Histoire D'horreur

Even if Hallowe'en and trick or treating really gets on your tits you should suspend your cynicism for as long as it takes to listen to this mix Andy Votel has done for his Finders Keepers label, made up of forty snippets from obscure European horror soundtracks. This goes way beyond doing the monster mash and pretending to be a zombie. Free download for today only.

By Land Sea And Sky

In this short film Billy Chyldish and family launch thirty-one CTMF dazzle ships into the Thames estuary. Each dazzle ship carries one green vinyl 7" CTMF single. A reward in cash or 'other printed matter of apparent value' will be paid for each one recovered. Goodness only knows what this week's storm has done to the dispersal of these ships, all named after an area of the shipping forecast. The film, soundtracked by Sibelius, is very lovely indeed.

Love Is To Die

Warpaint, whose first album Exquisite Corpse I loved and second album I liked a bit less if I'm honest (though I did like the single Undertow very much), are about to return with a new one. There's a new song, audio only, on Youtube and it's very good indeed- slow and low, a langorous, dreamy, post-coital/post drug haze and the bass playing of Jenny Lee Lindberg is sublime.



And here they are doing Elephants on Jools back in 2011. Keep away from that piano Holland!

Metal Machine Music

While everyone pays tribute, quite rightly, to Lou Reed's street poetry, use of a minimal number of chords, black clad rock 'n' roll cool and all round influence on much of what came after 1967's The Velvet Underground And Nico lp, let's remember this legendary 1975 album. Four sides of vinyl, over an hour long in total, of out of control noise, feedback and sonic mayhem. Not the type of controlled use of feedback and ambient noise that is actually a very good listen. A deeply uncomfortable listen.

Anthony H. Wilson said this was music for people who liked the sound of their fridge turning on and off- I could listen to my fridge turning on and off for a lot longer than I can listen to this. He also said this was Ian Curtis' favourite record. Let me know if you get all the way through.

Calypso Time

Today I am staving off the effects of this foul weather with calypso from Lord Kitchener (not the man who organised recruitment into the British army during the First World War but his namesake who came to Britain from Jamaica in 1948 on the Empire Windrush).

Rock 'n' Roll Calypso

Where's The Party Officer?

The early Big Audio Dynamite songs and lps are easy to praise and admire. Some of the later stuff seemed less so but I really like this 1990 song The Globe- Mick had been soaking up the club scene and this record reflects that in the beats, clipped guitars and the very early 90s rapping. The first set of musicians (Don Letts, Dan Donovan et al) had departed and Mick set out with a second group, named BAD II. The Globe's got a lot of charm and this song and Rush were both hits in the USA. It also samples Mick's Clash song Should I Stay Or Should I Go? which is probably very meta and must make sample clearance a lot easier.

The Globe (12" Mix)

Lou Reed

You don't need me to tell you why Lou Reed's passing today aged 71 is so significant, or to add to what will be a tidal wave of bloggery about his songs and music, or why The Velvet Underground are one of the most important bands ever or why Transformer is such a great record. It would be insufficient.

RIP Lou Reed.

What Goes On

Reason For Living

I heard this Roddy Frame song somewhere on the internet recently, from his 1998 album The North Star. I sort of meant to get it at the time and never got around to it and still don't own it today- and looking at various online marketplaces it isn't cheap. I'll start keeping an eye out for it in the second hand shops I frequent.

The song is a good 'un- lovely guitars and a cracking vocal. I sometimes think that Roddy clearly writes great songs and sings and plays them really well but sometimes it's just a bit too tasteful, too Sunday supplement, that he needs a bit of roughness in the production or to play with musicians that can't play that well as the session people he chooses. I like this one though- it chimes and rings and lifts and does what good guitar pop should do.

Reason For Living

Saturday Night Live

Twice in a day with the Weatherall connections. A live set from Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnstone at one of their A Love From Outer Space events back in June. For those with long attention spans, this is a four hour set. And you can download it for free. Saturday night- dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the... embedded sound file.

The clocks go back tonight. An extra hour but it'll dark at teatime tomorrow. But then as Luke Haines had it recently in a review of Morrissey's book 'life isn't all aspirin and polevaulting is it?'

They Were All On Hard Drugs

The Boiler Room hosted a night recently where Andrew Weatherall and Ivan Smagghe were set the challenge of trying to out-weird each other, something each man stepped up to manfully. As soon as it gets loaded onto Youtube or Soundcloud I'll put it up here. In the meantime, here's an utterly ace Julian Cope song that got played- a new one to me.

Thanks to Alan Ant and the Ripped In Glasgow massive for the tip offs. Again.



Everywhere, they were all on hard drugs.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 124

October 25th is also my wife's birthday- I hadn't forgotten this morning, no no no, I just thought I'd link it to Friday night's rockabilly post rather than this morning's John Peel post. So- happy birthday Mrs Swiss, this song is for you.

Elvis, as Chuck D said, was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me... well he never meant shit to me but all the same he never meant a massive amount either (or is that the same thing? Now I'm getting confused by Chuck's double negative). He was rockabilly in the 50s though even if he very quickly became something else entirely. His songs recorded for Sun are great, full of swing and raw guitar parts. Like this one from 1955, written by Arthur Gunter.

Baby Let's Play House

Keeping It Peel

October 25th is Keeping It Peel Day across the internet. I've taken part previously- the sound of John Peel's voice followed by something familiar and brilliant, or unfamiliar and brilliant, or just plain puzzling, was one of the joys of the man's radio show. In previous years I've posted Keeping It Peel songs by Half Man Half Biscuit, The Redskins and Sabres Of Paradise. I dallied briefly with posting a song from The Cramps only Peel Session but we've had a surfeit of Crampiness in recent weeks- not that you can have too much but I thought some of you might be getting bored- and when searching my d/ls folder found this, Sonic Youth covering The Fall's Rowche Rumble...

Rowche Rumble (Peel Session)

And also this from long lost blissed out, groovy, Balearic dance act Fluke, who I always had a soft spot for...

The Allotment of Blighty (Peel Session)

The two together, I think, kind of covers some of the spirit of the man and the radio show.

The Poet's Muse

                                                                 The Poet's Muse by William Oxen

This is from an e.p. called Today, Tomorrow And Forever Pete Molinari did with The Jordanaires a while back, a cover of Billy Childish's loveliest moment- Pete keeps it acoustic and sings it well, a bit smoother than Billy does it. He's on tour in Ireland and playing London soon. Come up north Pete- and when's that new lp coming out?

The Poet's Muse (Acoustic)

In The Nursery

I haven't posted any old-school Andrew Weatherall for some time- at least I don't think I have, it's easy to lose track. This is a re-working of a Sabres Of Paradise song by In The Nursery and is lovely- laid back but slightly spooky- and really more modern orchestral music than dance music. It came out on one sided 7". My copy isn't in very good condition, too hissy. I keep meaning to replace it.

Haunted Dancehall (Performed By In The Nursery)

And I'll Have Candy All The Time

I've heard this song crop up a few times in different circumstances over the last week or two and where the blog's concerned I take that as a sign- Bow Wow Wow, fronted by Annabella Lwin, had a pop take on a kind of Burundi beat and rock 'n' roll pairing. Masterminded by Malcolm McLaren, he nicked the three blokes from Adam Ant and found Annabella in a launderette aged 13. This got him into bother later when her Mum contacted the police about a photo session when she was aged 15, naked, recreating Manet's Le Dejeuner Sur L'herbe. This song and Go Wild In the Country were proper big hits and they released three albums before the boys in the band ejected Annabella. I Want Candy is a cover of a song by The Strangeloves (who themselves were a made up band, never really existed). The band have reformed various times with one, two or three members plus others. Sadly Mohawked, punkabilly, Gretschslinging guitarist Matthew Ashman died in 1995 of complications due to diabetes.

I Want Candy (Club Mix)

Video, a hit on early MTV, with some large candy props (geddit) and some green screen technology

Come Save Me

As well as the beefy indie-dance Andrew Weatherall remix of Jagwar Ma's Come Save Me single there's this remix by The Pachanga Boys- euphoric is the word. An extended two minute plus intro of ascending keyboard notes followed by ten minutes of hands-in-the-air excess, pitch bending all over the place. Like eating way too much chocolate in one go.

At The Age Of Ten She Looked Like Greta Garbo

I am developing an unfortunate habit of missing gigs I'd like to go to. This Friday Lloyd Cole is playing Sale's Waterside Arts Centre, a ten minute walk from my house- it is also Mrs Swiss's birthday and I'm not sure it's how she sees her birthday night going. Two Saturdays ago The Orb did their 25th Anniversary thing while I was in Sheffield. The last two Easter holidays away I've missed the reformed Big Audio Dynamite, the reformed House Of Love and Steve Mason. I missed Crocodiles a while back for lack of a babysitter. Roddy Frame passed through I couldn't attend.

I've always loved the first two Lloyd Cole And The Commotions albums, and some of the third as well. Perfect Skin is the obvious choice so I'm going with it; a perfect, wordy, jingly jangly mid 80s record with all those lines we all love- Louise with her perfect skin, cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin, Cosmopolitan magazine, basement flats and Greta Garbo.

Perfect Skin

Timperley Sunset

Sorry about the delay- I got caught up in a few family things and went out for tea and suffered the slowest service known to man.

Earlier on though-Panic on the streets of Timperley! The police turned up and closed the roads, the Mayor of Trafford spoke ('Frank wasn't a Tory!', someone shouted as he spoke. It took all my self control not to shout 'Trafford council cutting disabled children's respite, Tory scum'). Hordes of people milling and watching, Chris Sievey's family, scooter clubs arrived, fans with papier mache heads, a brass band and then the statue unveiled from within a shed. We'll have to return to get some decent photos without all the crowds. In the meantime here's Timperley Sunset...

Meanwhile, In Timperley Village...

Today, at 11.37 precisely, the Frank Sidebottom statue pictured above will be unveiled in Timperley Village (opposite the Nat West). The local paper says the unveiling will involve a shed. I will keep you updated.

Strings

On this Saturday morning in October, for no reason other than it came to mind last night, I present to you.... the greatest techno record ever made.

This is the unreleased mix of String Of Life, as available on the superb Retro Techno/Detroit Definitive: Emotions Electric lp, one of dance music's essential texts. This is not techno with banging repetitive beats (not that there's anything wrong with that, in the right time and place), nor a slightly dated late 80s club anthem. This is electronic music as food for the soul, machine music for a future that never quite materialised. As the subtitle of the album said 'Emotions Electric'- and without vocals too.

Derrick May's borrowed piano loop, some wood block percussion, some twinkly bits, some synth string stabs. The sum of the parts...

Strings Of Life (Unreleased Mix)