Beach Side Blend/Blood Shot

Two dj sets for Sunday, both there for the taking as a free download.
First, a set of summery, Balaeric tunes from Justin Robertson from the Electric Elephant festival. Warning- veers into soft hippy territory at times but worth sticking with. This would have been perfect last weekend when summer made a brief appearance.



Second, a rocking set from David Holmes, inspired by a recent show by Thee Oh Sees in Belfast. Less beach side this one. Thee Oh Sees play loud, punk/r'n'b with a dash of 60s garage 'n' psych. So does David.

Riddim

A man called Indidginus (known to his Mum as Michael) emailed me recently promising 'deep bass, top rankin' riddims and ragga vibes'. My love of dub and reggae has been fairly well documented here but I never really clicked with drum 'n' bass and apart from SL2's On A Ragga Tip I couldn't tell you much about ragga either. There are four tracks from the Ruff Tuff ep on the Soundcloud player below. The first three make me feel like an old man to be honest- but I do like the fourth one (3D Bonus track), which delivers on those rankin' riddims promises. Or threats.

This Is About The Rest Of Us, The Ones You Left Behind

'When you come to me in the dead of night and I convince myself it'll be alright'

The closing song off Steve Mason's latest lp is a thing of beauty, the singing and playing are superb, and if it catches you at the wrong moment will put a lump in your throat and make your eyes well up. One very good reason to get yourself down a record shop and buy the album.

'And when you hold me close as the night unfolds and I convince myself that I will grow old '

Come To Me

Oochy Koochy

That gin stuff gets you drunk dunnit. Been reading the November 1988 issue of The Face that dropped through the letterbox today (ebay £2.99, free P&P), bought for Drew but he bought got one off ebay himself so now I've got one too. As well as Glasgow's scooter clubs, Neneh Cherry and Nick Cave it's got Baby Ford in it. Oochy Koochy was released in 1988 and famously the bassline destroyed the PA in several London nightclubs and the speakers in the studio it was recorded in. It says here.

Here's the video from The Chart Show (must have been the Dance Chart week)... you can almost smell the dry ice and poppers...



And the full length 12" version (with a somewhat crap video)...



Right, I'm off to dance on the kitchen table while Mrs Swiss flicks the lights on and off...

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 104

Bobby and The Rhythm Rockers were an Arizona based rockabilly band, recording on the El Dorado label. There were several bands called The Rhythm Rockers and to be honest it all gets a little confusing. There's nothing confusing about this song from 1963 though- short and sweet with twanging guitars, plenty of echo and a call out to all the rockers and surfers to dance to the rhythm rock.

Rhythm Rock

On My Gnod

I don't know what they've been drinking in Salford recently but there's some strange things brewing across the Irwell. Drew tipped me off to Gnod a little while back. This song is one of the shorter ones of their new lp Chaudelande, being a mere eight minutes long. Starting with some finger cymbals and chanting, just to disconcert you a little, it then settles into a crunching groove with thumping drums and a cranked up guitar. Occasionally some extremely distorted, crackly vocals appear and then disappear. Towards the end they raise it up a notch, shift gear and proceed towards the finale. The wah-wah pedal takes a battering. I'm picturing Salfordian noise-monks playing at a Julian Cope gig somewhere remote, with an audience locked in a barn, transfixed by the pummeling the instruments are getting. Although the truth may be a little crustier. See for yourself. And then shell out for the album.

Man On The Wire

A Night With The Machines

If you've got three hours of listening time to spare you could do a lot worse than to spend it in the company of this Scott Fraser mix, from Balearic Social. Loads of slo-mo chugging and lovely washes of ambient synths.

A totally inadequate description.

SAF

I was 16 years old when Alex Ferguson arrived at Manchester United. I'm 43 in eleven days time. He's managed the club I support all my adult life. What's more I was a regular at Old Trafford throughout the Ron Atkinson years and Ferguson's early days and remember what it was like before we were 'the biggest football club in the world' TM. It seems inconceivable that he won't be there. But then again, let's not get carried away- no one's died, it's only a game. Nothing lasts forever.

What digs at me though is that without him there (and soon the last of the old guard- Giggs, Scholes- will be gone too) is that within three years United will be just another rich, big club playing the Euromoneyball, three year cycle, managerial-merry-go-round, the same as all the rest. I know some of you won't give a fuck either way. I know that for some of you there are less rewarding ways to spend money watching football (hello Airdrie, hello York City). Although maybe that isn't less rewarding- I dunno. Yes, we have been spoilt. Yes, it is all over now. Let's see what happens next.

NB Please, please, please, don't let it be Mourinho. 

We Live On The Edge Of A Body Of Water

I don't find myself listening to coke ravaged, long lost, classicist rock (70s variant) very often, Neil Young excepted and even him not that much any more, but sometimes a little bit of Dennis Wilson goes a long way.

Pacific Ocean Blues

Screaming

Left to right- guitar, drums, singer, bass.

The new Primal Scream lp is less than a week away and despite it getting good reviews in the press I suspect  many people will be ambivalent about it- some bloggers I know have no expectations that it will be any good at all, based on the band's recent form. When I thought about this, their recent poor form goes back to Riot City Blues (2006) because to these ears the last album they released that was convincing all round was Evil Heat in 2002 (and some people don't rate that one that much either). The most recent one, Beautiful Future, was poor all round, it's only redeeming feature the Weatherall remix of Uptown (although on its own that remix redeems a heck of a lot). Drew commented somewhere recently that that remix and Sometimes I Feel So Lonely were the only reasons he had any expectations of Primal Scream anymore. I couldn't remember SIFSL so had to go and dig out Riot City Blues and play it. It is a song they've written several times before- Damaged, I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, Cry Myself Blind- but as countryish ballads go it's very good, hits all the right notes, a bit of Cowboy Junkies in there as well I feel. There was a limited 7" release, a slightly different version, with a children's choir on it and some cinematic strings, but I'm not sure its any better than the one on the lp.

Sometimes I Feel So Lonely

At Leek Town Hall Tonight

A while back I wrote a post about a Half Man Half Biscuit song which referenced the Staffordshire town of Leek. I said Leek was well known to me as the birthplace of my Dad but that other than the HMHB tune the only other time it had popped up in song was in Joe Strummer's wonderful reggae tinged At The Border, Guy. Recently a reader Sam Sherratt has left a couple of comments on the post adding further detail and deepening Leek's rock 'n' roll connections. This was too important to be left dwindling as comments below a post and I feel deserved a posting in their own right. Sam wrote...

Can help with the Leek reference in the Strummer song. Joe’s pre-Clash band the 101ers had a couple of members originally from Leek (incidentally Joe at the time was known as Woody). This included drummer Richard Dudanski (aka Nother), who later went on to drum with PiL. The 101ers played in Leek at a club called Samantha’s (not Leek Town Hall) and on another occasion came to a party. I was in touch with Richard a few years’ back and he said he asked Joe about this reference and said that he must have been confused.

Nice to tidy up a little corner of rock trivia!

and added afterwards...

Leek was also responsible for poisoning the Rolling Stones on Christmas Eve 1963, which is mentioned in Bill Wyman’s diaries – I know the man who bought the pies!

At The Border, Guy