First posted a rather ropey mp3 of this gem in the early days of Burning Aquarium. Here's a vinyl rip @320. This is for Tom, who requested it whilst it was in the pile of rediscovered vinyls I was considering ripping, for Mona, who originally asked for it back in April last year (my first ever request) and for the 200 plus people who downloaded the inferior version.
Punk anthologies tend to be flawed in the following ways:
They exclude important acts such as The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones (contractual reasons are usually cited).
They don’t know where to begin.
They don’t know where to stop.
They include a lot of ‘new wave’ pop music that whilst touched by punk was not really punk (what is punk? submit your definitions here please…). Seriously- let's have some debate on this folks...
This compilation is pretty good. Here I state opinion as though it was fact.
Its real strength lies in the presence of a lot of proto punk, plus there are tracks from 'all' the major bands of 76-78.
The point is stretched when it comes to the inclusion of Joy Division- but that’s about as far off on a tangent as we are taken. Having said that Steel Pulse are here, but I can understand the inclusion of a reggae track as reggae was a vital part of the punk scene.
There’s no Oi (unless you count Sham 69), nothing gothic, no anarcho punk and none of the so called second wave stuff.
This was released as a companion to a book .
Errico Malatesta said...To bring about a revolution, and especially the Anarchist revolution it is necessary that the people be conscious of their rights and their strength; it is necessary that they be ready to fight and ready to take the conduct of their affairs into their own hands. It must be the constant preoccupation of the revolutionists, the point towards which all their activity must aim, to bring about this state of mind among the masses. He who expects the emancipation of mankind to come, not from the persistent and harmonious co-operation of all men [and women] of progress, but from the accidental or providential happening of some acts of heroism, is not better advised that one who expected it from the intervention of an ingenious legislator or of a victorious general . . . our ideas oblige us to put all our hopes in the masses, because we do not believe in the possibility of imposing good by force and we do not want to be commanded .
As a recovering alcoholic I approach The Pogues with the same trepidation as I would approach a yard of vodka contest. Back in the eighties their music provided the soundtrack for seamless days of manic drinking. Finally plucking up the courage to listen to them again after five years has been quite a revelation- even if you're sober there's an uplifting joie de vivre in the music. I can enjoy this without putting on my coat and shuffling to the pub at half ten in the morning. Shane MacGowan - vocals, guitar Jem Finer - banjo, vocals, guitar on The Auld Triangle Andrew Ranken - drums, backing vocals Spider Stacy - whistle James Fearnley - accordion Cait O'Riordan -bass
Just a note: If you've ever downbloaded The Pogues Peel Sessions before, from blogs or torrents, it's almost a certainty that The Auld Triangle cuts out after 49 seconds? (Apparently some bloggers cobble things together without even listening to them...) well my friends, Burning Aquarium isn't like that...
Rambling thoughts...The coolest band of all time appearing on US TV in 1981.This is a bit of a lazy post- three Youtube videos- but there's something refreshing about it. No, I'm just kidding myself, being nostalgic. I'm 45 years old and I still like the things I liked when I was 15... Come to think of it how cool was Tom Snyder himself? Very cool... he was 45 when he conducted the interview...
Y Tebot Piws oedd un o fandiau cynnar Pop Cymraeg, yn y 1970au cynnar, cyfnod pryd yr oedd yn datblygu o swn werinol at rhywbeth mwy agos at ganu pop cyfoes, a'r Tebot Piws yn nodweddiadol o'r tueddiad hwnnw, gyda digrifwch yn rhan allweddol o'u hallbwn.
Rhyddhawyd pedwar EP gan y Tebot Piws (1969 -1972 recordiau Sain).
A number of Y Tebot Piws's songs have made a lasting impression of the psyche of Welsh speakers- and a best of Lp is available, bringing togther tracks from the 4 EPs they released on the legendary Sain records between 1969 and 1972.
We'll be having that album on here soon, but here's a taster- Mae Rhywyn Wedi Dwyn Fy Nhrwyn (Someone's stolen my nose...)
Lead singer was Dewi 'Pws' Morris- a legend in Welsh language entertainmnet- Pws has been a rock singer, actor, comedian, soap star, children's TV presenter, author, radio presenter... a really funny bloke.
...the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity... This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other. - Gaston Leval.
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT-National Confederation of Labour) was founded in Barcelona at the 1910 congress of the Catalonian trade union Solidaridad Obrera (Workers' Solidarity). In 1927 members who thought that CNT had become a mediating link between labour and capital, rather than a representative of the working class founded Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI-Iberian Anarchist Federation). In 1936, as the main anarchist movement, CNT-FAI drew criticism for collaborating with the Spanish Republican government. Some observers were more sympathetic: With Franco at the gate of Madrid, I could hardly blame the CNT-FAI for choosing a lesser evil: participation in government rather than dictatorship, the most deadly evil... Emma Goldman. Federica Montseny gives us a first hand insight into the dilemma: At that time we only saw the reality of the situation created for us: the communists in the government and ourselves outside, the manifold possibilities, and all our achievements endangered .
During this period Catalonia became a self-proclaimed 'stateless territory' run on libertarian principles, with as much as 75% of the economy in the hands of the workers. Factories were run through worker committees; farms were collectivized and run as libertarian communes. Other commercial establishmnets such as hotels were also collectivized and managed by the workers. In some places, money was eliminated and replaced with vouchers. The Communists and liberals on the Republican side feared that the successes of the anarchists would compromise the support recieved from the Soviet Union They suppressed the anarchists' revolution in order, as they said, to ensure that the war received maximum resources. Armed conflict between the Communists and anarchists, known as the Barcelona May Days (May 3 - 8, 1937 ), effectively put an end to the true proletarian revolution. With the anarchist power reduced the Republican governmnet was free to pursue a more Stalinist model of rule, ensuring the ongoing patronage of the Soviet Union.
It was important to me that there'd be something searingly poetic in it, in a lyrical sense, and yet jubilant at the same time...
Morrissey
The Smiths debut was released on Rough Trade Records in May 1983.
A self produced tape of the track, made at a cost of £250 had landed them a one record no contract deal with the company.
Attempts were made to re record Hand In Glove for the epynomous debut LP but eventually John Porter settled on a remix of the original effort.
The b-side was a live recording of the (prepoterously) controversial Handsome Devil (on 25th August 1983 - The Sun newspaper, under the headline Child Sex Song Puts The Beeb In A Spin accused The Smiths of singing about picking up kids for sexual kicks) from the Hacienda gig on 4th February 1983- notable for being the first time that flowers were used on stage by the group (a response, acording to Morrissey, to the sterile inteior of the club).
Morrissey specified that the record should have a paper label with 4 vents around the centre piece (like the 1960s singles he so loved) and that the sleeve should have a 'side vent' so that the disc was put in from the side rather than the top.
Much to his chagrin Hand In Glove did not make the top 40.
We featured the Soviet bard Bulat Okudzhava (Булaт Шaлвович Окуджaва) in the early days of Burning Aquarium.
Back then I was only able to share half a dozen songs that I had picked up on my internet trawls. On a recent vacation, however, I acquired this collection of 22 songs.
Primarily a poet, Bulat Okudzhava accompanied his lyrics with rudimentary but evocative tunes in minor keys (starting out with a repertoire of 3 chords by the nineties he claimed to be able to play seven).
When I was a kid, just getting into the idea of buying records, I became aware of the rather eccentric notion of Rock n Roll music being played on (rather than augmented by) 'classical' instruments. I was drawn to E.L.O . To my immature ear organs this sounded like 'heavy 'rock music of the kind that the bigger lads were into, but there, sure enough, were strings and horns and bassoons.
Of course, by the mid seventies when they were one of the nations favourites (and absolutely huge in the States), E.L.O were a massive stadium act performing symphonic pop on a grand scale. I can almost imagine DLT listening to them on a thousand pound hi fi as he smoked his pipe in a million pound country house. Jeff Lynne's hair and aviator shades were as monumental as the band's ufo and laser stage shows. By this time I was about 13 and had come to the conclusion that rock music was essentially about guitar, bass , drums, three chords, cut down on the pretence. E.L.O seemed like just the kind of dinosaurs that punk antithesised. (I remember reading in the Record Mirror that A New World Record would stop the spread of punk in its tracks...). So let's forget the operatic stadium days and look back at the early days of The Electric Light Orchestra . E.L.O was essentially a side project to The Move, presided over by the arch druid of rock eccentricity, Roy Wood. Wood was keen to develop the classical theme away from the confines of a 'pop' group. Jeff Lynne (who saw himself as picking up where Lennon and McCartney had left off) ensured that E.L.O retained the English pop psychedelia of The Move and his earlier group, The Idle Race. Wood soon tired of the project, and during the recording of the second LP he stood down (leaving to form Wizzard) and Lynne became the supremo. The early work sees the strings and horn playing a much more central part in the songs, which at times are dramatic and sinister.
10538 Overture was an idea that Jeff brought along to the studio which was originally to be a Move track. After recording the basic backing track, the other guys went home, leaving Jeff and myself to run riot with the overdubs. At the time, I was very keen on collecting instruments, and had just acquired a cheap Chinese cello. After we had finished overdubbing the guitars, I sat in the control room trying out this cello and sort of messing around with Jimi Hendrix type riffs. Jeff said, 'That sounds great, why don't we throw it on the track.' I ended up recording around fifteen of these, and as the instrumentation built up, it was beginning to sound like some monster heavy metal orchestra. In fact, it sounded just Bloody Marvellous.
– Roy Wood (2006)
I had this guitar track, like a real big riff on a guitar. I laid it down in the studio and Roy Wood got his cello, his Chinese cello, and he overdubbed about fifteen cello riffs, just double tracking all the time-- and it sounded fantastic. We thought, it was like 'Wow!' and we just sat round playing it for days.
So, another scientist has added his weight to the argument that people who are religious are less intelligent than those who are not. Now evolutionary psychologist Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, of London School of Economics and Political Science, has published research that shows that people who did not believe in god had an average IQ of 106 as teenagers, while those with deep religious convictions had an average IQ of 95.
Dr Kanazawa said: Religion is a by-product of humans’ tendency to perceive agency and intention as causes of events, to see the “hands of god” at work behind otherwise natural phenomena. Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid and they believe in god because they are paranoid. More intelligent children are likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in god and they become atheists.
In 2008, intelligence researcher Helmuth Nyborg demonstrated that on average, atheists scored 1.95 IQ points higher than agnostics, 3.82 points higher than liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than dogmatic persuasions. Says Professor Nyborg: I'm not saying that believing in god makes you dumber. My hypothesis is that people with a low intelligence are more easily drawn toward religions, which give answers that are certain, while people with a high intelligence are more skeptical . Professor Richard Lynn has been involved in several studies that consider the relationship between religion and intelligence. Speaking to The Telegraph in 2008 Professor Lynn asked: Why should fewer academics believe in god than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in god.
Off on vacation again- see you in about 10 days.
Errico Malatesta said...To bring about a revolution, and especially the Anarchist revolution it is necessary that the people be conscious of their rights and their strength; it is necessary that they be ready to fight and ready to take the conduct of their affairs into their own hands. It must be the constant preoccupation of the revolutionists, the point towards which all their activity must aim, to bring about this state of mind among the masses.
Walker says: Burning Aquarium has now been on-line for one year. Thank you all for your support. Enjoy the music.
As a recovering alcoholic I approach The Pogues with the same trepidation as I would approach a yard of vodka contest. Back in the eighties their music provided the soundtrack for seamless days of manic drinking.
So, another scientist has added his weight to the argument that people who are religious are less intelligent than those who are not.
