The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 75

If this rocking instrumental  song from The Rhythm Rockets in 1959 doesn't get you dancing, nothing will. I shall be shimmying near the girl in the polka dot skirt.

The Slide

Trip Trip Away

I heard this the other day, pop-dance from 1990 (re-released in 1991). It sounded really good. Not that we've had any sunshine. Plenty of rainy days. I posted this song at the somewhat irregular This Blog Continues To Decline blog, unfairly as it is a good tune.

Sunshine On A Rainy Day (Extended 12" Mix)

For added joy here's Zoe on Top Of The Pops. That dancing wouldn't pass muster on a reality pop show now (and all the better for it).

Whitechapel

S.C.U.M.'s album closer Whitechapel is a blast of goth-synth goodness; the combination of bass and keys does something to my central nervous system and the hairs on the back of my neck. I had an mp3 of them doing it on Marc Radcliffe's Radio 6 show but can't find it, and it's possibly even better than the album version. Maybe it didn't survive the last hard-drive decluttering. In which case I made a mistake deleting it. This is the version from Alone Into Eyes from last year.

Whitechapel

Reboot The Mission

I like Mick Jones. He seems like a decent bloke (Drew's rant about BA's use of London Calling and presumably Mick's approval notwithstanding). He loves to play live, he's accepted he didn't always behave well while in The Clash and knows he had to grow up, he moved on to another groundbreaking band (BAD), he dances like your uncle at a wedding. He put the Justice Tonight band together. He's a good guy. He's on our side.

Mick Jones has joined up Jakob Dylan's band The Wallflowers for the new single off their forthcoming album. The song, Reboot the Mission, sounds like an offcut from Sandinista or Combat Rock that could segue into 'Ring, ring, 7 am' at any moment, albeit with Bob Dylan's son on vocals. It's alright. I suspect the rest of the album will be in the American alt-rock vein- a bit Tom Petty, a bit Bruce, a bit The Hold Steady, a bit y'know the kind of thing.



From Big Audio Dynamite's Tighten Up Vol '88, a reggae influenced tale of rockers, dreads and tribes.

The Battle Of All Saints Road

Fearless Toy

Toy have made an autumnal dash for the end of year lists with their highly enjoyable self-titled debut album, heavy on psychedelic guitars and motorik drumming and a dash of Mary Chain menace. In this remix Richard Fearless sets the controls for the heart of West Germany circa 1972, with some lovely Neu! style parts. Ist gut.

Left Myself Behind (Trans Love Energies Version)

What Augustus John would make of Toy or Fearless I don't know. I've just read a book about him. John was a bohemian portrait painter who rejected Edwardian England's formality, spending a year roaming England in a Romany caravan with his wife and mistress, who grew his hair and beard long, wearing a kerchief instead of a tie, and allowed his many children freedoms other children at the time didn't get, so it's nice to think so. I suspect even our most liberal Victorian and Edwardian forebears would struggle with some of the repetitive noises we listen to today but who knows. Wasn't Stravinsky pretty far out sonically?

Dangerous Groove That Does Not Redeem The Plunge

...is the Google translation from Japanese into English from the record label- Beatink- that is plugging Andrew Weatherall's forthcoming album. Other translation gems; Rudy techno Banchou eternal, new electronics unit progression, rudy techno continue to rock the floor forever.

As well as drinking tea at festivals Andrew Weatherall and current musical partner Timothy J Fairplay (The Asphodells) have completed their first album and are releasing it in Japan on the 3rd of November.  It's called Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust. Here's hoping we get a similar release date. The lucky Japanese market gets two bonus tracks. Read all about it and get more amusing translations here, as well as a listen only sneak at the song A Love From Outer Space (Version 2), The Asphodells cover of an AR Kane song, who by happy coincidence have a compilation out soon also. This is from an AR Kane remix e.p.

Crack Up (Space Mix)

Not Even The Priestess

I asked on Twitter on Saturday night if anyone had heard the new Calexico album (Algiers) and Simon said he wouldn't listen to them because of their name and Drew said he'd never heard them either and was he missing anything. Their early stuff like The Black Light was great, all slow-mo spaghetti and mariachi influenced stuff, a lot of instrumentals. A couple of albums in they became more song based, with more vocals- Hot Rail from 2000 and Feast Of Wire from 2003 were crackers, full of songs with beauty and drama and horns. At some point more recently (the Garden Ruin lp from 2006, which isn't that recent really) they abandoned the more Tex-Mexican side of things for a straighter, more mainstream US indie-noir sound which seemed far less interesting to me. So, I'm no nearer to knowing whether the new one is any good but to Drew and Simon and anyone else who hasn't heard them, start with this one- a song concerning a man about to drive his car over a cliff while listening to Stevie Nicks.

Not Even Stevie Nicks

Der Alte

This song should suit your Sunday morning; Der Alte, which shuffled up on my mp3 player recently. I didn't know what it was, who it was by or where I got it from. I still don't know where it came from but it is a sublime piece of modern house music. Interesting drum track, lovely piano riff and some synth strings. That reductive description doesn't do it justice at all- it's a fantastic track. Highly recommended. It's from 2011, by Kolsch (there should be an umlaut in there), a well regarded German tech-house producer. Which shows how close my finger is to the pulse of current dance music. But I shall be investigating further.

Der Alte

Random picture- Augustus John, Welsh portrait painter and all round bohemian. Rocking it.

Number Six

Here's our patron and musical/sartorial guide Mr Andrew Weatherall being interviewed by Emma Warren last weekend at Festival Number 6 in Portmerion. There are various rounds of this ongoing chat- Madrid, the ICA and Portmerion- you can find online. The Festival Number 6 in Portmerion looked great and despite my contacts who went getting washed out on the Sunday, the family Swiss are going to be there next year one way of another. Join us under canvas if you like.

Can I Colour In Your Hair? (Andrew Weatherall Dub Mix)

This remix (from 2009 or thereabouts but only available this year) is superb. Play loud.

Witchi Tai To

In a similar vein to yesterday's Dave Pike post and this is a beaut also. Jim Pepper was a jazz saxophonist of Native American heritage. In 1971 he released this song, based on an old Native American chant. It was later a genuine chart hit for Brewer and Shipley and in 2007 was covered by X Press 2 with that guy out of The Polyphonic Spree singing on it, remixed guitar style by Two Lone Swordsmen (one of my earliest posts). See, just like the Dave Pike record.

Witchi Tai To

This is pop-jazz/Native American fusion, over seven minutes long and contains questionable saxophone parts. You'll love it.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 74

You've got the comment king Mr DVD to blame for this one. Last week's rockabilly hero Johnny Burnette had a son, Rocky, who had a hit in 1980 with this song- Tired Of Toein' The Line. I thought it only fair that I should share it with you. No download- you're probably not going to listen to this more than once.



DVD reckons he's the only person who bought this. It was a US hit so maybe Dickie was just the only person in Yorkshire who bought it. Have a good night y'all!

Sitar Hero

A random, shuffle-function style Friday post to celebrate the end of a long, somewhat stressful week. Dave Pike is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player who's been doing his stuff since the 1950s. He's probably best known for this super-funky, sitar-led, slightly kitsch, 60s groover. Which was covered by Paul Weller and chums in the mid 90s as Indian Vibes and remixed by various folk (Richard Fearless, Andrew Innes etc). I posted the original and a remix a year or two back. Here's the original.

Mathar

There's A Weapon That We Must Use

This is not exactly a re-post, more a re-write, as I've posted this song before in two variations and typed these words (or some very similar) before too. I posted Fuxa's cover version of Our Lips Are Sealed recently, as song I get obsessed with every so often. The song, as everyone must know, was co-written by Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin while their respective bands (him The Specials, her The Go Go's) were on tour together and apparently describes their secret relationship. Both The Go Go's and Fun Boy Three released their own versions, the latter being produced by Talking Heads mainman David Byrne. The two videos are worth a compare and contrast exercise-


The Go Go's video is all summer in California, irresistible it is too...



Fun Boy Three's version is all UK, 80s shades of grey and big hair, altogether darker...




And from the 12" single...

Our Lips Are Sealed (Urdu Version)

LC1

I've been finding myself listening to electronic/dance music more and more recently, and much of the stuff from twenty years ago just sounds better and better. In 1991 Orbital released an ep called III, containing Satan, Belfast and LC1. I was never a 'buy all the records' Orbital fan at the time but they made some undeniably brilliant tracks. This is one of them. Improve your day by giving it a spin.

LC1

Wild Eyed Mania

Andrew Weatherall's remix of The Horror's Wild Eyed has been set against some nice visuals here.



And similar for his remix of Hardway Bros here.



I know the number of Andrew Weatherall posts here may be passing well beyond the point of tedium for some folks.

Our Own End

Sorry to spoil your day with a picture like this but...
...this is what a fuckwit looks like.

If lots of people sit an exam, and are aware in advance what the criteria are for success in that exam, and then many meet those criteria, then those people must all be successful in that exam. They have reached the standard asked of them. The exact numbers do not really matter, % this for A, % that for C. Success is measured by reaching the criteria set in advance, not by how many people fail. Which is why this man fails to understand education. His rationale is that there must be exam winners but more importantly there must be exam losers. So education must be divisive and elitist, not about teaching people to learn and improve. There are other aspects of Gove's fuckwittery I could go into but let's move on.

Acid Ted brought a song called Our Own End to our attention back in March. Its a breakbeat-fuelled thing of beauty, with apocalyptic overtones and the voice of a girl. A kind of beautiful apocalypse. I love it. The artist, Slighter, has released the song as part of a download package with various mixes (you can listen to a remix by Reef Project here). You should then go and buy the whole package here. This is the March version.

Our Own End

Apologies to Slighter for linking his song to Michael Gove.

Beatnik Monday

Jack Kerouac and Joe Strummer together from a 1997 album Joy Kicks Darkness where a load of indie beat types set Kerouac to music. Sure to put a spring in your step this morning. Or a shuffle.

MacDougal Street Blues

S Is For Sabres Of Paradise

A short film here where Sheila Ravenscroft introduces John Peel's record collection, with Sabres Of Paradise standing for the letter S. Andrew Weatherall is interviewed, recalling listening to Peel under the bed clothes and turning down an interview request because he'd one or two too many.

Number 6

Portmerion is an Italianate 1920s village in North Wales, film set to 60s TV series The Prisoner, and well worth a visit if you're ever in the area. Especially this weekend. The Number 6 festival is being held there with a line-up that looks like it was put together from a Bagging Area playlist including New Order, Primal Scream, Spiritualized, Richard Hawley, Death In Vegas and, wait for it, Andrew Weatherall's A Love From Outer Space.

Obviously, I'm not able to go. We're at Alton Towers for a charity family weekend with the MPS Society (the charity that looks after children with MPS diseases and their families. That's us). I mean, the charity weekend will be good and everything, and we get to go in the theme park and use the Splash Landings water park, and it's great to see other families who live with the disease just as we do, and everything, but... well, you know. To add insult to injury at least one of my brothers is going. And a friend of mine is going. And he's borrowed our tent. Grrrrr. Curses.

Here's Death In Vegas remixed by Two Lone Swordsmen, a belting TLS remix.

Neptune City (Concrete Funk 1)

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 73

No-one did 50s rockabilly better than the Johnny Burnette Rock 'n' Roll Trio. Later on, in the early 60s, Johnny had a solo pop career which is where and when this picture must be from. His 50s stuff is raw and real with the best guitar tones rockabilly ever got- (see The Train Kept A Rollin', Honey Hush, Rockbilly Boogie, all of which I've posted on a Friday here). In the meantime...

Lonesome Tears In My Eyes