Mesmerising

There's something mesmerising about concrete brutalism. I've long been a fan of these post-war monuments to modernism and have occasionally trekked to stand beneath some, such as Trellick Tower in West London and Preston Bus Station (best viewed from a distance, up close it's a dirty and somewhat unloved car park/bus station). I watched Johnathan Meades on BBC 4 last night. He operates on a different level- at times it's best just to switch off and let his commentary wash over you while enjoying the visuals.

Richard Norris (in his Time And Space Machine guise) has remixed Temples. Temples are four young men from Kettering making psychedelic rock circa 1966-7 and have been tipped by Johnny Marr, Bobby Gillespie and Noel Gallagher (could be offputting to some I suppose). I saw them briefly supporting Primal Scream last December and the song and a half I saw were alright. Richard Norris loops them about the place, reverb heavy vocals, phased guitars and backwards guitars, psychedelia firmly intact. NME were offering a free download but I think the capacity got reached by a mad rush of 60s psychedelia fans.

Edit: free download is back.

My Mind's Wide Open Baby

This is another song I've posted before, back in 2011 which is practically neolithic in blogging terms. I've long been partial to the Balearic dance-pop of A Man Called Adam. Barefoot In The Head is a staple of chill out compilations but that shouldn't prejudice you against the song- it is a beautiful record. Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones made up A Man Called Adam but Paul Daley worked on this too, before leaving for Leftfield.

Barefoot In The Head (12" Mix)

Sally Rodgers wrote the lyrics by cribbing pagan translations of the poetry of Robert Graves (or so it says at both the Museum of British Pop Culture and wiki). It also turns out that...

'Rodgers is conducting doctoral research in modern poetics at the University of St Andrews and Jones recently gained an MSc in sound design from the University of Edinburgh. Together they continue to work as sound designers on museum, film and theatrical commissions, notably the BME - a museum charting the history of British music from the end of World War II, and The British Museum's major new exhibition Journey to the afterlife: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Their music continues to be licensed all over the world for film, television and release.'

You don't get that from ex-members of Oasis. 

Terry Hall On The Wireless

Terry Hall knows, don't argue. On the iPlayer, standing in for Jarvis Cocker on Radio 6 throughout February- everything from The Clash to Hamilton Bohannon via Deee Lite, the Breeders, Bowie, Jackson 5, Susan Cadogan, Dolly Parton, The Carpenters and a whole load more. Terry is very droll. Here.

That Old Town

While in London we took the students to the O2 arena to see the Museum Of British Pop Culture. As soon as you put rock 'n' roll in a museum it seems to lose some of its charm in some ways but some of the exhibits were good. There were large projections playing in slow-mo (The Smiths, Wham and The Stone Roses on Top Of The Pops in the 80s, The Clash and Sex Pistols from 70s TV), different rooms for different periods, a room full of guitars and drum kits to play on and a rather nifty touch screen virtual record box which tried to tell the story of dance music (a good selection of tracks although I tutted and shook my head at what I thought were a couple of factual errors). In the rooms, as well as some touch screen stuff, there were various pieces behind glass- some Bowie costumes from the early 70s, a Small Faces bass drum, a royal flush of Spice Girls outfits, dresses belonging to Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield, a pair of Rickenbackers- Weller's pop art guitar and Mani's abstract expressionist bass (John Squire's handiwork, along with Mani's paint splattered clothes from that NME cover, visible in the right of the second pic).  Art-rock crossover. I was hoping for a Cubist drum kit but left disappointed.

It transpired that two of my 6th form students' Dads were present at Spike Island along with me, a quarter of a century ago. They say working with kids keeps you young- it can also make you feel very old. I then spent some time racking my brains trying to think of when Weller and Mani might have played together and came up with this 7" single from a few years back, a super sharp slice of Mod pop, recorded with Graham Coxon. 

This Old Town

And here played live on the gogglebox- Weller, Mani, Coxon and Zak Starkey on drums.

They probably played together on a Primal Scream B-side too ('Til The Kingdom Comes, XCLTR era, sounds like The Who) which I have posted before. In fact having just searched the blog, I've posted This Old Town before too. 

King Dubby

I got back from London last night, everyone safely delivered home. While I was down south the north nearly blew away and the rest of my family bunkered in and were warned by the TV not to leave the house unless absolutely 'essential'.

This appeared on the internet yesterday and while I apologise for delivering you yet more Andrew Weatherall stuff this remix for San Francisco's Group Rhoda is a splendid piece of digital dub (done under Weatherall and Timothy Fairplay's Asphodells umbrella). What a lovely way to start Saturday and a half term holiday. A commenter at Soundcloud disagrees though- 'it is tiring' he/she says, 'the drums are stiff too much and gave me headache. I do not like it at all!' Each to their own.

Take A Tube To Camden Town

I'm off on a school trip until Friday, showing two dozen sixth formers the delights and wonders of the capital. I haven't had the time to pre-write any blogs for while I'm away so there'll be nothing going on here until Friday night, or Saturday morning maybe. In the meantime here's St Etienne and a killer song from their best album and a particular favourite of mine. They got Richard X to remix the whole album a few years ago and called it Foxbase Beta, which this is taken from.

London Belongs To Me (Foxbase Beta Version)

Analogue Dreams

This is really good, Analogue Dreams from Craig Bratley. There's a very repetitive acidic bleepy squiggle bit (which admittedly could annoy some) and then during the second half of its eight minutes some Balearic piano fades in and tips the scales upwards, followed by the kick drum and a synth string parts- and like magic you could be sat on a terrace somewhere warm with the sun on your face.

Kylie's Gonna Work It Out

Kylie Minogue's Slow remixed by The Chemical Brothers. What does it sound like? Exactly like Kylie remixed by The Chemical Brothers should.

Typing the words Kylie and Minogue into Google Image are a surefire way to lose some time.

Slow (Chemical Brothers Remix)

The Major, Brother T, Nina W

This is a sort of follow up to yesterday's post which was done with a bit of a fuzzy head. I've been looking for this all over my hard drive. Eventually it turned up not where I was expecting it to be. It's a non-Two Lone Swordsmen Weatherall- Tenniswood track (naming themselves for this as The Major and Brother T). A funky little thing with an amusing title from a compilation cd.

Bone-Us

I found this yesterday too while ignoring my hangover by pissing about online- an unreleased song in a post-punk style by Andrew Weatherall and Nina Walsh called Big Smash Up, recorded last year (possibly from around the time of the Unreal City soundtrack I reckon). It won't embed but it's on Soundcloud here.

And, finally, Weatherall playing at in the annexe at Cream in 1994. Two things- One, I still have a cassette of this recording in a shoe box under the bed. Two, I was at this night. Listening to it now gives me flashbacks and shivers, especially around the fifteen minute mark  and the 'give me chocolaaate' record.

Mixed Up

I survived the work residential. My headache has largely gone, the result of too much red wine followed by some rum in the small hours. I do feel very tired though. Thanks for your sympathy and advice (DVD especially with the advice, which I tried to follow). And now for something eclectic...

Nina Walsh ran the Sabrettes record label in the 90s, specialising in techno- minimal and/or earsplitting techno mainly. She contributed to various Sabres Of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen records and I think The Orb as well. I stumbled across this mix here recently (from 2009) and it's eclectic to say the least- opening with an a capella blues thing then moving swiftly through thirty five minutes of punky techno, German electro, ambient, folk before winding up with the lovely Francoise Hardy. The embedded music player (Ye Olde 2009 technology) seems a bit temperamental but that might be down to problems at my end.

While we in the Weatherall area the second half of the five hour mix he did for Ralph Lawson recently has gone up here.

Residential

Tonight, while you are uncorking the wine and enjoying Friday night, I shall be enjoying/enduring the horrors of... the work residential. Hotel, meeting from 4 until 7, dinner, drinks and then another round of meetings on Saturday morning all the way through until 12.

As a result they will be no rockabilly tonight- I'm not having you grooving to the sounds of the Bagging Area Friday night while I'm suffering. I know that sounds selfish but that's the way it is.

Some songs recently appeared on Soundcloud- unfinished versions of songs for a second One Dove album, scrapped as the band split up while recording it. Shame. One Dove's Morning Dove White is a lost 90s gem, flawed maybe but a gem nonetheless.



If you go here there's a few more, tasters of what might have been.

Johnny Yen

Johnny Yen is the main character in Iggy Pop's Lust For Life- 'here comes Johnny Yen again, with the liquor and drugs and the flesh machine, he's gonna do another striptease' is the song's opening line, before beating our brains and Johnny's with a pulverising Motown drumbeat and David Bowie's beefed up ukulele riff. Iggy borrowed Johnny Yen from a William Burroughs novel- The Ticket That Exploded- where Johnny Yen is described as 'the boy-girl other half striptease God of sexual frustration'. He is also known for hypnotising chickens. Iggy's Johnny Yen is a self-destructive hedonist and therefore is partly/mainly Iggy himself.

Johnny Yen reappears in the James song of the same name, on Stutter in 1986. For Tim Booth Johnny Yen is a performer- 'Ladies and gentlemen here is my disease, give me a standing ovation and your sympathy', before going off and setting himself on fire again. Tim Booth further borrows from Iggy/Bowie by referencing the Jean Genie, and then goes onto suicide pacts, young men itching to burn and waiting for their own star turn. He then gets compared to Evel Knievel, hitting the seventeenth bus, before Tim urges someone to put Johnny Yen, the poor fool, out of his misery, to finish him off. I'm guessing that mid 80s vegan, yoga, indie-poet Tim Booth was despairing of the old rock 'n' roll cliches, with their leather trousered frontmen and drug habits, but by borrowing Johnny Yen he's lining himself up alongside Iggy Pop and William Burroughs to some extent. The James song was from when they looked like a really interesting group, spindly, spiky, uncompromising, almost folky, indie-rock. They went on to become a stadium band, which I don't hold against them by any means, but they sacrificed something when they expanded their line up and sound and began appealing to a wider audience.

Johnny Yen

Rave On

I'm a bit of a dipper with Mogwai. I've got Young Team, Hawk Is Howling and one other- can't remember which off the top of my head. All three are excellent albums. They managed to pull off the trick of being always the same, always different. They have really good song titles. The new album- Rave Tapes- has unexpectedly wormed its way into my ears over the last week and is highly recommended. Quiet bits, noisier bits, some beautiful melodies, guitar lines and keyboards building intricately, a few crescendos, atmosphere, a bit of groove and rumbling drum patterns, the sampled ramblings of a Led Zep fan.

Here, one set of noisy boys (Mogwai) remix another set of noisy boys (Fuck Buttons).

Colours Move (Mogwai Remix)

Thor's Stone

One of last year's most adventurous and dark albums came from Forest Swords, a resident of deepest Wirral. This Lee 'Scratch' Perry remix doesn't make things any less dark or less weird than what you can find on the Engravings lp but it adds a certain something and dubs it up fine style. 'I hate evil energy' says Lee at the start. Thirty seconds later the bass kicks in and Lee's still chuntering over the digital rhythms, ghostly backing vocals and bubbling synths. Very, very good. Addictive.



The original sounds like this...

Thor's Stone

Thor's Stone, picture at the top, is a rocky sandstone outcrop on Thurstaston Common, in the Wirral- supposedly with links back to Viking ceremonies.

Circles

Drew posted a song by the Heavenly Records band East Village a few weeks ago. I hadn't heard of them before but having downloaded the album (Drop Out, issued after they'd split) I now feel like they've always been there. Caught in the years between mid-80s indie and Britpop, they had some lovely guitar songs, fleshed out with a bit of organ and three vocalists- a bit Velvets, a bit Byrds. I found a copy of the Circles single on 12" for a pound recently (their stuff goes for silly money usually so this was probably so cheap because the B-side is scratched). I haven't splashed out the £15.99 for the re-issued album yet but it's only a matter of time.

Circles

It is eight months yesterday since I last had a cigarette. Sometimes in my dreams I still smoke and wake up smelling it, feeling guilty. I can't get off the nicotine gum either.

Run Around Like A Crazy Dog, Make A Mistake In The Parking Lot

If Fear Of Music is Talking Heads best album (and I think it is) then the song Animals is the oddest song on it. Wonderful staccato guitars and a jerky yet funky rhythm with David Byrne's freaky lyrics about animals. He lists the things he's noticed about animals- they don't help, they think, they're pretty smart, they're always bumping into things, they shit in the park, they see in the dark, they say they don't need money, they're living on nuts and berries, they're laughing at us and they don't even know what the joke is...

There's a school of thought that says David Byrne was satirising moral panics and people's late 70s paranoia but I like to think he was just a bit freaked out by our furry friends.

Animals

On tour in Dortmund in 1980 the expanded Talking Heads (Adrian Belew on guitar, Bernie Worrell on keys) give it the full treatment.

Pretty Photograph

I'm on an email mailing list and regularly receive suggestions from James Dunn, 99% of the time modern hip hop (about which frankly I don't have a Scoobie Doo). This came through recently and I really like it- a remix by New Orleans producer Quickie Mart of a band called The Revivalists. This has a nice soulful vocal, a pile of wobbly bass, spooky synths and some glitchy/dubstep touches, smoky, nightclub vibe. It might not sound like your kind of thing but give it a go- free download.

Heavyweight Clash

Godzilla v King Kong, Superman v Batman, Pacino v De Niro, Pele v George Best- there's something about the dream heavyweight clash that isn't quite as satisfying as it should be. But you might find that Coldcut v The Orb actually delivers. A fifteen minute trip recorded live for Kiss FM, the two outfits rifle through each other's record boxes and samples to create something that sounds a bit like both and something a little bit new. I don't know exactly who did what or how they executed it but...score draw and a whole load of fun.

Coldcut Meets The Orb

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 136

Some brand new/you're retro rockabilly tonight from Jack Rabbit Slim who turn in a new album shortly. This song, The Devil's Bone- calm intro, rocking verse and chorus- combines rockabilly with (if I'm not mistaken) the wah-wah pedal, for some pretty furious Friday night action. February tomorrow and the return of downloads.

I'll have one of whatever you're having.

Another Weatherall Mix Post

I saw this picture on the net recently, Weatherall shooting some pool back in the first half of the 90s. I've still got the magazine it appeared in (DJ Mag, Top 100 DJs article, although apparently the picture appeared first in Deadline), somewhere in a box with a load of other magazines from the time- the archive in the attic.

This is the first half of a five hour mix done for Ralph Lawson and legendary Leeds nightspot Back To Basics and is a mid tempo delight- all kinds of ALFOS style records, a re-edit of Bowie's Golden Years at the one hour seven minutes mark included. It's here at Ralph Lawson's Squarespace blog. It's a really long, slow groover.

Or, for a bang up to date mix, here's Lord Sabre live in Melbourne a few days ago- it goes all cosmic Oz and  kosmische. Very nice.

State Sponsored Weirdness

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a thing of brilliance- all that time they spent with old synths and tapes and gizmos making weird noises, sound effects, incidental music and theme tunes. And paid for by the license fee- stick that The Daily Mail and other BBC critics. This clip shows the surviving members (sadly minus the late Delia Derbyshire above) playing the Doctor Who theme recently for the One Show. Although it doesn't need the sound clips from the TV series really. I can take or leave Doctor Who a lot of the time, but the thought of Peter Capaldi swearing his way through space and time could bring me in- 'fucking Dalek omnishambles' and 'fuckety bye you useless alien knobface', that sort of thing.



From 1976, Out Of This World

Thirty Thousand Feet Above The Earth

It was twenty years ago that Underworld released one of the definitive albums of the 90s, dubnobasswithmyheadman. Much of it- Mmm...Skyscraper I Love You, Dark And Long, Dirty Epic, Cowgirl, River Of Bass, M.E.- sounded like tomorrow and to be honest still does. The first time I heard this song it took my head off. Karl Hyde's non-sequitur, snatched lyrics were a revelation for this kind of music too...

'Thirty thousand feet above the earth...it's a beautiful thing and you're a beautiful thing... and I see Elvis... and I hear God on the phone...Elvis, fresh meat and a little whipped cream...and I hear God on the phone...porn dog sniffing the wind... will you be my big new plaything, my total de-disorientator, my ninja power, my number cruncher...thirty thousand feet above the earth...it's a beautiful thing'

Danton

French technoist Danton Eeprom has a new album out shortly called If Looks Could Kill. His Confessions Of An Opium Eater record a few years ago was proper techno. The new album is a poppier affair taken overall, with 80s stylings and vocals along with his taut dancefloor production and some steamy very modern stuff. I streamed the whole thing from his record company the other night and rather enjoyed it. This one, Occidental Damage, is from the dancefloor end of it- repetitive and streamlined.

Afro Camp

Afrobeat pioneer and outspoken defender of Africa's poor, the late Fela Kuti has had 48 of his albums uploaded onto Bandcamp. Seems a little odd, Fela Kuti being neither an unknown singer-songwriter nor a local band looking for a new model of distribution but there you go. I'm no expert on Fela Kuti- try this one...

All Or Nothing

I think The Small Faces are my favourite of the 60s beat bands- they looked so good, like a unit, their Decca stuff is proper 60s mod/r 'n' b, their Immediate stuff is inventive and moving and full of brilliance, to say nothing of Marriott's voice and the band's playing and the Lane/Marriott songwriting.


I can't decide which clip of All Or Nothing is better though- this one from a TV show in 1966, playing live and sounding great...



Or this one of them miming on a street corner somewhere in Europe, collars turned up against the cold, a hat put out for small change.

Saturday Night Mix

'Let's go dancing, I wanna go dancing with you all night dancing' says the deep male voice. It crops up about twelve minutes into this mix Andrew Weatherall has done to accompany his current jaunt to Australia. Ideal for a bop on a Saturday night. Intense and bouncy followed by melodic and euphoric, this is a less eclectic mix than some of the recent ones. As the voice says, this one is made for dancing.

I Wish I Was A Little Bit Taller

I'm running out of bandwidth for downloads at Boxnet so here's a video from 1995. Upbeat hip hop from Skee Lo- really catchy sample, self-deprecating lyric about being rejected by a girl and general all round good stuff. The musical sample comes from Bernard Wright's Spinnin' and Malcolm McLaren's Buffalo Girls are in there somewhere too.

And here are those Buffalo Girls along with Rock Steady Crew and Malcolm's World Famous Supreme Team from 1982...

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 135

Evening all.
Rockabilly? Billy Adams and The Rock A Tones.
Drink? Think I will.
California or bust? California is a long way from here...

That's My Baby

Linger On

Drew posted The Kills cover version of Pale Blue Eyes earlier this week, a song I've been listening to a lot recently- both The Kills version and the original. It is the best song of it's type that there is. A major chord or two, a couple of minors, some sparse backing and Lou Reed's lyrics of time, paper cups, feeling happy and feeling sad and infidelity. Wondrous thing really.

The fact is that it survives being covered often as well, not something that too many Velvets songs benefit from. There's a shaky 2-in-the-morning version by R.E.M. I like, The Kills blistering take and this beautifully played and sung one from Edwyn Collins and Paul Quinn.

Costa Blanca

The Bagging Area January tour- started in Moss Side on Tuesday, Tahiti yesterday- moves on to the Costa Blanca, Spain. It's the title of last year's lp from French beat-pop duo The Liminanas which I've been playing a bit recently. Husband and wife split the vocals, in French and English, some organ, Moe Tucker's drumming and a lot of fuzz guitar. C'est magnifique.

Rosas

Maybe She's In Tahiti

This Wreckless Eric song from 1977 is a life affirming blast, belted out on guitar, about how there's someone for everyone, wherever they may be, and how far he'd go to find her.

Whole Wide World

Moss Side Story

Barry Adamson, formerly bass player for Magazine and currently a Bad Seed, has a back catalogue I've never really explored enough. This song from his Oedipus Schmoedipus album has Jarvis Cocker in full on 'sexy' mode and is rather good. The album takes in everything from film John Barry style soundtracks to jazz, dub, soul and electronic stuff. Worth looking out for.

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Pelvis

Moss Side Story was a film noir soundtrack and homage to the streets he grew up in, released back in 1988 and found Barry a slot on Snub TV...

Warpaint

The new Warpaint album is out today. I'll have to wait until payday for a physical copy- January is a long month and there isn't any cash for vinyl at the moment. The internet will provide in the meantime. The reviews I've read this weekend have been a bit 'yes, but...' about this album but I've been looking forward to it since Love Is To Die came out online last year. The performance of that song (above) is a bit special.

The Hills As Old As Time

I got the Made Of Stone dvd for Christmas, Shane Meadows' film of the Stone Roses reunion. The live footage is wonderful- Adored at Warrington, an epic Fools Gold at Heaton Park. This rehearsal room version of Waterfall is superb. Four men locked in and enjoying themselves.



On the bonus features disc there's a really good rehearsal of Don't Stop too from the same session somewhere in a barn in Cheshire, backwards guitar and everything. Plus the only known footage of Spike Island, with thirty thousand people bouncing up and down in the Mersey estuary, flares and hats flapping in the Widnes night.

At the time of it's release I couldn't see the point of an album of Roses remixes. It just seemed like Silvertone milking the cow even further and some of the songs just didn't appear to need remixing. But this Justin Robertson remix, with the vocals compressed and the guitar isolated above some early 90s beats and some xylophone sounds pretty good to me right now. Although is removing the best drummer of his generation from a remix a wise idea?

Waterfall (Justin Robertson Remix)

Almost Prayed

A lot of the early Creation bands wore leather trousers. I guess it was semi-ironic- floppy fringed boys wearing rock's most rockist item of clothing. There is some dispute about who were the first- it's most clearly associated with The Jesus And Mary Chain and Primal Scream. Apparently though the leather trousered pioneers were The Weather Prophets, Pete Astor's post-The Loft outfit. I think that Almost Prayed is their finest moment. It's also one of Creation Records' finest moments and in fact one of the entire fucking genre of 80s independent guitar rock's finest moments. There are two versions, one the single and the other a re-recording for an album. This is the shorter 2.42 one and is perfect.

Almost Prayed

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 134

Ladies and gentlemen tonight we drink in the company of Link Wray- so mind your Ps and Qs, watch your step, don't let the drink loosen your tongue too much and admire the fuzz guitar. He lost a lung in Korea y'know.

Deacon Jones

Weatherall Post Shocker

The shocker being that we're seventeen days-that's nearly three weeks for crying out loud- into 2014 and I haven't posted anything by Andrew Weatherall. I shall rectify that glaring error by pointing you in the direction of this remix for Sam Roberts Band. I know little about Sam Roberts or his band other than that they are five twenty-something year old men from Montreal clad in denim and semi-bearded. Weatherall takes whatever it is they normally do (alt-rock I'm guessing- I suppose I should check) and sets them free in a robotic slow-mo disco, with a dash of New Order, some lovely long keening sounds and beautiful synth arpeggios. I will be requiring this on 12" vinyl please Paper Bag Records. You can listen to it at Thump, who have it on Soundcloud, but I can't find it on Soundcloud itself and so can't embed it (or rip it either for that matter). Which irritates me slightly. But listening to it again will take that irritation away.

Edit- thanks Gary Jack

I Bet You Find Life Hard To Live With

London Lee supplied a link to this via Twitter the other day. It is very funky. A Youtube commenter has cast doubt on whether the 70s Soul Train audience are actually dancing to Banbarra's Shack Up or another song entirely but, y'know, whatever.



Shack Up is best known in these parts as an A Certain Ratio song. It's a cover obviously. There was an ACR singles compilation with the Shack Up 7" in a sleeve glued to the front of the album (The Old And The New, Fac 135, from 1986, which is where I have it from). It was also released as a single on Factory Benelux- bet you're glad I'm here to clear these things up aren't you? Singer Simon Topping left the band in 1983 to join Mike Pickering in Quando Quango. He went off singing, much to Tony Wilson's annoyance. Like Joy Division but better dressed, according to 'Tony' in the film Twenty Four Hour Party People.

 There's a tense northern whiteness to ACR's version.



By 1990 ACR had left Factory and were in danger of crossing over (they didn't). Their MCR album is a house influenced beauty. Here they perform Shack Up for MTV with Denise Johnson on vocals. Martin Moscrop's guitar work is particularly good.

Looks Like We're In For Nasty Weather

Creedence Clearwater Revival's rootsy 60s rock 'n' roll is almost the exact opposite of yesterday's Tortoise post-rock. Killer guitar riff, Southern boogie and portentous lyrics- Vietnam, student protests, civil rights, assassinations, rioting. This song has possibly suffered from being overused in films and on TV.

Bad Moon Rising

Millions Now Living Will Never Die...

...was the title of a Tortoise album back in 1996, which is unbelievably nearly twenty years ago now. Walter mentioned it on Sunday at his blog. The whole album's good but the other songs all have to live in the shadow of the twenty-one minute opener Djed, which takes it's cues from dub, ambient, jazz and kraut and makes something new. Post-rock they called it- always seemed like a silly name to me. Hypnotic and relentless, full of lovely little touches on the organ, music to drift along in, swimming with the tide, even the middle to end section of noises and static and faint pulses. When it's over the only thing to do is play it all the way through again, until you've lost forty minutes of your time, daydreaming.

Djed

My home computer is operating at tortoise speed quite often at the moment. I sometimes think it'd be quicker to write these out on paper and deliver them to your door by hand.

Banish Wrinkles

Bagging Area's 2000th post. How about this? Some lovely dancey goodness to start the week from Bot'Ox. Insistent drums, hypnotic synths and guitars, and some spacey whooooshing noises. Out now with remixes too on I'm A Cliche. Just the ticket.



While we're talking about banishing wrinkles (Bot'Ox, geddit?) I was in The Lowry shopping centre the other day and a man with a stall stopped me, presumably noting my eye wrinkles and the huge bags beneath them. He promised to make them disappear and used some magic potion on my right eye socket. For the rest of the day the right hand side of my face looked ten years younger than the left. Sorcery, I tell you, sorcery. Although at fifty quid a pop I wasn't prepared to banish my wrinkles at that exact moment.

Post 1999

These blog anniversaries keep coming- this is my 1999th post. And this is from Big Audio Dynamite II, a live release called Class Of '92, with Mick and the boys covering Prince's famous end of millennium song.

1999 (live)

Class Of '92 is coincidentally also the name of a recent film concerning the class of 1992- Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary and Phil Neville, David Beckham- of whom it was famously said 'you'll win nothing with kids'. Bloody kids. They did win something though didn't they? United could do with some of them kids right now.

You Can Live At Home

We've had precious few guitars here recently so here's a blast of Husker Du's indie-punk perfection, what turned out to be their last recorded notes. By 1987 the Huskers were thoroughly fed up with each other and the band. During the making of Warehouse: Songs and Stories Bob Mould told Grant Hart he would never have more than half the songs on any Husker Du album and true to his word Bob's tunes outnumber Grant's again. They sequenced the twenty songs alternately by writer but the last song is Grant's. You Can Live At Home is mini-punk epic, with shards of guitar and echo laden vox. Mould hits a chord around the two minute mark that sends shivers up and the spine and the long coda fade out sees the two men vie for the final word on Husker Du, Bob soloing away and feeding back while Grant repeats the song title over and over. It is as good as they ever were (the Husker Du purists would disagree with me on this one. Warehouse came out on Warners. Sell outs and punk traitors y'see).

If it sounds a little tinny and small, this is what small bands with small budgets sounded like in 87- the radio loudness wars and punchy digital sound were years off. It'll shrink sonically in comparison to other stuff if you play it on shuffle. But it'll sound better. Husker Du were real one offs. Truly, there is no other band who could combine 60s idealism and writing, 80s punk, and melodies like this one could.

You Can Live At Home

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 133

Pull up a chair, grab a pint , there's a band on tonight- The Blue Cats have been rocking and reeling out of south London since the early 80s and while hairlines may have receded the spirit hasn't diminished. Just right for a boogie on a damp Friday night. Is this what Davy used to call the Smiling Hour? Chin chin.



Billy Ruffians

Grand Prix

Two new songs from my friends Echolocation- 'the least popular band in Leicester'- fresh from their triumphant appearance at number 2 in Moorland Radio's end of year poll (there's seven of them in the band, they all voted multiple times; that's democracy for you). The first is Grand Prix with the message 'it's nice to be nice' and guitars and horns a go go. The second is the deeply sardonic BFF (Best Friends Forever). Buy at Bandcamp for only £2.

When I drafted this the Bandcamp embed thing was playing up so if the player isn't in the space below you can find them here.

Sacco e Vanzetti

I love a rummage in a good charity shop vinyl box. In an Oxfam record and book shop the other day (Nantwich as it happens, visiting family) I found an album which intrigued me- a Spanish pressing of an Italian film soundtrack, Sacco e Vanzetti, by Ennio Morricone and Joan Baez. At £6.99 I couldn't resist and a bit of research on Discogs and elsewhere shows mint copies selling for upwards of £30. Mine isn't mint but apart from some crackle on the first song plays really well and the sleeve's in good condition too.

Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants executed in the USA in 1925 for murder, on flimsy, politically and racially motivated evidence. One witness said he could tell the pair were foreign 'by the way they ran'. Neither man spoke English and the judge was well known for anti-Communist, anti-anarchist, anti-foreigner prejudices. I think I may have typed these exact words before in a different post.

The soundtrack is rather nice, understated in parts, dramatic and filmic in others with some typically Morricone touches and flourishes, and Joan Baez's cut glass voice on half the songs. I find her an acquired taste to be honest but Morricone's music carries the whole thing off regardless. Try this one...

La Ballatta Di Sacco E Vanzetti II Parte (Italian grammar corrected, grazie Luca)

I'm Going To See The Stars

This is good in an exotica/lounge/library records sort of way. Tom Furse, out of The Horrors, and some first rate retro-futurism.

Slow

Just a year or so after making (yesterday's) Strawberry Wine single MBV were going further and deeper, as this beauty from the You Made Me Realise ep shows- the bass riff is like, erm, trippy sex. The picture shows Kevin Shields' guitar pedal board. I saw him when he played with Primal Scream once and on some of the songs his hand movements had no obvious relation at all to the sound his guitar and amp were making.

Just plug that in there, stamp on that knob and off you go...

Slow

Kolsch Mix

Kolsch was the guest for Pete Tong on Radio 1's Essential Mix on Saturday night- it's on the website to listen to until next weekend. If you like electronic music you should find something to like in it. Subtle it isn't and it goes from techno to the edges of trance but it's highly effective stuff. And it includes Der Alte, his very own hands-in-the-air classic, so it can't be all bad.

Strawberry Wine

Oh dear, back to work. It's only when you have time off and actually relax that you realise how consuming your worklife is.

It's funny that My Bloody Valentine sounded like this in 1987- sing song and 60s and lightweight.

Strawberry Wine

Holy Pictures

David Holmes 2008 lp The Holy Pictures is one of my favourite albums from recent times. As far as I can tell it is out of print currently, which is madness. The lead single, I Heard Wonders, is a guitar led blast with Holmes singing which was played at the London 2012 Opening Ceremony. The rest of the album is great too, if not much like that song- nine songs taking in ambient and krautrock as well as the JAMC indie rock of I Heard Wonders, and reminiscent of MBV in places. There's a warm haze about it. Dedicated to the memory of his parents, strangely, it's a much more coherent album than his previous ones- which were all concept albums to some degree. If you don't have a copy you should seek one out second hand forthwith.

Holy Pictures (James Yuill Remix)

Secret Circuit

Music for dancing to from 2012. Nice recurring guitar riff. Lovely synths. Builds, breaks down, builds. Bit kosmische in tone.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 132

Friday night in the Bagging Area Arms- I've emptied the ash trays in the smoking section (I gave up 7 months ago today folks), put some fresh nuts on the bar, stoked the fire. Gloria's just arrived made up and in her glad rags ready for new employment, Stan's on the door watching out for ne'erdowells. Just need some punters now- my round, who's in?

I've posted Peanuts Wilson's Cast Iron Arm before but I opened up Bob Stanley's Yeah, Yeah, Yeah yesterday and the first page is about that very record so I thought we could open 2014's rockabilly party with it, all the way from the 1950s- thumping rhythm, wild sax, comic voices and violent threats towards men and their intentions re: Peanuts' girl. As Bob says- impossible to get on vinyl but in the age of the internets it's available everywhere, all the time.

Cast Iron Arm

Towers Of Dub

It's all about the bass. I think there are times when I could sit back and listen to dub bass, on it's own, all day. If I got the chance. This Orb song, remixed by Mad Professor, is nearly fifteen minutes long and has all kind of samples and funny noises in it, and lots of lovely dub bass. Soak it up.

Towers Of Dub (Mad Professor Remix)

Stay Calm There's No Need For Alarm

My hip hop loving brother expressed his disapproval (via social media, the scamp, taking his beef public) when I posted Young MC's Know How the other day. Young MC is wack I think, not dope. Hopefully this may be more acceptable. It is a tip top piece of 80s hip hop from KRS 1 and Scott La Rock- and hey! We should stop the violence!



Stop The Violence

Four

Apologies- this is a bit late but it's New Year's Day and I didn't think anyone would be too bothered if I didn't have a post up by 8am. Better late than never.

On January 1st 2010 I published my first ever post which means Bagging Area is four years old today.

By far the most popular/read post here is my Lily Allen post (the one with the picture of her flashing her arse, which shows the power of Google images and an eye catching pic I suppose, cos I can't imagine 37, 935 people have been looking for her cover version of Straight To Hell with Mick Jones).

A choice of songs for you today depending on the state of your head and hangover. First, The Creation, sharp and noisy 60s mods who wrote several key parts of the textbook...

Making Time

If that's too much then how about some Steve Reich? Electric Counterpoint III



Happy New Year.