A. L. Lloyd, Anne Briggs, Frankie Armstrong with Alf Edwards and Dave Swarbrick – "The Bird In The Bush (Traditional Erotic Songs)" (Topic Records – 12T135) 1966

Phwooooaaaar, Fnar Fnar, Kyuk Kyuk,,Titter Titter, them rude Folk Singers Folks eh?

If you've ever wanted a semi-boner caused by a 17th century song full of sexual references as sung by a fusty old bloke called Bert,accompanied by another old duffer called Alf on the squeeze box, then this is the album for you.

Luckily, we also have the lovely,and apparently sober but sexually liberated goer, Anne Briggs , to achieve the same effect rather more easily;depending on your sexual orientation of course.Then again there's also Frankie Armstrong, who, as fate would have it,isn't a beered up old bloke,but turns out to be another fair folk maiden with at least a couple of admirable qualities.

Yes it's true, country folk from the olden days had a sex life,and what's more, they sang about it.Although I guess there weren't many songs about Homosexual love affairs.....but I wouldn't put it past 'em.Seems like the country folk were far ahead of those urban dwellers on most issues at the time.I guess it depends on the person singing,as is the tradition of Folk singing,that you can adapt the words to fit your own personal leanings?So if you were a Gay Shepard,you can adapt any of these tunes to be about that tempestuous affair you had with young Billy Biddlesthwaite round the back of the grain silo in the silage pit (Snigger!). Or, knowing some farmer boys, that troublesome evening in the hay with Susan the transvestite Ram treating him like the lady he wished he were.

We also have a pre-Fairport Dave Swarbrick on the fiddling...Fnar Fnaaar,Kyuk Kyuk!

Tracklist:

A1 A. L. Lloyd– The Two Magicians 4:41
A2 Frankie Armstrong– The Old Man From Over The Sea 2:49
A3 A. L. Lloyd– The Wanton Seed 1:30
A4 Anne Briggs– Gathering Rushes In The Month Of May 4:46
A5 A. L. Lloyd– The Bonny Black Hare 2:54
A6 Anne Briggs– The Whirly Whorl 1:12
A7 A. L. Lloyd– Pretty Polly 1:27
B1 A. L. Lloyd– The Old Bachelor 3:42
B2 Anne Briggs– The Stonecutter Boy 1:53
B3 A. L. Lloyd– The Mower 1:57
B4 Frankie Armstrong– The Bird In The Bush 2:55
B5 A. L. Lloyd– The Pegging Awl 2:46
B6 Anne Briggs– Martinmas Time 4:50
B7 A. L. Lloyd– The Widow Of Westmoreland's Daughter 2:15

DOWNLOAD into the birds bush HERE!Kyuk Kyuk!

Various Artists – "The Iron Muse (A Panorama Of Industrial Folk Music)" (Topic Records – 12T86) 1964

Nooooooo, this isn't an album by Current 93,Coil, or any of the other ,so-called privately educated Industrial folkers .This was made by people who actually worked for a living. And they didn't live anywhere like the tastefully paved avenues and nooks of Hampstead either.They endured the rough end of the Industrial revolution that made the various Polytechnics and Art schools that Throbbing Gristle attended look like fluffy pink kindergartens, and trod the grimy cobbled  slipways to an early death in the ,to quote Pere Ubu, Dub Housing of the Industrial north,where the sun literally never shone. The only way out for these slaves was ,hopefully, a rampant case of emphysema.A disease which Ironically,did for Genesis P.Orridge look alikey, fiddling folk legend Dave Swarbrick in the end,after his double lung transplant......but his was due to chain smoking rather than breathing in coal dust for 40 years.

Ay Lad, life wir aaaaaard oop North,but down the ale houses and pubs.......(amazingly there were no,slash, Zero Wine Bars???.).....of the open cess-pits of northern England,in the absence of TV and Radio,the local singers entertained the cap doffing proletariat with some centuries old Folk songs,passed down purely by ear to mouth. One doubts very much,following the impending extinction events to come,that Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' would achieve the same distinction?.....maybe "The Final Countdown" has a chance, or the Crazy Frog?...But what is sure is that the songs from the English Civil War will still be sung in the crumbling bunkers of the near future.

Often, of an evening,after alighting the pit lift and a quick communal shower, it was down the local, to hear Old Bert sing unaccompanied songs about the Napoleonic Wars,unrequited Love,murder and suicide.....and every body knew the words and their harmony parts.

Thanks to Pete and Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, there was a Folk revival going on on both sides of the Atlantic.Little did those kids listening to Leadbelly and their exotic American Blues heroes know,most of the songs they were singing were in fact Olde Folk tunes from the British Isles,that were just about to be claimed back.

1964 may have been the height of Beatlemania,but it was also the height of the UK Folk Boom when even records like this sold out like hot potatoes.....I say potatoes instead of Chips because the nouveaux Folkies were predominantly middle class and upwards....exceptions being the legendary Martin Carthy,Anne Briggs and the Watersons of course,but there was a fashion element included that some purists would find distasteful, especially head Folk bore and Kirsty's dad, Ewan MacColl.

Before Bob Dylan (BB),and to a greater extent Fairport (BF) this purist approach was all you got in the Folk Clubs,but this was the inspiration for the Folk Rockers of the late sixties.

I apologise for you having to endure several examples of the depressing Geordie accent on this record,but this is the stuff you would have had to listen in the Folk clubs of the north in the late fifties to mid-sixties.An honest excursion into epic story telling inside a couple of minutes.As Martin Carthy says; "It takes a couple of days to read a good book,an hour and a half to watch a decent movie, but a  song can get you to the same place in just five minutes".......unless it's "Barbie Girl" of course.

Another aspect of the 'Folk Revival' was its politicization.Naturally being working class music, it was hi-jacked by a champagne socialist agenda,leading to pink coloured overtly righteous bores like Billy Bragg!

Ironically it took Margaret Thatcher to liberate these people from the Mines and Factories,an act that in centuries to come will be called 'The Great Liberation'.Being very working class myself,and not Tory in the slightest,I took my chance to escape a lifetime of slavery, fueled by the DIY message of Punk Rock and indeed Thatcher herself, to achieve what most of us working class scummers wish to attain....yep....comfortable bourgeois status.The bleating pinko's and punko's were largely Bourgeois themselves,playing politics with the little people where the music came from,which had absolutely nothing to do with Political Dogma,and politics has nothing to do with freedom.

Nowadays the Iron Muse has been replaced by the Plasma widecreen Muse,or ,even more disturbing, the Social Media Muse.Woe betide all the musicologists of the future unearthing the folk music of today.....one assumes they will rebury it instantly,and create a 'Forbidden Zone' like the one in 'Planet Of The Apes'

Tracklist:

A1 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– Miners' Dance Tunes
A2 Bob Davenport– The Collier's Rant
A3 Anne Briggs– The Recruited Collier
A4 A. L. Lloyd– Pit Boots
A5 Louis Killen– The Banks Of The Dee
A6 Matt McGinn – The Donibristle Moss Moran Disaster
A7 Bob Davenport– The Durham Lockout
A8 Louis Killen– The Blackleg Miners
A9 A. L. Lloyd– The Celebrated Working Man
A10 Bob Davenport– The Row Between The Cages
A11 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– The Collier's Daughter
B1 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– The Weavers' March
B2 A. L. Lloyd– The Weaver And The Factory Maid
B3 Ray Fisher– The Spinner's Wedding
B4 A. L. Lloyd– The Poor Cotton Wayver
B5 Anne Briggs– The Doffing Mistress
B6 Matt McGinn – The Swan Necked Valve
B7 Ray Fisher– The Dundee Lassie
B8 Matt McGinn – The Foreman O'Rourke
B9 Louis Killen– Farewell To The Monty
B10 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– Miner's Dance Tunes

DOWNLOAD from the richest seam in the coal mine HERE!

Anne Briggs – "The Complete Topic Recordings(1963 - 71)" (Bo'Weavil Recordings – weavil 10) 2006

A fine East Midlands lass,with flowing dark hair and an intense stare.....just like your scribe;-).Anne Briggs was only sixteen when she started performing her puritanical solo and unaccompanied Folk singing career at the Nottingham Goose Fair back in 1960. No interest in Johnny Kidd or Cliff and The Shadows for young Anne.When she sings its as if Rock'n'Roll had never happened.....Jazz either for that matter. Instruments???.. that's for sell-outs...the 'please like me' brigade.Or the rogue folkies who formed pop groups, 'The please please like me' brigade, like The Beatles and The Hollies,who were for all intents and purposes electrified Folk groups with a backbeat. Her first EP was out on legendary folk label 'Topic' during the height of Beatlemania in '64,as if from the times before electricity.She sang about the less happy aspects of love and life, unlike our luvable mop-tops.This was about how crap progress was,and the pitfalls of love.Kinda like a sixties version of Straight Edge Punk.

She shunned the spotlight,even refusing to record anything for a while,music was in the moment and shouldn't be repeated.She had no interest in the feminist movement because she WAS feminism.No need for bra burning,she did whatever she wanted without permission from men or women alike.Patronisingly labelled a 'Wild Child' for her attitude to life,especially because she was female,and ladies didn't do things like get drunk and sleep around did they?Er...yes they did.....still do apparently,but now they can play Football or Rugby.....that's progress????

Eventually,of course, the odd bazouki or guitar cropped up,and she even started writing her own songs;but by 1973 she gave up music to live in the scottish wilderness with her Forester hubby, and had a family.Hardly ever to been seen or heard again.One of the very few musicians never to really sell-out to the man,or men.

She was also the source for several of the traditional songs which were popified by The Pentangle and Fairport among others, including "Blackwaterside." Of which former dalliance Bert Jansch's instrumental accompaniment to this song was later copied ,read as 'Ripped Off' by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy 'I ran off with a fourteen year old and nobodies done anything about it' Page; who recorded it as "Black Mountain Side”(notice any similarities there?) and credited himself as the writer....Not the first time Jim was known to do that.....for example probably 'that song', currently in litigation, also? Never forgiven those hairy fuckers for not paying Sandy Denny for her work on Led Zep IV.Twats!

Sandy,influenced by all aspects 'Anne' since she was a 16 year old witnessing a woman on stage in the folk clubs of London,was a good friend,as well as a Fan of Briggs,but could no way match her purist approach to the Folk Lifestyle.As much as she would love to give up the quest for fame or her luxuries,she couldn't.So she wrote a song for Fotheringay about her barrier busting chum, "The Pond and The Stream.

Anne's pure unadorned voice is a beacon for honest simplicity,and intensity,the very opposite to the vocal acrobatics that the modern wave of pop singers torture our ears and minds with today.It was a back to basics approach that would inform the punk music of the future.After all, Punk music ,IS, Folk music innit?

Tracklist:

The EP & Compilations:

A1 The Recruited Collier 2:42
A2 The Doffing Mistress 1:27
A3 Lowlands 3:15
A4 My Bonnie Boy 2:53
A5 Polly Vaughan 4:25
B1 Rosemary Lane 2:44
B2 Gathering Rushes In The Month Of May 4:51
B3 The Whirly Whorl 1:17
B4 The Stonecutter Boy 1:57
B5 Martinmas Time 4:56

The LP:

C1 Blackwater Side 3:54
C2 The Snow It Melts The Soonest 2:23
C3 Willie O Winsbury 5:33
C4 Go Your Way 4:14
C5 Thorneymoor Woods 3:36
D1 The Cuckoo 3:11
D2 Reynardine 3:00
D3 Young Tambling 10:44
D4 Living By The Water 3:55
D5 Maa Bonny Lad 1:18

DOWNLOAD here maa bonny lads'n'lasses

Jackson C. Frank – "The Complete Recordings" (Ba Da Bing! – BING 105) 2015

Just as Space Aliens are reluctant to make themselves visible to humankind to avoid starting a new religion,and Just as Eggs Over Easy lit the spark of a new religion in 1972 with the inspiration for Pub Rock....I suppose you had to be there to understand why?.....Jackson C. Frank was an American ignored in his own country but found acceptance in England,where he was rather influential for a lot of the Brit Folkers who had probably never met an American before (except for Paul Simon,who doesn't count),or even met a Space Alien for that matter.One of these being the young, impressionable, Sandy Denny, who drew great inspiration for her own nascent songwriting.....not something many young women did before the latter part of the 1960's.Incredibly she was only 19 when she penned "Who Knows Where The Time Goes",one of thee greatest tunes ever written,by anyone,ever,even by them shy Space Alien chaps.

Jackson himself,resembled,as well as felt like, an Alien.A living tragedy with a life-story of pain and failure that you just couldn't make up.

There was a member of "The Happy Flowers" (Improv Noise Punk duo who sang about freak childhood accidents from the child's perspective) called 'Mr Horribly Charred Infant'.Whether he was named after Jackson C Frank is up for conjecture, but Jackson C was indeed horribly charred as an infant as a survivor of a raging school fire that killed many of his school chums,and girlfriend Marlene,but Frank survived with something like 50% burns.Which would explain his uncanny resemblance to Top British Buffoon Bastard Boris Pfeffel Johnson

Boris P. Johnson as Jackson C. Frank

Jackson C. Frank as Boris P. Johnson

Jackson was also minted,thanks to the Hundred grand compensation he was awarded for his injuries.Which is about a cool million dollars in today's currency.So upon receipt of this booty, the 21 year old Frank hoped on a boat bound for England to do the folk circuit with his finely honed Guitar and songwriting skills he had developed during his long,lonely recovery from his horrific burns.

He was an instant hit in the Folk clubs of London in 1965,The Troubadour,Les Cousins, etc.;there weren't too many Americans around, so he and Paul Simon cleaned up. Future doomed starlets Nick Drake and Sandy Denny were both smitten, and it was only natural that Jackson made his first and only album, with Paul Simon producing;Frank was so shy during the recording that he asked to be shielded by screens so that no-one could see him, claiming: 'I can't play. You're looking at me.'...This shyness didn't seem to stop him playing live however,or,have a short romance with Sandy Denny.The romance with Britain's fast rising Folk star was short and tempestuous.Denny's Father was less than impressed by him,or her other boyfriends,especially future bed-hopping hubby Trevor Lucas,and who can blame him?

Sandy wrote a song about Frank called "Next Time Around" that sums up the enigma that never was quite nicely.

Jackson,understandably suffered from what we now call PTSD,so his moods were somewhat changeable. He also spent money as if it was going out of fashion, as they say?....don't they??? He had a new flash car every month,most of which got smashed up due to his soon to be well displayed self-destructive tendencies.

He once told Denny that he couldn't bend down and cut his own toenails because of the scar tissue,so he would allow them to grow long enough so that if he kicked a wall they would snap off.....always the charmer huh?

Soon his visa was due to expire,and he was running out of money fast,and even quicker he was running out of healthy brain cells! So he had to return to the States and total anonymity, for a couple of years,where things went rapidly downhill.

Returning to England in '68,he was by now a bona-fide nutjob,and struggled to find gigs.

Quote from erstwhile Chum Al 'Year Of The Cat' Stewart:

"He [Frank] proceeded to fall apart before our very eyes. His style that everyone loved was melancholy, very tuneful things. He started doing things that were completely impenetrable. They were basically about psychological angst, played at full volume with lots of thrashing. I don't remember a single word of them – it just did not work. There was one review that said he belonged on a psychologist's couch. Then shortly after that, he hightailed it back to Woodstock again, because he wasn't getting any work."

Back in Woodstock, he married an ex-model, had two kids, and when the male heir to his chaos died from Cystic Fibrosis, he descended further into Depression and mental illness.He left for New York in a vane attempt to find Paul Simon,but ended up down and out on the streets for several years. Which included an episode when a kid blinded him in his left eye with a pellet gun.The weight piled on and he began to look like Inspector Clay from Plan Nine From Outer Space...post mortem.

One-eyed Jackson on the comeback trail to Oblivion

Jackson ended his short harrowing life moving from Mental Institution to funny farm and back....but surely there's a happy ending where being rediscovered he received past royalties, and acknowledgment of his past work and influence?....yeah?.....nope.... Frank died of pneumonia on March 3, 1999, at the age of 56,the stuff of Hollywood biopics....not.....yet Bono still lives?

His sole album from 1965 is a rather haunting work,from someone who knew what pain and the Blues really were in close-up.He could have been Bob Dylan but he weren't no oil painting,horribly scarred,and quite mental...not the main attributes of a pop star I suggest?

He apparently made more recordings,including,remarkably, a Peel Session!?...somehow?....But they make for an interesting document demonstrating the pure futility of trying to get anywhere when you just haven't got the right coloured hair!?

Of these 67 tracks....67???....I advise you stick to the first 10,and single versions there of, which made up his debut and only album.They are quite brilliant,and touching, even without his depressingly tragic life story.The message is 'Why Bother?'

But....at least he got to meet Elvis.....

The doomed gruesome twosome on set at the Club Tropicana video shoot back in '83,six years after Elvis faked his own death to become Andrew Ridgely aka, the other one from Wham!

Tracklist:

1-1 Blues Run The Game
1-2 Don't Look Back
1-3 Kimbie
1-4 Yellow Walls
1-5 Here Come The Blues
1-6 Milk And Honey
1-7 My Name Is Carnival
1-8 Dialogue (I Want To Be Alone)
1-9 Just Like Anything
1-10 You Never Wanted Me
1-11 I've Been 'Buked & I've Been Scorned
1-12 Gospel Plow
1-13 CC Rider
1-14 Banana Boat Song
1-15 Frankie & Johnny
1-16 John Henry
1-17 In The Pines
1-18 John Henry's Hammer
1-19 Ananias
1-20 Borrow Love And Go
1-21 Jesse James
1-22 Last Month Of The Year
1-23 Washington Jail
2-1 Blues Run The Game
2-2 Can't Get Away From My Love
2-3 Marlene
2-4 Marcy's Song
2-5 Madonna Of Swans
2-6 Relations
2-7 Cover Me With Roses
2-8 Cryin' Like A Baby
2-9 Spanish Moss
2-10 The Visit
2-11 Have You Seen The Unicorns
2-12 Juliette
2-13 China Blue
2-14 Madonna Of Swans
2-15 Box Canyon
2-16 Cover Me With Roses
2-17 Spanish Moss
2-18 Stitch In Time
2-19 Heartbreak Hotel
2-20 Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me / Precious Lord
3-1 Blues Run The Game
3-2 My Name Is Carnival
3-3 Jimmy Clay
3-4 Just Like Anything
3-5 You Never Wanted Me
3-6 Juliette
3-7 Instrumental
3-8 Night Of The Blues
3-9 (Tumble) In The Wind
3-10 The Spectre
3-11 Half The Distance
3-12 Bull Men
3-13 Maria Spanish Rose
3-14 Singing Sailors
3-15 Night Of The Blues
3-16 (Tumble) In The Wind
3-17 Goodbye (To My Loving You)
3-18 October
3-19 Mystery
3-20 I Don't Want To Love You No More
3-21 Child Fixin' To Die
3-22 Halloween Is Black As Night
3-23 In The Pines
3-24 On My Way To The Canaan Land

DOWNLOAD the soundtrack to the least likely rock biopic that Hollywood never made HERE!

Sandy Denny – "Studio Outtakes - Home Demos - Unheard Songs" (2010)

These are the "Studio Outtakes ,Home Demos ,and Unheard Songs" section of that massive 19CD box set of everything Sandy recorded ever!?..which would set you back quite a few hundred quid,mostly for stuff you already have...but not these 127 intimate versions of her future studio work,plus songs that were never heard beyond Sandy's various living rooms.Everything from Fairport to Fotheringay,from the Folk Club years to the record company compliant Adult Orientated rock of 'Rendezvous',is here in a superior, stripped down form with Sandy's perfect Voice whispering in your ears.Its like she's in the room singing you to sleep......i'm welling up now!.....just don't tell me mates!

Early Home Demos:
12-1 Sandy Denny– Blues Run The Game (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-2 Sandy Denny– Milk And Honey (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-3 Sandy Denny– Soho (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-4 Sandy Denny– It Ain't Me Babe (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-5 Sandy Denny– East Virginia (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-6 Sandy Denny– Geordie (Home Demo)
12-7 Sandy Denny– In Memory (The Tender Years) (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-8 Sandy Denny– I Love My True Love (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-9 Sandy Denny– Let No Man Steal Your Thyme (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-10 Sandy Denny– Ethusel (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-11 Sandy Denny– Carnival (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-12 Sandy Denny– Setting Of The Sun (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-13 Sandy Denny– Boxful Of Treasures (Home Demo)
12-14 Sandy Denny– They Don't Seem To Know You (Home Demo)
12-15 Sandy Denny– Gerrard Street (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-16 Sandy Denny– Fotheringay (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-17 Sandy Denny– She Moves Through The Fair (Home Demo)
12-18 Sandy Denny– The Time Has Come (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-19 Sandy Denny– Seven Virgins (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-20 Sandy Denny– A Little Bit Of Rain (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-21 Sandy Denny– Go Your Own Way My Love (Home Demo)
12-22 Sandy Denny– Cradle Song (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-23 Sandy Denny– Blue Tattoo (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-24 Sandy Denny– The Quiet Land Of Erin (Unreleased Home Demo)
12-25 Sandy Denny– Who Knows Where The Time Goes (Unreleased Home Demo)

Sandy Denny Solo And Fairport Convention:
13-1 Sandy Denny– Who Knows Where The Time Goes (Unreleased Home Demo)
13-2 Sandy Denny– Motherless Children (Unreleased Home Demo)
13-3 Sandy Denny– Milk And Honey (Unreleased BBC Session)
13-4 Sandy Denny– Been On The Road So Long
13-5 Sandy Denny– Quiet Land Of Erin
13-6 Sandy Denny– Autopsy (Demo)
13-7 Sandy Denny– Now And Then (Demo)
13-8 Sandy Denny– Fotheringay (Unreleased Version)
13-9 Sandy Denny– She Moved Through The Fair (Unreleased Version)
13-10 Fairport Convention– Mr. Lacey (Unreleased BBC Session)
13-11 Fairport Convention– Throwaway Street Puzzle
13-12 Fairport Convention– Ballad Of Easy Rider (Outtake)
13-13 Fairport Convention– Dear Landlord (Outtake)
13-14 Fairport Convention– A Sailors Life (Alternative Version)
13-15 Fairport Convention– Sir Patrick Spens (Outtake)
13-16 Fairport Convention– Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood (Take 1)
13-17 Fairport Convention– Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood (Take 4)

Fotheringay:
14-1 Fotheringay– The Sea (Unreleased Studio Demo)
14-2 Fotheringay– Winter Winds (Unreleased Studio Demo)
14-3 Fotheringay– The Pond And The Stream (Unreleased Studio Demo)
14-4 Fotheringay– The Way I Feel (Unreleased Alternative Take)
14-5 Fotheringay– Banks Of The Nile (Unreleased Alternate Take)
14-6 Fotheringay– Winter Winds (Unreleased Alternate Take)
14-7 Fotheringay– Silver Threads And Golden Needles (Outtake)
14-8 Fotheringay– The Sea (Unreleased)
14-9 Fotheringay– Two Weeks Last Summer
14-10 Fotheringay– Nothing More
14-11 Fotheringay– Banks Of The Nile
14-12 Fotheringay– Memphis Tennessee
14-13 Fotheringay– Trouble In Mind (Unreleased)
14-14 Fotheringay– Bruton Town (Unreleasedl)

Sandy Denny: The North Star Grassman And The Ravens:
15-1 Sandy Denny– The Sea Captain (Unreleased Demo)
15-2 Sandy Denny– Next Time Around (Unreleased Demo)
15-3 Sandy Denny– The Optimist (Unreleased Demo)
15-4 Sandy Denny– Wretched Wilbur (Unreleased Demo)
15-5 Sandy Denny– Crazy Lady Blues (Unreleased Demo)
15-6 Sandy Denny– Lord Bateman (Unreleased Demo)
15-7 Sandy Denny With Richard Thompson– Walking The Floor Over You (Unreleased)
15-8 Sandy Denny– Losing Game (Outtake)
15-9 Sandy Denny– The Northstar Grassman And The Ravens (Unreleased)
15-10 Sandy Denny– Crazy Lady Blues (Unreleased)
15-11 Sandy Denny– Late November
15-12 Sandy Denny With Ian Matthews– If You Saw Thru My Eyes
15-13 Sandy Denny With The London Symphony Orchestra– It's A Boy (From 'Tommy')
15-14 Sandy Denny– The Northstar Grassman And The Ravens
15-15 Sandy Denny– The 12th Of Never (Unreleased Studio Demo)
15-16 Sandy Denny– Sweet Rosemary (Demo)
15-17 Sandy Denny– The Lady (Demo)
15-18 Sandy Denny– After Halloween (Demo)

Sandy Denny: Sandy And Like An Old Fashioned Waltz:
16-1 Sandy Denny– It'll Take A Long Time (Unreleased Demo)
16-2 Sandy Denny– Sweet Rosemary (Demo)
16-3 Sandy Denny– For Nobody To Hear (Unreleased Demo)
16-4 Sandy Denny– Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Unreleased Demo)
16-5 Sandy Denny– Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood (Unreleased Demo)
16-6 Sandy Denny– Listen, Listen (Unreleased Demo)
16-7 Sandy Denny– The Lady (Unreleased Demo)
16-8 Sandy Denny– Bushes And Briars (Unreleased Demo)
16-9 Sandy Denny– It Suits Me Well (Unreleased Demo)
16-10 Sandy Denny– The Music Weaver (Demo)
16-11 Sandy Denny– No End (Unreleased Alternate Take)
16-12 Sandy Denny– Whispering Grass (Unreleased Demo)
16-13 Sandy Denny– Until The Real Thing Comes Along (Unreleased Demo)
16-14 Sandy Denny– Walking The Floor Over You (Alternative Version)
16-15 Sandy Denny– No End (Alternative Version)

Sandy Denny - Rendezvous:
18-1 Sandy Denny– Blackwaterside (Unreleased Granada TV Show 1975)
18-2 Sandy Denny– No More Sad Refrains (Unreleased Granada TV Show 1975)
18-3 Sandy Denny– By The Time It Gets Dark (Unreleased Acoustic Demo)
18-4 Sandy Denny– One Way Donkey Ride (Unreleased Acoustic Version)
18-5 Sandy Denny With Jess Roden– Losing Game
18-6 Sandy Denny– Easy To Slip (Outtake)
18-7 Sandy Denny– By The Time It Gets Dark (Demo)
18-8 Sandy Denny– No More Sad Refrains (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-9 Sandy Denny– I'm A Dreamer (Unreleased Live In The Studio)
18-10 Sandy Denny– All Our Days (Unreleased Choral Version)
18-11 Sandy Denny– By The Time It Gets Dark (Demo)
18-12 Sandy Denny– Still Waters Run Deep (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-13 Sandy Denny– Full Moon (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-14 Sandy Denny– Candle In The Wind (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-15 Sandy Denny– Moments (Outtake)
18-16 Sandy Denny– I Wish I Was A Fool For You (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-17 Sandy Denny– Gold Dust (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-18 Sandy Denny– Still Waters Run Deep (Unreleased Alternative Version)
18-19 Sandy Denny– Moments (Unreleased Alternative Version)

Sandy Denny: Home Demos 1974-1977:
19-1 Sandy Denny– The King And Queen Of England (Demo)
19-2 Sandy Denny– Rising For The Moon (Demo)
19-3 Sandy Denny– One More Chance (Demo)
19-4 Sandy Denny– The King And Queen Of England (Unreleased Demo)
19-5 Sandy Denny– After Halloween (Unreleased Demo)
19-6 Sandy Denny– What Is True? (Demo)
19-7 Sandy Denny– Stranger To Himself (Demo)
19-8 Sandy Denny– Take Away The Load (Demo)
19-9 Sandy Denny– By The Time It Gets Dark (Demo)
19-10 Sandy Denny– I'm A Dreamer (Demo)
19-11 Sandy Denny– Full Moon (Demo)
19-12 Sandy Denny– Take Me Away (Demo)
19-13 Sandy Denny– All Our Days (Demo)
19-14 Sandy Denny– No More Sad Refrains (Demo)
19-15 Sandy Denny– Still Waters Run Deep (Demo)
19-16 Sandy Denny– One Way Donkey Ride (Demo)
19-17 Sandy Denny– I'm A Dreamer (Unreleased Demo)
19-18 Sandy Denny– Full Moon 2(Unreleased Demo)
19-19 Sandy Denny– Makes Me Think Of You (Unreleased Demo)

DOWNLOAD to hear the unheard here Folkies!

Zchivago's Disco Dystopia -April 2nd 2021 - "A Dark Light From A Black Sun"

 Here's the latest Disco Dystopia:

Disco Dystopia April 2nd 2021:

“A DARK LIGHT FROM A BLACK SUN”

1. YO LA TENGO - “Let's Save Tony Orlando's House”

2. THE MANSON FAMILY - “Never Say Never To Always”

3. THE THIRD EAR BAND - “Fleance”

4. FOREST - “Graveyard”

5. COMUS - “The Herald”

6. PAUL GIOVANNI & MAGENTA - “Gently Johnny”

7. JANDEK - “Nancy Sings”

8. SANDRA KERR & JOHN FAULKNER - “The Princess Suite from Bagpuss”

9. CURRENT 93 - “All The Pretty Little Horses”

10. CURRENT 93 AND SHIRLEY COLLINS - “All The Pretty Little Horses”

11. COIL - “All The Pretty Little Horses”

12. NICO - “Evening Of Light”

13. BRIDGET St. JOHN - “Ask Me No Questions”

Stream it HERE!

DOWNLOAD it HERE:

Sandy Denny and the Happy Blunderers - "Lincoln Folk Festival 24th July 1971" (Bootleg)

The highpoint of Contemporary Folk Rock in the summer of 1971 was on full display in Lincoln of all places. With Denny listed half way up the bill.The Americans seem to be the stars at this one.It could have easily been inverted.Never been a great fan of James Taylor myself.

The Happy Blunderers contained Richard Thompson and Gerry Conway in the same line-up,with the dependable Dave Pegg,and seem to have done a good job on this wobbly audience cassette recording,but survive it does,and there's plenty of Sandy's intra-song banter which always amuses. The dodgy quality just adds to the pathos for me.

Oh!Sandy why????.... WHYYYYY?!...yeah that's right I love her like a screaming girlie at a Beatles gig.

Sandy leaving the stage at Lincoln sporting one of her best hairstyles

Tracklisting:

1. Late November

2. The Northstar Grassman and The Ravens

3. Down in the Flood

4. Blackwaterside

5. The Optimist

6. Next Time Around

7. Crazy Lady Blues

8. John The Gun

DOWNLOAD when Sandy wuz a star on earth rather than a star in heaven HERE!

Sandy Denny – "Live At The BBC (1966-1973)" (Island Records – 984 992-8)

Staying on the Folk singers at the Beeb kinda thing,here's a personal fav/obsession,the late,great, Sandy Denny.Of course Y'all have all her works i expect,so i'll restrict it to BBC appearances and the odd bootleg....you may be relieved to hear?

To use a maritime expression,something that Sandy often turned to in her lyrics,She sailed too close to the rocks of the Singer/Songwriter category on several occasions; but the lighthouse shone a dark light in her doomed direction, and she went under like most of the crews of the sea-faring vessels she wrote about.

The sheer nerve that Island Records have in releasing Sandy's BBC appearances after dropping her in '76,and after trying to get her to lighten up her material a bit is nothing short of despicable.They deserve all the illegal downloads we can muster.Of course they panicked because of Punk Rock,not only dropping some great acts,but ruining The Slits to boot!

"I'm Not Hearing A Single Here?", was often mentioned by the record executive twats,who were responsible for making her record a limp version of Reg's "Candle In The Wind" to release as a chart flop.Not to mention "Whispering Grass" and several terrible Rockers that spoilt all of her otherwise great albums.She should have kept those Dark and diminished chord structures. She herself thought she was gonna be a big star,and failed to realise that her material was an acquired taste,suitable for cult audiences only.That coupled with a drink problem,falling down stairs for fun, and having a boyfriend/Husband with a wildly roving eye...not that Randy Sandy was innocent of this too?...it all added up to the inevitable tragic ending that bewitched anyone that had anything to do with Joe Boyd,which reads like a list of Pop Star Do's and Don't's(Syd Barratt, Nick Drake, and the lovely Sandy). Failed fame's a killer kids,be content with anonymity and live a full life.

Tracklist:

In Session:
CD1-1 Fhir A' Bhata (BBC - Folk Song Cellar)
CD1-2 Green Grow the Laurels (BBC - Folk Song Cellar 2/12/66)
CD1-3 Hold On To Me Babe (BBC - Cellarful Of Folk 6/3/67)
CD1-4 Blues Run The Game (BBC - Cellarful Of Folk 6/3/67)
CD1-5 Late November (BBC Session - Bob Harris 24/8/71)
CD1-6 The Optimist (BBC Session - Bob Harris 24/8/71)
CD1-7 Crazy Lady Blues (BBC Session - Bob Harris 24/8/71)
CD1-8 The Lowlands Of Holland (BBC Session - Bob Harris 24/8/71)
CD1-9 It Suits Me Well (BBC Session - Bob Harris 25/10/72)
CD1-10 The Music Weaver (BBC Session - Bob Harris 25/10/72)
CD1-11 Bushes And Briars (BBC Session - Bob Harris 25/10/72)
CD1-12 It'll Take A Long Time (BBC Session - Bob Harris 25/10/72)
CD1-13 Solo (BBC Session - John Peel 11/9/73)
CD1-14 Like An Old Fashioned Waltz (BBC Session - John Peel 11/9/73)
CD1-15 Who Knows Where The Time Goes? (BBC Session - John Peel 11/9/73)
CD1-16 Until The Real Thing Comes Along (BBC Session - Bob Harris 14/11/73)
CD1-17 Whispering Grass (BBC Session - Bob Harris 14/11/73)
CD1-18 Dark The Night (BBC Session - Bob Harris 14/11/73)
CD1-19 Solo (BBC Session - Bob Harris 14/11/73)

In Concert:
CD2-1 The North Star Grassman And The Ravens (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-2 Sweet Rosemary (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-3 The Lady (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-4 Bruton Town (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-5 Next Time Around (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-6 Blackwaterside (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-7 John The Gun (BBC In Concert - Paris Theatre 16/3/72)
CD2-8 The Lady (BBC - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-9 Bushes And Briars (BBC - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-10 It Suits Me Well (BBC - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-11 Blackwaterside (BBC - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-12 The Music Weaver (BBc - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-13 The Sea Captain (BBC - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-14 John The Gun (BBC - Sounds On Sunday 14/11/73)
CD2-15 Dialogue - Interview (Tomorrow's People BBC World Service Programme 1972)

DVD.....you can see these on you tube by clicking below:
DVD3-1 The North Star Grassman And The Ravens (BBC - One In Ten 15/09/71 - Stereo)
DVD3-2 Crazy Lady Blues (BBC - One In Ten 15/09/71 - Stereo)
DVD3-3 Late November (BBC - One In Ten 15/09/71 - Stereo)

"Off-Air" Recordings:
CD4-1 This Train (BBC World Service - June 1967)
CD4-2 Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor (BBC World Service - June 1967)
CD4-3 The Last Thing On My Mind (BBC World Service - June 1967)
CD4-4 You Never Wanted Me (BBC World Service - June 1967)
CD4-5 Been On The Road So Long (BBC - My Kind Of Folk 26/6/68)
CD4-6 The Quiet Land Of Erin (BBC - My Kind Of Folk 26/6/68)
CD4-7 Sweet Nightingale (BBC - Spinners TV Show 22/4/71)
CD4-8 Blackwaterside (BBC - Spinners TV Show 22/4/71)
CD4-9 The North Star Grassman And The Ravens (BBC - Sounds Of The 70s)

DOWNLOAD Sandy at the Beeb HERE!

Bridget St. John – "BBC Radio 1968-1976" (Hux Records – HUX114) 2010

Like I said in the "Ask Me No Questions" review,Peel made sure Bridget would get plenty sessions and radio appearances he having a glad eye for the ladies. So here's the small matter of 40 -odd 'odd' tunes as preserved by the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation;and it's not gone beyond my notice that the final track has a reference to Peel and Wife (the Pig).There's also an amusing anecdote spewed forth by the laconic Peel about how they 'slept' together once.

What strikes me most about these tunes, and especially her spoken explanations of her songs, that is uncannily like Sandy Denny.If i didn't know better, her speaking voice is almost exactly that of the late Alexandra Denny,although her earlier excursions have that splash of Nico's lower register about them that would haunt any review in the music press.She was a better guitar player than Denny (That Bert Jansch influence?),and far less depressing than Nico,but her songwriting has that same seldom used diminished 5th chord so favored by Sandy Denny in her more unpopular songs for it's distinctive dark timbre,as well as that vibrato free folkie singing style that was the ex-Fairport chanteuse's trademark;although obviously not copyrighted.

And, yes, Kevin Ayers makes a guest appearance on a few tracks too.Also interesting to note that Ms St.John is the only one of these names to remain alive,and gigging, to this day.

Tracklist:

1-1 I Don't Know If I Can Take It
1-2 Some Kind Of Beautiful
1-3 Jumblequeen
1-4 Fly High
1-5 Sparrowpit
1-6 Want To Be With You
1-7 Curious And Woolly
1-8 Head And Heart
1-9 Long Long Time
1-10 Come Up And See Me Sometime
1-11 Catch A Falling Star
1-12 Love Lie Easy
1-13 The River
1-14 Song To Keep You Company
1-15 Night In The City
1-16 Lazarus
1-17 Curl Your Toes
1-18 Thank You For...
2-1 Sparrowpit
2-2 Nancy Alice
2-3 Plain And Pearl
2-4 Make Me Whole
2-5 She Used To Play Harmonium
2-6 Crazy, Have You Eton
2-7 Peel 'sleeping Anecdote'
2-8 Bumper To Bumper
2-9 Leaves Of Lime
2-10 City Crazy
2-11 The Pebble And The Man
2-12 Back To Stay
2-13 Song For The Laird Of Connaught Hall - Part 2
2-14 Jolie Madame
2-15 The Spider And The Fly
2-16 The Oyster And The Flying Fish
2-17 To B Without A Hitch
2-18 Ask Me No Questions
2-19 Many Happy Returns
2-20 Hello Again (of Course)
2-21 Rochefort
2-22 Lizard Long Tongue Boy
2-23 The Present Song/Pig & Peel

CD1 1-9 Radio 1 In Concert 1st August 1974; CD1 10-12 Top Gear Session 6th January 1976 CD1 13-16 John Peel Presents Top Gear 1969; CD1 17 Peter Sarstedt Session 1969; CD1 18 Bob Harris Session 22nd March 1972; CD2 1-8 Radio 1 In Concert 3rd May 1975; CD2 9-16 Radio 1 In Concert 31st January 1971; CD2 17-22 Night Ride Session 21st August 1968; CD2 23 Top Gear Session 12th August 1974

DOWNLOAD the bastard offspring of Sandy and Nico HERE!

Bridget St. John – "Ask Me No Questions" (Dandelion Records – S 63750) 1969

She sounded like an upbeat Nico with an upper middle class British accent,but unlike Dave and Toni Arthur, this posh but dark chanteuse actually got to do a few Peel Sessions;mainly because she wasn't sewn to the hip of a husband,rather attractive, and Peel fancied his chances of getting her in the sack. This sexual bribery continued with Peel actually signing her to his label,Dandelion, and even producing her debut album!? The birdsong and church bells collage towards the end of the title track was all his work apparently.He wasn't just a pretty face after all...in fact he wasn't a pretty face at all,but did well here.Peel was also savvy enough not to employ one of those awful string sections so beloved by Joe Boyd in ruining Nick Drake,leaving just Bridget with a few bongo's and guest guitarist John Martyn to flesh it out a tad.

Obviously Bridget had an eye on the US singer songwriter market,but, like most things British and European,ended up being too dark for those sensitive yanks. The Brits never quite got that thing right....thank christ.....even Elton John was far from those sensitive self-analysing bores,with their earnest tunes and ,yes, string sections. Judee Sill,who wrote her own baroque string arrangements very excepted, and the odd Neil Young solo LP or Leonard Cohen record,who were both Canadian anyway,as are most famous Americans.

The Title track remains to this day a droning classic of depressed melancholia with that Peel provided birdsong section for you to slash your wrists,or reaffirm life to at the end.

Tracklist:

A1 To B Without A Hitch
A2 Autumn Lullaby
A3 Curl Your Toes
A4 Like Never Before
A5 The Curious Crystals Of Unusual Purity
A6 Barefeet And Hot Pavements
B1 I Like To Be With You In The Sun
B2 Lizard-Long-Tongue Boy
B3 Hello Again (Of Course)
B4 Many Happy Returns
B5 Broken Faith
B6 Ask Me No Questions

DOWNLOAD no questions asked HERE!

Dave & Toni Arthur – "Morning Stands On Tiptoe" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 154) 1967

The first part of the holy trilogy of Dave and Toni Arthur albums was this classic on the fashionable Transatlantic label......it didn't sell of course, and they got dropped.....which should be the ambition of all serious musicians.

Pictured here,in the obligatory pose donning the proceeds of a record company funded trip to Carnaby Street.We find our hero's near one of the many ancient chalk carving's of Horses dotted about the English countryside.It's likely that they've never been to the countryside before.....Tree? What is Tree?

But as is more likely,and very prevalent with most late sixties Folkies, they had actually seen many trees in the leafy suburbs of London where they grew up. The early days of the Folk revival was mainly influenced, sartorially,by the Beatnik preference for unwashed sweaters with holes in....not attractive to yer average record buying punter. Also,dressed in their kings road finery would have not gone down too well in the Folk Clubs of northern England, where The Watersons, Anne Briggs and A.L.Lloyd ruled the roost.South of London was the same problem,with the puritanical Copper Family,...oooh it was a hard life being a suburban Folk Singer.

"Come taste my apples and pears kind sir" sings Toni.....Gawd Blimey ,will you please excuse me for a minute kind sirs.....!

Ahhh,that's better.I'm back, and relaxed.

There be a rendition of the classic hunting song from which influential posh peado (fully documented in his biography) DJ John Ravenscroft,he from the leafy suburbs of Liverpool, got his show biz name.

I'm not sure Dave and Toni got to do a Peel session,but young John was certainly very into this new wave of folk,as was evident on his radio shows from the era.

All three of Dave and Toni's album are indispensable classics of Neo-sixties Folk,and recognition is due.They got the Thumbs up from A.L.(Bert)Lloyd anyhow,and he was doing this since the 1940's!

This stuff all suggests that romantic idyll of an unattainable "better,'sustainable', Way Of Life" to us of the bourgeois in denial crowd.If these songs are recycled,so must we the plastic in tribute to the old ways.....yep....we're still DOOOMED!

Tracklist:

A1 A Maiden Came From London Town
A2 Morning Stands On Tiptoe
A3 Female Rambling Sailor
A4 Padstow Drinking Song
A5 The Guilty Sea Captain
A6 The Eynsham Poaching Song
A7 Green Grass
B1 The Barley Grain For Me
B2 The Jolly Ploughboy
B3 The Blackburn Poachers
B4 John Peel
B5 Bold Robinson
B6 Green Broom
B7 Bendigo Champion Of England
B8 The Football Match

DOWNLOAD on tippy toes HERE!

Dave & Toni Arthur – "The Lark In The Morning" (Topic Records – 12T190) 1969

 

Oh No! Not more of this hippy folk shit!? I hear you exclaim!? We want to hear some Punk Rock!

Well, for one, this has got Toni Arthur from Playschool on it, and two, Punk Rock is one of thee Folk musics of the twentieth century,with lashings of 'Hippie' hidden within its crumbling veneers. Rotten has long come out as a Folkie since the demise of his reputation.The fact that Johnny has also come out as a bit of a twat does nothing to alter this inalienable truth.

You can't get more noncommercial than this,despite the fleeting fashionable edge to it all between the years of 1969 to '71. Unaccompanied singing of yee olde tchoons from the 17th century was about as far away from Led Zeppelin as you could get....to the point that Plant and Page were envious of the Folkies' street cred...or rather, field cred.This is why the lovely Sandy Denny was press ganged into singing....for FREE by the way....on Led Zep 4,duet ting with screeching Bobby Plant for some silly track called "The Battle Of Evermoor"  apparently.I still haven't heard it to this day,and long may it remain so.

This is Dave and Toni's sole release on the Rough Trade of Folk, Topic Records,in glorious Mono. Where else could you hear about Six jolly little dancing Miners,and a horse called Creeping Jane? This stuff is weird,and No-one knows who wrote it!Like illegal Downloads on the internet...ahem!....this stuff was made for sharing....no royalties,except the Royals mentioned in the songs,and no money exchanging hands.This is how it always was, so stop moaning Pop Stars,the getting rich on a couple of days work era has ended,and we gone back to the traditional ways of enjoying music.....for FREE!

Tracklist:

A1 All Frolicking I'll Give Over
A2 The Death Of Queen Jane
A3 Creeping Jane
A4 The Merchant's Daughter Of Bristol
A5 The Bold Dragoon
A6 Cold Blows The Winter's Wind
A7 The Lark In The Morning
B1 Poor Old Horse
B2 Hey John Barleycorn
B3 Bedlam
B4 Admiral Benbow
B5 Father, Father Build Me A Boat
B6 The Press Gang
B7 Six Jolly Miners

DOWNLOAD for free HERE! and I'd offer up every Led Zep album for FREE too if they weren't so shite!

Dave & Toni Arthur – "Hearken To The Witches Rune" (Trailer – LER 2017) 1971

I'm sick of all this modern musick,ain't you?So my current obsession with ye olde originale DIY music,yep, Folk culture,is gonna infiltrate your psyche for the coming days,if I can escape my depressed stupor for half an hour to wax lyrical about how great this shit is.This can still clear a room of most sophisticated music fans.Its a pity Dave and Toni Arthur couldn't have supported Sleaford Mods in my fantasy fuck you bill at the last concert at the end of the universe competition.I fucking hate musical smart arses.....like us.....don't you? There's still time to burn those Beatles re-re-re-remastered,re-released,75th anniversary box sets before the balloon goes up.

Beware the fairy Fiddler of County Antrim kids!

'Twas a dangerous place for lone children in the countryside of the 17th and 18th centuries where pedophilia was just something you had to do instead of going to school.

Speaking of Schoolin', Toni Arthur found c-list celebrity fame in the UK as a presenter on groundbreaking kiddie TV show "Playschool".....she was the Hippie one,and one must say the 5 to 8 year old Zchivago experienced a subtle yet inexplicable sensation in his erogenous zone due to her womanly presence on BBC2 of a morning.(Apologies for referring to himself in the third person...purely a deliberate act for it's poetic effect)

Imagine my joy,when, as an adult, I discovered the delightful Toni was also a member of husband and wife cult folk duo, Dave and Toni Arthur?

An integral part of the UK Folk revival, Toni and Dave were ardent students of ye olde English Folk tchoons under the Ewan Macoll Dogma,sung with suitably minimal backing.No lush string sections for these puritans, no Dave Mattacks on the drums and electric guitars to propel them onto the bill of "Glastonbury Fayre",aka the first Glastonbury Festival like Fairport Convention,great though they were;.....lacking Dave Swarbrick's sartorial elegance and chain-smoking abilities,David and Tone could only sell out by making Folk LP's for kiddies to try and cash in on Toni's cult audience. Naturally, the BBC children's department was a treasure trove of Folk classics,and all were subliminally absorbed by my impressionable brain in one's formative years......Bagpuss being a shining example of this phenomena.

Toni went on to star in "Play Away",and can be seen here with a young Jeremy Irons fresh from Drama school,and the king of UK Kids Telly himself, Brain Cant....I said CANT!.....tut...honestly!?

However, this dark folk outing is the best,and rarest of their meager Discography...good gloomy cover too.

She never did warn us impressionable kids about Paddy The Handy man,or, Terrance McShane 'The Fairy Fiddler Of County Antrim' ,or even the evil leprechaun McJiminy Saville the Kiddie Fiddler of BBC television Centre,and one of Toni's colleagues. Toniiiiiii, tut tut tut!

And you're just as bad you Cant Brian (RIP)!

Tracklist:

A1 Alison Gross
A2 Tam Lin
A3 A Fairy Tale
A4 The Fairy Child
B1 Broomfield Hill
B2 The Standing Stones
B3 The Cruel Mother
B4 Alice Brand

DOWNLOAD the wicked spells from the witch of play school HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors – "Unaccompanied Acoustic Guitar Improvisations Vol. 1-9 1979-1980" (Ecstatic Yod – E#101/FYCD#11-14) 1999

Whoops, I spy Thurston Moore and Jim O'Rourke being name-checked in the credits, but don't let that put you off? This really does sound like the music one plays on your girlfriends acoustic after a night down the pub before collapsing in an armchair with your knob out,dangling in a cold portion of unfinished curry and chips. I dunno if Loren had his knob out when playing these improvisations,but he sure does sound drunk or stoned.All tracks....tracks?... recorded in the famous Daggett Street period...remember that?....Nah, nor I,and it sounds as if Loren doesn't either?...but trust record collector bore Thurston Moore(avant-garde than you) to feel the need for one-upmanship in the 'I'm Moore Avant Garde Than You' obscure acoustic guitar improv stakes.Okay, Thurst, you win....the medal's in the post.

This compilation features selections from more than fifty album sessions,thats at least fifty less than me, recorded by Loren Mazzacane Connors during those infamous,or rather un-famous Daggett Street sessions. Most of the original self-released LPs were destroyed when the distributor went out of business after,surprisingly, failing to sell any copies(?).That means even Connors' Mum didn't even buy one,not even Connors himself,or,apparently,that harbinger of good taste,Thurston H. Moore? Mazza,had to collect them,not in the record collector sense, but had no way of transporting or storing them, so he ended up leaving them in a dumpster......Hmmmm maybe that would have made a fitting punchline?

Derek Bailey he ain't,but his other,more considered works, are rather wonderful. However, I would rather hear this stuff played at partys than that of the guitar player who ruins everything by whipping out his acoustic and playing 'American Pie',then getting his curly haired mustachioed way with all those fickle young ladies lookin' fer an alpha male with trimmings. 

This release is for that massive mob of Loren Mazzacane Connors completists out there,come on, put your hands up, I know who you are,and where you live...Nutdale Funny Farm awaits thee....singular.

Tracklist:

1-1 Vol. 1 32:40
1-2 Vol. 2 35:06
2-1 Vol. 3 (Edited) 33:31
2-2 Vol. 4 37:46
3-1 Vol. 5 32:34
3-2 Vol. 6 35:06
4-1 Vol. 7 (Edited) 13:24
4-2 Vol. 8 34:54
4-3 Vol. 9 (Unissued) 24:51

DOWNLOAD four hours,yes FOUR hours of the busker outside nutdale funny farm on meds HERE!

Zchivago's Disco Dystopia-“A Celestial Communication Special” 05/03/2021 on that LYL radio thang!

One of the few musicians NEVER to sell out....Anne Briggs.

 Yep. I made a fuck up announcing one of the tracks......not like me?.....see if you can spot this fuck up,and win a prize!!!? All entries in the comments section....the adjudicator's decision is final! 

Disco Dystopia March 5^th 2021:

“A Celestial Communication Special”

1. YOUTH FOR CHRIST - “International teen Teams”

2. ASCENSION - “8”

3. BURTON GREENE ENSEMBLE - “Out Of Bartok”

4. PASTOR JOHN RYDGREN - “Hip Version Of The 23rd Psalm”

5. SUNNY MURRAY - “Angels and Devils”

6. ANNE BRIGGS - “The Old Man From Over The Sea”

7. SOUNDS OF LIBERATION - “Happy Tuesday”

8. KURT KEISER - “We're On Our Way”

9. ORNETTE COLEMAN - “Voice Poetry”

10. SELWYN LISSACK - “Facets Of The Universe”

STREAM the fuck up HERE!

or

DOWNLOAD the fuck up HERE!

Sunny Murray – "Sunshine" (BYG Records – 529.348) 1969

Ex -Ayler skins technician , Sunny, not Sonny, Murray, gathers some of his highfalutin Jazz chums for an album of madness,while he continuously bashes his Ride cymbol for forty minutes and gets the top billing.

The opener suggests that we're in for another respectful spacey  hommage to Africa, but the "Trane" word is used, so we get a slowly evolving hommage to the "Trane"...instead....again!

It's side B where the action gets serious, with some grade A sax abuse howling in your delicate shellikes  via a triangulation of  automatic sax playing from Arthur Jones, Archie Shepp,and Kenneth Terroade,backed up by Lester Bowie on a rather angry trumpet.Alan Silva's back on Bass and Dave Burrell is drowning on a rather submerged Piano.All done in an afternoon's work on August 15th, in Paris 1969. Now where the fuck did I put that damn Time Machine?

Tracklist:

A1 Flower Trane 13:44
B1 Real 8:44
B2 Red Cross 7:50

DOWNLOAD some black sunshine HERE!

Alan Silva And The Celestrial Communication Orchestra – "Seasons" (BYG Records – 529.342-43-44) 1971

Lieutenant Castillo's Incan ancestor with traditional instrument

This Gargantuan free jazz odyssey over six sides of skronking wax has to be heard to be believed ... played by a massive free jazz orchestra that knows no bounds.Orchestrated by a man who looks like Detective Lieutenant Martin "Marty" Castillo of Miami Vice as he would have been if he had lived in the heyday of Machu Pichu.

Silva provides us with the same filing problems as does Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, as this one features "The" Celestial Communication Orchestra, whereas the other BYG album, "Luna Surface", is played by "His" Celestial Communication Orchestra!?...Causing no end of problems for computers' filing systems....another argument for Vinyl with attending Nerd.

Talking of Vinyl, some smart-arse pointed out, when referring to Gong's BYG album, that BYG didn't issue their albums as 12",but they were infact 30 centimetres in diameter!?......some people really do need to find another hobby!....(ps...it was Steve Freeman of Ultima Thule mail order on discogs who killed brain cells with that laughable observation!?....they have a track record...geddit...of doing mind numbing nerd-outs like this!Now where's that left-handed screwdriver?).

Tracklist:

A Seasons Part 1 25:12
B Seasons Part 2 22:45
C Seasons Part 3 23:15
D Seasons Part 4 20:08
E Seasons Part 5 26:08
F Seasons Part 6 27:00

DOWNLOAD some golden silva HERE!

Alan Silva And His Celestrial Communication Orchestra – "Luna Surface" (BYG Records – 529.312) 1969

Ahhh the joy of rediscovering your musical innocence......on the Moon.

We all crave that epiphanal moment when ,as a child, we first discover something magical.....Alan Silva spent an entire career recreating that moment;but to do that you have to unlearn everything you've been taught and start all over again. These orchestral free improvised work-outs is that process in action,and it can clear a large auditorium of sensible adults in five minutes.

A deeply guarded secret at NASA is that this is the actuel sound of the Lunar Surface.The secret government of the Earth and beyond don't want us to know this fact.....it could lead to the breakdown of society are we don't want to know it anymore thanks.

As you know my bestest favourite Parlor game is 'Free Jazz Look-a-likey's', and the Shape-shifting Bass player Beb Guérin is usually the main target,although there is a suggestion of poncified French footballing legend David Ginola in his profile here.....however, another Bernard,one Benard Vitet,the wildman of the French Horn, seems to be a doppelganger for Kevin Godley of 10CC and co-inventor of the Gizmotron as featured on Godley and Creme's "Consequences triple album. Would have liked to have heard Benard having a go on the 'Gizmo' as part of his celestial communicating.

Alan Silva, is primarily a Bass player,but,as we know, Bass Players are never satisfied to be just a 'Bass Player'.Usually they are humored and ignored when they have ambitions of getting on the writing credits.This time Silva the orchestra leader, has forced his ideas onto a whole crazed free jazz orchestra....including Archie Shepp as one of his sidekicks...takes some doing that. Also there is another of the handful of appearances by Kenneth Terroade.

This is what musical instruments were invented,or discovered, to do.

Now we know the mind of God?.....yep...he's a nutter!

Tracklist:

A From The Luna Surface Part 1 14:00
B From The Luna Surface Part 2 14:09

DOWNLOAD this celestrial communication terrestrially HERE!

Friendship Next Of Kin – "Facets Of The Univers" (Goody – GY 30006) 1971

Hey everyone, this is that jazz immortal Selwyn Lissack's biggest album of 1971,even though it was recorded in London in 1969.....that's right, Selwyn Lissack!?.....the South African drumming legend?....oh forget it! I've never heard of him either,but that's nothing new in these 'ere parts guv'nor.

I spotted a rare appearance of Kenneth Terroade on Sax'n'Flute,and it's released by Goody Goody records of France to stick to the controversial theme of how France saved Jazz.

One must say its an excellently furious piece of free Jazz,and it's got some of those crazed semi-narrated vocals on "Facets Of The Univers".Dat man Kenneth Terroade sure can make that saxophone growl when he wants to.It's a wonder why our Ken didn't feature much anywhere else except for Sunny Murray and Alan Silva's BYG output,after around 1971.He either got a music lecturer's job,aka a cushy number, or got Drafted.

Were these guys on Drugs? If so, I want what they had.....if I took drugs that is,which I don't;that's for Hippies,but I'll allow any Free Psychedelic Jazz musician to do whatever he wanted.Now that's real Freedom innit?

Tracklist:

A Facets Of The Universe
B Friendship Next Of Kin

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Kenneth Terroade – "Love Rejoice" (BYG Records – 529.322) 1969

Kenneth's crew featuring David Koresh on the Contra bass?

Well, we may as well go on a BYG Actuel tour,to further laud plaudits on France for helping save Jazz,even if they do insist on explaining away their imperialist past by insisting that anyone in the french empire was 'French' so how could they have been Racially prejudiced?Hmmmm.

This very Free Jazz outing by the groovily named Kenneth.......they have such hip given names these Jazzers, Clifford,Archibald, Albert....Terroade.The tradition continues,with Kenneth,avec some wild free improvisation on his Tenor Axe.

Included in the personnel is the shape-shifting Bernard Guérin again on Bass..... this time he resembles a couple of everyone's favourite mass murders, the late David Koresh,and/or, the late Dennis Nilson? He's got that fashionable murderer look going on here.

However,This album sure is a Killer of equal intensity as Béb Guérin's look-a-likey's Dave and Den,isn't that right Ken?....Ken???

Tracklist:

A Blessing 17:25
B Love Rejoice 17:55

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Clifford Thornton – "Ketchaoua" (BYG Records – 529.323) 1969

Cliff Thorton and friends featuring Gregory Peck on Bass.

"Music has no colour",said the French Jazzer...I'm certain Archie Shepp would disagree,as he plays Soprano for his buddy Cliff Thornton on this afro-centric polyptych of free jazz. Both he and Thornton were trying their level best to remove as much whiteness as possible from this french released miesterwerk. Africans may not have invented the wheel, as some enlightened bigot pointed out alongside our advocate of 'colourless music'in the comments section, but they certainly gave us honkies virtually all our modern musical forms.For which they are rarely acknowledged,but after-all it belongs to all of us innit.....sorry Archie?

Shepp's presence gives this platter a distinctive Archie Shepp flavour with his instantly recognisable style,augmented by Thronton's very capable horn blowing.

Would you believe it?...there's Béb Guérin once again on the Bass, and this time the photo of him reveals the distinctive look of Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab in "Moby Dick", as the White Whale In the Room.

Tracklist:

A1 Ketchaoua 12:35
A2 Pan African Festival 7:50
B1 Brotherhood 10:40
B2 Speak With Your Echo (And Call This Dialogue) 9:15

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