Saturday Night Live

The Clash, live and red, red hot in Paris in February 1980. Jimmy Jazz, London Calling, Protex Blue, Train In Vain. As good as it gets.

Part Two? Koka Kola, I Fought The Law, Spanish Bombs, Wrong 'Em Boyo, Stay Free.



Still here? Part three- Janie Jones, Complete Control, Garageland, Tommy Gun.



'Tres bien mes amies. Fucking tres bien'.

Asphodelic

There's a very good Andrew Weatherall mix here, done for Modular People, to promote that splendid new Asphodells remix album- spaced out, melodic, cosmic, all that jazz. Featuring Fuxa, Japandorf, Julian Cope, The Warm Digits, Cavern Of Anti- Matter (new project from the Stereolab people), Forest Fire and Eat Lights Become Lights, it's perfect for late summer. Free download if you're tempted.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 117

'You move 16 tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt'

There's a non-rockabilly cover version of rockabillyish song for tonight's post- and from Mexico to boot. Alberto Vazquez's 1963 cover of Tennessee Ernie Ford's 16 Tons was a hit in Mexico and beyond. I've posted the Tennessee Ernie Ford version before, which I think is what led to Ctel furnishing me with this cover (and there's also a Redskins cover too). And it gave The Clash the name and intro music for their 1980 tour. Good stuff all round.

16 Toneladas (16 Tons)

Mulatu

More sounds from what is patronisingly called 'World Music' (as if music from everywhere outside the English speaking world is all one big thing)- this time from veteran Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke (piano, organ, vibraphone, percussion). He's got a new one out but this one is from Ethiopiques Vol 4. Jazzy and instrumental.

Yegelle Tezeta

Googoosh

This song is from a cd called Pomegranates: Persian Pop and Funk of the 60s and 70s. It's a slow burning, groovy number with a lovely, ominous keyboard riff and a sultry vocal from Googoosh. I'm no expert on this type of thing but it really is wonderful.

Googoosh is the stage name of Faegheh Atashin, a widely known Iranian superstar (still active today with her own Googoosh Music Academy reality TV show). She was banned from performing after 1979 following the Iranian revolution, her flamboyant style hidden away by the Ayatollahs. She returned in 2000 and has been regaining Middle Eastern superstar status ever since.

Talagh

Get Off Your Pretty Face

I can't pretend I've anywhere near kept up with Julian Cope and all his output over the years and I don't intend to start filling in the gaps now but the odd bit here and there is great- whether from his 80s pop era, his 90s phase or his more recent stuff. Brain Donor are Julian's acid rock band. This is one of theirs...

Get Off Your Pretty Face

We're off to Sheffield for a day or two- back posting Wednesday I should think. Have a good bank holiday (readers in England and Wales- everyone else, happy Monday).

Voodooism

70s dub is really hitting the spot right now- like this Lee Perry production of Leo Graham from Black Ark. Perfect for Sunday mornings.

Voodooism

More Clash Dub

An album of Clash songs done dubwise style by a Swiss reggae band may not set the heart racing in anticipation and may cause you to raise your eyebrow in suspicion... but you'd be wrong. Dub Spencer and Trance Hill released The Clashification Of Dub two years ago. I stumbled upon it the other day. It's really good- lots of already dubby basslines from songs like Bankrobber and Guns of Brixton given the full version treatment with spacey effects and the unmistakable whiff of the skank but the real treats are the riskier dub versions of Lost In The Supermarket and Train in Vain, expansive, imaginative and beautifully played. Train In Vain is way out there in dubsville.



Train In Vain

There's a lot of The Clash in the air right now. Mick, Paul and Topper can be found interviewed here for BBC Radio 4 (promoting that boombox shaped boxed set). There's a pop-up shop about to open in London for a few weeks in September with a load of Mick's memorabilia on the walls (and with a shedload of boomboxes to shift). And in early September Cerys Matthews will be interviewing the threesome for BBC 6 with an audience asking questions as well. As Drew remarked recently, London Calling may well be the best lp ever. And, three decades after they split, they still have a claim on that 'only band that matters' tag.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 116

This is The Scarlets with one of those stomping and jumping instrumentals that seem to be ten-a-penny (or dime-a-dozen maybe more accurately) but still send a shiver up the spine and set the feet moving. I'm not sure this technically is rockabilly but it's in the right area.

Stampede

Dare The Dream

I'm enjoying Pure Bathing Culture's Moon Tides album- although it seems a bit like those slightly desperate attempts to hold on to summer even though you've noticed that it's getting dark before 9pm and that the shops are full of people stocking up on pencil cases and school shoes- autumn's coming soon. The nine songs are all wistful, sing-song vocals and layered acoustic guitars over really nice metronomic drum machines. But while they still suggest long evenings, paperbacks with the pages all curled up and sunkissed skin its hard not to be left feeling a little melancholic and rueful.

Dare The Dream

Wolfgang

Nine surrealist artists about to head out for a night on the town in 1930. On the back row-Man Ray, Jean Arp, Yves Tungay and Andre Breton. At the front Tristan Tzara, Salvador Dali, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst and Rene Clevel. After a pleasant afternoon in a gallery, with some snarky criticism of some of the art, and a couple of quiet pints sitting on the pavement with the newspapers watching girls go by and thinking up new manifestos, things will turn sour. Salvador will get the hump and stomp off, following passive-aggressive messages from the wife. He only returns after a sub-group of surrealists cajole him back with promises of absinthe. After watching the evening match everyone is pissed off that Real Madrid won which puts a downer on it all. Then there is an argument over who pays what at the restaurant and someone is sick in a gutter and they are shouted at by the restaurant owner who threatens to call the gendarmerie. No one owns up but Man Ray's shoes are splattered with muck. Much later, following a spilled drink in another bar, Yves Tungay has to hold Breton back who is snarling and spoiling for a fight with a sailor on leave; 'leave him Andre, he's not worth it (and he's bigger than you)'. A disagreement about nightclubbing- some of the men just want to go to a bar with a dj but Tzara knows the doorman at a club and reckons he can get everyone in- two for one on drinks as well. They end up in the bar, where the girls are much younger than them and not really interested in a bunch of very drunk, balding surrealists whose suit and tie combos are looking a bit out of place. Plus, the dj is playing vapid happy house. Two taxis are needed to get home, causing further disgruntlement for the men waiting for the second cab, which inevitably is late.

The Wolfgang Press were 4AD's 'we are not goths' band. They were definitely doomy and erred on the darker side of things but also moved towards the dancefloor as time went on, creating some fine records in the process even if they're not the kind of thing I want to listen to all the time.

Ecstacy

I'm off to work today to see how far the government have instructed the exam boards to play politics with GCSE grades and young peoples' lives.

Futura

Non descript Wednesday in August, ho hum, what to post?

Something from This Is Dub Clash perhaps- a bootleg of Clash dubs, including this dub of The Escapades Of Futura 2000, from when The Clash invented white rock bands doing hip hop, with graffiti artist and sometime rapper Futura 2000 on the microphone.

The Escapades Of Futura Dub

At some point I'll fill you in on the battle we have entered with Trafford Council who have decided to cut over 50% from the budget for a disabled boy's activities and his families' respite (ours, you've probably guessed). Rest assured though, this is not about cutting budgets. No, this is about 'personalisation' where 'attaining positive outcomes for Isaac will be at the centre of the process'.

What would The Clash do? Fight the fuckers... while wearing quiffs and shirts with the sleeves chopped off. Pass the scissors and the hair grease.

Augustus Double

This is the Augustus Pablo dub tune, covered by Jah Wobble at The Cinnamon Club on Saturday night- Augustus' song is dub in excelsis, deep and wide. Jah brought plenty of the dub too, but with a punk sensibility three decades old.

Augustus John pictured for an Augustus double whammy. In August too.

East Of The River Nile

Green Man

A Weatherall mix? Go on then. This is on the internet radio live from the Green Man festival- an esoteric mix, going all pagan with Julian Cope and then taking in amongst others The Pastels, Warm Digits and Rowland S Howard, a lengthy kosmische workout in the middle and a new track from the man himself (from that new book soundtrack he's doing with Faber). Soundtracking the quiet weirdness of the English countryside.

Andrew Weatherall - Green Man 2013 by Green Man Radio on Mixcloud

Dear Landlord

I've had a bit of pang for listening to some Bob Dylan recently, something I haven't really had for a good few years. There are several different Bob Dylans and I can't say I'm interested in them all equally. Obviously the speed freak, Afro- haired, sharp suited and pointy booted, thin wild mercury music Dylan of '65-'66 is the King of the Dylans and the New York, Suze Rotolo- accompanying Dylan is up there too but my favourite Dylan is the Byrdcliff, post-motorcycle crash Dylan- the Dylan of John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait (the 'what is this shit?' album) and New Morning. I like the back to basics of it all, the pared down sound (especially on JWH), the way the songs are simple and loaded with biblical imagery and sweetly sung (he'd given up the cigs at this point)- and the reinvention, the country music instrumentation (redneck stuff to the hippies). Even the white shirt and hat and flip flops look. The songs on the whole sound very worked out and finished, polished even, but by and large Dylan turned up in the studio, ran through them once and then drummer Kenny Buttrey and bassist Charlie McCoy recorded their parts having heard them once. The bass parts are great throughout, clear and bouncy and melodic, the drumming spare and precise.

Dear Landlord

Also from this time was the oddly titled More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, presumably put out by CBS  in an effort to sell some records after Self Portrait came out and bombed. It has a strange tracklisting, a real mish mash, no sense at all in the sequencing and some lesser known Dylan songs that are without equal- Watching The River Flow, Tomorrow Is Long Time, When I Paint My Masterpiece, I Shall be Released, Down In The Flood. On reflection though I think my favourite Dylan song may be Tangled Up In Blue (mid 70s Dylan, just before I lose interest).

Wobble

I saw Jah Wobble at The Cinnamon Club in Altrincham yesterday evening- a night of improvisational jazz and dub with Jah Wobble and friends. The Cinnamon Club hosts a regular jazz club, a small room in a Rotary club building, holding about 100 people with cabaret style seating. Very civilised- the most civilised gig I've ever attended. Jah played with a drummer and jazz keyboardist ('Get a good keyboard player' Jah told us, 'saves a lot of time'). They opened up with some skittering jazz and- surprise, surprise- loud bass, Jah shouting instructions and changes out to the band. From there they played an extended version of the theme from Get Carter and then some earthshaking Augustus Pablo dub. A Bagging Area treat came with the drummer playing didgeridoo while also hitting his kit and Jah tripping out with some droney, trance stuff, not a million miles away from his early 90s records. Later on he got Cara, a young girl who played some songs on acoustic guitar as support act, to come back up and the band fleshed out her last song (Here), followed by a young clarinetist brought in from a local music shop. Two young kids who will have woken up on Sunday morning thinking 'OMG I played with Jah Wobble last night'. Finally Jah summoned Bonehead from Oasis and Dermo from Northside (WTF!!! etc) to romp through Public Image.

The whole thing was organised by South City Music and Beatnik Shop (both based in Altrincham)- and what a good job they did. Let's have more of this type of thing in Altrincham please. I'll happily bring some records down to play.

Tales From Outer Space

Redheads Feel More Pain

Gentlemen prefer blondes I know, but do redheads feel more pain? Answers on a postcard please.

My favourite nu-discoists Glass Candy put a new song up on Youtube, which is what often counts as a release now. It went up on August 5th, while we were on holiday, and was also our 18th wedding anniversary. Mrs Swiss and I had a romantic meal for four at the campsite restaurant. The song's a slow burner, not up there with Warm In The Winter but very good all the same. I seem to be hammering this kind of summery, spacey, housey-disco, kind of thing at the moment. What happened to the guitars?

Warm In The Winter

Brain Machine

 In recent years Primal Scream have taken to playing the two versions of Come Together together live, Come Together coming together. Opening with the Weatherall remix and then going into the Farley one.



There was a lesser known third remix of Come Together by Hypnotone (a Creation dance act who made the ace Dream Beam single), released as a white label and on the 1991 Keeping the Faith compilation. The Hypnotone remix is far noisier and ravier, more chaotic with distorted synths and shouty vocal samples. Love it. What Bobby and the band need to do now is work this version into the live show and stretch Come Together out even further, three comings together for the price of one.

Come Together (Hypnotone Brain Machine Remix)

In a handy piece of internet synchronicity Daniel Avery has just remixed the song for BT Sport, who are showing matches live from the new football season (irritatingly called the EPL by some numpties, otherwise known as 'the greatest league ever in the history of football'). There's a 25 second clip below which obviously is of little use to man or dog but longer and different versions apparently do exist.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 115

Back on Friday for the first time in a while- Walter kept the rockabilly groove alive while I was away with some Hasil Adkins last Friday so I'm going to follow suit with this magnificently titled song. Hasil Adkins- quite deranged

I Need Your Head (This Ain't No Rock 'n' Roll Show)

And The Question Remains...

Arrived on Youtube two days ago. A remake and update of the Imperfect List.

Bon Chic Bon Genre

Campag Velocet were a 90s dance rock band, much pushed by the music press. Lead singer Pete Voss, sporter of a luxurious long bowl cut, wasn't everyone's cup of tea and the NME particularly gave them a bit too much time, space and front covers given their actual record sales and output. There was quite a lot going on though- they tried to marry a bunch of cycling references (starting with their name) with some punning song titles (To Lose La Trek) and some Clockwork Orange droog stuff shoved in as well while sounding mainly like a London Happy Mondays (a position already largely taken by Flowered Up). They weren't up to the hype really but some of the songs remain OK and they had a certain laddish appeal live although they did try to go a little deeper than mere beery, lout-rock. Like several other late 90s music press hypes they ended up without a record deal fairly quickly (say to Hi to Terris and Gay Dad if you see them). Sometimes the British record buying/music press reading public just don't go for it.

Bon Chic Bon Genre

Speed Of Dark

Mr Weatherall's been very busy recently, remixes pouring out hither and thither- another newbie can be found here. It's a ten minute spacey job of Iceland's Emiliana Torrini (and there's a free download button too). Mid-tempo, chuggy, synth workout that goes on and on and on.

Picture spot- Raymond Poulidor, the best rider never to win the Tour de France. Eternally second.

Jon Brookes

In a week that has been dominated by cancer for us personally I've just read the sad news that Jon Brookes, drummer from The Charlatans, has died from a brain tumour aged 44. Sadly, I can only too easily imagine what this is like for his friends and family. RIP Jon.

Time For Livin'

Here's that link raising money for The Christie again.

You're From The Seventies

So yes, after getting through yesterday, the holiday was great- the French Alps are beautiful- the picture above shows the view we woke up to each morning from our tent. Lac d'Annecy is stunning, as you can see from this picture I took from the top of Col de la Forclaz...

We swam, we sunbathed, we cycled the length of it (some of us), we drank the wine and the red/white Kronenbourg, we ate the cheese and the baguettes, we shopped at Carrefore and wandered round Annecy's old town. I had plans to go to Italy for a day and see Mont Blanc up close but some days we didn't get any further than the campsite pool. And most days it was 33c so why bother? Next time eh?

This was song of the holiday. Having driven 600km down the autoroutes to get there and shared the stereo with the daughter I can report that Now!85 is vastly more tolerable than Now!82 (which I suffered last summer). In fact I sit here as a self confessed Get Lucky fan, a partial Blurred Lines fan and a Selina Gomez convert. But each night the activity tent blared out the Icona Pop song I Don't Care- a pile-driving Euro-techno hymn to irresponsibility, good times and youth; although frankly driving your car into  a bridge and watching it burn does no-one's insurance premiums any good and the whole bit about him being from the seventies and her being a nineties' bitch is seedy to say the least. But maybe I'm overanalysing it. It is at the very least a fantastic pop song.



Off into work now- A level results come out today (too early I feel, the 15th, should be later in the month).

PS- just noticed that this is my 1800th post. 1800- lunacy.

Come Save Me

Jeez. Pass me a drink. That was tough. Now I'm post-wake drunk and on the computer.

This is an outstanding indie-dance remix of Jagwar Ma by Andrew Weatherall, the guitars at around four minutes a particular highlight. Like 1989 all over again. 1989- that was a year wasn't it?

Sarah

Our dear friend Sarah Howson was diagnosed with cancer a little over a year ago. She died on Friday August 2nd, aged only 42. We had just arrived at our campsite in the French Alps when we got a message saying that she had gone. Today is her funeral- I am reading the eulogy (which I hope to make it through without crying and can't guarantee). She was a wonderful, warm, funny person who has provided no end of friendship to us. She leaves behind a husband and three girls, a huge number of friends and a lot of memories.

Sleep On The Left Side (Ashley Beedle's Right Hand Extended Remix)

This is a link to a Justgiving page, if you feel like donating. Fucking cancer.

En Vacances

Right then mes amis- cheerio! See you all in two weeks. Shortly we hit the M62, Hull to Zeebrugee, long drive through France to Lake Annecy where we are camping for eleven nights; wine and cheese, the Alps, Dijon, Lyon, a potential day trip to Italy, near bankruptcy on our return....

Here's some French songs to send us on our way, first one from the lovely Francoise Hardy...

Strange Shadows

And something from Serge...

Requiem Pour Un Con

And that's pretty much how I expect the French to look.