Geez Back Ma Heid!

The End (Redux)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Sat, 31 May 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Well, it's that time again. You'll probably have noticed that recently posts here have been few & far between, so much so that there's probably only about four of you still reading (hi B!).
There's a variety of reasons why there's not been many posts, but one of the main ones is that most of the stuff I'd like to share is by tiny little bands who make no money and so the guilt factor has finally taken it's toll.

Between that and other factors, Bring Me The Heads/Gimmie Back My Head/Geez Back Ma Heid has been allowed to slip into something of a coma, so consider this the Do Not Resuscitate, followed by the plug being pulled.

As with the last time, I'm not totally giving up, there's new premises already built, waiting for me to move in. That'll be something different though, no more full albums for one thing, more of a focus to keep me (and hopefully at least some of you) interested for another.

Should you want to join me, I can be found at Aye Tunes, something which I've been planning for ages and have finally decided to try.

If you don't want to join me over there, that's fine, I won't be upset. I will however reccommend visiting some of the other excellent blogs listed in the sidebar over there.

Thanks to everyone who has visited here and the old place since way back in October 2005.

And now, some songs...

Primal Scream - Kill All Hippies (from the first album posted on Bring Me The Heads)
The Verve - History (cause the cover for the single had a nice "All Farewells Should Be Sudden" image)
Lou Rawls - Your Good Thing (Is About to End)
Delakota - End Of The Line
Super Furry Animals - It's Not the End of the World?
Blur - Movin' On
Mogwai - End
Arab Strap - There Is No Ending
Control Voice: Sign Off, from The Outer Limits

The Fratellis - Barrowlands, Glasgow 10.11.2006

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:03:00 +0000

Two posts in a day? Well no, not really, this one is just a repost, by request.

Same deal here as with the Madness gig. The concert is recorded live and available on CD at the end of the gig. Quality is therefore excellent.
After annoying me intensely at first Costello Music, the Fratellis' debut album ended up growing into one of my favourites of the year. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Chelsea Dagger is now played at Celtic games after we score, or that Barry is a fan...

One note about the CD is that a few of the tracks run together, as you'll see from the tracklist.

Tracklist:
1.Creepin' Up The Backstairs
2.Cigarello
3.Everybody Knows You Cried Lastnight
4.Flathead
5.Vince The Loveable Stoner
6.Dog In A Bag
7.Dirty Barry Stole The Bluebird
8.Ole Black & Blue Eyes & Little Baby Fratelli
9.Whistle For The Choir, Henrietta & Chelsea Dagger
10.Got Ma Nuts From A Hippy
11.For The Girl (Acoustic)
12.Ooh La La (Goldfrapp Cover)
Best gig venue in the World.

Re-uploaded by request.

Domino Records Present: All The Rage

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:50:00 +0000

So yeah, I'm incredibly lazy.
There's a number of reasons why posts have been few and far between recently, but they are all pretty mundane and uninteresting, so I won't go into them. Instead I'll post something and try to be a better blogger in future :)

This here came out a wee while back, but as previously noted, I'm lazy, so I'm only just getting around to posting it now.

It's a sampler type thing for Domino Records, who so far this year have put out 2 of my favourite albums and are giving the usually untouchable Chemikal Underground a run for their money in the "Jim's most favouritist record company" running.

Usually with this kind of things there are two or three good tracks, then a bunch of filler, but with this, almost everything is a winner. Heck, even Arctic Monkeys do a good turn at the end.

1. URA Fever - Kills
2. Nest - Sons & Daughters
3. Assembly - Wild Beasts
4. Fireworks - Animal Collective
5. Slow Down Ronnie - Von Sudenfed
6. Office Boy - Bonde Do Role
7. Jiggy Jiggy - Steve Reid Ensemble
8. Dragonfly Pie - Stephen Malkmus
9. Joni - Correcto
10. Midnight Surprise - Lightspeed Champion
11. Crick In My Neck - Cass McCombs
12. Invisible Man - Adem
13. Christmas - Clinic
14. Moonminer - Pram
15. Diamonds Are Forever - Arctic Monkeys

I'll go write "must update more often" a thousand times now.

You can also buy this at amazon.co.uk, where it is dead cheap.

Happy St. Pat's! Stiff Little Fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:02:00 +0000

So, as always, I'm off to see SLF tonight. More exciting is that B from Noise Annoys has made it across the World (at least, I'm assuming she has) and is going too. Yay!

So, with that in mind, here's an official bootleg of SLF 2 years ago (2006) on the occasion of their 15th Barrowlands gig in a row.
Last year's gig was the 30th anniversary of Inflammable Material, where they played the whole album, and was as such f'n excellent. Here's hoping this year's, on a Monday night, can come even close to being as good.

MP3, 320kbs.

Tracklist:
1. "Tin Soldiers" (Burns, Ogilvie) – 4:45
2. "Roots, Radicals, Rockers and Reggae" (Stiff Little Fingers) – 4:11
3. "Nobody's Hero" (Burns, Ogilvie) – 4:01
4. "Tinderbox" (Burns) – 4:06
5. "Silver Lining" (Stiff Little Fingers/Ogilvie) – 3:46
6. "Strummerville" (Burns) – 4:21
7. "Fade Away" (Fingers/Ogilvie) – 2:53
8. "Can't Get Away With That" (McCallum) – 3:38
9. "Doesn't Make It All Right" (Goldberg/Dammers) – 5:29
10. "Barbed Wire Love" (Burns/Ogilvie) – 4:16
11. "Guitar And Drum" (Burns) – 3:16
12. "At The Edge" (Fingers) – 3:11
13. "Bits Of Kids" (Fingers) – 3:49
14. "Fly the Flag" (Ogilvie, Stiff Little Fingers) – 3:49
15. "Wasted Life" (Burns) – 3:29
16. "Suspect Device" (Ogilvie, Stiff Little Fingers) – 4:08
17. "Johnny Was" (Marley) – 10:13
18. "Alternative Ulster" (Stiff Little Fingers) – 3:58

Part One
Part Two

Do you like Orange Juice?

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:15:00 +0000

No, not the refreshing drink, the Edwyn Collins fronted band.
You do? How wonderful! Are you rustrated with how stupidly difficult it is to buy anything other than The Glasgow School? You are? Well then, might I direct you towards The Vinyl Villan where JC has offered to help, in the name of a good cause.

Watch Sons & Daughters

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:19:00 +0000

If, like me, you are a fan of Glasgow's prettiest band (review of Friday's ABC gig coming before the end of the week, I promise) but unlike me don't already have detailed plans for tomorrow (Wednesday) evening screaming at 10 men in green & white hooped shirts, hoping most likely in vain for something great, you can watch a live webcast of Sons & Daughters playing live at the Paradiso in Amsterdam.

Go here for around 8pm GMT and everything will be splendid.

Correcto - Correcto

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:39:00 +0000

Here we go again, something new from Scotland. I'm becoming far far too predictable.
Correcto feature Franz Ferdinand's Paul Thompson and (the now defunct) The Royal We's Richard Wright, but don't dismiss them as a quick side project to fill the time. This, their first album, is really quite good.

Tracklist:
1. Inuit
2. Do It Better
3. Joni
4. Save Your Sorrow
5. Walking To Town
6. No One Under 30
7. Here It Comes
8. Downs
9. Even Though
10. New Capitals
11. Something Or Nothing
12. When You Get Away From Me

You are correcto Sir.

As usual, you can buy the album here from Amazon UK or here from Amazon US

Sons & Daughter: Live At Chem 19

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:10:00 +0000

Did we all rush out this week to buy the quite fantastic new Sons & Daughters album this week? We did? Good children, you have been trained well.
If you didn't, then you are missing out on an early contender for Gimmie Back My Head's (or Geez Back Ma Heid, as we are currently calling ourselves, due to the vast amount of Scottish stuff currently being posted) album of the year. Gilt Complex already made it into the top tracks of 2007, which was as hoped a good omen for the album.
Producer Bernard Butler might have occasionally been a bit of a nightmare to work with, according to interviews, but he's done a splendid job adding a bit of polish to the album without removing any of the racket that we expect from Sons & Daughters.

Anyway, if you did buy the album then hopefully you already got this with it, a limited edition bonus disc featuring five songs from the new album and a new version of Johnny Cash from Love The Cup, all performed live in Hamilton's Chem 19 Studios.

Tracklist:
1. Chains (live)
2. Darling (live)
3. Gilt Complex (live)
4. The Nest (live)
5. House In My Head (live)
6. Johnny Cash (live)
320kbs MP3
Hurry hurry hurry

If you haven't bought This Gift yet, you can do so here" or if you are in the US here.

If you don't support Sons & Daughters, we'll keep reffering to ourselves in the third person, even though there's only ever been one person writing these things. You've been warned.

WHY? Announce New Album - Alopecia

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:20:00 +0000

Another hypey post, but this one has songs with it!

Two years after wooing critics with their beloved Elephant Eyelash, WHY? return, third LP in hand. In short, Alopecia is a collection of hard rhymes and raw-spun songs forced through the stubborn smile of a life-lover scorned and reborn. In long, this is an album of bone-dry jokes, suicides played out in poem, musings on final moments written inside of restrooms, begrudging selfaffirmation, and the grit and glories of every day living. Yoni Wolf has returned with the Art of Songcraft tucked under his arm. Inspired as much by MF Doom and Lil' Wayne as J. Newsom and Big Dylan, his words roll out bent and beautiful, not unlike the musical architecture that sends those words skyward.

As expected, the WHY? band--Yoni, Josiah Wolf, Doug McDiarmid--continue their calculated blitzkrieg on that self-made jangle-rap, indie pop 'n' roll genre, but the stakes are raised. The boys returned to their Midwest roots for Alopecia, hunkering down in Minneapolis' Third Ear studio and inducting a pair of venerable big guns into the band: Fog mastermind Andrew Broder and bassist Mark "Bear" Erickson. Throwing their samplers to the wind (mostly), WHY? recorded live as a five-piece. By the time the core trio returned to Oakland (where Thee More Shallows' D. Kessler engineered a final session), they'd amassed their most immediate and cohesive batch of songs to date.

Alopecia begins dark and triumphant: On "The Vowels Pt. 2," Yoni's voice comes in strong, sweetly soured like a curdling milkshake. The band lays back for the verse--weaving feedback, paced drums and bass, simian beat-boxing and bent guitar--then goes cosmic for the close. Conversely, "Good Friday" rolls forward on a simple live beat that showcases Yoni's rappin'est cadence in years as he wears his lowest lows like a badge: "It feels exciting/Touching yourhandwriting/Getting horny by reading it/And repeating, 'Poor me.'" "These Few Presidents" marks a return to the sing-song style over an alternately bubbly and tempestuous sound, before lead single "The Hollows"--an outsider anthem featuring the ethereal oohs of Nedelle Torissi and beyond-the-grave revelations from Dose One--touches down like a twister.

Throughout Alopecia, WHY? further push the edges of their sound, mastering mood on the time-shifting "The Song of the Sad Assassin," going ghostly with Kessler on a textured death rattle called "Gnashville," and inflating the warped buoyancy of Elephant Eyelash via "Fatalist Palmistry." Likewise, Yoni has honed his poems, evidenced by "The Fall of Mr. Fifths"--a twisted rap hinting at an inner Mr. Hyde--the sleepy existentialism of "Brook & Waxing," the oral illustration offered by "A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under" and the complex cadences found in "Twenty-Eight."

It all comes to a blistering crescendo in the album's final triptych. On "Simeon's Dilemma," Yoni croons to his frequent female muse/antagonizer: "Stalker's my whole style/And if I get caught I'll/Deny, deny, deny." He tests the limits of his voice and the extremes of his own character over a note-for-note combination of vibes, harpsichord and piano. And before Alopecia is brought to its eerie end (the suicide-probing outro, "Exegesis") we're given one more offering of reverse rap braggadocio. "By Torpedo or Crohn's" grooves like a mid-nineties gangsta BBQ jam and peaks with a recurring line from Alopecia: "While I'm alive/I'll feel alive." It's a fitting final thought, even for an album ascomplex as this--that the perfect antithesis to the blunt finality of death is nothing more than claiming the lifeblood that is already yours.

Release Date: March 11th, 2008

WHY? mypsace

Download "The Hollows"
Download Close To Me (unreleased The Cure cover)

Malcolm Middleton: Sleight Of Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:54:00 +0000

Ok, so the more observant of you will have noticed that I half posted this when you read the Aidan Moffat post, and enough time has passed since then that I may as well go ahead and give it a proper post too.
This blog is becomeing overwhelmingly Scottish, isn't it? Makes you wonder why I could never bother my arse doing anything with my proposed Scottish music blog then...

Tracklist:
Week Off
Blue Plastic Bags
Total Belief
Just Like Anything (Jackson C. Frank cover)
Follow Robin Down
Stay (Madonna cover)
Marguerita Red (King Creosote cover)
Love Comes In Waves
Hey You

Download
Buy UK

A Quick Burns Night Post

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:33:00 +0000

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

The Delgados - A Parcel Of Rogues

Aidan John Moffat - I Can Hear Your Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:28:00 +0000

Wasn't really going to post this, since I try to do my best not to annoy the nice people from Chemikal Underground, but I had uploaded it for some friends anyway and it was requested, so what the hey.

The CD picks up halfway through the story, the first half of which will be contained in a book in the disc packaging. There's a few extra bits & bobs promised on the actual release too, so y'know, if you like it you should probably buy it, I've already got one on order.

Having given the album a listen, but not many relistens as yet, first impressions say it is way, way better that the phrase "Aidan Moffat spoken word album" had me preparing myself for.

Grab it here (and yes, I am being a total bastard with that link, thanks for noticing. It's merely a brief experiment at the moment though, I've not gone total whore yet)

Buy one in the UK here and in the US here.

And if you are looking for a leak of Malcolm Middleton's album, peek in the comments...

Another Fine Mess: Mixed by FC Kahuna

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:21:00 +0000

In the finest tradition of Gimmie Back My Head, something completely random!
Seriously, no reason for this post other than I'd uploaded it somewhere else to fill a request, so I may as well put it up here too to get something other than hype on the board.

Tracklist:
1. K-Fun (FC Kahuna Mix) - Jolly Music
2. Nothing Is Wrong (RadioSlave Re-Edit) - FC Kahuna
3. By The Time I Get To Venus (DFA Mix) - Juan Maclean
4. Stucco Homes (Freaks Mix) - Brett Johnson
5. Everybody Knows - The Free Association
6. The Metric System - Trash Palace
7. Bakazou - Risky Disco
8. Warped - Dania Wang
9. Dang - Green Velvet
10. Superbad - Soul Substitute
11. Music Is My Radar - Blur
12. Plus1 - Atom
13. Deep Inside The Groove (Locked Groove Acapella)
14. A Track - Wink
15. Mindset 2 Cycle - FC Kahuna
16. I Just Love Acid Too - Christopher Just
17. Dextrous - Nightmares On Wax
18. Hanging Around Again - Polyphonic Spree
Part One
Part Two

De Rosa - APPENDICES 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:46:00 +0000

Yeah, in future I'll try to space the hype posts out a bit better...

"IT LIVES IN PARKS" THE FIRST FREE MP3 IN OUR NEW "APPENDICES 2008" PROJECT NOW AVAILABLE!!

The January edition of our new FREE MONTHLY DOWNLOAD PROJECT - "APPENDICES 2008" is now available from the myspace and www.wearederosa.com. All of these "Appendices" are specially recorded free mp3s, one of which will be issued on the first Monday of every month in 2008, and when collected will form a catalogue of the peripheral imaginings of the De Rosa megamind.

The monthly appendices will be issued as a limited edition LP in December 2008.

De Rosa are a band you might never see posted here in full illegal album form. Not because I don't like them, I do, very much, or after two and a bit years I'm suddenly taking a moral highground. Why then? Well, my cousin is one of the memebers of the band and frankly I'm affraid that someday I'd end up getting a kicking at a family wedding, which is something I like to avoid.

Malcolm Middleton: Sleight Of Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:42:00 +0000

Something different for the new year, I'll try and throw some news & bits online along with the other stuff. How long this last is anyone's guess.

I'll mark press releases and the like with a HYPE tag, so you can skip it if you aren't interested. If everyone hates it, I'll stop.

Following the critical success of 2007’s A Brighter Beat and an improbable bid for the Christmas number one slot with We’re All Going To Die, Malcolm is back to business with a new, stripped-back record. Comprising tracks written during the Brighter Beat sessions and a handful of cover versions, Sleight Of Heart bookends what Malcolm describes as his “boo-hoo/way-hey! period”, using up all the leftovers and tying up the loose ends.

“I'd like to do something different next so this kind of forces my hand. For once I've nothing prepared or ready to fall back on,” he says.

Initially conceived as an acoustic LP – and largely remaining so – the album was recorded at Chem 19 Studios in Glasgow. Malcolm’s recording band (featuring Mogwai’s Barry Burns on piano, ex-Delgados man Paul Savage on drums, Stevie Jones on double bass and Jenny Reeve on violin and backing vocals) joined in when he “got carried away”.

“I suppose this album is a reaction to the production of A Brighter Beat, which I love, but I felt it was time for something quieter,” says Malcolm. “My songs are usually written on a guitar so this way they are closer to the original form.”

There’s plenty to cherish in the nine new tracks here. Opener "Week Off" has the wonderful line “I’ll write a good song just give me more time, it’s easy hating yourself it’s hard making it rhyme,” and is surely the only tune to name check Fleetwood Mac released this year. Elsewhere, "Love Comes In Waves" is what Middleton sarcastically describes as “over-blown Glasgow indie-pop”. "Total Belief" finds Malcolm contemplating his “unworthiness” – a common strand in his solo work – and "Blue Plastic Bags" is a brilliantly observed song about modern British drinking culture, among other things.

“Surely everyone understands the longing / despair / contentment / self-contempt / confusion in this song,” says Malcolm. “As a nation we're all drinking too much. Not the binge drinking of the ‘90s but the sneaky innocent couple every night. If the fridge is empty at 9:30pm, you start sweating and run out to buy some for ‘just in case’.”

The covers on the album are fairly unpredictable. Here, a tortured version of Madonna’s "Stay" rubs shoulders with a lively take on King Creosote’s "Marguerita Red", and also Jackson C. Frank’s "Just Like Anything". "Stay" is an old favourite of Middleton’s, while "Just Like Anything" is beloved by his girlfriend, “So I thought I’d ruin it for her.” he says.

It all amounts to a captivating record from a man who’s fast becoming one of the UK’s most cherished – and prolific – artists. While you enjoy this one, Malcolm’s already beavering away on his next full-length release, with mixed results so far.

“Right now, everything sounds like a fat child throwing a Casio keyboard down a flight of stairs and hitting an old man at the bottom who's playing Verve songs badly on an over-priced guitar,” says Malcolm.

Sleight Of Heart will be released on the 3rd March. Track-listing is:

Week Off
Blue Plastic Bags
Total Belief
Just Like Anything
Follow Robin Down
Stay
Marguerita Red
Love Comes In Waves
Hey You

A version of Blue Plastic Bags can, of course, be heard here.

You can probably expect to hear more about this album later, given my obsession for all things Arab Strap related.

Best of 2007? UPDATED

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:37:00 +0000

So, after much internal debate, I've opted to take the easy way out by not doing one of those ubiquitous end of year best album lists, mainly because I just know I'd still be here in March trying to decide on it.
Instead, in no particular order, some of my favourite songs of the year.

The songs should probably give you a good idea what albums I liked too and I'll almost certainly have left out some great things. Some albums I liked won't have a song on the list, because I couldn't pick one, so if something you loved is missing, be polite when pointing it out :)

I've tried to stick to one song per artist and the only criteria for inclusion was that the song in question had to have appeared on something released this year. You'll see the reason for that in a bit, since one of my picks is a pure cheat.

Also, as it is the season for giving and all that, the whole bunch of songs are available to download from Rapidshare as a big rar, but also can be gotten individually, for those people who might only want a few of them, or that hate RS.

Anyway, here's the list:

See You At The Lights - 1990s (Indie pop joy from those blokes that used to be in other bands. Good album too.)
Billy The Dancer - The A.M's (Best song by a band formed for a bet with a frontman who used to host Gamesmaster. Admittedly not a crowded category to win, but still. For those not in the know, The A.M's were formed on the Dominik Diamond breakfast show on XFM Scotland. Billy The Dancer was their debut single and although it's probably best described as competent musically, it makes me smile, so it makes the list of favousites.)
Back To Black - Amy Winehouse (yeah yeah, I know. Still a good song though.)
Atlas - Battles (It's on most lists, I know, but that doesn't stop it being great. Like Alvin & The Chipmonks experimenting with Krautrock or something. My favourite part is the hook which sounds very much like "sing this hook". I know that's not the actual lyrics, but it still amuses me.)
Quicksand - Dot Allison
Away From Here - The Enemy (Again there's a couple of songs from the album that could fill this spot, but I'm picking Away From Here for it's shout along ability, and for managing to get away with a lyric about Richard & Judy)
Orchestra of Wolves - Gallows (Cheating a bit here, since the album irst came out in 2006, followed by a re-issue this year. It's my list though, so I can cheat if I want. Anyway, more good shout along value, but be careful where you do it, those lyrics aren't for the sensitive.)
Daddy's Gone - Glasvegas (At this point there isn't much I can say about either this song or Glasvegas in general that hasn't been said before and probably better in a million other places. Fucking brilliant stuff. Keep an eye on 17 Seconds for an interview with the band.)
No Pussy Blues - Grinderman (Just because Nick Cave is tremendous and so is this song.)
Song 4 Mutya (Out Of Control) - Groove Armada & Mutya Buena (Fun fun fun.)
Be My Friend - The Hedrons (A reasonable enough stab at punk-pop from Scotland's answer to The Donnas. Better live than on record though.)
Jack The Ripper - Horrors (Hype be damned. OTT fun.)
Moving Up Country, Roaring The Gospel - James Yorkston
Sheila - Jamie T. (At first it annoyed me, then it grew on me, like some kind of freaky catchy tumor. Apparently this year I quite liked dodgy cockney accents.)
Foundations - Kate Nash (Further proof of the dodgy Cockney accent theory. I really quite hate myself for liking this song, yet I just can't help it. Even with all the fittah/bittah business didn't manage to put me off. Now, since the rest of the album didn't impress me in the slightest, let's see if she'll ever do anything as good again, shall we?)
Stronger - Kanye West
On Call - Kings Of Leon
Gravity's Rainbow - Klaxons
Police on my Back - Lethal Bizzle (In the hands of many other rappers this tale of car theft and running from the police would most likely be dull, plodding and appauling (I'm looking in your direction Fiddy). In the hands of Lethal and thanks in no small part to a hefty sample of The Clash, it fun, playful and just downright fab. Curiously when The Enemy remixed it they stripped out the sample and turned it from playful to menacing to not such a good effect.)
European Lover - Little Man Tate (I can't put my finger on why I like Little Man Tate, but witty lyrics and catchy tunes like this certainly help.)
Valerie [Version Revisited] - Mark Ronson with Amy Winehouse (although this version, with wee Kyle oot of The View, is better)
Our Velocity - Mazimo Park ("Ooh, that's a good single!" thought I, "maybe the album won't be half bad". Turns out the album was more like three quarters bad, but this song is still good.)
Capital G - Nine Inch Nails
Superhero Songwriters - Malcolm Middleton (Again, anything at all from A Brighter Beat could have had this slot. Malcolm & Emma are my frontrunners for album of the year, with everyone else trailing way behind. Arab Strap, Delgados? Who were they?)
Throwing Bones - The Phantom Band (My attempt at being a bit obscure! More Scots, who just recently signed to Chemikal Underground. Caught them twice live now supporting Mother & The Addicts and Malcolm Middleton and have been impressed each time. One to keep an eye on next year I think. This is their debut (and so far only) single.)
Push - Pharoahe Monch (A damn fine return from Pharoahe.)
Sunday Bloody Sunday - Saul Williams (And a fine return from Saul too, who with the help of Trent Reznor showed Radiohead how you *should* release your album on the internet. We want better quality than 160kbs! We also want an album that isn't shit, which is where else Radiohead went wrong. *slips on flame-proof suit*)
Gilt Complex - Sons & Daughters (More Scottish indie fabulousness from Sons & Daughters. Album This Gift is due out imminently and is as good as lead single Gift Complex had me hoping. Great b-side to this too, a cover of Adamski's "Killer")
I Like Your Booty (But I'm Not Gay) - Insane-o-flex
Hallam Foe Dandelion Blow - Franz Ferdinand
Bare Legs in a Storm - Strike The Colours
The Optimist - Emma Pollock (Pretty much anything from Emma's Watch The Fireworks album could have been included here, but a random pick threw out The Optimist, so that's what goes on the list. Somewhere in an alternate Earth people shopping in Tesco are buying Emma Pollock records in their droves, while Sandi Thom and KT Tunstall remain quietly plugging away in obscurity. I want to live on that planet.)
Mayday - Unkle with The Duke Spirit (Highlight of a pretty good Unkle album for me. The Duke Spirit put out a fairly good EP too, but it didn't make the cut)
Your Hands Are Cold - Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs
Maybe - Lord Cut-Glass
Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright (yeah, so this one is a cheat. This version though was released in 2007, on the Live Lounge 2 compilation)
Umbrella - Biffy Clyro (It pains me to leave out something from Biffy's "Puzzle" album, but since you couldn't go anywhere this year without hearing Umbrella, it's nice to be able to listen to it without wanting to deafen yourself with a sharp object. Therefore Biffy's version gets in at the expense of their own stuff.)
With Every Heartbeat - Robyn (And another from the Live Lounge. Stripped down to vocals and piano and quite, quite gorgeous)
Same Jeans - The View (The album was a bit disappointing and if you weren't careful you'll be utterly sick of this song, but I still like it.)
Slaughtered Authors - The Wildhearts (My favourite track from The Wildhearts' recent self titled album, in no small part due to it stealing a riff from John Carpenter's Assault On Precint 13 score.)
Let's Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats

Or, if you prefer big rar files, here you go - 1 2 3

Looking back I've come up with a pretty mainstream list, pretty much putting the final nail in the coffin of my indie cred.
I also look to have picked more songs eminating from Scotland than anything else which either means I'm biased, or just that there's still great stuff coming out of my country, I'll let you decide.

Malcolm Middleton: Radio 1 Session

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:06:00 +0000

So Malky missed out on the Christmas number one spot by a mile (see previous post for more on that) and I've still yet to get round to writing a review of his gig at the start of December in Glasgow (short version - brilliant, a full year on from the last Arab Strap gig in the same venue and just as great a gig) but hey, since everyone keeps going on about how miserable his songs are, maybe that's for the best. Can't be having him happy now, can we?

During his promotion of We're All Going To Die Malcolm recorded a session for BBC Radio One, which was somewhat Christmassy themed and also featured new song Blue Plastic Bags - which refers to the carrier bags corner shops give you for your booze, if you really need to know more about that just say so, I'll take a picture of my next carry out. If you missed it, here it is.

Tracklist:
1. We're All Going To Die (with a children's choir)
2. Blue Plastic Bags
3. Burst Noel
4. Cold Winter

Knives for Christmas

Next up in a day or two, my favourite songs of 2007!

Happy Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:52:00 +0000

So, a few minutes to go till midnight as I write this and it looks like I never did get round to that Christmas compilation, did I? Let's go ahead and blame my computer being dead for a week and a half and me having a bit of a cold for that, rather than me being a lazy wee shite, shall we? Splendid!

Anyway, since I've not done the compilation, here's a last minute present to appease the masses (masses, Christmas, get it? I kill me, really I do...)

The Black Arts are the unholy union of Luke Haines' Black Box Recorder and Eddie Argos's Art Brut. They teamed up to write a Christmas single this year, which is so ridiculously over the top and blatant it manages to cycle through brilliance and parody several times in the space of just a few minutes.

For those wondering, neither this nor Malcolm Middleton (more on him in just a minute) made it to the number one spot, that "honour" (I've never really been quite sure why we Brits make a big deal out of being number one at Christmas, especially since the top spot almost always goes to some novelty record or manufactured pap, but we do) instead going to Leon from the X-Factor, to the surprise of, well, no one really.

Anyway, here's the Black Arts single, including b-side Glam Casual which Samir wrote about a couple weeks back over here.

Too big for any other show.

Happy Christmas to all my readers and blogging buddies.

Madness: O2 Arena, London 14.12.2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:26:00 +0000

Yay, computer is alive again.
This is just a quickie post to get *something* posted, rather than the vast nothingness there's been for weeks.

Anyway, same as around this time last year, Madness are on tour and produced a limited number of official bootlegs. Being the fine little pirate that I am, here's my copy of the O2 Arena gig, ripped at 320kbs.

http://rapidshare.com/files/77671736/Madness.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/77678596/Madness.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/77672194/Madness.part3.rar

Service Interruption

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:57:00 +0000

So, my computer is currently screwed.
This means that blog posts will be even more irregular than normal for the next few days. Don't worry, I'll get caught up eventually.

Bah Humbug II

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:13:00 +0000

Just been checking, pretty much all the individual Advent Calendar song posts are dead, but last year's whole thing is still available while you wait for me to do a new Christmas compilation.
You can find it here.

Bah Humbug

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:43:00 +0000

So, December the first has almost come and gone and long term readers will have noticed there's something missing here.
Yup, that's right, there's no advent calendar. I'm not likely to have time to do one this year - this week alone I have to juggle 3 gigs, 5 days of work and a rather important footie match - and I doubt I'd be able to pick out 24 songs that haven't been posted in the last 2 anyway.
It isn't all bad news though, most if not all of last year's songs should still be active, so you can always dig into the archives and just pretend that it is ths year. If that isn't good enough for you, I will do a Christmas compilation thing instead at some point.

If that STILL isn't good enough for you, then go visit www.mapsmagazine.co.uk which is doing a calendar, with new stuff.

Urusei Yatsura: Slain By Urusei Yatsura

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:26:00 +0000

Yes, a new post!
The last Yatsura album went down pretty well, and this was requested in the comments, so, well, here it is.
Slain by... is much the same style as the previously posted We Are... so there's no great surprises to be found here. The tunes are excellent again though, with the singles Hello Tiger, Strategic Hamlets, Fake Fur and )especially) Slain Elf being standouts.
Also in response to the comments on the previous album, some of the band are now in Projekt A-Ko, once again named after Japanese cartoons and you can find them on myspace. I've been waiting years for them to put out an album, but as far as I know (and someone please do correct me if I'm wrong) nothing has surfaced yet.

Tracklist:
1. Glo Starz
2. Hello Tiger
3. Strategic Hamlets
4. No 1 Cheesecake
5. Superfi
6. No No Girl
7. Flaming Skull
8. Slain By Elf
9. King Of Lazy
10. Exidor
11. Fake Fur
12. Skull In Action
13. Amber

Slain

Tidying up

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:31:00 +0000

So I've been lazy again, sue me,
It's been a while since I updated the old blogs I like bit, so I've added another couple today.
If you link to me and I don't link back, or there's a great blog out there you think I'd like, please please tell me, I'm way out of touch these days.

Also, the site I used to protect links seems to have gone AWOL, so chances are there's a lot that are still active, but look like they aren't working. I'll do my best to fix these as and when I can, but feel free to help out by again telling me what needs sorted.

Ta!

The Sundays: Static & Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Jim) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:53:00 +0000

One more trip to the archives for the day.

Tracklist:
1. Summertime
2. Homeward
3. Folk Song
4. She
5. When I'm Thinking About You
6. I Can't Wait
7. Another Flavour
8. Leave This City
9. Your Eyes
10. Cry
11. Monochrome
Sundays, Mondays
Happy Days