Histoire D'horreur

Even if Hallowe'en and trick or treating really gets on your tits you should suspend your cynicism for as long as it takes to listen to this mix Andy Votel has done for his Finders Keepers label, made up of forty snippets from obscure European horror soundtracks. This goes way beyond doing the monster mash and pretending to be a zombie. Free download for today only.

By Land Sea And Sky

In this short film Billy Chyldish and family launch thirty-one CTMF dazzle ships into the Thames estuary. Each dazzle ship carries one green vinyl 7" CTMF single. A reward in cash or 'other printed matter of apparent value' will be paid for each one recovered. Goodness only knows what this week's storm has done to the dispersal of these ships, all named after an area of the shipping forecast. The film, soundtracked by Sibelius, is very lovely indeed.

Love Is To Die

Warpaint, whose first album Exquisite Corpse I loved and second album I liked a bit less if I'm honest (though I did like the single Undertow very much), are about to return with a new one. There's a new song, audio only, on Youtube and it's very good indeed- slow and low, a langorous, dreamy, post-coital/post drug haze and the bass playing of Jenny Lee Lindberg is sublime.



And here they are doing Elephants on Jools back in 2011. Keep away from that piano Holland!

Metal Machine Music

While everyone pays tribute, quite rightly, to Lou Reed's street poetry, use of a minimal number of chords, black clad rock 'n' roll cool and all round influence on much of what came after 1967's The Velvet Underground And Nico lp, let's remember this legendary 1975 album. Four sides of vinyl, over an hour long in total, of out of control noise, feedback and sonic mayhem. Not the type of controlled use of feedback and ambient noise that is actually a very good listen. A deeply uncomfortable listen.

Anthony H. Wilson said this was music for people who liked the sound of their fridge turning on and off- I could listen to my fridge turning on and off for a lot longer than I can listen to this. He also said this was Ian Curtis' favourite record. Let me know if you get all the way through.

Calypso Time

Today I am staving off the effects of this foul weather with calypso from Lord Kitchener (not the man who organised recruitment into the British army during the First World War but his namesake who came to Britain from Jamaica in 1948 on the Empire Windrush).

Rock 'n' Roll Calypso

Where's The Party Officer?

The early Big Audio Dynamite songs and lps are easy to praise and admire. Some of the later stuff seemed less so but I really like this 1990 song The Globe- Mick had been soaking up the club scene and this record reflects that in the beats, clipped guitars and the very early 90s rapping. The first set of musicians (Don Letts, Dan Donovan et al) had departed and Mick set out with a second group, named BAD II. The Globe's got a lot of charm and this song and Rush were both hits in the USA. It also samples Mick's Clash song Should I Stay Or Should I Go? which is probably very meta and must make sample clearance a lot easier.

The Globe (12" Mix)

Lou Reed

You don't need me to tell you why Lou Reed's passing today aged 71 is so significant, or to add to what will be a tidal wave of bloggery about his songs and music, or why The Velvet Underground are one of the most important bands ever or why Transformer is such a great record. It would be insufficient.

RIP Lou Reed.

What Goes On

Reason For Living

I heard this Roddy Frame song somewhere on the internet recently, from his 1998 album The North Star. I sort of meant to get it at the time and never got around to it and still don't own it today- and looking at various online marketplaces it isn't cheap. I'll start keeping an eye out for it in the second hand shops I frequent.

The song is a good 'un- lovely guitars and a cracking vocal. I sometimes think that Roddy clearly writes great songs and sings and plays them really well but sometimes it's just a bit too tasteful, too Sunday supplement, that he needs a bit of roughness in the production or to play with musicians that can't play that well as the session people he chooses. I like this one though- it chimes and rings and lifts and does what good guitar pop should do.

Reason For Living

Saturday Night Live

Twice in a day with the Weatherall connections. A live set from Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnstone at one of their A Love From Outer Space events back in June. For those with long attention spans, this is a four hour set. And you can download it for free. Saturday night- dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the... embedded sound file.

The clocks go back tonight. An extra hour but it'll dark at teatime tomorrow. But then as Luke Haines had it recently in a review of Morrissey's book 'life isn't all aspirin and polevaulting is it?'

They Were All On Hard Drugs

The Boiler Room hosted a night recently where Andrew Weatherall and Ivan Smagghe were set the challenge of trying to out-weird each other, something each man stepped up to manfully. As soon as it gets loaded onto Youtube or Soundcloud I'll put it up here. In the meantime, here's an utterly ace Julian Cope song that got played- a new one to me.

Thanks to Alan Ant and the Ripped In Glasgow massive for the tip offs. Again.



Everywhere, they were all on hard drugs.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 124

October 25th is also my wife's birthday- I hadn't forgotten this morning, no no no, I just thought I'd link it to Friday night's rockabilly post rather than this morning's John Peel post. So- happy birthday Mrs Swiss, this song is for you.

Elvis, as Chuck D said, was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me... well he never meant shit to me but all the same he never meant a massive amount either (or is that the same thing? Now I'm getting confused by Chuck's double negative). He was rockabilly in the 50s though even if he very quickly became something else entirely. His songs recorded for Sun are great, full of swing and raw guitar parts. Like this one from 1955, written by Arthur Gunter.

Baby Let's Play House

Keeping It Peel

October 25th is Keeping It Peel Day across the internet. I've taken part previously- the sound of John Peel's voice followed by something familiar and brilliant, or unfamiliar and brilliant, or just plain puzzling, was one of the joys of the man's radio show. In previous years I've posted Keeping It Peel songs by Half Man Half Biscuit, The Redskins and Sabres Of Paradise. I dallied briefly with posting a song from The Cramps only Peel Session but we've had a surfeit of Crampiness in recent weeks- not that you can have too much but I thought some of you might be getting bored- and when searching my d/ls folder found this, Sonic Youth covering The Fall's Rowche Rumble...

Rowche Rumble (Peel Session)

And also this from long lost blissed out, groovy, Balearic dance act Fluke, who I always had a soft spot for...

The Allotment of Blighty (Peel Session)

The two together, I think, kind of covers some of the spirit of the man and the radio show.

The Poet's Muse

                                                                 The Poet's Muse by William Oxen

This is from an e.p. called Today, Tomorrow And Forever Pete Molinari did with The Jordanaires a while back, a cover of Billy Childish's loveliest moment- Pete keeps it acoustic and sings it well, a bit smoother than Billy does it. He's on tour in Ireland and playing London soon. Come up north Pete- and when's that new lp coming out?

The Poet's Muse (Acoustic)

In The Nursery

I haven't posted any old-school Andrew Weatherall for some time- at least I don't think I have, it's easy to lose track. This is a re-working of a Sabres Of Paradise song by In The Nursery and is lovely- laid back but slightly spooky- and really more modern orchestral music than dance music. It came out on one sided 7". My copy isn't in very good condition, too hissy. I keep meaning to replace it.

Haunted Dancehall (Performed By In The Nursery)

And I'll Have Candy All The Time

I've heard this song crop up a few times in different circumstances over the last week or two and where the blog's concerned I take that as a sign- Bow Wow Wow, fronted by Annabella Lwin, had a pop take on a kind of Burundi beat and rock 'n' roll pairing. Masterminded by Malcolm McLaren, he nicked the three blokes from Adam Ant and found Annabella in a launderette aged 13. This got him into bother later when her Mum contacted the police about a photo session when she was aged 15, naked, recreating Manet's Le Dejeuner Sur L'herbe. This song and Go Wild In the Country were proper big hits and they released three albums before the boys in the band ejected Annabella. I Want Candy is a cover of a song by The Strangeloves (who themselves were a made up band, never really existed). The band have reformed various times with one, two or three members plus others. Sadly Mohawked, punkabilly, Gretschslinging guitarist Matthew Ashman died in 1995 of complications due to diabetes.

I Want Candy (Club Mix)

Video, a hit on early MTV, with some large candy props (geddit) and some green screen technology

Come Save Me

As well as the beefy indie-dance Andrew Weatherall remix of Jagwar Ma's Come Save Me single there's this remix by The Pachanga Boys- euphoric is the word. An extended two minute plus intro of ascending keyboard notes followed by ten minutes of hands-in-the-air excess, pitch bending all over the place. Like eating way too much chocolate in one go.

At The Age Of Ten She Looked Like Greta Garbo

I am developing an unfortunate habit of missing gigs I'd like to go to. This Friday Lloyd Cole is playing Sale's Waterside Arts Centre, a ten minute walk from my house- it is also Mrs Swiss's birthday and I'm not sure it's how she sees her birthday night going. Two Saturdays ago The Orb did their 25th Anniversary thing while I was in Sheffield. The last two Easter holidays away I've missed the reformed Big Audio Dynamite, the reformed House Of Love and Steve Mason. I missed Crocodiles a while back for lack of a babysitter. Roddy Frame passed through I couldn't attend.

I've always loved the first two Lloyd Cole And The Commotions albums, and some of the third as well. Perfect Skin is the obvious choice so I'm going with it; a perfect, wordy, jingly jangly mid 80s record with all those lines we all love- Louise with her perfect skin, cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin, Cosmopolitan magazine, basement flats and Greta Garbo.

Perfect Skin

Timperley Sunset

Sorry about the delay- I got caught up in a few family things and went out for tea and suffered the slowest service known to man.

Earlier on though-Panic on the streets of Timperley! The police turned up and closed the roads, the Mayor of Trafford spoke ('Frank wasn't a Tory!', someone shouted as he spoke. It took all my self control not to shout 'Trafford council cutting disabled children's respite, Tory scum'). Hordes of people milling and watching, Chris Sievey's family, scooter clubs arrived, fans with papier mache heads, a brass band and then the statue unveiled from within a shed. We'll have to return to get some decent photos without all the crowds. In the meantime here's Timperley Sunset...

Meanwhile, In Timperley Village...

Today, at 11.37 precisely, the Frank Sidebottom statue pictured above will be unveiled in Timperley Village (opposite the Nat West). The local paper says the unveiling will involve a shed. I will keep you updated.

Strings

On this Saturday morning in October, for no reason other than it came to mind last night, I present to you.... the greatest techno record ever made.

This is the unreleased mix of String Of Life, as available on the superb Retro Techno/Detroit Definitive: Emotions Electric lp, one of dance music's essential texts. This is not techno with banging repetitive beats (not that there's anything wrong with that, in the right time and place), nor a slightly dated late 80s club anthem. This is electronic music as food for the soul, machine music for a future that never quite materialised. As the subtitle of the album said 'Emotions Electric'- and without vocals too.

Derrick May's borrowed piano loop, some wood block percussion, some twinkly bits, some synth string stabs. The sum of the parts...

Strings Of Life (Unreleased Mix)

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 123

My recent spurt of Cramps enthusiasm has led me back to some of the source material. On Stay Sick! there is a suitably great and sleazy cover version of this song by the great Carl Perkins, from way back in 1956 and recorded for Sun Records. Carl has that pared down sound and and tone and wants to let her know that he's 'a lovin' man'. This is risque, even lewd, stuff for the mid-1950s- he says he'll take off all his clothes for her. His lovin' is so much that she'll follow him to the grave. And I can't believe it was only Lux Interior who took her love rubbing off on him as literally and not just metaphorically.

Her Love Rubbed Off

Free Your Mind

You might have seen and heard this already but if you haven't get your ears opened up- Cut Copy remixed by Spiritualized. Cut Copy decided to write a call to arms for a new youth movement. Jason Pierce remixed it with some organ, some guitar notes and a lot of controlled noise and static, with some of his whispered bottom-of-the well vocals appearing about reaching for the sky. Quite superb.

I Don't Want Your Money Honey

While 'researching' my Patsy Kensit and Eighth Wonder post the other day my attention was drawn to the Youtube sidebar, a timehole if ever there was one. On the right hand side of my screen were several related links, quite a few of them to Transvision Vamp. And so vanished twenty minutes of my life until I slapped myself around the face and shook myself out of a late 80s/late teens haze. Watching various Transvision Vamp videos and TOTP performances it was clear (if there had ever really been any doubt) that Transvision Vamp, no matter what they said, were not really about the music or the boys in the band. Nope- they were definitely about Wendy James and specifically about making the most of Wendy James' looks to sell records. I remember buying at least one TV 12" single specifically for the sleeve; in fact specifically for the picture of Wendy on the sleeve. I wasn't much bothered about the poppy-punky music (it was alright but not much more than that). It was the sleeve.

I Want Your Love

All You Need Is Me

Morrissey's autobiography is out imminently via Penguin (Penguin Classics apparently). Long awaited I suppose you could say. There are several things I expect from it-

a) It will most likely be highly unreliable as a historical source
b) It will be both entertaining and irritating in equal measures (like Mark E Smith's book from a few years back- MES repeatedly, repeatedly, slagged off middle class tossers, music journalists and students- it became quite boring after a while- and hey, Mark, say hello to 90% of the people who have bought your records since the late 1970s)
c) Moz will use it to settle scores with all and sundry- Mike Joyce, Johnny Rogan, assorted former band members, record labels, journalists, the NME, other bands...

I will probably read it at some point though I will not be joining any queue to buy it at those outlets opening at midnight to sell it to the hardcore. I hope Waterstones have taken on extra security. This was a single a good few years back which had a good deal of swagger about it.

All You Need Is Me

Shorty

I found this in one of the places I sometimes lurk on the net- Shorty by Hardway Bros. Eight minutes of lovely repetition with a highly evocative video. Aciiieeeddd!

Swiss Guards- Shameless Self Promotion

I always feel a bit bashful about doing this, because it is shameless self promotion, but mainly because you lot have such well developed critical faculties, are faultless judges of good music and might regard my humble musical offerings as, well, a bit shit- but here we go.

Swiss Guards, the band formed by myself and Mr HSD in 1997, have released a new e.p. of songs found in the Swiss Guards vault. Recorded about five years ago and gathering dust on a hard drive ever since, the Locusts And Honey e.p. can be bought for £2 from Bandcamp. I can't really review my own work in any real sense but there are two guitar based songs- Melancholic Streak and Stalactite Rock- and two electronic songs- Locusts And Honey and Heart Beating. I'd like to think they are worth fifty pence each and that you might find something to enjoy. I'm saying no more than that.

Excitingly though we are to be played on the radio tonight. Yes, tonight. On the radio. Moorlands Radio (103.7fm), serving the Staffordshire moorlands area have a show on at 9.00pm called Left Of Centre hosted by Gary Wilcox, playing stuff from the left of centre, the nether regions, the left of the dial. I am actually quite excited. You can listen here.

Avery Mix

Daniel Avery- his fine new album Drone Logic is out now and was mentioned here last Thursday- was the guest for BBC Radio 6's 6 Mix on Friday night. You can listen to it on the iPlayer (and probably find a d/l of it if you have a scoot around the internet). It's an electronic delight including The Horrors, Death In Vegas, My Bloody Valentine and a whole load of good people who, let's be honest, we've never heard of. A good mix of things- a bit like Picasso's twinning of striped t-shirt with checked trousers.

If you've not been before Friday night regular George has started a blog- Jim McLean's Rabbit. It is a splendid mish-mash of music related stuff, including records he no longer owns and other musings. You should give it a go. Tell him I sent you.

Sunday

Here I am, a few hours later than usual for a Sunday and with a slightly sore head. Last night was a blast, even though someone did bring The Birdie Song and expect it to be played. I suspect there could be people all over Sheffield this morning thinking 'he didn't play my record last night' but everyone seemed to have a good time. The charity shops of south Yorkshire have sold out of 7" singles. The Cramps cleared the floor completely, whoosh, everyone scattered. And I have a pile of singles that could be labelled 'extremely camp'.

I need something mellow and soothing before I have to lug all the gear back to the loft and start to put my records away. This is Chris Helme's cover version of Irma Thomas' Anyone Who Knows What Love (Will Understand), both mellow and soothing.



Something a bit odd is going on- my readership and page view stats have quadrupled over the last two days with no obvious reason. Can't see where all these extra readers have come from. But Hello anyway, whoever you all are.

Saturday Night Live

Saturday night and some of the real stuff for you- while I am preparing to play records for the good folk of Sheffield that happen to know my friend RPM, you can listen to this rather than settle down to watch that shite on the telly. This is last night's heroes The Cramps in a live performance for TV on what seems to be The Late Show around 1990 doing the mighty Bikini Girls With Machine Guns and Muleskinner Blues. Proceed with caution- at one point Lux strips off his shirt to reveal...., well, you'll have to see for yourselves.



What's Inside A Girl? live in Amsterdam- Lux might hog the attention but Ivy and her guitar are the real stars...



And a few years earlier on The Tube, What's Inside A Girl? again and Hot Pearl Snatch.



Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?

45 RPM

Tonight I am spinning records at a friends 45th birthday party in Sheffield. His initials are RPM and so the theme of the party became evident to us a few years ago- 45 RPM.

All the guests have been instructed to bring a 7" single with them, which I will play (or not possibly, I have some boundaries and standards after all). I'm bringing some extras from my collection as a) back up and b) to ensure dancing takes place later on. I'm boxing up some 12" singles where there are required tunes that I only have on 12" and hey, we make the rules, we can break them can't we? I may take a 10" or two as well. But mainly it's about 7" 45 rpm singles. What about 12" singles that play at 33 rpm I hear you ask? I don't know. Depends what they are I suppose.

I fear some guests may bring some 'funny' records. There's a balance to be struck between 'fun' and fun. And I'm attempting to take charge of that balance. No I will not play your Barron Knights single- well, maybe later, if there's time * drops Barron Knights single behind radiator*.

It's nice to be getting the gear and records together again after a good time off from this sort of thing. Having missed 33 RPM it gives us a dry run for 78 as well. In the unlikely event that anyone reading this is attending the party, see you there. For no particular reason other than I just found it in my downloads folder, here is Grace Jones.

Pull Up To The Bumper (12" mix)

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 122

Muleskinner Blues first appears in 1930, performed with some yodelling by country legend Jimmie Rodgers



Being an unemployed muleskinner can't have been much fun during the Depression of the 1930s. Come to think of it, being a muleskinner can't have been much fun at any time. Muleskinning isn't as gruesome as it sounds though- a muleskinner was usually a man who drove mules. In the song the muleskinner approaches a boss looking for work. Asked what skills he has he replies 'I can pop my initials on a mule's behind'. Various versions take the song elsewhere, some directing it as a Black narrator who walks out on the white boss when he doesn't get paid, some not mentioning muleskinning at all, some using the third verse to turn attentions to the man's Mississippi girl. Blind Lemon Jefferson had a blues take on it, country stars Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff recorded it, Woody Guthrie, Odetta, Lonnie Donegan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott...

In the 1960s The Fendermen added some surfy guitars and rockabilly swing, and a fairly unique vocal take, full of hee-hee-hee-heeing. Many muleskinning aficionados rate this as the best version and it's got rockabilly written all over it's grooves.



Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton and Don McLean all had a pop at muleskinning. By the time The Cramps got to it in 1989 the yodelling had vanished more or less, although Lux adds some pretty raw vocals with a bit of guttural hiccuping. Very raw with amped up zinging guitars and some real menace.

Muleskinner Blues

Southern Gul

I like this deep, funky, steamy and sparse remix of Erykah Badu (from 1999) and her list of what makes a southern girl- 'I like my tofu fried' amongst other things. Sultry.

Drone Logic

This is a twenty minute preview megamix of Daniel Avery's album Drone Logic, out at the start of this week. If you like dark, bass heavy, weird noise-led, synth-string, underground electronic music, this should be right up your alley.



Drone Logic (Factory Floor/Gabe Gurnsey Remix)

Philip Chevron

Philip Chevron of The Pogues died yesterday aged 56. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the head and neck back in 2007 and in 2012 was given the all clear. The tumour came back and took his life yesterday morning. Philip's best loved song is the truly great Thousands Are Sailing, which I've posted before. This song- Haunted- was from the soundtrack of Alex Cox's Sid And Nancy film, sung by Cait O'Riordan, and deserves to be more widely known. RIP Philip Chevron.

Haunted

Swim To Me, Let Me Enfold You

Beautiful live version of the Starsailor's death trip song; it keeps vanishing from Youtube so watch while it's hot. The album version is less folky, more...twinkly and disorientating. But this is superb too- entrancing and with the original line about being as puzzled as the oyster, which he later changed to 'as a new born child' after someone laughed at it. I'm not a big fan of the rest of his output but this song is entrancing. Quite appropriate really.

Keys To Your Heart

Before The Clash Joe Strummer played London's pub rock scene with squatters the 101ers. Joe brought his Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry influences and the kind of intense performance that got Mick, Paul and Bernie Rhodes to ask him to leave and join them. Joe's style was described as 'a man scrubbing a Telecaster' and that chugging rhythm is well evident in this 101ers song, one of their best. When The Clash set out love songs were very much off the agenda, Joe as scornful of anyone about Mick's lovelorn tunes. But Joe hadn't been averse to them himself....

Keys To Your Heart

The new Sound System boxed set, shaped like a boom box (or ghetto blaster as we used to call them) has the tape counter on the front stuck at 101, a nice little nod of the head from the Simonon design team.

Lose The Reason

Nobody told me The Primitives had released limited edition 7" singles earlier this year. But they did- this one came out in February. In fact, if you play around on Youtube for a while you can find a load of new stuff from them. They sound just like they did back in the mid-to-late 80s. You may have different opinions on that but this is a highly enjoyable romp through chiming guitars and boy-girl vocals.

Lose The Reason

My Life's An Open Book

I had this Eighth Wonder song in my head all day the other day- no idea why, I just woke up with it there. Back in '87-'88 I rather liked Miss Kensit and this Top Of The Pops performance is a reminder to my seventeen year old self of why. The song, written by the Pet Shop Boys as surely everyone knows, is a belter- full of those Neil Tennant lines that only he can write- and while Patsy's voice isn't exactly deep and rich it works nicely with the song.

Saturday Night Live

'Get three coffins ready...'

Big Audio Dynamite live at Teatro Carlos Gomes in Rio in 1987, seven songs mixing guitars, keyboards, dance beats and samples, all fired up and taking off. Interspersed with the odd bit of interview footage with Mick and Don.

Medicine Show, C'Mon Every Beatbox, Hollywood Boulevard, Wind Me Up (Poontang), Sambadrome, The Bottom Line, B.A.D

'Proceed!'

The Whole Of The Law

It's not often that someone who has played stadiums alongside the 'greatest guitarist of his generation' plays one of your local pubs- but such was the case last night as Chris Helme appeared at The Brooklands Tap for the princely entrance fee of £3.00. You can barely get a pint for £3.00 now so I thought I'd go down and have a look. Following his departure from the Stone Roses John Squire quickly put together The Seahorses with Chris Helme as singer, discovered while busking in York. I really liked the first single Love Is The Law and the follow-up Blinded By The Sun, written by Helme. A post album single followed which somehow I have managed to own two copies of on 7"- You Can Talk To Me- which I also really liked. Trad Britpop rock maybe, but with a decent tune and well played. Parts of the album Do It Yourself I cannot recall at all, in fact looking at the tracklisting I don't even recognise the titles.

Chris does his thing now as a singer-songwriter, acoustic guitar and beard, travelling light. He plays a mixture of those Seahorses songs, some Nick Drake influenced folky stuff and a couple of covers (The Faces' Ooh La La, No Expectations). He sings really well and gives the songs a real wallop. We were accosted by a young drunk mid-set who insisted David and myself looked like Ray Winstone and Danny Dyer respectively (not true in either case thankfully). Having sung on the main stage at Glastonbury you could argue that singing to fifty people in a suburban South Manchester boozer is a bit of a comedown but I suspect Chris has been through the wringer and just wants to play to anyone who wants to listen.

This is the full length version of debut single Love Is The Law (with its Crowley quoting title). The riff sounds like a good Second Coming out-take. The song is three minutes long followed by four minutes of John Squire playing guitar, long and loud.

Love Is The Law (album version)

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabillly Night 121

Tonight's rockabilly offering is more early rock 'n' roll than rockabilly I think- there's a difference though I'm not sure I can put my finger on exactly what it is. Rockabilly is rawer, swings more, closer to the black music that created it when it spawned with country. Rock 'n' roll is a bit cleaner, a bit whiter maybe- more country and pop, less blues and jazz. Maybe that's all bollocks. Complaints to the usual department.

Johnny Restivo had a hit with this song in 1957. A smouldering hunk of love, he wasn't above a bit of male modelling either as the picture above shows.

And indeed, the one below from 1960.

The tune's a good 'un. Unlike those pants.

The Shape I'm In

This Generation Rule The Nation

Big Youth, Sonic Youth...Musical Youth!

Can you hear that? That's the sound of a theme being stretched past breaking point. Snaaaap!

Anyone around my age or older will remember 1982's most unlikely number 1 single, by a bunch of kids from Birmingham. They sold four million copies and were the first black artists played on MTV. The Mighty Diamonds had a song- Pass the Koucthie- about passing the pipe around. Musical Youth altered it slightly to 'dutchie', patois for a cooking pot, and added the line 'How does it feel when you got no food?', turning a celebration of getting stoned into a celebration of getting stoned with social and economic overtones. Good work I feel.

Pass the Dutchie

Everybody's Talking 'Bout The Stormy Weather

So we skip seamlessly from Big Youth to Sonic Youth. I've got several Sonic Youth records but when it comes down to it the only one I need is the opening song from their 1987 double opus Daydream Nation, an album that seemed to signpost a new big thing. Fact is, whenever I think I'm going to listen to Daydream Nation I never get any further than playing Teen Age Riot three or four times. That's not to say that the rest of the album hasn't got anything going for it- it has- but the rest of it isn't Teen Age Riot. It's Sonic Youth's perfect moment. I can make a case for Death Valley '69 and much of Goo (I love Dirty Boots) and some later stuff like Murray Street and also some of Ciccone Youth (they've got a good way with covers- their versions Neil Young's Computer Age and the Carpenters' Superstar are both superb). But Teen Age Riot is head and shoulders above- from it's smoky intro with Kim Gordon intoning blankly to the riff and then Thurston's half-spoken, half-sung vocals, a tribute to sloth king J Mascis, and the whole effortlessness, pre-slacker controlled noise of it all. US indie-punk cool.

Teen Age Riot

Of course sometimes they're insufferable obtuse as well, noise-for-noise's sake, music from the head rather than the heart or the loins. Record collectors and rock critics let loose in an instrument shop. I suppose I shouldn't carp- many bands don't make one song that'll be remembered twenty five years after it was recorded.

And Don't You Come Back No More

Today's song is from the mid 1970s, roots and rockers reggae's golden period, and celebrated deejay Big Youth (pulling a wheelie too- I could never get the hang of that). Hit The Road Jack was written by Percy Mayfield in 1960, possibly inspired by Jack Kerouac's On the Road (but opinions seem to differ on this). Ray Charles had a hit with it in 1961 duetting with Margie Hendricks- she kicks him out cos 'it's understood, he's got no money, he's no good'. Big Youth recorded his version in 1977- the year two sevens clash.

Hit The Road Jack

Pansy Melodic Underground

Mark Wynn, motormouth from York, is back with a new e.p. called The New Pansy Melodic Underground, available at Bandcamp and at name your own price. One of the best things about Mark's stuff - apart from his idiosyncratic scattergun approach and rapid fire delivery over knackered sounding guitars and the fact that his lyrics can make you laugh out loud and sometimes you have to rewind them to check what you just think you heard- is that the physical copies come with hand drawn leaflets and pamphlets (like the one above). The latest cd comes with a copy of Dirty Work #7. My favourite one off this e.p. is Cassie Ramone Dream Song #2, slower than some of the others, featuring something akin to a guitar solo and some ooh-ooh-ooh backing vocals. Like The Minutemen his songs are all really short, another one due any second soon, rattling by in a blur. Try him out.