The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 84

It's Friday night and I'm off to a works do/disco. Always difficult affairs aren't they- the combination of alcohol, people you work with and like, people you work with and tolerate, and people you work with who can drive you up the wall. Add in some awful music from a small club dj and you've got an evening made for disaster. Then there's the dress code- some people completely over the top in celebrity-reality TV show dog's dinner and some people looking like they've popped in on the way back from B and Q on a Sunday afternoon. On the other hand I can't remember the last time I went out on a Friday night so let's make the best of it eh?

So, like Vic Gallon in 1956, I'm Gone. This record features a very young rockabilly legend Dean Goffey on lead guitar and a whole heap of reverb.

I'm Gone

We Don't Have The Time For Psychological Romance

No time for psychological romance? What's up with you man? Not that I'm sure what psychological romance is.

Word Up by Cameo is an absurdly good record. That codpiece always gets mentioned which reduces the record a little and turns it into an 80s novelty when it's anything but. Word Up is a funky, dirty, slapbass monster that can still rock a dancefloor today.

Meanwhile John Steinbeck contemplates psychological romance, from his armchair, sometime in the 1930s.

Word Up

While I'm here, hello to readers in Haiti! One of the stats Blogger gives me is that it shows where readers come from- usually and mainly the UK and the US followed by various European countries and Canada. This week Haitian Bagging Area readers number forty- or one reader reading on forty different occasions. On some combination. This boggles my mind slightly- that a person or people in Haiti read my witterings, written in my room in M33.

Everest

A free treat from Public Service Broadcasting at the end of their current tour- latest single Everest (full of public information film samples about climbing on the roof of the world), remixed Balearic style by The Centaurs, bassline to the fore and some atmospheric synths and bleeps. Seven and a half minutes of ice pick and crampon joy. It's at Soundcloud (free download).

Tell Me

More retro rock from North America- this time from California's Allah Las, who couldn't sound more 1965 Stones/Byrds if they tried. Usually bands have to come from late 80s/early 90s Liverpool to sound this much mid-60s. Folk-rock guitars, harmonies, sunshine and Nuggets, and reverb turned up to ten. It's very well done. Is it any good? I really can't tell at the moment.

Tell Me (What's On Your Mind)

Beware The Hooded Fang

Ok, I know that that's the Hooded Claw with Penelope Pitstop and not the Canadian indie-surf/Tijuana brass, guitar twanglers Hooded Fang, but it's close enough.

Hooded Fang's Tosta Mista album could be one of this year's most enjoyable listens- it's short and to the point, full of bright and breezy 60s hooks, 80s indie-punk lo-fi spirit and upbeat despite mostly being about a break-up. I like it- its got charm and a bit of charm goes a long way. And that's what counts as a review here today.

The Hooded Claw had neither a hood nor a claw and was the alter-ego of Penelope's guardian Sylvester Sneekly who tried to kill her to grab her fortune... it's a cheap cartoon. Who cares?

ESP

Boom Bop

Westworld's Sonic Boom Boy was in the music round of the pub quiz recently and sent at least two of us on a discussion of the dress sense and attractiveness of singer Elizabeth Westwood (and the merits of the song). Westworld mixed up 50s rockabilly and comics with beatboxes and sequenced stuff, not too far from early BAD, just a bit poppier. Westworld also had in their ranks Derwood, a former member of Generation X making a bid for pop glory. This was the remix from the B-side of the 12" single-

Sonic Boom Bop

And this was the video-



A genuine hit single (number 11 in 1987), this was the TOTP appearance-



Without getting all TV talking head clipshow about it, our kids just don't have the benefit of seeing bands play Top Of The Pops, watching the good stuff shine amid all the shite.

Joe Maher

It's been reported that Joe Maher of Flowered Up has died. Joe was guitarist and younger brother of singer Liam Maher (who died in 2009). Flowered Up left behind a small but brightly coloured, e-fuelled back catalogue including this cover version of a Right Said Fred song (done for a Heavenly Records ep) which I've always liked. RIP Joe.

Don't Talk Just Kiss

Astronauts The New Conquistadors

My Star was Ian Brown's first solo single and I think maybe his best solo moment- space race samples ('God speed John Glenn'), driving bass, some good guitar and a Brown lyric about superpower colonisation of space. He should have done more of this sort of stuff.

While we're on the subject of monkeys, a report last week said that psychologists reckon chimps and other great apes have a mid-life crisis- they become lethargic, their sense of well-being suffers, they start fancying younger apes. Which would suggest that a mid-life crisis is due to hormones or something wouldn't it? Surely apes don't have a sense of reaching mid-life and having achieved nothing or an awareness that they've passed the midway point. Like us.

My Star

Yes, I Remember Adlestrop

I have been reminded twice about Adlestrop recently. First time was sitting in a cafe after I.T. marched at the Remembrance Day parade in Sale and leafing through the magazine of a Sunday paper I don't normally read there was an article on the poem, alongside some First World War poetry. Adlestrop was by Edward Thomas, a poet who volunteered for service (despite being too old) and was killed in 1917. The gist of the article was that Adlestrop is a war poem that does not mention the war. I read it in the cafe and despite all the cafe hubbub and noise and the aftermath of the parade and I.T.'s part in it, for a minute or so there was only me and the poem. I don't recall reading it since studying Thomas during 6th form.

By happy coincidence Davy H provided a link a day or two ago to a Gone West mix he did at Mixcloud, half an hour of pastoral music with some poetry kicking off with, yup,  Richard Burton reading Adlestrop and then on to tracks from Chicane, Led Zeppelin, XTC, Villagers and Orbital and back to the poetry with TS Eliot. It's a really well put together mix and I thoroughly recommend it.

Yes, I remember Adlestrop -- 
The name, because one afternoon 
Of heat the express-train drew up there 
Unwontedly. It was late June. 

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. 
No one left and no one came 
On the bare platform. What I saw 
Was Adlestrop -- only the name 

And willows, willow-herb, and grass, 
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, 
No whit less still and lonely fair 
Than the high cloudlets in the sky. 

And for that minute a blackbird sang 
Close by, and round him, mistier, 
Farther and farther, all the birds 
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. 

Adlestrop (read by Richard Burton)

Glued To The Screen

Some exhilarating garage rock for Saturday morning from defunct early 21st century band Lost Sounds, natives of Memphis, Tennessee. They combined primitive garage guitars with analogue synths and some good vocals from Alicja Trout. Until just now I never knew Jay Reatard was in this band. I don't really know much about Jay Reatard but I have heard the name. 

An informative post for you there.

Glued To the Screen

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 83

By the time this is published I shall be preparing for I.T.'s 14th birthday bash- pizza, chips, fizzy pop and a dozen of his able bodied friends from round our way. No-one celebrates a birthday quite like I.T.; badge, bunting and banners a prerequisite. He'd probably be quite happy looking at girls at a jukebox as well.

Here's Herbie Smith from 1958.

So Wild Over You

We Break Easy

I think there are slim pickings from New Order's Gillianless reformation since the turn of the century. Live they've been good but the recorded stuff less so. In the summer of 2001 they announced a new single and album after a long lay off. We were on holiday near Whitby- our first holiday since I.T.'s bone marrow transplant the year before. It is I.T.'s fourteenth birthday today, which makes August 2001 seem further ago than ever, when he was only 3 and we had no idea what the future held for him. Or us. The in-laws and Mrs Swiss' sister, husband and infant daughter came and we all stayed in a holiday house. I was on holiday between leaving one workplace and starting at another. I knew the new New Order single was out on the Monday we were away. I was not confident of being able to get it from Whitby or anywhere else nearby but set out regardless and found a sole copy of the cd single in Woolworths in Whitby. The cd single and Woolworths no longer exist. Whitby has survived. Bought the single, took it back to the house, liked it- for three reasons: Steven's drumming intro, the return of clanging guitars into New Orderworld and the fact it wasn't a total stinker. Brother-in-law H was less impressed. Bernard's lyrics are of his 'wrote them on my teabreak ' standard ('here comes love, it's like honey, you can't buy, it with money). The album that followed Get Ready (shit title) had a couple of other good 'uns especially the beautiful closing ballad Run Wild (written for Steve and Gillian's child, undergoing life threatening illness- these things strike a chord with me) but had its fair share of filler too. Really, they should have called it a day after this. I listened to this just now- I still like it, it sounds like prime New Order although I'm not sure it's as good as memory told me. But I did see Bad Lieutenant do a great rendition live at The Ritz a few years back.

Crystal (single version)

Clash Ice Baby

Last one of these London Booted posts for the moment- I always assumed Lazytramp did this mash up as a joke but if you ever wondered what Guns Of Brixton would sound like with Vanilla Ice rapping over the verses, now's your chance to find out.

Ice T famously said of Vanilla Ice 'What street is he from? Sesame Street?'

Funky Guns Of Brixton

Is He Alive? Can He Still Feel?

Continuing my short series of mashing up Victorian explorers with Clash mash ups; John Hanning Speke did actually discover the source of the Nile on a trip across Africa with Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, almost died, almost went blind. Not a great holiday (apart from naming Lake Victoria I suppose, more than I've ever managed on holiday). When the two men returned home Burton spent years rubbishing Speke's reputation and his achievements, believing Speke had presented too soon and broken an agreement between the them. Speke died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while stepping over a stile, shooting himself just below the left armpit. Duh.

Manriki's A Good Profile from the London Booted album- at Last FM it reads 'Manriki: A guy- maybe from Belgium- making very funny bastard tracks'. A good Clash song to bootleg because the guitars and horns chop up so well and neatly.

A Good Profile

Of course The Clash song The Right Profile is about Montgomery Clift so really I should have had a picture of him rather than John Hanning Speke.

Bonus track: there were three bootleg/bastard versions of The Right Profile on Lodon Booted. One involved Peaches fucking the pain away. This one by Allen Smithee is a hugely enjoyable splicing of The Streets with The Clash. As Mike Skinner says 'Hold it down boy!'

Street Profile

I've Been Beat Up, I've Been Thrown Out

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton- he was beat up, he was thrown out,  he was not down. He had a good tomb as well, in Mortlake. Worth a look.

Another London Booted track, this time E-Jitz bootleg version of Mick's down-in-the-dumps tale I'm Not Down spliced with Hold Your Head Up by... er... actually, who is Hold Your Head Up by? Answers in the comment box to embarrass me. Whoever it is, this is mash up soul-punk brilliance from the E-Jitz boys.

I'm Not Down (Hold Your Head Up)

I Wasn't Born So Much As I Fell Out

Ctel at Acid Ted has recently done a mammoth series of posts on the GYBO bootleg/mash up scene with interviews with a whole host of people involved. It reminded me about the London Booted album, an lp of bootleg versions of London Calling songs released in 2004. The album was a watershed moment for me, being the point where I really started using the internet for music. My gateway to this kind of thing. I hadn't thought about or listened to London Booted for years. The mp3s perished in my hard drive disaster of 2007 and although I burned them all onto cd, it's buried somewhere. Ctel's series led me to wanting to hear them again- obviously I didn't go physically hunting for the cd. I just poked around the internet a bit and re-downloaded the whole thing.

The tracklisting for the London Booted album was

1. Blo_Up – Burnin’
2. Dunproofin’ – Bubba’s Got A Brand New Cadillac
3. Agent Lovelette – Burning Hot Jazz
4. Stevie Mac – Hateful
5. Eve Massacre – The Power Of Rebelution Can’t Fail
6. Instamatic – Spanish Bombs (Over Baghdad)
7. Manriki – A Good Profile
8. McSleazy – Lost Souls In The Supermarket
9. DJ Riko – Build ‘Em Up, Clamp ‘Em Down
10. Loo & Placido – What About Brixton?
11. Miss Frenchie – Fuck ‘Em Boyo
12. Jools MF – Death Or Glory (Zeigeist Mix)
13. Cry On My Console – Koka Kola (Tizer Remix)
14. Jimmi Jammes – The Girl Wants A Cheat
15. Pop Razors – 40 Lovers
16. 10000 Spoons – Four Hoarse Men
17. E-Jitz – I’m Not Down (Hold Your Head Up)
18. Poj Masta – Rapturous Revolution
19. Ez Lee – Vain Mistake
20. Allen Smithee – Street Profile
21. Dr Helix – Super Sharp Card Shark
22. Faultside – Hysteria In Vain
23. Freed – Birmingham’s Burning
24. Freed – Rhythm Of The Dub
25. LazyTramp – Funky Guns Of Brixton
26. BONUS: Eddy TM on XFM – London Booted on the Remix
27. BONUS: Manriki – Fuck The Right Profile (The Clash vs Peaches)

Some of these are works of brilliance. I'm going to post a few of them starting with McSleazy's Lost Souls In The Supermarket, a beautiful version of Lost In the Supermarket. To call it chilled out would be to miss the paranoia and unease that is all over this track.

Lost Souls In The Supermarket

No Hope, No Harm

I said a few weeks ago that there aren't many cover versions of Smiths songs that are any good, or at least that Smiths covers can't usually get near the originals. Here's an exception. Minnesota's slowcore trio Low with a 50s tinged, drama filled cover of Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me. Desolate yet warming.

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Public Service

H tipped me off to these- Public Service Broadcasting. Sadly not in time for me to see them in Manchester (they played here at the end of October). They make music where the vocals are taken from old public information films and newsreel footage, much of it from World War Two, often set against electronic backing. I'm getting quite into them. There's also Youtube footage of a duo playing guitar and drums, again with found vocals. The videos use WWII footage too. Try this one...



You can download their first e.p. from Bandcamp at a name your own price rate (i.e. free). Go get it.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 82

They don't make 'em like this any more. I mean, listen to it. Sounds like it was recorded in a shed in five minutes round one mic on a used tape. Frenetic stuff from Arizona rockabilly man Loy Clingman (and they don't name them like that any more either. At least, not round here they don't- I can't speak with any real authority about modern naming habits in Arizona). Made all the way back in 1958.

Rockin' Down Mexico Way

The Messenger

Johnny Marr's first solo album is out at the end of February (which seems a long way away at the moment). Lead track The Messenger has just been put up on Youtube and at his website. To save you the trouble of searching I've posted it here.



Good guitar work, as you'd expect, and there's a decent tune here as well, boding well for the lp. About time Mr Marr delivered a full-on, self penned, strong album. This is one of the better songs from the Johnny Marr and The Healers album Boomslang from a good few years ago.

Down On The Corner

Seven hours til the weekend. Can't come soon enough.

Dreggs On The Radio

News just in- Billy Childish's Spartan Dreggs celebrate/promote the release of their new albums (Dreggredation and Coastal Command, buy them both get a third Tablets Of Linear B free, from Damaged Goods) with an appearance on Marc Riley's show at BBC Radio 6 tonight, starting at 7.00pm. Three songs. On the iPlayer for a week afterwards.

No Matter How I Struggle And Strive

Country music's first death trip superstar Hank Williams knew how to pen a tune, and a fatalistic, gimlet eyed one at that. A little clean sounding compared to some of the cover versions of this song possibly but still: could do with some vinyl crackle maybe. I've been more and more drawn to this kind of thing recently. Must be November's fault.

I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

Avery

Now, Movemberists, that's a moustache (as worn by Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, the man who trekked through east Africa, taking a spear through the cheek and out the other side, searching vainly for the source of the Nile, found time to translate the Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra, and lived a life full of colour- Victorian Britain was shocked by him and his private life. Kind of puts your own CV in the shade a bit doesn't it).

Daniel Avery is a new kid on the electronic block and he has a mix compilation in the long running Fabric series coming out next week. His own track Naive Reception is on the album and can be streamed here. It's a techno acid thing. Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s are on the cd as well as (I think) Weatherall and Fairplay's  Asphodells. Daniel Avery put this out in June this year.

Movement (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Good Woman

Ages ago a friend lent me a Cat Power lp- I can't remember which one but I listened to it and decided it really wasn't my cuppa tea. I don't think I stuck with it very long. I found this clip recently- footage of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg hanging around the streets of New York in 1959, soundtracked by Cat Power's Good Woman. Which I now love. The vocal and ever-so-distorted guitars, and with some lovely backing vocals. Some plucked strings, a dash of harmonica maybe. The right side of melancholic.



It's good when a completely different context allows you to hear something differently and get a different response. I may have to go  and buy the album.

Good Woman

Husker

The Bagging Area cat Husker died on Saturday evening. He was eighteen (human) years old, a good old age for a cat, and had lived with us since the summer of 1994. He will be missed. It has got to me much more than I thought it would.

He'd been slowing down all week and on Saturday afternoon his back legs were all wrong. When he couldn't get up onto the sofa I knew it was the end. The end came with the emergency vet at an animal hospital in an industrial estate in Worsley (that is every bit as grim as it sounds). I signed the papers, watched him die and then came home.

His namesake, the band Husker Du and one of Grant Hart's songs from 1984's Zen Arcade.

Turn On The News

Remembrance

Counting Backwards From A Million

Ginger Rogers proving that being a bottle blonde needn't end up looking too bad- as Tim Burgess has probably failed to do recently. Although if Ginger Rogers has made a better country-soul album than Tim's Oh No I Love You I'm not aware of it.

The deluxe version of Tim's album came with a second disc of remixes and this one by Andy Votel is the pick of the bunch (but Factory Floor's version of White runs it close, sounding like something Factory Records could've released in 1983, a latin post punk, punk funk thing). Andy Votel strips away the backing vocals to expose Tim's lead, adds some funky electro squiggles, toughened drums and some Eastern, snake charmer pipes vibes to make something new and good.

Hours (Andy Votel's Tandy Love Remix)

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 81

The Smiths were rockabilly fans, as evidenced in their quiffs if nothing else. Several Smiths songs benefit from the rockabilly sounds and rhythms too, and Johnny Marr's desire to get that Sun Records vibe down on tape. Here is a seven minute version of Rusholme Ruffians, eventually trimmed and re-recorded for 1985's Meat Is Murder album, with Andy Rourke's rocking bassline well to the fore. Always loved this song, Morrissey's tale of violence and love at the fair very English up against Marr, Joyce and Rourke's rockabilly shuffle. Live they segued Elvis' Marie's The Name (Of His Latest Flame) into it (on the live album Rank).

Rusholme Ruffians (demo version)

Dream Some Paradise

Tedloaf's reactivated Confessions Of A Trouserist blog had a post on Intastella the other day and the belting little tune that is People. This song was their first single back in 1991 when they'd been signed in the record company rush to sign any band from Manchester with a cagoul and a funky backbeat. I'm not sure this song sounds very Madchester although it does sound very 1991- more like a northern St Etienne in a basement nightclub.

Dream Some Paradise

Singer Stella Grundy is an actor now taking in roles from Corrie and Nico.

Ctel  left a comment nearly two years ago saying Intastella were rubbish. I doubt his opinion's changed.

Death Letter, Hot Water

We are into day 5 of enforced Victorian living- come and film us Channel 4. Our boiler stopped working on Sunday- no central heating or hot water all day. It is not easy to fill a bath with the kettle and a few pans. The boilerman came on Monday and said our expander unit had popped causing the system to trip out. He's ordered a new one but no sign of it yet. We have two portable radiators and an electric fan heater Mrs Swiss had when I first met her (and it wasn't new then). On Sunday night we bathed at friends. Boilerman did a temporary fix for us, emptying the kitchen radiator to act as an expander unit. This has, since Monday evening, provided intermittent heat and some hot water. Some as in not enough. I got those faulty boiler blues.

Son House's blues song Death Letter plays in the film of On The Road and hearing it on the big screen last week reminded me of its power and beauty. Two clips for you...

This one, undated, but I'm guessing 1950s (?)



And this one from 1970...



And without wanting to come across as one of those authenticity blues bores, they just go to show that lights, staging, films and projections, heck, even having a guitar that's in tune, are all a little superfluous at times.

Paraphrase Mine

This sailor in the 1940s returned home to Whitby and found (hopefully) his child waiting for him along with his sweetheart.

Scott Fraser has made some funky, dirty electronic stuff this year. His Light Sleeper ep is worth getting hold of if you like that kind of thing.

Paraphrase Mine

Don't Go To Waste

This may be none of my business as a Briton but...

If you put me on the spot I'm not sure I can list the achievements of the Obama Presidency but he is important if nothing else as a representative of a type of change many people never thought they'd see in the White House. On top of that, America, you really don't want Mitt Romney as your leader for the next four years. Do you?

Galaxie 500 covering Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers.

Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste

Sacco And Venzetti Must Not Die

It's funny how these things develop in little bursts and how one thing leads to another. My compadre, technical advisor, guitarist and brother-in-law H has started a blog called Spoken Word Rock. He posted this which I just had to re-post here; Allen Ginsberg's poem America (which I wrote about back in August) read by Ginsberg, set to the music of Tom Waits' Closing Time, with some great cut and paste visuals. All of which ties in with my recent rediscovery of the Beats, and has some kind of message for tomorrow's Presidential election. Maybe.



Sacco and Vanzetti were a pair of Italian-American anarchists charged with murder in the 1920s and convicted on flimsy, xenophobic/racist evidence. A witness recalled in court one of the assailants 'moved like a foreigner'. The judge added his own prejudices and the two men were sentenced to death. Both were eventually executed.

America (Closing Time)

The Big Clapper

Then I remembered that Two Lone Swordsmen had a deep sea diver thing for a while. 1998's Stay Down (front cover up above) was a wonderful album of minimal electronic stuff, much of which sounded semi-submerged. This C-Pij remix of one of that lp's songs (from the Further Tactical Support ep) is a few minutes worth of ambient noise, possibly the sound from inside one of those helmets. It may not change your life. While I'm here I had a green TLS t-shirt with two deep sea divers on it as well.

The Big Clapper (C-Pij remix)

Bad Insect

Earlier this year a reader, Henry from Manhattan (but now Henry from Brooklyn), got in touch and I posted a song by his band Zula. He got in touch again recently having bought a Sandals record from Discogs following it being posted here. Nice how these little ripples spread around the world isn't it.

Henry also wrote about Nigel Godrich's new band/project Ultraista (at this point insert 'most famous for his work with Radiohead'). There's been one of those remix competitions where you can download the stems and do what you like with them. I am often quite tempted by these but never get round to it. Henry's done a remix of Bad Insect by Ultraista which you can listen to and download from Soundcloud; it's nicely groovy and melodic and as one commenter puts it 'Baggy remix!'. The more listens it gets, the more chance it has of making the final list.

They Moved Their Exclamation Mark!

Godspeed You!Black Emperor changed their name several years ago, shifting the exclamation mark from the end of the name to after You. I have no idea what the significance of this was. They usually get described as a 'shadowy Canadian collective' who make lengthy, apocalyptic, anti-commercial, anti-capitalist, instrumental music.I saw them play in Manchester, I think when Raise Your Skinny Fists To Heaven Like Antennae came out. They sat and stood on stage and played their tracks, almost exactly like the sounded on record. One of my friends left before the end for his train, muttering that they weren't improvisational enough but I thought they were impressive. I don't know how many of their albums you actually need but there's a new one out now called Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! More exclamation marks. Will excessive punctuation bring the system down?

Their Helicopters Sing

Revue

A deep sea diver and his wife. Why not?

Howsabout some gloriously unhinged bangin' and hollerin' from the mighty Jim Jones Revue for Saturday morning? Wake you up and blow some of those cobwebs out. New album out now.

7 Times Around The Sun

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 80

Bagging Area's rockabilly revival continues, 32 years after the NME covered a more widespread one. Tonight Ronnie Cook and The Gaylads with their shlocky, after dark Goo Goo Muck, destined to be covered by The Cramps many years later. Pint anyone?

Goo Goo Muck

Singing Loins

For some reason, in the early 1900s this deep sea diver appeared at Winchester Cathedral. Those deep sea diving suits are both very cool  and very terrifying. Must have been nerve wracking walking along the sea bed in lead boots and huge helmet with an air pipe attached. The cover of the new Singing Loins lp- Here On Earth- has a deep sea diver painted by Billy Childish. Medway folkers The Singing Loins are into their third decade as a band. This is the video for one of the songs off the album, Monsters Ashore, and I rather like it...



Billy Childish, relatively quiet of late, has suddenly released three Spartan Dreggs albums on the same day. You can get them at Damaged Goods. A few years ago Billy and the Singing Loins recorded an excellent album in a kitchen. This is one is one of Billy's standards redone Singing Loins style.

Pocahontus Was Her Name

On The Road Again

I went to see On The Road the day before yesterday, on my own in the afternoon. I dunno if this is the best way to go to the cinema or just a bit sad. The day before I took the 9 year old daughter to see Ice Age 4. I think On The Road shaded it. I enjoyed it, despite what the critics have said. It is a tad overlong and there is a coffee table element to the jazz and the clothes and the good looking cast and there is also a little truth in the reviews that said watching people drink, take drugs and have sex is pretty boring but even so I thought it was a good effort and better than I'd been led to believe. The film looks good, the scenery frequently stunning, the period details spot on, the cinematography beautiful. Sam Riley is good as Sal Paradise, the eternal observer looking for stuff to write about and on a search for kicks, but I half expected him to turn into Ian Curtis at any moment and start doing the jerky dance. Tom Sturridge (Carlo Marx/Allen Ginsberg) steals most of the scenes he's in despite some clunky scripting and the female leads of Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst are excellent. Mostly though, for a film based on a book that has narrative but no real plot, no three act formula, no twist, no denouement, none of the things that 'make' a film, I thought it worked. It was watchable, funny, absorbing in parts, and to me (no film critic admittedly) Walter Salles made a decent job of a book long considered unfilmable.

Ice Age 4 tells the continuing story of three animated prehistoric friends- a sabre toothed tiger called Diego,a woolly mammoth called Manny and a sloth called Sid. The continents are drifting apart leading to all kinds of japes and capers, plus there's a crew of animal pirates and a teenage mammoth called Peaches learning about friendship.

Friday Afternoon In The Universe