Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

Saturday, May 02, 2020

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 4)

Day 4 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate MF Thank you for nominating me MR . . .


"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

Total bullshit, of course. Quite simply, this compilation album opened my eyes and ears to left of centre music that never get near Saturday morning kids TV in a million and a half years. Bought on vinyl for a knock down price in Watford Market many, many years ago.

Friday, May 01, 2020

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 3)

Day 3 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate JL Thank you for nominating me MR . . . 



"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

Total bullshit, of course.  I think I loved Heartland a bit too much when I was a kid. I'm guessing I was about 14 or 15 when this came out, and I probably did think the revolution was just one catchy three minute single away.

Thursday, April 30, 2020

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 2)

Day 2 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate RW Thank you for nominating me MR . . . 



"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

Total bullshit, of course. What hides behind what is possibly the crappiest album cover in the history of music is an absolutely wonderful compilation, and if you don't fall in love with The Byrds after listening to it, someone supply me with your name and address and I will forward on your death certificate. (Poor taste in times like these? Of course.)

Bought it on cassette in Hemel back in 88 or 89, and I played it to death when I first went to University. So many great tracks on there that I refuse to single any of them out. Being an old geezer, I can't remember if I bought this or Johnny Rogan's book on The Byrds, 'Timeless Flight' (bought in a bookshop on my one trip to Aylesbury) first. It must have been this compilation.

Check it out, blogging bots.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 1)

Day 1 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate JC Thank you for nominating me MR . . . 




"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

What total bullshit. Of course, I can't stop myself from explaining, ranting and reviewing in the comments:

  • "Of course they will all be from when I was 12 or 13. Such a fucking cliche."
  • " I was a bit young for this when it first came out, and I only found it after buying Luxury Gap. I'm sure I bought both cassettes within days of each other in '83. (Got the badges as well, of course. ;-) ) I love Luxury Gap as well, but this was the album of theirs that I played again and again and again. Listened to it again just a couple of days ago, and there's only one track that stops it from being an absolutely perfect album."
  • "Just noticed I'm being a total hypocrite in the comments section by going into extensive detail about why I love the album listed. Total wanker. Oh, well." (Some self-awareness, thank christ.)

Friday, December 14, 2007

Friday's Playlist #26

An ongoing series:

  • (59) Soft Cell, 'What?' (Non-stop Ecstatic Dancing)
  • (34) Duran Duran, 'Save A Prayer' (Rio)
  • (22) Depeche Mode, 'Leave In Silence' (A Broken Frame)
  • (21) Ultravox, 'Reap The Wild Wind' (Quartet)
  • (17) ABC, 'All Of My Heart' (Lexicon Of Love)
  • (16) Simple Minds, 'Glittering Prize' (New Gold Dream, 81,82,83)
  • (13) Carly Simon, 'Why'
  • (8) Mari Wilson, 'Just What I Always Wanted' (Show People)
  • (7) Evelyn Champagne King, ''Love Come Down' (Get Loose)
  • (6) Shalamar, 'There It Is' (Friends)
  • I wasn't going to do a playlist this week. Too much listening to Fad Gadget, Diesel Park West and Billy Childish adds up to a limited choice for a playlist, but what with Steve Coleman's 10/10/82 talk falling into my lap late last night, I thought I would conjure up a playlist from the charts from that particular week.
    I can't say with any authority that SPGB members back in '82 were listening to the songs selected, but I know that I was.
    If you fiddle about with the boombox at the top of the post, you can listen to them today. Cheers.

    Friday, December 07, 2007

    Friday's Playlist #25


    An ongoing series:

  • Hub Moore and the Great Outdoors, 'Walk Away' (True Fiction Pictures: Music From The Films Of Hal Hartley)
  • Norman Blake and John Burnside, 'Girl' (Ballads of the Book)
  • The Detroit Cobras, 'Slipping Around' (Baby)
  • The Waterboys, 'This Is The Sea' (This Is The Sea)
  • King Creosote, 'Cowardly Custard' (Bombshell)
  • Gene Clark, 'For A Spanish Guitar' (White Light)
  • The Headboys, 'The Shape Of Things To Come' (The Headboys)
  • The Bluebells, 'The Patriot Game' (Sisters)
  • MGMT, ''Time To Pretend' (Oracular Spectacular)
  • Alan Gill, 'Letter To Brezhnev Theme' (Letter To Brezhnev Soundtrack)
  • Friday, November 30, 2007

    I just want to clarify one thing

    According to the Manchester Guardian, there's a 'Brooklyn Scene'.

    Not round our way, there isn't

    Friday's Playlist #24.5 (Mini Playlist)


    Apparently, if you hit play on the cassette you can hear a few of the tracks from this week's playlist. By accident, the tracks selected seem to have a sixties theme. That just happens to be the sort of music that I've been listening to this week.

    And hat tip to Mine For Life for the heads up on setting up a mini playlist for the Friday Playlist. (Nice selection of eighties tracks, btw.)

    With this new toy, I suspect that I will be revisiting some old playlists.

    Friday's Playlist #24

    An ongoing series:

  • Fontella Bass, 'Don't Jump' (Rescued)
  • Long Ryders, 'Looking For Lewis And Clark' mp3 (The State of the Union)
  • Duran Duran, 'Dirty Great Monster' (Red Carpet Massacre)
  • The Pretty Things, 'Photographer' (Emotions)
  • Duran Duran, 'Red Carpet Massacre (Red Carpet Massacre)
  • Graham Gouldman, 'Stop Stop Stop' (UK Freakbeat)
  • The Poets, 'Wooden Spoon' mp3 (UK Freakbeat)
  • Sid Presley Experience, 'Public Enemy Number One' (Are You Experienced)
  • The B-52's, 'Dance This Mess Around' (The B-52's)
  • Bright Eyes, 'Hot Knives' (Cassadaga)
  • Friday, November 23, 2007

    Friday's Playlist #23

    An ongoing series:

  • Diesel Park West, 'Opportunity Cost' (Shakespeare Alabama)
  • The Outnumbered, 'Accidental Color' (Why Are All The Good People Going Crazy)
  • Au Pairs, 'Inconvenience' (Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology)
  • The Bangles 'Getting Out of Hand'
  • Martha and the Muffins, 'Saigon' mp3 (Far Away In Time)
  • The Redskins, 'Go Get Organised' mp3 (Neither Washington nor Moscow)
  • Pony Pony Run Run, 'First Date Mullet'
  • Duran Duran, 'Anyone Out There' (Duran Duran)
  • The Nips, 'Gabrielle'
  • Nervus Rex, 'Don't Look' (Nervus Rex)
  • Friday, November 16, 2007

    Friday's Playlist #22

    An ongoing series:

  • The Frantic Elevators, 'You Know What You Told Me' (The Indie Scene 80)
  • David Rovics, 'After The Revolution' (For The Moment)
  • The Undertones, 'You're Welcome' (Positive Touch)
  • TV 21 'Attention Span' (A Thin Red Line)
  • The Prisoners, 'Reaching My Head'
  • Gene Clark, 'So You Say You Lost Your Baby' (Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers)
  • Thomas Leer, 'All About You' (Pillows & Prayers)
  • Attila the Stockbroker, 'A bang and a Wimpey' (Pillows & Prayers)
  • Scars, 'All About You' (Author! Author!)
  • Matt Johnson, 'Another Boy Drowning' (Burning Blue Soul)
  • Monday, November 05, 2007

    Sweaty Palms

    Best Top 5 ever? # 10 & 11 aren't bad either.

    Sod all this Galloway/SWP bollocks. Some things are just much more important.

    Saturday, November 03, 2007

    Xmas Comes Early For A Music Geek

    Where have you been all my life?

    Hat tip to Church of Me's Marcello for a gateway into a lost world. And why in particular the Top 75 chart for the week ending the 29th of May 1982 as the link? Well, according to Marcello:

    "Because the first half of it [1982] was the apex of New Pop; because in particular the chart for the week ending 29 May may well be the greatest Top 40 singles chart ever . . ."

    It's too early for me to say whether I agree with him or not. (Though at first glance it does look like a damn fine list.) Get back to me in about 18 hours or so?

    In the meantime, enjoy the song that was at number 24 in the charts that week, and which is my all-time second favourite track from Dave Sylvian, Mick Karn and the other two:

    Japan - 'Cantonese Boy' mp3

    *Cough* Goes without saying that I've uploaded it for sampling purposes, and that you should in fact also check out the album that 'Cantonese Boy' is taken from, Tin Drum.

    Friday's Playlist #21

    . . . once again on a Saturday morning. An ongoing series:

  • Ejectorseat, 'To Die For'
  • redcarsgofaster , 'Demagogues'
  • The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, 'Stick Around'
  • Bobb Trimble 'One Mile From Heaven' (Iron Curtain Innocence)
  • Hurrah!, 'Sweet Sanity' (Tell God I'm Here)
  • Stephen Duffy, 'London Girls' (Duffy)
  • All The Kings Men, 'Peterloo'
  • New Young Pony Club, 'Ice Cream' (Fantastic Playroom)
  • Sweet Electra, 'Shadow'
  • Pistolera, 'Cazador' (Siempre Hay Salida)
  • Monday, October 29, 2007

    Chalkhills and Children

    Todd Bernhardt: [laughing] Los Angeles.

    Andy Partridge: Which everyone knows, in Spanish, stands for "City of Lying Bastards"! [laughs]

    Latest installment from the XTC MySpace page has Todd B and Andy P discussing 'Chalkhills and Children' from XTC's 1989 album, 'Oranges and Lemons'

    Saturday, October 27, 2007

    Audio Hijack, I Love You

    . . . you've made an eighties pop fan very happy.

    Friday's Playlist #20

    . . . on a Saturday morning. An ongoing series:

  • The Mekons, 'Millionaire' (I Love Mekons)
  • Win, 'Shampoo Tears' (Uh! Tears Baby - A Trash Icon)
  • Of Montreal, 'Raspberry Beret' (Live version)
  • The Bourgeios Four 'Fool Pt 2'
  • Girl In A Coma, 'Say' (Both Before I'm Gone)
  • Art Brut, 'St Pauli' (It's a Bit Complicated)
  • Popup, 'Chinese Burn'
  • Colourbox, 'Manic' (Colourbox)
  • Pete Wylie, 'Stay Free' (White Riot Vol. Two A Tribute To The Clash)
  • Cassette Kids, 'Acrobats'
  • Friday, October 19, 2007

    Friday's Playlist #19

    An ongoing series:

  • Aztec Camera, 'Spanish Horses' (Dreamland)
  • Judy Mowatt, 'She Kept On Talking' (Trojan Reggae Sisters)
  • AC Acoustics, '16.04.2010' (Peel Session)
  • U2 'Out of Control' (Boy)
  • Prefab Sprout, 'The Ice Maiden' (Jordan The Comeback)
  • The Sound, 'Winning' (From The Lions Mouth)
  • Al Green, 'L-O-V-E (Love)' (Al Green Is Love)
  • Manic Street Preachers, 'To Repel Ghosts' (Lifeblood)
  • The Upsetters, 'A Taste of Killings' (Trojan Skinhead Reggae)
  • Suicide, 'Ghost Rider' (Suicide - the first album)
  • Monday, October 15, 2007

    XTC's 'Great Fire'

    Latest song under discussion by Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt over at the XTC MySpace page is the excellent 'Great Fire' from the 'Mummer' album. (I've previously declared my opinion on the song on the blog here.)

    Not as instantaneous a pop classic as a lot of their early singles, 'Great Fire' did have to creep up on me before becoming one of my favourite XTC songs. But for all that, I was still surprised to discover that the song didn't even chart when it was released as a single in '83. Coming so soon after 'Senses Working Overtime' and 'English Settlement', I bet it was a bigger surprise for the band and their record company at the time.

    Andy P reveals in the interview that the song was played on Radio 1 a grand total of one time! That was when Radio 1 could make or break a song in a matter of weeks. It'd have probably been better if it had never been played at all. That way they could have at least claimed they were victims of some sort of deliberate campaign to kill their career.

    I'm trying to think back to why they might have been so out in the cold by '83. I can only speculate that by that point in their career they were caught between the hard rock and the missing chart place of not being pretty enough to compete with the Duran Durans and Spandau Ballets on the one hand and not having that cache of being new or left-field enough to still be championed by the likes of John Peel and Janice Long (the last XTC Peel Session was way back in '79).

    Any chance of being part and parcel of the Second British Invasion of America at that time was effectively killed off by Partridge's stage fright and refusal to tour, and it would be another three or four years before XTC would become an overnight sensation in the States via 'Dear God' picking up airplay on college radio.

    OK, I'm getting off topic and before I start hunting high and low on the internet to see if John Hughes ever featured an XTC song in one of his films*, I'll jump back on blogging track by echoing the opinion of one of the posters on the XTC MySpace page in stating that this is definitely one of the best interviews so far in the series between Andy P and Todd Bernhardt.

    Granted a great bulk of the interview is made up of the muso bits that leaves me in a fog, but even I in my musical illiteracy recognise that it is in the bridge of the song, when Andy P. kicks in with the line "I've been in love before . . . " and the music totally shifts in mood and tone that moves it up from a good XTC song to a great one.

    To placate us musical numpties, the interview also carries the by now expected abundance of Andy P's anecdotes, skewed viewed of the history of XTC and the world, and a brilliant humour which spells out once again that you have to be a clever bastard to write with the acuity and wit of Andy Partridge. I especially loved this passage from the interview:

    AP: I was listening to the song today, as is the sort of thing I do when you ask me about these songs, so I put it on and had a listen. But, just to show you how paranoid I am -- I know there are some fans traipsing around the town [there was a meeting of XTC fans that weekend in Swindon, to see The SheBeats and tribute band The Fuzzy Warblers play at a local club the night before this interview], so I sat here with headphones [chuckling] so they wouldn't hear the sounds of my music coming out of my house and think, "What a wanker he is, listening to his own songs!"

    I actually heard a horrible story about Sting -- where'd I hear this story, about someone who went to dinner with him, and a few other people...

    TB: I sent you that! From the Holy Moly newsletter...

    AP: Yeah, you did! He pulls out his iPod during dinner, cutting himself off from the conversation...

    TB: ... and the guests ask Trudi if they said anything wrong, to make him be so anti-social. She says, "He always does it, and the worst thing is, he's listening to his own fucking music."

    AP: Yeah! Unbelievable. Well, I didn't want that to be the case, I didn't want people thinking, "Wow! There's Andy, and he's listening to his own songs!"

    TB: [laughing] Right. Sobbing.

    AP: [laughs] Yeah. Sobbing gently.

    I think that passage is all the more brilliant and funny, 'cos I can hear him telling this story in his West Country accent. (You can check out more wondeful quotes from this series of interviews in this old post from the old blog.)

    And after the recent Colin Moulding slideshow on the blog, I thought would also include a picture of the 'Great Fire' record cover with this post. I'm glad that I sought it out, 'cos it tipped me the wink to the possibility that there is another XTC fan within the ranks of the SPGB back in Britain. How else do you explain that the cover of 'Great Fire' carries such a strong resemblance to a particular Socialist Standard front cover from the mid to late nineties?

    At the time of the issue's appearance, I remembering thinking that the layout editor of the Standard must have been on something to come up with such an outlandish design but I now think that it was nothing more than being exposed to a bit too much Psonic Psunshine. OK, I'll stop here before this paragraph turns into a Super Furry Animals lyric.

    *It turns out that XTC had the song 'Happy Families' on the soundtrack of the 1988 John Hughes film, 'She's Having a Baby'. Never seen the film, never heard the song. Never will see the film, but I'm off to hunt down the song.

    Friday, October 12, 2007

    Friday's Playlist #18 - It's a G-Thing

    An ongoing series:

  • Paris, 'Guerrilla Funk' (Guerrilla Funk)
  • Kristen Vigard, 'God Give Me Strength' mp3 (Grace Of My Heart Soundtrack)
  • Cher, 'Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves' (Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves)
  • The Stranglers, 'Golden Brown' (La Folie)
  • Japan, 'Ghosts' (Tin Drum)
  • Liberty X, 'Got To Have Your Love' (Thinking It Over)
  • Robert Wyatt & Cristina Dona, 'Goccia'
  • Violent Femmes, 'Gone Daddy Gone' (Violent Femmes)
  • Electronic, 'Getting Away with It' (Get the Message - The Best of Electronic)
  • Microdisney, 'Give Me All Your Clothes' mp3 (Crooked Mile)
  • As you might have guessed, there's a theme - or rather a meme - to this week's playlist. The alphabetised meme was found via here, and hat tip to Will for pointing me in the direction of that particular blog. Even if I did get off at the wrong stop. Apologies Will.

    A couple of the songs are available as mp3s for a limited time. Both class tracks, and after hearing them you'll be compelled to go out and buy the back catalogues. The finders fee can be determined at a later date.

    Next Tagees?

    The usual suspects: Vic Davidson; Patrik Fitzgerald; Sarah Silverman; Mooey and Tegan . . . Sara Nicole Atkins.