Bo Diddley 'You Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover'

I found this picture of the great Bo Diddley, and realised I needed to post a song to accompany it. On this occasion, you can judge a book by it's cover.

04 You Can't Judge a Book by It's Cover.wma

Sons Of Slough 'Snares & Temptations'

Sons Of Slough (not Andrew and Ian Weatherall apparently, but Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) from the Haywire compilation cd I wrote about yesterday. I remember a while back when Weatherall did one of his 6 Mix shows he played a version of Liar With Wings (from his excellent solo lp A Pox On The Pioneers released last year) that Ian Weatherall had remixed. That's the sum total of my knowledge about Ian Weatherall's musical contributions, although Discogs lists various Sons Of Slough singles, an lp and a few remixes.

The photo? Slough bus station. Beautiful isn't it.

03 Snares & Temptations.wma

Teenage Fanclub 'Don't Look Back'

Teenage Fanclub, like Sonic Youth, saddled themselves with a name that looks slightly more daft each decade they survive. They have recorded some great and beautiful songs, this one Don't Look Back being one of them. There is nothing wrong with this song at all, it's perfect- wistful, wise, romantic, great vocals and lovely guitars, melancholic and uplifting. Somewhere I've got a 7" e.p. Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It, where they did acoustic versions of four of their songs, with old organs and shakers and stuff, which I need to go and dig out.

dont-look-back-teenage-fanclub.mp3

Two Lone Swordsmen 'Felt Under Pressure'

More rare Weatherall, this time from a Firewire compilation cd called Audiophiles 1.1. that cropped up on ebay a few years back and had to have. Firewire is the mulitmedia division of Haywire, a dj booking agency, who handled TLS back in the late 90s and onwards. This compilation was released in 1999, and someone at Discogs has it valued at 40 euros (I don't have a euro symbol on my keyboard). The cd also has Sons Of Slough (Weatherall and his brother Ian's alias I believe), Silicon Scally, Slick & Flash, Fictional Characters, Grain, Cold Dust and Patrick C on it. I'll post the Sons Of Slough track at some point- I can't remember anything about the other tracks, and apart from Silicon Scally I don't think I've heard of any of the rest. I'm sure some of the techno heads out there can advise. This is 7 minutes and 14 seconds of TLS beats, buzzes and funny noises. Click to download if you like the sound of that.


01 Felt Under Pressure.wma

La Dusseldorf 'Silver Cloud'

If the thought of dragging your weary self into work tomorrow is bringing you down this Sunday evening, perhaps this lovely, dreamy slice of post-Krautrock (don't let that word put you off) will ease the pain slightly. La Dusseldorf were Klaus Dinger from NEU!, Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe and this is off their 1976 debut album Dusseldorf, a pristine 1976 pressing of which I snaffled on ebay a while back. Quite lovely this Silver Cloud.

silvercloud.mp3

Sabres Of Paradise 'Theme III'

There have been a lot of guitars round Bagging Area recently so maybe at the official start of British Summer Time it's time to (in the language mangling style of the brass hats at work) 'refocus on our core business'- the provision of rarer tracks by Andrew Weatherall. Sabres Of Paradise released the mighty Theme as a 12" single back in 1994. It came backed with two fantastic dub influenced B-Sides, Edge 6 and Return Of Carter, and all three got hammered on my stereo for several months/years. More recently I chanced upon the cd single in a second hand shop which had a as a fourth cd single-only track- Theme III. Theme 6 appeared on a free cassette with Select Magazine, which was posted a week or two ago somewhere (Weekender possibly). Theme's II, and V to the best of my knowledge haven't been released, but I'm ready to stand corrected (and I can't be bothered trawling through a Sabres back catalogue list right now).

Edit: Drew at Across The Kitchen Table has pointed out that Theme IV was on the Haunted Dancehall album, and blast my eyes for not remembering that and being made to look like a Weatherall anorak amateur.

04 Theme III.wma

The Vermin Poets 'Spartan Dreg'

Billy Childish has another new band, The Vermin Poets, with Billy writing the songs, playing guitar and doing backing vox, his wife Juju on bass, MBE's drummer Wolf Howard, and Neil Palmer from Fire Department on vocals and lyre (!). This one is of a poetical bent but with super-sharp mid-60s mod-op-art music. If you like Childish you'll love this. He's had a run of really good albums over the last few years, has a exhibition of paintings on in London, and was on Radio 4 this week. If you don't like him, you should give it a go. Steady the buffs.

Billy is modelling a First World War general issue British army shirt RB620. Just so you know.

Vermin Poets_01_Spartan Dreg.mp3

The Jesus And Mary Chain 'Head On' Live On French TV

And to round off Friday night The Jesus And Mary Chain in 1989 doing Head On live on French TV. William's guitar playing is a treat. Three posts in one evening. Good night.

Head On.mp3

The Troggs 'I Can't Control Myself'

Jump forward ten years from previous postee Sparkle Moore and here's The Troggs with I Can't Control Myself- great 60s garage rock, and Reg Presley is so het up he can barely keep his trousers done up. The sound of young lust- 'Your slacks are low and your hips are showing...'

02 I Can't Control Myself.wma

Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 8

OK, here we go. The kids have been to a junior disco and come back all amped up on sweets and mini-eggs, Mrs Swiss is off on the town with the girls, and our three household smoke alarms have gone off for no reason for a good twenty minutes (and I can still hear them ringing in my ears). And it's Friday night rockabilly time.

This track Skull And Crossbones by Sparkle Moore is a real hidden gem. Real name Barbara Morgan (and I kind of wish I didn't know she had a real name), Sparkle got her nickname due to looking like the character Sparkle from the Dick Tracy comics, often dressed in men's leathers with a bleached blonde quiff, and recorded only a handful of songs -Rock-A-Bop, Tiger, Killer, Flower Of My Heart and this B-Side Skull And Crossbones. She supported Gene Vincent and was set to play the Grand Ole Opry but quit music when pregnant in 1957 and never recorded again, instead raising a family. You can find her on compilations with wonderful titles like Good Girls Gone Bad, Them Rockabilly Cats, Cool Off Baby, Hot Boppin' Girls and Rockabilly Kittens. This is a good 'un- get it while it's hot.

'You should be labelled with a skull and a crossbones
Cos you're a jinx to my soul'

skull and crossbone.mp3

Patrick Cowley and Jorge Socarras 'I Never Want To Fall In Love'

Disco-meister Patrick Cowley probably isn't going to pop up here too often but here's a strange/good song that I found yesterday. I've no idea where I got it from. Patrick Cowley's best known for his epic remix of I Feel Love and the hi-nrg of Sylvester's (You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real. He had a less well known late 70s 'new wave' project with vocalist Jorge Socarras, and an album Catholic, re-released last year, that this came from. This song is an attempt to weld electro-pop/disco-but-not-too-disco production to Ramones style song-writing, with a Socarras vocal about wanting a boyfriend but not wanting to fall in love. Which seems pretty New York in the 1970s gay disco/new wave/post-punk to me. An oddity but one worth hearing.

I Never Want To Fall In Love.mp3

Shrag 'Talk To The Left' (DJDownfall Entente Cordiale Mix)

Shrag are a three girl, two boy band from Brighton, making a racket not a million miles away from shambolic c86 indie and early 80s post-punk, dripping with put downs and sarcastic, snotty lyrics. This one was remixed by DJ Downfall (presumably inspired by the film about the last days in the bunker or the childrens' game with dials to turn), who strips off the guitars and turns it into a clubby drum and synth fest. It's a withering put down of blokes who talk dirty in bed when they should be getting on the with job, and how they should 'talk to the left 'cos the right hand's busy'. So there.

Is this what we really want chaps? Sexually confident indie girls telling us what we have to do, over pulsing electronica? Eh? Hmmm.

Answers on a postcard.

TalkToTheLeft(DJDownfallEntenteCordialeMix).mp3

The Redskins 'Keep On Keepin' On'

After yesterday's Clash inspired Rancid roots-radicals-rock (which hasn't exactly sent Mediafire's servers into meltdown admittedly), here's some 80s political soul punk, The Redskins Keep On Keepin' On. Marxism you can dance to. Remember, Neither Washington Nor Moscow But International Socialism!
How quaint and dated those types of phrases sound now. Nothing quaint or dated about the music though.

Keep_On_Keeping_On.mp3

Rancid 'Time Bomb'

Cartoon punks, Clash sound-a-likes, silly third generation mohawks, fans of The Exploited, South Californian rebel rockers etc. Rancid may be all these things, but there's no denying this is a good song.

'Black coat
White shoes
Black hat
Cadillac
The boy's a timebomb'

Silly but fun, and what's wrong with that?

Time_Bomb.mp3

Grant Hart 'You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water'

I've written about Husker Du survivor Grant Hart before, when I posted his first post-Husker solo song 2541. I'd forgotten all about this, until a certain Mr A. Weatherall played it on his 6 Mix show the other weekend. Grant released his first solo album in ten years last year, Hot Wax, which I got from emusic, played a few times, and then sort of forgot about. This is as good a reason why the BBC should not axe 6 Music as any- a station where this kind of stuff gets played by people like Weatherall is not easy to find.

I used to be a massive Husker Du fan, still am I suppose but I don't find myself playing their stuff that often anymore. We have a fairly geriatric cat called Husker. Grant Hart has been a bit overlooked and over shadowed, releasing the odd solo album, forming and then splitting Nova Mob, rumoured to be working with Godspeed You Black Emperor (I can't remember where they put the exclamation mark anymore). This song sent me back to the album it came off, and it's pretty good, but this is the stand out track, a buzzing, rock and roll song, with nicely muddy yet fizzy production. Apparently the lyric is inspired by a buddhist saying 'He's the reflection of the moon on the water, but he's not the moon'. You can probably get as much or as little from that as you want.

Youre The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water.mp3

The Human Beinz 'Nobody But Me' Pilooski edit

This was the first Pilooski edit I heard and it's great. The original is also great, but Pilooski does a top job here. It's one of those wonderful 60s songs about dancing, and how nobody can do the shang-a-lang like him.

nobody but me pilooski edit.mp3

Guest Post! I May Regret This

My 6 year old daughter has seen me doing this and asked what I'm doing. When I explained about the blog she said she wanted a go, so here it is, a guest post by E.T.....

I like this song because i like dolly parton .I like the rhythm
and i like the music i also like the way she sings.

Dolly_Parton_-_9_to_5_(Surecut_Kids_Re-edit).mp3

Frankie Valli 'The Night' (Pilooski Re-Edit)

This should warm us up nicely for Saturday night, Pilooski's re-edit of Frankie Valli's Northern Soul-esque The Night. Great bassline, uptempo, great vocals, double edged lyrics. Sometimes great dance music is happy/sad rather than out-and-out euphoric, and this song manages that, nailing the lightness and darkside of going out on the town. Nicely touched up by our French friend Pilooski.

The Night (Pilooski Re-Edit).mp3

Keith Hudson 'Part 1-2 Dubwise'

Some proper 70s Jamaican dub to get Saturday going. Keith Hudsons' Pick A Dub was one of the first dub album releases, back in 1974. There was a beautifully packaged re-issue in the 90s by Blood And Fire (which Mick Hucknall was partly responsible for. That's the only time he's going to feature by name in this blog). This is top stuff.

Part 1-2 Dubwise.mp3

Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 7

As Dwight Pullen says, 'You really look sharp wearing sunglasses after dark'.

Sunglasses After Dark.mp3