You know that album that was often on in your dad's car when you were really young? This one's mine. It's not the only tape he had in the car or anything like that, but I definitely remember listening to it, sitting in the back of an old Austn Metro, looking out the back window while Ray Charles sings "Shake A Tail Feather", or Cab Calloway sings "Minnie The Moocher". It was one of the first of my dad's albums that I stole assimilated into my own collection, (I remember it being in my tape box along with "Theseus & The Minotaur and other Greek Myths", "Musical Times Tables" and mixtapes of Queen, R.E.M. and Jimi Hendrix) and I've still got it in my car now. It's got a great cast of musicians on it, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, James Brown, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin and even the non music legends, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi don't sound out of place.
Years later, I have more great memories of this album, from listening to it on the way to Leeds Festival, stuck in the most community minded traffic jam of all time, with people passing Jaffa Cakes between the cars! Here's Aretha Franklin's contribution to the album "Think"...
Probably the best Pop album of the post punk era, Parallel Lines is bloody ace. Opening with "Hanging On The Telephone" (Which I only recently discovered was a cover. Blondie's version is way better than the original by "The Nerves", so don't worry if you hadn't heard it) immediately followed by the Suzie Quatro sytle glam boogie of "One Way Or Another" before continuing through a multitude of other 3 minute sparkly guitarpop tunes for the next 34 minutes or so. You've got 3 other massive hit singles (including arguably Blondies biggest hit, "Heart Of Glass") plus, pretty much any other song on the album could have been a hit single too.
plus, one of the coolest album covers of all time!
The combination of Clem Burke's frenetic new wave drums, Jimmy Destri's Farfisa organ, Frank Infante and Chris Stein's dueling guitars and Nigel Harris's bass formed a perfect backing for Debbie Harry's vocals. You probably know this album, If you don't then you'll definitely know the singles so here's "Will Anything Happen?"...
Bloc Party are a band who have always had an electronic dance element to their sound. This has become more prominent over time, with tracks like "The Prayer" and "Flux" takng their influence more from artists like The Chemical Brothers than from their earlier post punk influences like The Cure and Gang Of Four. This remix version of their debut abum "Silent Alarm" features remixes from Four Tet, Mogwai, Erol Alkan, Ladytron, M83, Nick Zinner (guitarist from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and a highly aggressive cover of "Luno" by Death From Above 1979.
Remix albums can often be a wasted opportunity, or even just a contractual obligation, but this album flows well. The remixes almost all bring something new to the songs, while retaining the same spirit of the originals.
The "Phones Disco Edit" of "Banquet" is one of the most accomplished tracks on here, and one I regularly play while DJing. I'm a huge Mogwai fan, but while their remix of "Plans" is good, it's not an album highlight. Ladyron do a mighty fine job of reworking opening track "Like Eating Glass". here's their "Zapatista mix"...
Bit of a sad one this. Nico is a rarities and B-sides album released following Blind Melon vocalist Shannon Hoon's death from a cocaine overdose in 1995. The album is named after his daughter and all proceeds went into a college trust fund for her. Blind Melon were a Psychedelic Alternative Rock band based in Los Angeles best known for their 1993 single "No Rain". "Nico" opens with a solo acoustic cover of Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" and takes in scratchy acoustic demos (including one recorded over th phone on an answer machine) right through to fully realised beautifully produced songs like "Soup", a song which their second album was named after, but was left off the eventual tracklisting for unknown reasons.
There's a cover of John Lennon's "John Sinclair", a slowed down alternate version of "No Rain" (Which is nowhere near as good as the original version) and an excellent early version of "St Andrew's Fall" entitled "St Andrew's Hall". My favouite track remains the first Blind Melon song I ever heard. Here's "Soup"...
I've discovered quite a few bands by making sure I get to gigs early enough to catch the soundcheck. Blanche supported The White Stripes on their UK arena tour in 2003 and I saw them play at the soulless non venue known as Nottingham Ice Arena (seriously, I've seen some great bands there, but the gigs are never perfect due to the venue sucking the atmosphere out of any situation). Blanche were great though, much better than the headliners that night (and I'd decided that even before Jack White acted like a spoilt petulant child when we met him after the show). Their sound is best describes as Alt Country and "America's Newest Hitmakers" was a limited edition sampler EP on sale on this tour to promote their forthcoming album due the following year.
The EP consists of 4 Tracks from the album, and one exclusive track "Red Head". It's a good track but to be honest, if you dig the band then get the album "If We Can't Trust The Doctors" instead. Here's opening track "Do You Trust Me?"...
Bands were a hell of a lot moe prolific in the 60's and 70's. While you get bands these days that take 5 years or so to record a follow up album, Black Sabbath's second album "Paranoid" was released 7 months after their self titled debut! While it's not my favourite Sabbath album, It'll always be a special one for me as it was the first of their albums I bought (I remember buying it at "More Than Music" in Tamworth in 1996). Sabbath are one of the most important and influential band of all time and there should be a statue of the four of them in Birmingham city centre.
Sabbath took blues and made it heavier out of necessity (Guitarist Tony Iommi lost a few fingertips in an industrial accident so tuned his guitar down to make it easier to play) and in doing so pretty much created Heavy Metal as we know it. Obviously Ozzy's vocals and Iommi's Riffs are a very big part of their sound but don't underestimate the rhythm section. Probably my favourite aspect of Sabath's sound is how Ward's drums and Butler's bass are always pulling against eachother as if one is trying to speed up and the other is trying to slow down, which gives them a groove like no other rock band before. This album is full of riff filled awesomeness with only the instrumental "Rat Salad" falling short of the mark. Other than tha you've got the title track, "Iron Man", "War Pigs", "Fairies Wear Boots", "Electric Funeral", the psychedelic "Planet Caravan" and "Hand Of Doom", possibly the best example of the rhythm section's groove...
B.R.M.C. is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's 2001 debut album, a fairly straightforward psych rock album taking it's influences from The Jesus And Marychain, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Oasis and T Rex. Due to it's timing more than anything else they were lumped in with the Garage Rock revival of the early 2000's but they don't really share much sonically with most of those bands. There are similarities but most of the album is more remeniscent of early Verve, Ride and other Shoegaze bands of the early 90's. There's even a bit of a stone roses element here and there (particularly on "Rifles").
There's some really nice bass playing on the record, with some great sounding fuzzed up guitar, and a few bum notes left in (which I always like to hear on a record). You'll most likely have heard the Glam stomp of "Spread Your Love" and "Whatever Happened To My Rock & Roll (Punk Song)" but here's opening track "Love Burns"...
Chulahoma is a tribute EP by blues rock due The Black Keys to their biggest influence, Blues musician Junior Kimbrough. The EP features 6 covers of his songs (they've also covered another couple of his songs on their earlier albums) and ends with an answerphone message frm the late Kimbrough's wife saying how proud she is that The Black Keys have done such a good job keeping his sound alive.
If you've only recently discovered The Black Keys through their recent hit album "El Camino" then this is a good EP to get hold of to see where their influences come from. It's their bluesiest release and there's a lot in there for fans of Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker or R.L. Burnside. It can get a little samey, but at just under 30 minutes it doesn't outstay it's welcome. My particular favourite trck is the closer, "My Mind Is Wandrin"...
The Happy Mondays were once decribed by a mate of mine as "The Manchester Funkadelic", so that probably makes Black Grape the Manchester Parliament. Black Grape was the band Shaun Ryder (and Bez on Vibes again) formed in the mid 90s when the Mondays had split up for a while. Basically continuing where the Mondays left off, but with Ragga influnced rapper Kermit joining him on vocals. "It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah" is a drug fueled party album, with as many pop culture references and tales of chemical intake as Ryder can fit into it's 45 minutes. It's obviously a bit of an acquired taste but still stands up as a good album today, almost 20 years later. It reminds me of reading Select Magazine!
Stand out tracks are "A Great Day In The North", "Shake Your Money" and the three singles "Kellys Heroes", "In The Name Of The Father" and the awesome "Reverend Black Grape"...
So, here's a first in the list. This one is a bootleg, so there's no official cover art (so i've found what would be the cover art if I had any inkin my printer...). The Black Crowes are a fine band, Bluesy Rock and Roll like 1970's Rolling Stones jamming with The Grateful Dead. This is a collection of B sides (Obviously) that I was furnished with by my good friend James (Britain's premier Black Crowes guru and all round bloody awesome bloke.).
It comprises a few covers (Dylan's "Rainy Day Women", Willie Dixon's "Mellow Down Easy", E & L Young's "Chevrolet" and Bob Marley's "Pimpers Paradise"), a brace of live acoustic tracks (including a beautiful version of "She Talks To Angels"), a few noisy electric live tracks and an interview with vocalist Chris Robinson. Here's their cover of "Pimpers Paradise"...
Björk is a bit mental. You already know this. The term "Batshit Crazy" does not quite do her justice, and this is why we love her. "Triumph Of A Heart" is the perfect balance between her insanity and her ear for a bloody good tune. It's the third single from her album "Medulla", an album notable for being entirely accapella, but it's the only track on the album that could be described as danceable. I never really dug the rest of the album, but this track is one of my favourite Björk tracks.
The beatboxing on the tack is handled by Japanese beatbox legend Dokaka and former World Beatbox Champion Rahzel, from The Roots. The B-side is a pretty good remix of album track "Desired Constellation" but it's nowhere near as good as the A-side, here's the excellent video directed by Spike Jonze..
This CD collects early 70's Memphis Power Poppers' Big Star's first two albums on one CD. 72 minutes of jangling guitars and gorgeous vocal harmonies. Big Star took their influences from classic British 60's pop such as The Who, The Beatles and The Kinks and distilled it into a collection of Byrdsian 3 minute pop songs mostly about cars and girls. Big Star are one of those bands like The Velvet Underground where not that many people have heard them, but all those that did were inspired to form bands themselves. They're a big influence on bands like Teenage Fanclub, Weezer, The Flaming Lips and The Replacements (Who named a song after vocalist/guitarist Alex Chilton).
Big Star are another of those bands that are like an instant cheer up button (well, these two albums were, not so much on "Third/Sister Lovers"but we'll get to that later on). You may well have heard "Thirteen", (a fantastic song which always sounds a bit dodgy until you realise it's sung from the perspective of Alex Chilton when he was thirteen, not Jimmy Saville) and "September Gurls" is also fairly well known, ut my favourite song on the album is "In The Street"...
Hot Shots II was the Beta Band's second studio album (following the excellent compilation "The Three EP's" and their self titled debut album, which the band themselves describe as "fucking awful"). It had an unlucky start as the best song on the album, "Squares" was due to be released as the first single, however, the track is based around a sample of Günter Kallmann Choir's 1970 version of Wallace Collection's "Daydream", and the band learned at the last minute that subsequent one hit wonders I Monster had used the same sample in their song "Daydream In Blue" which was due to be released at the same time. The Beta Band subsequently released the less commercial "Broke" instead and were denied the opportunity for "Squares" to become the hit it could have been.
I've never really got on too well with this album, there's some good influences on there, and some good ideas, and it sounds similar to a lot of things I like (In parts it sounds like a lethargic, english Beck, without the Hip Hop elements). but overall they've never matched the quality of "The Three EPs", go and buy that instead. Here's "Squares", the albums biggest redeeming feature, the rest of it's just a bit boring...
Belly were an early 90's American indie rock band formed by Tanya Donelly, Formerly of Throwing Muses and The Breeders. They only released two studio albums before splitting in 1996 and this compilation, released in 2002 collects the singles, key album tracks and B-sides and rarities. Belly's sound is very much of it's time and listening back now the production on the drums hasn't aged brilliantly, but the songs still shine through. Their 1993 single "Feed The Tree" was their biggest hit and is one of he best songs on this compilation.
Other highlights on the album are covers of "Trust In Me" from Disney's "The Jungle Book", Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" and Gram Parsons "Hot Burrito #1", plus their singles "Gepetto" and "Dusted". Overall though, my favourite track that Belly ever did (and is included on this CD) is "Broken", a non album track which initially appeared on the "Mallrats" soundtrack...
So,Imagine if Aretha Franklin was really pissed off and decided to join The Stooges. Sound good to you? Then you might dig The Bellrays as that's pretty much what they sound like. One of ex creation records boss Alan McGee's discoveries around a decade ago when Garage rock was the next big thing. Meet The Bellrays is a compilation (in much the same vein as "Your New Favourite Band" by The Hives) released on McGee's Poptones label in 2002. The band had already been plying their Punk Soul stylings around the US bar circuit for well over a decade by this point and the album handpicks a good selection of their back catalogue. Unfortunately It's not quite amazing enough for you to need much more than this CD so while I've listened to a couple of their other albums and seen them live once or twice, I've never been compelled to buy any other albums of theirs.
The high octane Garage Punk stompers such as "They Glued Your Head On Upside Down" and "Too Many Houses In Here" are very good but the band are at their best when they step off the accelerator for a moment and play some old school 60's influenced soul, such as on "Blue Cirque" and this track, "Have A Little Faith In Me"...
The Books EP came at a strange time for Scottish Indie band Belle & Sebastian. It was the final release in support of their first album for Rough Trade records and up until this album was released they had never released a single which was also available on an album out of principle. However, this was essentially the third single to be released from "Dear Catastrophe Waitress", an album thatstrayed from their fey, folky roots and was produced by Trevor Horn. Because of this a lot of their older fans weren't too happy, but you know what? It's their loss. "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" is a great album, and the singles from it are among Belle & Sebastian's best work.
So the track from "...Waitress", "Wrapped Up In Books" is very good, despite stealing it's melody from Cliff Richard's "In The Country", but the real attactionon this EP is the opening track "Your Covers Blown", a six minute multipart Indie funk epic which sounds like "Bohemian Rhapsody" if it had been written by Orange Juice in 1984. Judge for yerself...
"I Am The Cosmos" is the only solo album by Chris Bell, former guitarist and vocalist with early 70's Power Pop band, Big Star. Bell left the band after their debut album "#1 Record" in 1972 and between then and his death in a car crash six years later, he only released one single, the double A side "I Am The Cosmos/You And Your Sister". He carried on recording sporadically throughout the rest of his life but nothing was officially released until 1992 when Rykodisc posthumously released this compilation. The music is very similar in style to Big Star's early work, albeit with a slightly more country edge to it and more melancholic lyrics.
Despite already being a fan of Big Star, Chris Bell's music had passed me by until I heard "Speed Of Sound" on The Flaming Lips "Late Night Tales" compilation album, and "I Am The Cosmos" itself on a Rykodisc records sampler at about the same time. I remember being blown away by "Speed Of Sound" with its juxtaposition of 12 string acoustic guitar and one of the most beautiful (and analogue) sounding synthesizer solo's I've ever heard. Here it is...
Belbury Poly is an alias of electronic musician Jim Jupp, the founder of cult lable Ghostbox Music. Ghostbox is a label dedicated to a genre of music known as Hauntology, essentially a style of electronic music which takes its influences from old BBC Radiophonic Workshop recordings, Folk music, Public Information Films from the 1970s and old fantasy and science fiction programmes. It's a peculiarly British sound and when trying to work out what it reminds you of (other than Kraftwerk in parts) you tend to think more of TV programmes than of other pieces of music. Things like "Moondial", "Tales Of The Unexpected" and "Day Of The Triffids". I was first introduced to this style of music by attending an afternoon called "The Belbury Youth Club" at the Flatpack Film Festival in Birmingham a few years ago. This was an afternoon curated by Ghostbox Music, consisting of an art exhibition of album covers from the Ghostbox label (which all share a common aesthetic and are designed to look like old textbooks), screenings of old deleted 1970s and 80s science fiction programmes, old public information films ("I AM THE SPIRIT OF DARK AND LONELY WATER..." - that kind of thing) and cold war era propaganda films, plus a live audio/visual performance from Ghostbox's Moon Wiring Club. I bought "From An Ancient Star" while I was there based on the cover art.
I wasn't disappointed when I got home and listened to it, It's all analogue synths, samples from old very British sounding TV programmes and mysteriousness. While googling the front cover for this blog I found one review that describes the album as being like "Trying to read a John Wyndham novel by the light of a spinning glitterball.". I can't put it much better than that! Here's "A Great Day Out" from the album, a track that manages to combine the general Hauntology sound with a Dub influence!...
Another eclectic one, The Bees are the Isle Of Wight's finest Psychedelic/Rock/Pop/Skiffle/Ska/Folk combo. Free the bees is their second album and was recorded in Abbey Road studios. This is another album that I've not listened to anywhere near as much as it deserves over the years, and the reason for this is it has stayed in my DJ box since I got the album. No matter where I'm DJing i almost always sneak "Chicken Payback" from this album into the set somewhere, and it usually goes down incredibly well.
Its a great album, nice and varied, with bits that sound like Captain Beefheart one minute, then The Hollies another minute, then like a russian dub band another! I was hoping to post "Chicken Payback" for your listening pleasure, but guess what, EMI have blocked it! (you can tell they really don't want people to hear and buy new music!) so here's the aforementioned russian dub track, "The Russian"...
Beck Hansen, one of those people that it's eally disappointing to find out is a Scientologist. The first single I ever bought was his first hit, "Loser" and that fact alone immediately makes me cooler than 99.9974% of the worlds population. "Odelay" was Beck's fifth studio album and could have ended up sounding ver diferent indeed. Taking over 2 years to record, It was initially intended to be a downbeat, acoustic based album before the sessions were abandoned and The Dust Brothers (who had previously workd with Beastie Boys on "Pauls Boutique" were brought in on production duties. Under their direction the album became a mash up of clashing genre's, mixing Hip Hop, Country, Funk, Rock, Electro and Folk.
The album spawned three hit singles "Where It's At", "Devils Haircut" and "The New Pollution" and at least two other songs on the album went on to have indie club nights named after them. Here's "The New Pollution"...
Now you may not have heard of this band. You know that guy who wrote "The Frog Song", and the guy that did the narration on "Thomas The Tank Engine"? well, this was their band back in the 60's.with a couple of other blokes. This mini album (it was initilly a double EP but was rereleased with their non album singles from 1967 added) contains some of my favourite Beatles songs, In particular "I Am The Walrus", "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Strawberry Fields Forever". I'm also rather partial to the instrumental track "Flying" as well.
Oh, and another thing. Don't let anyone get away with saying Ringo was a bad drummer. He was fantastic, one of the only drummers who can actually make drums sound psychedelic! Particularly on "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am The Walrus", here, have a listen...
Sounds Of Science is a pretty comprehensive ratrospective of Beastie Boys output up until 2000 (So basically, there's just "To The Five Boroughs", "The Mix Up" and "Hot Sauce Comittee Part 2" missing.) and It's probably all you really need. It's got most of the big singles up to that point on there (the only real ommision I can think of is "No Sleep till Brooklyn), Plus B-sides, Remixes and rare tracks. It's alo got an excellent, nice thick booklet with it with extensiv sleevenotes about evry song on the double CD. I love stuff like that, where the artist explains details about the songwriting and recording, mind you, I am one of those weird people who watches directors commentaries on DVDs.
So, I could go for "Fight For Your Right (To Party)", I could go for "Intergalactic", I could go for "Root Down", But it's an obvious choice really, Due to it's excellentness, and also it's fantastic video, here's Booming Granny "Sabotage"...
Believe the hype! Man, I love this album. Brian Wilson's finest work (I've always preferred it to "SMiLE"), Lush instrumentation, flawless layers of vocal harmonies, and even actual bells and whistles! It's one of those albums that it's impossible to listen to without it immediately lifting your mood, from the opening icecream van jangling (followed by that awesome drum hit!) of "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to the closing seconds of "Caroline, No". I even love "Sloop John B"!
So difficult to choose just one track to link to, obviously you all know the obvious tracks so there would be little to learn from posting "God Only Knows" or "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (although you should know all of it, if you don't own it then rectify this as soon as possible!). Here's my favourite track "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)"...
Man, this is a dark one. Post Metal supergroup Battle Of Mice featured members of Neurosis, Red Sparowes, Made Out Of Babies, Pere Ubu and bizarrely The Fugees (Joe Tomino was their live drummer). The band was formed by vocalist Julie Christmas and Guitarist Josh Graham who met when their respective bands tourd together, initilly hated eachother, before briefly falling in love, foming the band, then deciding they hated eachother again. "A Day Of Nights" was recorded when they had split up (during recording they refused to be in the same room together) and lyrically is almost all about how much they dislike eachother. Soundwise it's seven songs of epic guitar, building and crushing with vocals rangng from a childlike whisper to a horrifying scream. Obviously it's not an easy listening classic (particularly "At The Base Of The Giants Throat,", which features a very dsturbing 911 call towards the end of the song), but if you dig Post-rock and metal like Bossk, Isis, Neurosis etc then it's definitely worth a listen.
To demonstrate the power of this album, here's opening track "The Lamb And The Labrador"...
Battles actually still sound like the future. This probably means they'll sound incredibly dated in 10 years time, but right now there aren't really any other bands that sound like them, and they certainly don't sound like anything from the past. Yes, there are elements of other styles of music in there, a bit of glitch, a bit of afrobeat, some hip hop and even some Disney soundtrack type stuff going on in there, but they pretty much stand alone at the moment. EP C/B EP is as it sounds, a collection of their 2 early EP's from 2004 which was reissued in 2006 when the band signed to legendary electronic label Warp Records (home of Aphex Twin and Boards Of Canada).
Being a collection of EP's this release doesn't flow quite as well as the later albums, and some tracks are below par as the band were still formulating their sound, but there are moments of genius n here, particularly "Tras", their single from 2004. here it is...
Might be slaughtering a sacred cow here. The Madcap Laughs just isn't a very good album unfortunately. When Syd was still with Pink Floyd he was excellent, but unfortunately by this point either the drugs or the mental health problems had got too much and it doesn't make for a particularly enertaining listen. The songs meander and sound unfinished and compared with his work on "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" it's entirely substandard. There are a few tracks that with more work (and possibly earlier in his career) could have been excellent (particularly Octopus) but on this album don't live up to their potential.
It's a sad album to listen to as it includes parts of the recording where Syd forgets where he's going and stops songs to start again. Unfortunately, because of this it's not an album I'd recommend to too many people, It's certainly an acquired taste anyway. Here's Octopus...
Another local unsigned band, this time from Coventry, and although I've gigged with them once or twice, I don't really know much about them. I believe at least one member of the band is a music teacher at one of the local universities and this comes across in the excellent musicianship and well crafted songwriting on the album. It's brilliantly recorded and the album is better than most albums by more established bands. The songs feature excellent drums, good bass playing, intricate guitarwork and some really nice melodic synth parts and the lyrical themes cover most aspects of modern life. Unfortunately on searching online it seems that they may have split up.
They're a very difficult band to pigeonhole but remind me a little of intelligent pop rock like XTC and Mansun. Unfortunately there are no studio recordings up on youtube, so the best I can find is this live video of them playing album highlight "The Things That Scare You" at Birmingham rock pub "Scruffy Murphys"...
The Band, previously known as The Hawks were Bob Dylans backing band on his 1966 tour (The one where he went electric and was called "Judas" at Manchester Free Trade Hall). In 1967 they spent time jamming and songwriting with Dylan at their house "Big Pink" in upstate New York (not far from Woodstock). Recordings from this time were later released as "The Basement Tapes", but then in 1968 The Band decided to record their own debut album "Music From Big Pink". Two songs co-written with Dylan were included, "Tears Of Rage" and "This Wheel's On Fire", plus "I Shall Be Released" which was entirely written by Dylan. The Dylan connecton gained them a lot of attention at the time, butto be honest, their own songs are just as good. "Chest Fever" and "The Weight" in partcular are astoundingly good songs.
It's a massively influential album, without it's blend of calm electric guitar, piano, swirling hammond organ and harmony vocals the music now known as "Americana" or "Alt. Country" would sound very different. Plus, The Band all had really good beards. These things are important.
Here's the opening track, "Tears Of Rage"...
(again, those lovely people at EMI have blocked the studio version on youtube, so here's a live version from woodstock in 1969)
Pete Doherty, Beduff's other contribution to the musical world, is a bit of a wasted talent. I've seen him live a couple of times, and despite his amy of followers beleiving everything he does is perfect, 90% of his work is mediocre at best, but the odd gem does shine through. Killamangiro is one of those gems. It's got al the ragged charm of the early Libertines tracks and it's excellently produced by Paul Epworth (who also does some excellent remixes under the name "Phones").
The B-side is a fairly generic, unremarkable track called "The Man Who Came To Stay" but it's worth it for the pure energy of the A-side, just don't belive the hype about the other stuff...
Azure Ray are a folky dream pop duo signed to Saddle Creek records (my second favourite label after Chemikal Underground) and New Resolution was the second single to be released from their 2003 album "Hold On Love", an album which featured a much more electronic sound than their previous work. "New Resolution" demonstrates Triphopesque influences and features a Postal Service remix on the B-Side.
The solo debut album from ex Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur. has a similar sort of vibe to the A Perfect Circle stuff, which is understandable as it features some of the same musicians. James Iha, Paz Lenchantin and Geordie White (otherwise known as Twiggy Ramirez) all feature on both projects, though not all at the same time, and both have their sounds based in metal, but blended with alternative new wave guitar pop. The album also features members of Queens Of The Stone Age and Fu Manchu.
Standout tracks include "Followed The Waves", "Real A Lie", "Would If I Could" and this, "Taste You" featuring Mark Lanegan on guest vocals...
At The Zoo are/were (they seem to have possibly reformed) a local Tamworth based indie/ska/punk band, taking influence from modern indie type stuff like The Libertines and the Strokes, with a Two Tone streak. Nouveau Popular was their 3 track EP.
No videos on youtube unfortunately but there's a track on Vimeo, although it won't embed. here's the link. https://vimeo.com/7167267
At The Drive In came to my (and most peoples attention) in 2000 when they released their breakthrough album "Relatonship Of Command", It's an excellentalbum of Fugazi styled punk rock so I felt compelled to investigate further by getting some of their earlier albums. Glad I did as In/Casino/Out is even better. It's got a slightly more chilled out vibe to it and the songs are excellent. The lyrics are rather enigmatic but still pretty good. I was briefly in a band called "Little Arcade" which took our name from "Hulahoop Wounds" on this album (unfortunately the guitarist took all of his influences from At The Drive In so we split up shortly after due to musical similarities).
Also you've got to love an album with a song called "Napoleon Solo". But here's "Hulahoop Wounds" cos it's awesome...
Ash have written some great songs over the years, and most of them are on here. The deluxe edition is a bit of a cheat really as it's not just 1977, it also includes Ash's debut mini album Trailer plus the live album "Live At The Wireless",their entire Reading Festival set from 1997 and a third disc of B-Sides and session tracks. 1977 itself is a great album, I originally had it on cassette when it was first released in 1996 and almost wore it out with the amount I listened to it. The album opens with the sound of a Tie Fighter befor 50 minutes or so of teenage punk rock. The majority of ash's classic singles are on here, "Girl From Mars", "Kung Fu", "Oh Yeah" and "Angel Inteceptor" plus album tracks like "Innocent Smile", "Gone The Dream" and "Darkside Lightside", but then in this edition you've got all the extras too, The Trailer mini album is astoundingly good (particularly when you consider the band were pretty much still foetus's when it was recorded) with the early singles "Petrol", "Jack Names The Planets" and "Uncle Pat" all just as good as the later more well known ones.
Then you've got the non-album single "A Life Less Ordinary", and covers of tracks by Mudhoney,
Helen Love, The Temptations and Abba. there's a couple of tracks you don't really need, but it's a bloody great version of an excellent album. My favourite track has always been "Petrol", a bunch of irish teenagers channeling Dinosaur Jr. Can't argue with that!
Craig Armstrong is a scottish composer and string arranger. He's worked with Massive Attack, U2 and Madonna and has composed the film soundtracks for Romeo & Juliet, The Incredible Hulk and Moulin Rouge. Piano Works is an album of originals and reworked pieces arranged entierely for piano rather than his usual lush string arrangements.
It's a very chilled out album, and as such not one I've listened to that often over the years (I have two other albums by Armstrong which get much more regular plays) but now I've rediscovered it I think I'll be playing it more often in future. Here's "Leaving Paris"...
Canadian epic indie rockers Arcade Fire released this single in 2005. Rebellion (Lies) is a track of theirs you'll most likely know. it starts off all epic, then halfway through goes all motown and is awesome. You'll have heard it in the background on loads of telly programmes. I've already got this track on their album "Funeral" though...
The B-Side on his one is fairly interesting though, A cover of the 1939 song "Brazil" originally by Ary Barroso and subsequently covered by everyone from Django Reinhardt to The Vengaboys (Seriously!). It'll be familiar to most people for featuring in Terry Gilliams 1985 movie "Brazil" and also because it's currently on the cadburys advert with the bubblecars and the airships. Arcade Fire's take on the song is somehow both faithful to the classic versions of the song but also sounding like one of their own. here it is...
oops, just realised this should have been before arctic monkeys, sorry bout that, fell through a wormhole in time and space...
This is one of those bands where a semi obscure track is lightyears ahead of any of the much more well known songs. Arctic Monkeys are a pretty good band, they've had some great singles and there aren't really many duff tracks on any of their albums, but none of them stand up to the utter magnificence that is "Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts", a song tucked away as a B-Side on their second release (after their debut EP "Five Minutes With The Arctic Monkeys").
I mean, Obviously you know the title track, and it's brilliant, no real arguing with that at all, and third track "Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick" is an excellently titled little instrumental (and it makes me want to write a song called "Blankas Electric Shock Thing Where You Crouch Down And Mash The Buttons Really Fast") but listen to this, it's ace! could have just as easily been a number one single...
Ah, Chemikal Underground records again, and more specifically, catalogue number CHEM017CD, which was the release directly before my (joint) favourite record of all time, but we'll get to that later. There's going to be a fair bit of Arab Strap on this blog eventually. Arab Strap were the fantastic pairing of musical genius Malcolm Middleton and grumpy poet lyrical wizard Aidan Moffat. Their music was predominantly sparse, Middletons wiry guitar lines over vintage analogue drum machines accompanying Moffat's spoken word poetry, with tales of debauchery, infidelity, more debauchery and jealousy, albeit, often hilarious tales of debauchery, infidelity, more debauchery and jealousy!
The Girls Of Summer EP is a strange one really, Opening track "Hey! Fever" is an upbeat cheerful piano based song with guest vocals from a male voice choir and Stuart Murdoch from Belle & Sebastian, The title track is a bass heavy groover which breaks into a dubby dance track towards the end (although does this much better on the live album "Mad For Sadness", "The Beautiful Barmaids Of Dundee" is a throwaway kind of song with a bossa nova beat, and "One Day After School" is classic Arab Strap, incredibly dark, sparse and confessional and features on their second album "Philophobia". Here's "Hey! Fever"...
Another pianoey singy lady. I've got a few of that kind of record in my collection. Fiona Apple's much delayed third album was released 2 years after its initial completion due to the record companies initial refusal to release the album (they eventually changed their mind after a protest campaign from Apple's fans). It's a good album, although I prefer it's predecessor "When The Pawn...". Much of it's appeal comes from collaborator/producer Jon Brion (who had previously worked with Eels, Jellyfish and Evan Dando.) who gives the arrangements a Tom Waitsy kinda vibe with marimba's and vibraphones.
For me, the highlight of the album is the strangeley named "Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song)", which retains a similar style to her earlier work...
Richard D James, Cornwall's finest insane electronic maniac. Girl/Boy EP was released in 1996 and is on the more melodic side of Aphex Twin's discography. It's basically 2 proper songs, plus 4 very short remixes with a cover image featuring (allegedly) the grave of James's twin brother, who he claims died at birth. (He also claims to live in bank vault and that at the age of 11 he reprogrammed a Sinclair ZX81 to make music, despite it not having a sound chip, so this may not be accurate).
Here's the lead track "Girl/Boy song (NLS Mix)" Which is an identical version to he one featured on the "Richard D. James" album...
A Perfect Circle are a side project of Maynard James Keenan, vocalist from prog metal legends Tool, and are a collaboration between Tool/Nine Inch Nails guitar tech Billy Howerdel, session drummer Josh Freece and a few others. Their sound has elements of Tool's style of metal, but is mostly softer and more melodic taking influence from bands such as The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins (who's guitarist, James Iha later joined the band). Judith was the first single from their debut album "Mer De Noms" and had a couple of live tracks and a demo of album track "Orestes" on the B-side.
I was planning on linking to the video, but EMI have blocked it due to copyright grounds, so well done EMI, another progressive decision from a major record label... Here's the lead track, which you may well have heard anyway...
I used to be a really big Tori Amos fan, to the extent that my band is named after one of her lyrics. I kind of lost touch with her later on after a couple of lower quality albums (although I'm told some of her more recent albums have been back up to her earlier standards so may have to reacquaint myself soon) but at this point I was a very big fan. Glory Of The 80s was the first single from her 1999 double album "To Venus And Back" and while i dug it a lot at the time, it's not really one of her better tracks. I mean, It's OK, but it's not going to convert anyone who just thinks she's that mad ginger woman (i refuse to use the word kooky) that sang about Cornflake Girls and breastfed piglets on her album covers.
I was hoping to post the excellent live cover of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" that's on the B-side but unfortunately I can't find it amongst the terrible fanshot mobile phone videos flooding youtube, so here's the video for the lead track...
A good record shop should get to know it's customers, Know their musical likes and dislikes and use them to introduce people to bands they haven't heard before but will absolutely love. The sadly missed Tempest Records in Birmingham was one of these shops and Rich who worked there (and now runs Ignite Records in the Oasis market - go and give him money in exchange for records...) has probably introduced me to more bands than any other record store guru over the years. Americanfootball are one of those bands. I walked into the shop, Rich saw me and didn't even have to say anything, just changed the cd from the noisy screamo metal that was currently playing over to a beautful piece of music, polyphonic, inerweaving clean guitar lines, part american indie rock, part post rock, and with a smidgen of jazz in there, which turned out to be the only album by Americanfootball. I'll come that exact album later on but this is their only other release, a three track single which was released in 1998, a year before the album. Think Death Cab For Cutie covering Tortoise and you're along the right sort of lines.
It's not quite up to the excellent standard they reached with the full album unfortunately but it's still well worth a listen. here's opening track "The One With The Tambourine"...
OK, Time for some NOISE!!! Amen are an American hardcore punk band who were quite popular on the uk metal scene for a couple of years a decade ago. "Amen" is thir self tited debut album proper (there was a self released album in 1994, but at the time nobody really knew about that. Amen had a kind of Fallesque revolvving door lineup, with vocalist Casey Chaos (probably not his real name, I reckon his real name is somethin more mundane. Geoffrey Chaos perhaps?...) as the only constant member but various members of Californian punk metal legends Snot, and System Of A Down passing through their ranks at various times.
This is an incredibly angry, rage fueled album and I remember their live shows having fairly brutal moshpits, ususally with Casey Chaos directly in the middle of them.
The album's only single "Coma America" is probably the bands most well known song, but my favourite track on the album is "Everything Is Untrue" which brings a sort of sinister quietness to therest of the albums unrelenting barrage of aggression.
Latitude Festival 2008, I had just witnessed one of my heroes, Julian Cope, seemingly melt down on stage, starting his set 30 minutes late, before smashing his bass, ranting unintelligably for 15 minutes about how we had to remember him when he's gone or words to that effect before having the power cut, leaving me genuinely worried for his health and wandering about in quite a depressed state for the next hour or so, until I wandered back into the same tent just in time to see Amadou & Mariam give one of the most joyous and celebratory sets I've ever seen. Immediate cheer up music! For those of you unfamiliar with their music, Amadou & Mariam are a blind married couple from Mali who have been making music together for over 30 years, although "Dimanche à Bamako" which was released in 2004 was their first album to sell many copies outside of Africa. Their music is kind of a blend of African blues pop and more recently they've worked with Damon Albarn, TV On The Radio and Dave Gilmour and toured with Blur, Coldplay, U2 and The Scissor Sisters.
look how happy they look!
It's a cold november day in Coventry as I type this, but as soon as you put this album on, with it's recordings of street sounds of Mali in between the tracks, you can almost feel the sun come out. Here's standout track La Réalité...
I left Rage Against The Machine's last ever UK gig (before they reformed like everyone does) early to go and catch Angelica playing one of the smallest stages at Leeds Festival in 2000. It was totally worth it! Angelica were an all girl indiepop/punk band from Lancaster and "The End Of A Beautiful Career" was their debut mini album. 25 minutes of Indiepop genius filled with handclaps, surf guitars, recorders and existential ruminations on the existence of god, entitled "Why Did You Let My Kitten Die?" Essentially, Angelica were like Talulah Gosh's younger sisters...
I also own this album on 10 inch translucent orange vinyl. And must thank my good friend Sarah for introducing me to their music. My favourite track on this mini album is "Bring Back Her Head" but only by a small margin, it's all just as good.
...Trail Of Dead, as they're colloquially known are an Art rock band from Austin, Texas (although their guitarist/vocalist/drummer/artist Conrad Keely was born in Beduff, North Warwickshire!). They're one of the most exciting live bands in the world and always worth checking out when they tour. Another Morning Stoner was the first single from their third album "Source Tags and Codes". It's an album where their Sonic Youthesque punk mayhem seemed to gain a psychedelic, British influence to the sound with elements of The Beatles and The Who.
There's a storming live version of early album track "Richter Scale Madness" on the B-Side but for now, here's the title track...
For those that haven't seen it, Almost Famous is a semi-autobiographical movie written by Cameron Crowe about his time as a teenage reporter for Rolling Stone magazine in the early 70s. It's one of my favourite films and the soundtrack complements it perfectly. it flows like a mixtape of late 60's to mid 70's clasics and lesser known tacks, taking in "Sparks" by The Who, "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John (the only one of his tracks i've ever heard that i really dig), "America" by Simon and Garfunkel, "Feel Flows" by the Beach Boys and loads more. Even the fake 70's song "Fever Dog" by fictional band "Stillwater" is great, which is understandable as the recording features Peter Frampton and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam on guitar duties. You've also got tracks by Led Zepellin, David Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Seeds and Yes, yet despite it's diversity, it still flows well and works as an album, which as any fule kno is the secret to a great mixtape.
As for which track to choose to represent the album, it's a tough one. I've decided to go for "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference" by Todd Rundgren as it's one of the few tracks on the album I didn't know before getting the album, and is just as good as the better known cuts on there...
(don't worry, there'll be something noisier and more punk rock along soon!)
