Manhattan To Manchester- The Wonders Of The Internet

Isn't the internet wonderful?
A few days ago I got in from work to open an email from a reader- Henry from Manhattan, New York. That on its own is enough to bugger up my mind a little; someone on the other side of the world has been reading my blog. Henry wrote loads of nice things in his email, how he's been exploring loads of English/British bands and acid house from twenty years ago and how Bagging Area 'helps music become a social experience' and how the internet has limitless and instant communication. Which is what blogging is all about really. Henry also sings and plays in a band, Zula, who play psych-indie pop partly inspired by the acid house/post acid house bands and partly by krautrock. Listen to this over at Bandcamp (and download it for free) and I think you'll agree that Henry and Zula have got it nailed down very well and from what he told me their hearts are slapbang in the right place.

To Bears

2 Bears have been all over the place recently. I've largely ignored them up until now. Two men in comedy bear outfits making big room house music with one member being twenty percent of Hot Chip (who seem to make music at an ironic distance) hasn't exactly set my pulse racing. But maybe I've been too soon to dismiss them- their music is a decent stab at making proper house music for dancing to and there's a line up of people whose taste I trust playing them- Andrew Weatherall, Annie Mac, Erol Alkan. On the other hand they're also recommended by Chris Moyles, Pete Tong, Paul McCartney and Elton John. So, um, I dunno. This is a free download of a remix of Work off their album (out today; the email said send people to buy it at iTunes or Amazon but I'd rather you went to a record shop), done by the ever wonderful St Etienne (who usually get the internet police to pull stuff I post of theirs).

Electronic Rudie

I don't usually post mixes but I'll make an exception for this one- Ashley Beedle's Electronic Rudie, a dub mix done for the ever excellent internet radio station Beats In Space back in 2009. This is very, very good and finds dub in some pretty unusual places. Give an hour or so over to this and you'll feel a whole lot better afterwards.

Tracklist
Generations Walking - Midnight Bustling (Francois Kevorkian Dub)
Basement 5 - Immigrant Dub
The Pop Group - 3:38
Dub Pistols feat . Rodney P - You'll Never Find (Dub)
Stiff Little Fingers - Bloody Dub
Generation X - Wild Dub
Flesh For Lulu - I'm Not Like Everybody Else (Dub Version)
The Pogues - Young Ned Of The Hill (Dub Version)
The Clash - One More Dub
Bauhaus - Here's The Dub (She's In Parties)
Leftfield - Dub Gussett
Air - How Does It Make You Feel? (Adrian Sherwood Mix)
Massive Attack vs Mad Professor - Radiation Ruling The Nation (Protection)
Reverend And The Makers - Sundown On The Empire (Adrian Sherwood On U Sound Disneydubland)
The Clash - Robber Dub
The Specials/Rico Rodriguez - Ghost Town (Extended Mix)

Electronic Rudie!

Afro-Cuban Bebop

Some nice Afro-Cuban Bebop from Joe Strummer, a short track (only a minute and a half long) recorded with The Pogues (moonlighting as The Astro-Physicians), B-side to the wilderness years highlight Burning Lights. Just to check Box.net's working for me as much as anything.

Afro Cuban Bebop

Something For The Weekend Madam?

Picking up where Lux left off last night, Memphis Minnie advising her partner to 'keep on eatin', 'til you get enough'.

Keep On Eatin'

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 44

'Calling all cows down on the farm' sings Lux Interior at the opening of this Cramps rockabilly cracker, borrowing from another older rockabilly song by The Blues Rockers. Lux then fits in more innuendo and filth than an X Rated Carry On film- 'unzip that zipper, snap that snap' 'whip that cream 'til the butter comes', 'shake that thing I'll buy you a diamond ring', 'let's get up and go get ploughed', and so on. Meanwhile the band shake their rockabilly things and Ivy provides a vicious feedback led breakdown. This version of the song from 1986's A Date With Elvis was recorded for the band's only Peel Session. Hot stuff.

Cornfed Dames (Peel Session)

Weatherall Mix Roundup 6

Fail he may. Sail he did.
He's in Australia. Some of you might like this, mix for a radio show Noise In My Head, to download in two parts here.

Funnel Of Slow

A good while ago DJ Diddy Wah who runs the excellent vintage sounds of the Diddy Wah blog had a short run of posts where he slowed down 45 rpm singles to 33 rpm. This one came up on the way home today and it has to be heard to be believed- Wanda Jackson's classic Funnel Of Love at 33 rpm, slowed down to crawl and sung by a blues wracked man. You'll love it.

Funnel Of Love 33

Thanks to DJ Diddy Wah- hope he doesn't mind me re-presenting it here.

Beat Club And Bernard

In a similar vein to yesterday's post but actually a much better record is this, Security by Beat Club. When New Order called it a day in 1991 (for the first time) manager Rob Gretton set up a label, Rob's Records, partly to put out ACR records and partly to release tracks by local bands. Beat Club were neither local nor ACR but actually from Miami, the studio project of Ony Rodriguez and his girlfriend Mireya Valls. This song is remixed by Bernard Sumner and is a fairly accurate summary of what dance music could sound like in 1991, certainly in the northwest of England. Stuff like this still has the power to get the Swiss household skipping round the frontroom and standing on the furniture.

Security (Bernard Sumner remix)

Rob's Records folded in 1999 following the death of Rob Gretton. In the 90s they had a big hit with Sub Sub's Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use), put out several decent ACR songs (personal favourite 27 Forever among them) and tracks by several other bands including Mr Scruff and Strange Brew, one half of which lived down our road when we were kids (Jake Purdy, if you're reading this, sorry about the tooth)

Electronic Shack Up

In the mid 90s A Certain Ratio got various people to remix and retool their back catalogue for an album called Looking For A Certain Ratio, which ended up coming out on Creation Records. The remixers included 808 State's Graham Massey, Jon Dasilva and John McCready, Sub Sub, Way Out West, The Other Two and Electronic. Johnny Jay turned in a remix of Mickey Way called the Manchester City Mix, which definitely won't be posted here. Nearly twenty years on there's an element of 'why bother' about some of these remixes, as they stripped away the period punk-funk and added mid 90s dance software. Electronic tackled Shack Up. You can probably guess what it sounds like- worth a listen though, Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner (I'm guessing it was mainly Sumner but don't know for sure) providing a version of Shack Up that sounds very much like music sounded in Manchester's bars at the time.

Shack Up Radio edit (Electronic Mix)

Endgame?

Given all the goings on with Megaupload and the such it possibly shouldn't be a surprise that I've just logged into my Mediafire account and found every mp3 file gone, the last month's songs. They've wiped the lot, including the files for the posts for tomorrow and Wednesday. Anyone else affected by this? Is it worth re-upping them? Switch filehost? Give up? Go legit?
Answers on a postcard...

Edit; I don't know if it's just me that's lost all my Mediafire files, if it's deliberate by them or what. A random look shows some other people's Mediafire files still working. I don't know what's going on. I've uploaded the songs for the next two posts using 4shared as I already had an account there. I'll look into Boxnet soon (although Ally reports they've deleted files from her account), and wait to see what happens with Mediafire. I'm tempted to upload some stuff using Mediafire and see what happens. The last months' worth of posts' links have gone and I can't be arsed to re-up them at the moment through another filehosting service. If anyone wants anything desperately let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I Can't Love You, I Really Don't Think That I Can

As a wee follow up to yesterday's Billy Childish post this is another of Billy's key songs, re-recorded with Medway folk-punk band The Singing Loins, although this is folk above punk in terms of sound. Sounds like it was recorded in someone's kitchen. Which it probably was. You can find The Singing Loins website here, with a biography that finishes with these words: 'Perversely unambitious, they remain untainted, uncorrupted and above all still doing it for the reason they started- love.'

I Don't Like The Man I Am

We Live In Troubled Times

I've been on a Billy Childish tip recently- his output is so varied and prolific. Music, woodcuts, linocuts, paintings, novels, autobiography, poetry. The music is much more varied than his reputation suggests. There is a lot of Kinksy garage rock, but there's also blues, gospel, English folk, Mod pop-art. He changes the name of the band every time someone leaves or joins (it's a matter of respect according to Billy). The limitations he places on himself seem to be what unleashes the creativity. Really inspiring. The sheer number of records released is also inspiring- a couple of albums a year, and every one contains two or three absolute blinders. On top of that the worldview is great- the Edwardian work clothes, militaria, Victorian whiskers, aversion to the later Twentieth century. I reckon he might do some of his clothes shopping here, which must be very nice if you can afford it. A google image search also reveals he's regularly in demand by photographers for their portfolios. He's got one of those interesting faces, often topped by an interesting hat. Mr Wild Billy Childish- I take my hat off to you sir. Long may you run.

This song is one of Billy's key pieces- recorded and played live with several of his bands, the version here is by his 90s trio Thee Headcoats.

Troubled Times

Some Grow Up And Some Grow Old

One of my favourite albums is Rancid's 1995 lp ...And Out Come The Wolves. It's not original or groundbreaking or envelope pushing. It's just a record full of two-to-three minute punk songs, with a side order of ska, brilliantly recorded guitars, gut busting vocals and guttersnipe Californian street poetry. It is, as Billy Childish might put it, placing authenticity over originality. And if you're going to listen to an American 90s punk band I'd take Rancid over the masses of also-rans and pop-punkers that came after them. Rancid meant it, man, and sounded great too.

Daly City Train

Weatherall Mix Roundup 5

You might want to have a look at this over at Soundcloud. Andrew Weatherall playing Back To Basics 20 last December. Starts and ends with Smokebelch. Two hours plus long. Free download. What are you waiting for?

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 43

Another song from the Best Of Fury Rockabilly Volume 2, as promised last week. This one was a bit of a revelation. First revelation- it's unexpectedly good, with an urgent, rocking, raw, bluesy guitar riff, great distorted vocals, real contemporary rockabilly. Second revelation- they're from Austria.

Man's Ruin

I Got Lost Inside It All

After escaping The Bunnymen Ian McCulloch released his solo album Candleland. It led with this single, a perfectly formed little song with typically McCulloch lyrics. In truth it also sounds like the last blast of the old days of the mid 80s, before 1989 turned into something else for fans of guitar bands. Still, it sounds pretty good today, twenty three years on. Yep- twenty three.

Proud To Fall

Leather Cliche

Kid Congo Powers probably doesn't have anything as prosaic as a CV (or a Resume if you're reading this in the USA) but the Former Employment section would be more interesting to read than most of us manage- Cramps, Gun Club, Bad Seeds. His third album with the Pink Monkey Birds came out last year- Gorilla Rose- and was a stylish, garage guitar goodie bag. This is from his 2005 album (Philosophy And Underwear)and has all the sort of things you'd want from a Kid Congo Powers record.

Even Though Your Leather Is Cliche

Spitting In A Wishing Well

When X Factor was reaching it's thrilling conclusion a month ago and the eventual winners Little Mix announced that their shot at the Christmas number one slot would be a cover of Cannonball my ears pricked up slightly. A girl group cover of Kim and Kelley Deal's 1993 indie-disco staple, with it's crunchy riff, shouty chorus and let's-jump-around bassline could at least be interesting. Alas it was not to be. What's more, I can't remember who the Cannonball they covered was by and can't be arsed to check. Give it another month and people won't remember Little Mix either.

Cannonball

What A Feeling

A song from 1990's Four To The Floor e.p. where Manchester's A Certain Ratio returned to the dancefloor. Good Together is possibly my favourite ACR song- it opens with a vocal sample (Lou Reed) before a 303 kicks in, the song takes over, the Beach Boys get referenced and Bernard Sumner and Shaun Ryder give backing vocal assistance too. I never get bored of this.

Good Together