James Brown - Funky Christmas

Soul Brother number one actualy died on Christmas Day. put a bit of a downer on my Christmas that year, I never got to see him play live. But this album gives you plenty of reasons to associate James Brown with Chrimbo in a positive way. "Santa Claus Go Straight o The Ghetto" is almost as brilliant as its title, "Lets Make Christmas Mean Someting This Year Pt 1 & 2" is a beautiful soul ballad, and there are some excellent funk jams such as "Go Power At Christmas Time" and the utterly mighty "Hey America!"

There's a lot of gospel influenced traditionalsoul tracks on here which are great, but James Brown is alway a his best when he's bringing the funk. here's "Hey America"...

Bright Eyes - A Christmas Album

So, It's December, nearly Christmas (if the world doesn't end on Friday anyway...) So It's good that the next two albums to listen to are two of the three Christmas albums I own (By my current calculations I'll probably be listening to the other one, She & Him's Christmas album, somewhere around July...). I'm a big Bright Eyes fan. His/Their music is very influential on my own band and as previously mentioned, Saddle Creek is one of my favouite record labels. A Christmas Album is fairly dark though, Basically Bright Eyes main man Conor Oberst and Azure Ray's Maria Taylor rope in the rest of the musicians on Saddle Creek at the time for a subdued run through a selection of mostly traditional Chrimbo songs. We're talking more "Silent Night" and "Away In A Manger" than Slade and Gary Glitter here.

Its the kind of album that takes a few listens before it clicks, and because it's a Christmas album those few listens can be few and far between. I've had it for about 7 or 8 years and it only really fell into place for me about 2 years ago, and even now I have to be in the right mood for it. Here's the version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"...

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective

The Brian Jonestown Massacre are very hit and miss. If you've seen the excellent music documentary "DIG!!!" whcih shows how their love/hate relatonship with The Dandy Warhols, You'll be familiar with how they sabotage their own careers at fairly regular intervals. Therir live shows can be transcendental psychedelic rock and rol extravaganzas, or the can fall apart within a few songs with the band splitting up on stage. They're kind of like America's answer to The Fall in a lot of respects. One main driving force ad a revolving cast of other band members who could be sacked or leave the band at any minute. Musically The Brian Jonestown Massacre are a Velvet Underground influenced garage rock mob who one minute come out with sublime psychpop gems such as "When Jokers Attack" and another minute, sound like a sub-Oasis teenage cover band noodling around with cliched pentatonic scales and terrible lyrics. In that sense this particular compilation album is a true representation of the band, rather than cherry picking the good songs for a best of, this is a warts and all, sprawling double CD ranging from the excellent, to the incredibly skippable.

When they're bad, they tend to sound like a parody of every 60's rock cliche you can think of, but when they're good, they're excellent. It's worth sifting through the lesser tracks to get to the good shit. The spot on critique of their friends/rivals The Dandy Warhols on "Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth" is a particular high point, but for me, the best thing they ever did was the live version of "Swallowtail" exclusive to this compilation...

Brain Donor - Love, Peace & Fuck

Brain Donor is a power trio "Stuporgroup" featuing Julian Cope on bass and vocals, and Spiritualized duo, Doggen on guitar and Kevlar Bales on Drums. They play a ridiculously loud blend of Van Halen style Metal and Stooges style garage punk. The excellently titled "Love Peace & Fuck" is their debut album and perfectly channels Cope's well documented love of Japanese Rock and Roll lunatics like Guitar Wolf and Speed, Glue & Shinki. Played at maximum volume, on double necked guitars while wearing dayglo facepaint and platform boots.

It's an acquired taste, but I've certainly acquired it. 15 minute long jams with titles like "Pagan Dawn", "Odins Gift To His Mother" and this one, "Get Off Your Pretty Face" turn it up, grow your hair and rock the fuck out...

                                      



Billy Bragg - Mr Love & Justice

I'm a big fan of The Bard of Barking. Obviously it helps that i'm one of those lefty pinko communist types, but even in his non political songs (which there are more than you may think), Theres a strong case for him being Britains greatest living lyricist. Mr Love & Justice is his 12th studio album and the second to feature his backing band, The Blokes. This particular version is the limited editon double CD version, so you get the full band version of the album, along with a stripped down solo version, Identical to the versios of the songs Billy plays on tour. His voice has got stronger and more controlled over the years and the full band versions of the songs fit perfectly to create one of his best albums.

Among the musicians on the album is Billy's longtime collaborator Ian Mclagan, formerly of The Faces, and Robert Wyatt pops up on backing vocals on the album's lead single "I Keep Faith". here's a live version...

Brad - Interiors

Like The Afghan Whigs, Brad are a Grunge band with Soul influences. I (and probably most people who own this album) was attracted to the band via their connection to Pearl Jam. They share a guitarist in Stone Gossard, and Pearl Jam's other guitarist Mike McCready guest's on "The Day Brings" from this album. There's a laid back, 70's pop influenced tinge to the album which reminds me of Big Star, Fleetwood Mac and even Wings in parts, but there's also straight ahead Grunge Rock tracks like opener "Secret Girl".

There's a bit of a lull in the middle of the album but there's some beautifully crafted songs on here. I was going to go for "Some Never Come Home" with it's gorgeous blend of piano, guitar and mellotron, But probably the most representative track is the album's lead single "The Day Brings"...

Boy Hits Car - Boy Hits Car

Another one that's not so good. Boy Hits Car were an American Alternative Metal band who I saw and quite liked for a few months in about 2001ish. I've always been a big fan of Incubus, and it's fairly obvious Boy Hits Car are too, as they sound almost exactly like Incubus, with more 12 string acoustic guitar, contrived hippyesque lyrics and none of the really good songs. Don't get me wrong, they're ok, but there's nothing really on this album that makes me want to play it over and over again.

Apparently one of the tracks on this album was the intro music for a wrestler I've never heard of, And the bass player now does voice acting in various cartoons, usually credited as "other voices", and the singer looks exactly like that dickhead from Toploader. I bought the album when i was about 18 or 19 and must have liked it at the time, but like the haircut I had back then, I have no idea why i thought it was a particularly good idea. All the songs sound pretty much the same so here's the preposterously titled "I'm A Cloud", see how long you can last before wanting to punch the singer...