) of the Day # 3,391 Iguana Death Cult

 

Iguana Death Cult are movers and shakers on the Rotterdam Rock Scene. Rotterdam seems like it must be a pretty good place to live right now if music is a big thing for you. I certainly come across more interesting Dutch bands from Rotterdam than Amsterdam right now. Or indeed anywhere else in Holland right now.

IDC's latest album Echo Palace is a pretty groovy thing. It's urgent and funky and inventive and sounds primarily like two bands. Talking Heads between 1979 and 1983 and Parquet Courts between 2016 and now.

There's just one problem. They sound very, very much between 2016 and now. And though that's a pretty great thing, it became an inescapable itch that I just couldn't scratch, despite how good the record is. A band needs to be more like itself than it's influences at some point during its run and that never happened during Echo Palace.

Things Found on My Local's Jukebox # 561 D-Train

 

Heard in the mall. Blast from the past and frankly sounding quite fantastic.

Songs About People # 1,365 Nick Drake

 

Rather fragrant, lovely song for a man a lot of us would like to have seen.

The Golden Dregs - On Grace & Dignity

 

A lot of what I do on here is try to make connections. Ones that seem to make sense. For me and my imaginary reader on this blog. Whoever he or she might be. Descriptions of music are important, when you're writing about music. If you want to encourage that reader to listen to the artist or magician you're blathering on about and make connections of their own. Generally positive ones I hope. I don't often write about things I don't care about. I don't often listen to music I don't care for. This isn't a music magazine. What's the point?

I do care for The Golden Dregs though. They're good and I've recognised them as being good ever since I started hearing their music. On night time radio shows, their natural habitat, a few months ago. They're recognisably cool as soon as you hear them. In the same way as Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, and Johnny Cash are recognisably cool as soon as you hear them. In the way that some things are not. I won't embarrass the blameworthy, though perhaps I should, but I've just said that I don't like to dwell on things. Oh well. Bono. Let's just say that, and leave it there. Sorry Bono but despite your efforts down the years, you're still not cool.

 

The Golden Dregs are cool though. They're icy cool. Smokey cool. I'm not sure whether those two descriptions contradict each other. They work for me. They're Tom Waits cool. Beck cool. David Berman.  Kurt Wagner. Slightly depressed but clearly bright. Laconic. The glass is half empty, but also half full. It could go either way.

 On Grace & Dignity, the latest Golden Dregs record is cool. It signals particularly that Benjamin Woods, (who essentially is TGD), is a talent and a consolation. A consolation in that Leonard is no longer here and neither is Berman, but he is and he explores similar paths in order to console us. He understands humour of the darkest kind. He understands despair too and navigates a road somewhere between the two. 

On Grace & Dignity came out at the beginning of the year and I haven't listened to it enough. I'm going to see The Dregs, (if they'll forgive me for calling them that), on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to doing so. Will listen to this some more in the meantime, to ensure I'm fully prepared.

Nick Cave

 

Boom Boom! Italian Jazz Soundtracks at their Finest (1959 - 1969) # 26 Agente 007

 

The Mojo Collection - The Ultimate Music Companion # 306 Aerosmith - Rocks

 

Best Ever Albums - Top 1,000 Albums # 284 Boston - Boston

 

Song(s) of the Day # 3,390 Magic Wands

 

When we're young, we're drawn to darkness. It's a phase that most of us go through, from 12 or 13 usually as our bodies start to change. One of the great journeys in life.

Usually this is just a phase, something we shed as we transition to adulthood. Put in a drawer as we leave school for a job or university in search of the adult. But we need some music for those years, to tell the world that we can be dark, but that means we are interesting, and most importantly, attractive and mysterious.. This might sound flippant but it's not. It's important.

Magic Wands, from Nashville, Tennessee of all places, are soundtracking those important years for some as we speak. Just as The Bunnymen, The Cure and The Banshees did for me all those years ago. They're darkness lite. More lush and romantic, than actually dangerous and scary. More Cure than Banshees, and certainly swimming nowhere near the pools where The Birthday Party and The Gun Clubs lurked within the muddy reeds.

In many ways their latest album Switch reminded me most of all of the priceless opening sequence of Danny Darko. That haunting bike ride down a winding, curving hillside by a troubled teenage boy as darkness falls. All played out by the Bunnymen's imperious Killing Moon. That's the feeling you get here from track to track. It's consistent and perfectly judged and captured. Immersed in a certain sensibility and ambience.

This isn't an essential.record .It soundtracks a very specific journey, and one we can make and experience only once although it remains within us as long as we live. I've already taken this ride this, forty years ago now. That doesn't mean I didn't recognise and appreciate its arcs and contours again listening to this earlier this morning.

Covers # 205 Brian Eno

 

Eno shows Tight Fit how it's done with a wondrous version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.