London Is The Place For Me

So sang Calypso king Lord Kitchener, passenger on the SS Empire Windrush in 1948. And for the next couple of days London is the place for me too so there'll be nowt happening here until Friday night at the earliest. (School trip innit, taking a group of 6th formers round the Imperial War Museum, Florence Nightingale Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum if we can fit it in and the London Eye). See you later.

London is the Place For Me

Don't Fight Control

Claude Flight's 1925 linocut Speed.

The Chemical Brothers (with Bernard Sumner on vocals) jemmied together with Primal Scream (with Denise Johnson on vocals). As mash ups go this is a tad obvious but good nonetheless. Whether it's any use to you first thing on a Tuesday January morning I don't know. You might need to save it for the small hours at the weekend when you've had a couple.

Don't Fight Control

Vortex

Vortex by Cyril Power.

And a connection to yesterday's postees The Charlatans, whose front man Tim Burgess was invited to sing with The Chemical Brothers on their Exit Planet Dust album- stands up pretty well I think. Some Chemical Brothers stuff has dated a bit to my ears, the huge drums and so on but this is good. A song that sounds like it's title and looks like this linocut.

Life Is Sweet

Misbegotten

I was once teaching a class of Year 11 students and we were studying the Cold War- something that having grown up since the collapse of Communism, the Eastern Bloc and the Berlin Wall, meant little to them. One lad's only response to the Soviets crushing the 1956 Hungarian uprising was 'that girl with the machine gun's pretty fit.'

The Horrors remixed The Charlatans a few years ago. Nicely electronic.

The Misbegotten (The Horrors Remix)

Edit- my Boxnet bandwidth's gone- try here instead.

Saturday Angel

Sonic Boom, him of Spacemen 3 that didn't go into Spiritualized, with a solo single that should get Saturday off to a narcotic start, spread over one whole side of 12 inches of vinyl.

Angel (Extended Mix)

We're 50% down in terms of children this weekend- I.T. has gone off on a Special Needs respite city break to Liverpool. It's very quiet round here.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 91

Not strictly rockabilly but it's from Sheffield's premier 50s throwback Mr Richard Hawley, and let's face it, at the moment the nights are cold.

Pint of best bitter please bartender, something warming.

The Nights Are Cold (acoustic version)

Take Flight

Claude Flight, linocut artist, dressed in a manner which would surely meet approval from Andrew Weatherall. Who has supplied an hour long mix to White Light Mixes. None of your A Love From Outer Space 110bpm Balearic chuggers here- this is a minimalist, minor chord, repetition, almost modern classical mix with snippets of narration and spoken word, tones, drones,  clarinets and oboes, piano and found sounds, all kinds of oddness. Strangely calming, both modern and a 1950s version of avant garde. You really don't get this kind of mix from anyone else (actually, that's a bollocks statement, there could be other people doing this, I just don't know about them). Free download and well worth it. Get it here.

Beatific

Some more Vorticist linocuts for you- words I didn't think I'd end up typing when I started this blog. The one above is Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's The Wrestlers (looks like it should be easy to do, probably very difficult. Maybe I should try).

Second, E McKnight Kauffer's Flight- he went on to advertising and to produce posters for the London Underground.

Third, Claude Flight's Revolution- fucking brilliant (and yes, that's art criticism).

Finally Lill Tschudi's Tour De Suisse, which isn't really done justice to in this jpeg.

Today's music- some more slightly barking nu-disco from my current faves Glass Candy; good enough to melt the snow and bring the sun out.

Beatific

No Tears To Cry

I remember ages ago mentioning this song (might have been my 2010 round up or something) and DVD left a comment saying 'Aye, No Tears To Cry, standing up for standards that one is'.

So, this one's for you...

Electronic Twittering Bands

I like this snippet of a radio interview with Joe Strummer while in The Clash, circa 1980/1. There are two parts that I always think should be sampled- the title of this post is one, crying out for dropping over some electronic twittering. The other is the final bit where Joe says 'I'm pretty confused myself'- I can hear it looped with a load of echo over a dubbed out bassline....

Joe Strummer interview

Today's picture from British Prints From The Machine Age is Edward Wadsworth's linocut Illustration (Typhoon), the abstract interior of the inside of a ship's engine room. Cut out of lino. Pretty good use of a mass produced floor covering.

Beglammered

A taster of The Asphodells- Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust album out first week of February.

It Must Have Been Because, Because, Because...

Ian McCulloch's got a few hidden gems in his solo back catalogue- this song Proud To Fall being one. There's nothing particularly clever, experimental or far out going on, just a guitar pop song with all the correct structure- verse, chorus, middle eight, etc, home in time for tea- and lyrically it's very Mac. It's just one of those songs that'll improve your day a little bit.

Proud To Fall

The picture shows a linocut by Claude Flight of ships in Liverpool dock being painted blue, silver and pink during the First World War in order to protect them from German U-Boats. These ships were known as Dazzle Ships (later, much later, an album by OMD). I went for a walk the other Saturday and passed Sale library (we still have a library, and it opens all day on Saturday). Wandering in and having a mooch about a book (actually the catalogue from an exhibition) called British Prints From The Machine Age, 1914-39 caught my eye. It's full of linocuts by a group of artists who founded Vorticism, the first forward thinking, modernist British art movement of the 20th century. The prints are brilliant, stunning and fresh, capturing modern life in early-to-mid 20th century Britain- speed,  movement, sport, leisure, machines, vehicles, people. A lot of them are pretty abstract, the sort of thing we take for granted as design now.

I was leafing through the book at the kitchen table on Sunday. 'Is that a library book?' daughter E.T. asked. 'Yep, due back soon too, I might renew it', I replied. I turned to the front page and the borrowing stamp sheet- 'I think I'm the only person who's ever taken it out' I said. E.T. asked what the title was. 'British Prints From The Machine Age, 1914-39' I said.  'That's why you're the only the person who's ever taken it out' she muttered.

I like to feel I have taught her well the art of the sarcastic response. And now she uses it against me.

Second Prize

Before Christmas I entered an online competition at Slighter's page, clicking and commenting and being put into the draw. I've posted two Slighter tracks before, including the beautiful but apocalyptic Our Own End (one of my favourites of last year). A week or two later I got an email from Slighter's team to say I'd won second prize. Woo hoo! My package turned up, all the way from Los Angeles, a few days ago- a signed and numbered copy of his 2009 album The Perfectly Damaged, two badges and a memory stick containing a ton of music (which I haven't even started to explore yet). The album is great, full of top quality electronica like this one, the album opener...

How'd I Become So Jaded?

Slighter (Colin C) has a new ep out now- you can listen here at Soundcloud- diving headlong into drum and bass. Out today.

Snow Day

Arizona Alpert

Another Public Enemy mash up I re-found recently (I think via Tedloaf and Twitter). Chuck D rages about Arizona, the state who refused to recognise Martin Luther King Day, while Herb Alpert parps away merrily underneath. Herb sued the makers, The Evolution Control Committe. Chuck and Flavor Flav didn't. But then PE always knew what time it was.

Sifting

This is Sifters record shop, in Burnage, south Manchester, known far and wide due to Noel Gallagher immortalising Mr Sifter in Oasis's early single Shakermaker. I grew up not far from here and have been visiting Sifters on and off since early 80s. It's the kind of place you can rummage for an hour and come out with seven records having spent less than twenty quid. A fair few years ago, six or seven maybe, I took the kids to Fog Lane Park  (another of my childhood/teenage haunts). I then took them over the road to Sifters and to pacify them while I had at least ten minutes sifting I put them in front of the 12" rack and told them to choose one each. Whether through luck or judgement both chose acceptably- I.T. settled on The Fall's cover of R Dean Taylor's There's A Ghost In My House- must have been the sleeve- and daughter E.T., only two-ish, wanted Madonna's Into The Groove. Neither cost more than £1.95. Amongst other things, I bought this damn fine piece of twenty-first century pop...

Crazy In Love

I haven't been to Sifters for years, choosing King Bee in Chorlton for my out of town second hand record shopping these days. It's closer (and, whisper it, better). But I miss my trips to Sifters. Is it still there, anyone know? May have to take a drive that way soon.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 90

A brilliant rocking but also slightly slinky instrumental from The Rumblers in 1963. Named after Link Wray's Rumble they dabbled in surf and instrumental rock 'n' roll- this is the latter. Get yourself up and dancing. Although after the week I've had, I may just collapse in an alcoholic haze.

Boss

Living In The Land Of Ice And Frost

Some Weatherall for Friday morning- just what the doctor ordered- and the standout song from Two Lone Swordsmen's Wrong Meeting lp, back in 2007; rolling drums, lead bass, nagging guitar and a cracker of a lyric, sung by the man himself. When the definitive Weatherall Best Of compilation gets made, this one will be on it.

Get Out Of My Kingdom

Most of the country seems set to be a land of ice and frost this weekend, and if what the weather forecasters have predicted comes to pass I may end up getting to work but then trapped in east Lancashire, spending the night at work. The road home, the A666 towards Bolton and then Manchester, is not a road to cross in a blizzard.

Ofsted have come and gone and the outcome, after all the hard work and stress, looks good.

While I'm here, there are two interviews with Mr Weatherall about the upcoming Asphodells album, which from what I've heard so far is an absolute belter (out soon on double vinyl, get it ordered from Rough Trade and get a bonus cd of remixes and stuff). Both worth reading, this one at Beats And Beyond is a real in depth job. There's another long one from Scotland's The Skinny together with a review of the lp. Meanwhile Proper has a short feature on Weatherall's favourite five.

Radio Joe

Ofsted day 2. Yesterday was a long day.

All eight episodes of Joe Strummer's BBC World Service London Calling radio show (from between 1998 and 2001) can be streamed here at PRX radio, if you fancy spending several hours of your time enjoying Joe's eclectic mix of his own back catalogue, jazz, folk, afrobeat, punk, reggae and whatever else he fancied spinning.

Le Cadeau De Mariage

Ofsted- here we go. I don't expect we'll be asking them '...but why are you being so reasonable now?'

It's got a bit of a bad reputation among Wedding present fans but I always liked Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? from their golden George Best era. I saw them in Liverpool several times between '88 and '91 and once or twice since, and they were never less than great entertainment. I parted company with them in some ways after Bizarro (my loss really) but they've always been there, chugging away with tales of lost love, missed opportunities and walking home in the pouring rain. This is from the 12", for the French indie market.

Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonable?

Ofsted

Ofsted. Phoned today.
Coming tomorrow and Thursday.
Bugger.

Back in September we had a mock Ofsted. And back in July one of the subjects I'm responsible for had a single subject inspection. And now they're back. It is, obviously, an opportunity for us to show how good we are.

Johnny Marr's new single up above- Upstarts- the best yet from his forthcoming lp, out next month on vinyl and cd- but not from HMV sadly.

Egyptian Cover

Egyptian Lover, 80s hip-hop and electroist, with a cover of the very dubiously named Sexual Harrassment's I Need A Freak- a freak in these times of hate and pain, with long, long hair, in underwear, every day and every night, etc.

Similar feelings to how Egyptian lovers Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter felt about freaks.

I Need A Freak

New pic, this time definitely Carnarvon and Carter.

Not Even The Rain

We've been watching series one of The Hour recently, the missus and I. For some reason we missed it first time round but then watched series two, so we've been catching up. In episode three there's a part where smartarse Freddy quotes some poetry. I recognised it and later realised it was the last verse of an E E Cummings poem. It goes like this...


(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands


...which is quite lovely really, especially the last line. E E Cummings wrote thousands of poems, playing about with syntax and form, wilfully disregarding punctuation and spelling. Having an art and design background he liked to think about how poems would look on the page.

I like this naughty one too...

The problem with Cummings is his stuff has turned into the kind of faux-philosophy quotes you see on fridge magnets, mouse mats, cloth bags and 'inspirational' posters, and worse the kind of thing some folk get tattooed on their inner arm. Not Cummings fault but still.

This is a picture of French actress Lizzie Brochere, who plays smartarse Freddy's wife in series two of The Hour.

And this is some jazz...

Slim's Jam

Seven Nation Noise Revelator

Found this, I think via Twitter. The charmingly named Bastard Brothers have taken this pair's best known song...

...and this man's biblical acapella John The Revelator...

... and this band's Bring The Noise...

... and stuck 'em all together- good fun. Some blues purists seem a little upset about Son House being used in this way but I reckon he wouldn't have minded. Due to 'copyright restrictions' I'm not allowed to embed it. Youtube link here.

Surf Sunday

More surf for Sunday, from The Tornados- although with the weather and temperature as it is the thought of being almost naked outside is bizarre. But that's what living in north-west England as opposed to southern California does for you.

Beyond The Surf

For DVD (Tony)

Heck, I don't know if a fucking blogpost is the appropriate thing to do really, but this one is for DVD (Tony).  With much love and sympathy.

A Solid Bond In Your Heart

Kill For Love

I bought an album on a whim last weekend, based on it being recommended by someone and in Piccadilly Records top ten lps of 2012- Chromatics' album Kill For Love. On double pink vinyl. Also I'd heard their cover version of New Order's Ceremony which I thought was alright (with Glass Candy's Ida No on guitar and Johnny Jewel, it turns out, is a member of both bands).



Some of the songs are growing on me, individually, although as a whole album I think it's too long and samey, too one paced. But maybe that's me and my lessening patience for 16 song albums. There's an early 80s mix of clean guitarlines, crisp production and electronics and a lot of icy atmosphere. At times the FX on the vocals are really irritating- singer Adam Miller making way too much use of his vocoder- but when Ruth Radelet sings things take off. The title track features Ruth's vocals and the unmistakeable influence of Bernard, Hooky, Steven and Gillian.

Kill For Love

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 89

This is The Rhythm Rockers crazed instrumental Madness which- you probably don't remember- in an awful rockabilly faux pas, I mixed up with The Rhythm Rockets belter The Slide a good few Friday posts ago. I can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible.

The guitars and the sax are off their heads in this one.

Madness

Sad Disco

This song would fit really well on a compilation or playlist with the previous two posts (Glass Candy's Warm In The Winter and Forest Fire's Future Shadows)- Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco (off his lp from this time last year), one of my favourite songs of 2012. I'm not sure I'd have put much money on this grunge survivor recording a convincing, uplifting yet melancholic dance track- but Mark Lanegan did it and did it in some style.

Ode To Sad Disco

Future Shadows

Another song from Weatherall's 6 Mix show last weekend that was new to me, this one from New York group Forest Fire and an album released in 2011 called Staring At The X. Yearning, reverbed vocals, an electronic pulsebeat, some delayed, phased guitars, metronomic drums, bum-de-bum bass; all adding up to one of those songs that gets stuck on repeat and stuck in your head. Also great played back-to-back with yesterday's Warm In The Winter.

Future Shadows

Warm In The Winter

'Warm in the winter, sunny on the inside'

This, as people on Twitter are irritatingly prone to saying, is my new jam...



From Oregon, Glass Candy are a duo/trio, who make disco. It's slightly warped and slightly trippy, with analogue synth arpeggios, some big bass keys, and great loopy, uplifting vocals, but it's disco all the same. Weatherall played it at the end of his recent 6 Mix show if you need a further recommendation. It is great. It is, as I said, my new jam.

I'm off looking for more of their stuff. Apparently much of it is vinyl only and sold at gigs. Not much chance then.

Kingdom

More early 90s ambient sounds to sooth the January blues- this time from Ultramarine who did a kind of pastoral ambient techno thing with echoes of old English folk music, although Discogs tells me this is Future Jazz, Downtempo. So what do I know? Featuring Louth's own Robert Wyatt on vocals.

Kingdom (Extended Mix)

Chocolate Hills

So it's back to work after two weeks off. To send me on my way and ease the pain here's The Orb from back in 1992 (number 12 in the charts!).
What's it about?
It's about fourteen and a half minutes long.

Assassin (Chocolate Hills of Bohol Mix)

Surf Sunday

Surf's up.

The Fender IV released two 7" singles, in 1964 and 1965, with Dick Dale influenced guitar. When Southern California's record buying public got bored of surf music they changed to styles (added vocals) and name (Sons Of Adam, given them by Kim Fowley). This was their first single.

I have never been on a surfboard in my life.

Mar Gaya

Weatherall Back On The Beeb

After a lengthy absence Mr Weatherall was back at the controls at the BBC Radio 6 Mix last night featuring his usual eclectic selection of the slow and groovy; odds and ends from around the world including some superb stoned stuff from Romania, some dubwise selctions, some of his own stuff (Asphodells, his Madness remix), some artists I've never heard of before like Melody's Echo Chamber and Group Rhoda, some cinematic/library sounds from Cults Percussion Ensemble, Italian soundtrack tunes from Enrico Simonetti and Goblin, some folk from The Unthanks, nuggets from Manfred Mann and The Saints, and more besides. If you haven't tuned in before go and take the plunge. Listen here for the next six days. Two hours well spent.

The Shark

In 2010 I posted Civilisation by Joe Gideon and The Shark, a boy-girl two piece. Civilisation's narrator leaves home to 'learn the ways of man'- works the 9 to 5 at Debenhams, rents a flat, wastes a morning selling another man's shoes, stays in a monastery til the monks ask him to go, the circumference of a circle, the meaning of 'Mum's the word'- that kind of thing. It was a favourite then and it is now. A friend saw them at Latitude and rated them highly.



They've just released a follow up album Freakish. On first listen I don't think it's as good as Harem Scarem, but it's early days, maybe it'll grow on me. Closing song Friday 13, sung by drummer Viva, is rather good though.

Friday 13

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 88

Things are getting back to normal after Christmas and New Year which is both good and bad. Work looming on Monday. The days are becoming distinguishable from each other again. Ho hum.

But it means we get back to some Friday night rockabilly so it isn't all bad. Ric Carty in the 1950s with some tremendous slapback going on.

Scratching On My Screen

Every Time I Switched On The Radio There Was Somebody Else Singing A Song About The Two Of Us

I think Billy Bragg has noted this himself and most Bragg fans too but his back catalogue contains more love songs than political songs, but still he is labelled as a political artist. This song, Walk Away Renee from the mid 80s, is one of his best loved love songs- originally by 60s group The Left Banke, Bragg cajoled tour mate Johnny Marr into playing the guitar and then wrote new lyrics for it, and performed them spoken word style. And what a set of lyrics they are, skewering the rush of  young love and the turmoil of break up.

'She said it was just a figment of speech
And I said 'No, you mean figure'
And she said 'No, figment'
Because she could never imagine it happening
But it did'

Then we get Billy playing the shy boy, which works in terms of getting her attention, but when she speaks to him the first time he gets a nosebleed and 'she guessed the rest'. The pair go out, get the ferry and when no one collects their fares Billy knows this will be something special- a free ride signifying the blossoming of love and then the radio keeps playing songs about him and her. Like it does. He compares the start of a love affair to a fairground ride, scary and a rush and wanting it to never stop- which is a cliche, and we know it's a cliche and Billy knows it as well. One of those cliches people falling in love use. Meanwhile Johnny picks away gently and unobtrusively.

Of course it goes wrong as these often things do- she starts seeing someone else. He sees her in the car park with Mr Potato Head (pre-Toy Story this). Car parks -ordinary, prosaic places where nothing happens and where things go wrong in people's lives. Potato Head puts his coat around her shoulders. Later that night Billy can't get them out of his head...

'...I thought about the two of them together
Until the bathwater went cold around me
I thought about her eyes and the curve of her breasts
And about the point where their bodies meet.'

Torment in a rented flat. Head going round and round. Stupid Mr Potato Head and his coat, and them... at it. Sometime later he confronts her- it doesn't go well, and Billy chucks in another great one liner about being the most 'illegible batchelor in town' and she laughs at him and we laugh with him. And then suddenly, as the loss of love builds and jealousy and heartbreak are about to consume him, everything changes, love and infatuation die; Billy plays his trump card lyrically, and the fire burning in him is doused by a massive bucket of cold water...

'And then one day it happened
She cut her hair and I stopped loving her'

Truly top stuff. I heard it again recently out of nowhere and it was as good as the first time even though I knew what was coming.

Walk Away Renee

NO TOTP

New Order, who I had so much difficulty making a Top Ten of last month, made several memorable appearances on Top Of The Pops. These used to be passed around on VHS cassettes, rapidly wearing out. Now, thanks to the wonders of Youtube they are preserved for eternity. Or until someone shuts off the internet permanently.

In 1983 they attempted to play their breakthrough moment Blue Monday live, a record that had taken them months to make in the studio using computers. Bernard struggling a little, Hooky playing metallic lead bass, the Emulator doing a load of the work.



A year later they were back doing the wonderful Thieves Like Us, again live.



True Faith in 1987, went top 3. A proper pop hit with Stephen Hague's production and an eye-catching video. New Order never really looked like four members of the same band did they?



At this time ITV were trying to launch a rival weekly pop show, The Roxy. NO performed True Faith on it, Bernard wearing a Don't Do Drugs T-shirt while singing a song about doing drugs. Note- this is Mancunian irony.



In 1989 New Order went to Ibiza to make an lp and came back with 'some drum tracks and a guitar solo'. And a large bill. Technique, their last solid gold album, was trailed by a fine single called Fine Time , which sounded not much like New Order at all. On TOTP Bernard baffles 99% of the nation with his Bez dancing. Priceless.



From Technique, again in '89, NO return to the TOTP studio with the majestic Round And Round. Well Balearic.



Then they split for a while, fed up with each other, and went off to do other stuff. In 1993 they put out what I think we agreed was their last ten-out-of-ten song, Regret. To promote this they appeared on TOTP live from the Baywatch set in sunny California. Back home- cue jaws dropping, some sniggering, some people a bit bemused and some wondering why NO did this utterly uncool thing, surrounded by girls in bikinis playing volleyball. Seemed like a good idea at the time I guess. May also involve Mancunian irony.

Steady As She Goes

Jack White's first go outside The White Stripes was in The Raconteurs, which didn't in the end do too much for me- I loved the first single (Steady As She Goes) but the album was full of my less favourite aspects of the mid 1970s- time changes, guitar soloing, pop balladeering. This version of Steady As She Goes was done for a Radio 2 session and re-works the song as a folkier, wheezier thing, less Zep more The Band.

Steady As She Goes (Radio 2 Session)

The A666

The A666, the Devil's Highway, is a road I know well- I use it everyday to get to work, picking it up on the southern edge of Bolton and following it across the Lancashire moors towards Darwen. The road goes on into the heart of Lancashire, having started miles earlier in Salford. The A666 has been celebrated as the opening song on The Eccentronic Research Council's album 1612 Underture which came out last year and which I got for Christmas. 2012 was the 400th anniversary of the trial and executions of the Pendle Witches. The ERC's album bills itself as A Folkloric Sonic Pilgrimage To the Home Of the Pendle Witches and it's a really interesting record. Andy Votel's Finders Keepers Records were involved, often a mark of quality. Maxine Peake narrates most of the tracks, telling the story of the Pendle Witches and drawing some modern parallels, dragging in William Blake, Dr Who, Holland and Barrett, Terry Duckworth, barm cakes, Crocs and flip flops, Top Of The Pops, city councils and Rabid Cameron, with the dialogue bouncing between 1612 and 2012, ending with a ouija board resurrection of Old Lizzie Southern. It is, it states in the liner notes, a concept record. The album has a real story telling flow, some cracking electronic music and sonically becomes quite disturbing two thirds of the way in. This is the opener....

Autobahn 666 (Travelogue #1)

Three Today

Hello.
How's your head? No, I'm not too good either I'm afraid.

My humble blog is three years old today.

I can't quite imagine life without it or before it.

Here's some deeply dubby Lee Perry produced reggae, sung by Errol Walker, to ease you into the new year. Get yourself a cup of tea, curl up on the sofa, tap along gently. Feels better already doesn't it?

Better Future