Supplemental

Happy Birthday Dad

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:31:24 -0700

Here's my dad's birthday "card"

It makes me feel better #10 Lush up until Spooky

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:20:21 -0700

The Scar mini-LP was a gem and pretty much everything up until Spooky was fantastic. Spooky itself wasn't so bad either... but nothing subsequently worked quite so beautifully...

Etheriel/Leaves me Cold (on Snub TV)

De Luxe

For Love

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Count-ins (supplement) (and Spinning #4) - Jonathan Richman - Roadrunner

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:53:24 -0700

Very annoyed I missed this one from my previous post so here it gets a post all of its own...

Jonathan Richman - Roadrunner -"1 2 3 4 5 6"

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It makes me feel better #10 - songs with count-ins...

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:47:00 -0700

I threw together a playlist of songs that are counted in - here's what I listened to...

I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles - "1 2 3 4"
California Sun - The Ramones - "1 2 3 4"
(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais - The Clash "1 2 1 2 3 4"
Shake Appeal - Iggy & The Stooges - "1 2 3 4"
David Watts - The Kinks - "This is the master (five). Nice and smooth 1 2 3 4"
Griselda - Yo La Tengo - "1 2 1 2 3 4"
The New Style - Beastie Boys - "and on the cool check in, centre stage on the mic, and we're puttin' it on wax. It's the new style 4 and 3 and 2 and 1"
Foggy Eyes - Beat Happening - "1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4"
Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel - "2 1 2 3 4"
Tear Ya Down - Motorhead - "Ein zwei drei vier"
Warsaw - Joy Division - "3 5 0 1 2 5 go"
Blitzkrieg Bop - Newtown Neurotics - "1 2 3 4"
Weird at My School - Pixies - "1 2 3 4"
Modesty Piece - Pastels Tenniscoats - "1 2 3 4"

Blitzkrieg Bop (live) - The Ramones - "Ein zwei drei vier"

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It makes me feel better #9 Pixies... back then

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:56:12 -0700

Damn if Pixies weren't just amazing back then... I saw them quite a few times between 89 and whenever they called it a day and (and saw Black Francis do a slightly rubbish - and insanely packed - solo show at The Borderline). Remember some great shows... even that last one at the Crystal Palace Bowl when it felt like it might have been all over...

Here's the proof... and they all look so young... (and skinny!)

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Just dug this one out #36 : 'Til Tuesday - Everything's Different Now

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 08:16:00 -0700

I love Aimee Mann, I don't listen to her too much, I find a little goes a long way but I love her all the same. I love her rich voice, and that she's funny and clever and potty-mouthed - but I've never listened to anything this early in her career... partly because I just didn't feel a need and partly because there's a nagging worry that I know that it's going to have the sound that damaged a lot of the more mainstream late 80s pop... that "shine" and "twang".

A first listen through of 'Til Tuesday's Everything's Different Now and my fears are pretty much affirmed - there's a little too much production and arrangement, too much polish and too many instruments throw into the pot. I find myself listening to that more than the songs... which is a shame because the songs are mostly pretty good.

Only mostly mind. This was described as being "the first Aimee Mann solo album" and I do get that with some songs but "(Believed You Were) Lucky" and "Long Gone Buddy" sound just wrong. Hearing Aimee's voice singing on a couple of these tracks is actually a little distressing.

But there are some real gems here "Limits to Love" is great. The awful backing vocals on "The Other End (of The Telescope)" manage to not ruin it completely - probably because of the strength of the lyric (can't not love a miserable/bitter lyric)...

And in time, I could only believe in one thing
The sky was just phosphorous stars hung on strings
And you swore that they'd always be mine
When you can pull them down anytime

All in, I quite enjoyed this dip into Aimee's past but am likely to call on The Forgotten Arm or Bachelor No. 2 or Live at St. Ann's Warehouse when I need a fix...

Here's The Other End (of The Telescope) without it being damaged by 80s arrangement and awful backing vocals

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Pay them, pay them double and pay them now

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 07:33:24 -0700

Henry Rollins politely tells you that your fave band isn't selling out when it gets used in commercials...

... and here's my fave band not selling out...

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It makes me feel better #7 The Pleasure Seekers

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 05:48:34 -0700

Had never heard of The Pleasure Seekers until about 10 mins ago when @randomrecs blipped/tweeted this song - but it's a sensational bit of 60s garage rock and features a pre-Devil Gate Drive Suzi Quatro...

and this is how I'll always remember Suzi...

or maybe like this...

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Whatever happened to... venue webcams

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:41:56 -0700

I remember watching videos of shows on crappy webcams 10 years ago - but that doesn't seem to happen anymore... which is a shame. The Knitting Factory in New York had a webcam and I mentioned to Dean in an email in 2001 that I'd be getting up early to watch Luna's New Year's Eve show. That was (to my knowledge) the only time I ever got name-checked from the stage at a Luna show... unfortunately the webcam was broken and I crawled back to bed and only (and barely) heard my name check on a recording of the show months later...

And now you can too... here's the recording of the last song from Luna's 2001 new year's show - it's California (All The Way) and if you listen very carefully to the intro you might, just hear my one Luna name-check...

Luna @ The Knitting Factory 2001-12-31 (late show)

California (All The Way) by Luna Listen on Posterous

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White Heat... not so hot

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 14:45:53 -0700

This afternoon Hazel and I watched White Heat. It's the first time I've seen it for years, probably more than 10 and possibly closer to 15. I remember seeing it at the NFT in the late 80s. I'm sure that using whatever rating system I used back then it would have scored very highly. It's a classic of course so why wouldn't it? This time around however using my current dlicious/wikipedia rating system I've given it just six out of ten. Somehow this seems to require explanation because that's pretty low by my standards and a fair way short of the 8.1 it gets on IMDB and the 100% on Fresh Tomatoes.

First off Cagney is great. Of course he's great, the role is made for him and he knows it. He owns the picture and most of those six points belong to him... although maybe his totally overpowering the picture is part of what weakens it. A closer look at the relationships around Cody Jarrett would help, particularly those with his mother and his wife. Given how important these relationships are there is very little insight into them. The scenes with his mother are fine but they go nowhere in explaining the man, and her death is treated so carelessly that it only emphasises that the existence of the relationship is considered more important than understanding it.

Virginia Mayo was great in the little she had to do, but again we don't really get to know her.

Tracking the tanker using radio signals was a quaint look at the use of current technology in fighting crime, but looked terribly shoehorned in. I imagine it may have been jaw-dropping in 1949 but it just slowed the plot and actually made the "chase" sequence awfully clunky (as did the use of radio communication in the earlier chase) and removed any edge-of-the-seat excitement that should have been there.

And there's that ending. It is almost a great, great ending until:
"Cody Jarrett, he finally got to the top of the world and it blew right up in his face" that's the way to take the shine of a great ending - I guess it was trying to have the impact that the comparable "beauty killed the beast" speech at the end of King Kong except it really didn't say anything about Cody and just seemed plain silly.

I wondered when I started writing this whether my 6 was really justified, and suspected that I'd be adjustiung upwards by now - but no - I've just convinced myself that I'm right.

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It makes me feel better #7 Kate Bush and her bonkers TV appearances

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 05:24:46 -0700

YouTube is brimming with Kate Bush TV appearances... most of which would fit into a blog post with "bonkers" in its title and a fair few of which came from her 1979 Christmas Special... here are a couple of examples but seriously... watching Kate Bush's videos and tv appearances is a cure for most ailments...

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Spinning #3: Rock 'n' Roll instrumentals

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:20:50 -0700

When I was young - before the metal got me - I had a compilation album with a stack of great instrumentals which has long since gone astray and while there are plenty out there none match up - here are a few of my favourites...

Telstar by The Tornados

Scarlett O'Hara by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan

Walk Don't Run by The Ventures

Red River Rock by Johnny & The Hurricanes

FBI by The Shadows

I decided to give this series of posts a title so this is Spinning #3... You can see my previous posts here (including a instrumental that belongs in this post) and here.

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Thanks for giving a treasured childhood memory a thorough kicking

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 08:37:13 -0700

In 2001 I first saw the "Special Edition" of Star Wars (aka Star Wars IV: A New Hope)... I was not happy - here's the open-letter to George Lucas that I wrote as a review on IMDB. Given that he's now planning on doing it all over again in 3D I thought I'd republish it - Mr Lucas - all this still applies ... please stop fucking about with my childhood.

Dear George,
I remember seeing Star Wars on its first release and being completely immersed in the story, the characters, the effects - to a thirteen year old it was wonderful, I saw it a couple of times after and the magic never diminished.
BUT THEN at the weekend I sat down and saw this "new" film with added effects that more often than not stuck out like a sore thumb. Additions that somehow said "remember that film you loved so much...well actually it wasn't good enough". Well Mr Lucas it WAS good enough, it didn't need some hokey special effects to make it better - for me it had the opposite effect.
In particular the scene with Han and Jabba looked dreadful - it repeated (almost verbatim) a previous scene, made Jabba seem insignificant and unthreatening and made poor Harrison Ford look like a second-rate actor who didn't know where to look.
Sure I still enjoyed the film - but the additions (and of course the inevitable subtractions) meant that there was no longer any magic here for me.
Just because you can do this it doesn't mean you should. You had the opportunity to show off all your special effects muscle in The Phantom Menace, why did you feel the need to meddle with your "back-catalogue" to try and produce a homogeneous mass of work rather than a timeline through recent film history. Your attempts failed and now you have a half-decent film where there was once a great one.
Thanks also for giving a treasured childhood memory a thorough kicking.
-Andy

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Just dug this one out #35: Live at Reading by Nirvana

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:21:01 -0700

I was never a fan of Nirvana back then, I liked them enough to have bought their albums but not so much to bother going to see them live. I remember driving past the Astoria, when they were playing there with Mudhoney, on our way to some north London pub back room to see some unknown, and wondering if we maybe should be stopping there given the press they were getting... but no! I'm sure the proto-shoegazers we were undoubtedly off to see where just fine too!

After years of being bothered by Adam not being "into" music he suddenly is... and Nirvana are to him (at 13) what Motorhead where to me when I was 15. He currently can't get enough, constantly asking for new recordings. He got very excited when I dug out my vinyl copy of Nevermind and even wanted to know if I had any tracks by The Vaselines the other day.

Last week he came and asked for Live at Reading and it was only a fiver on AmazonMP3 so down it came (I love that - it took me years to build up my Motorhead collection, he pretty much has the full Nirvana catalogue sorted in a matter of weeks).

I'm not sure how Reading in 1992 fits into the grand scheme of things but the sound is impressive and the band's presence is astounding. Hearing the audience singing along to Lithium is chilling. It totally makes sense to me that this is exactly the sort of music a 13 year old should love - and I wonder what current acts have the power and presence to engender the passion that Nirvana did in the early 90s (and still do).

Listening to this album and it's clear that I probably should have stopped at The Astoria that night, having said that in 1989 I was 25 years old and had seen my first Galaxie 500 show. A month after the 1992 Reading performance Luna would play their second London show and Nirvana and I were already very far apart. The closest we got was probably as I drove up the Charing Cross Road in December 1989.

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A Song for You

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 04:10:25 -0700

Today I dipped into iTunes to listen to all the songs I had that were for people - here's what I listened to

1.    Song for Bob Dylan / David Bowie
2.    Song for the New Breed / Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
3.    Song for Sunshine / Belle and Sebastian
4.    Song for the Meek / Hydroplane
5.    A Song for Our Fathers / Explosions in the Sky
6.    Song for a Friend / Pastels/Tenniscoats
7.    Song for Myla Goldberg / The Decemberists
8.    Song for Mahila / Yo La Tengo
9.    Song for Randy Newman Etc. / The Chills
10.    Song for the Asking / Simon & Garfunkel
11.    A Song for You / Dusty Springfield
12.    This Song for Me / The Royal We
13.    Song for a Good Son / Bangles
14.    Song for # 3 / The Earlies
15.    A Song for You / Low Flying Owls
16.    Song for Today / Pete & The Pirates
17.    Those Girls (Song for Nico) / Low
18.    Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis) / Cowboy Junkies
19.    A Song for Kids / Miho Hatori
20.    (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister / The Stone Roses
21.    Song for Jessica / Faith Over Reason
22.    Love Song for the Dead Che / The United States of America
23.    Tunic (Song for Karen) / Sonic Youth
24.    If You Were Born Today (Song for Little Baby Jesus) / Low
25.    Song for Pessoa / Drugstore
26.    Song for Joseph / A Hawk and a Hacksaw
27.    Who Is She/Song for the Whales / Petra Haden and Woody Jackson
28.    A Song for You / Hazeldine
29.    Song for Someone / Quickspace

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Just dug this one out #34: Moss Elixir by Robyn Hitchcock

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:30:35 -0700

I've seen Robyn Hitchcock quite a few times over the years - never as a headliner (last time with The Decemberists a couple of years back); I've listened to albums (and Soft Boys albums); I've listened to friends express their appreciation... but for all that I find it really hard to like him, and I'm not entirely sure why. I mean, it theoretically pushes all the right buttons for me but there's something that just doesn't seem right.

This is the first time I've listened to Moss Elixir and it started well enough I loved the violin/guitar intro of "Sinister but Happy", although I found the lyrics a little discomforting, and for a while I thought this might be the time I'd "get over it" (whatever "it" might be). I found "Devil's Radio" just annoying and by "Man with a Woman's Shadow", "I Am Not Me" and, particularly, "De Chirico Street" I was itching to get out.

I stuck it out though, I'm glad I did "You and Oblivion" was great (sort of reminded me of Grant McLennan) and while it hasn't made me a fan I can appreciate more why people might think I ought to be a fan.

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Happy birthday to The Hounds of Love

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 06:35:23 -0700

Kate Bush's awesome Hounds of Love is 25 years old today. That's 25 years of regular listening so it seems that I'm never likely to get tired of it...

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It makes me feel better #6 Uptown Top Ranking

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:49:11 -0700

Andrew Collins played this on 6Music this morning and it did make me feel better...

Here's the record... spinning

and the famous TOTP appearance with the BBC house band struggling through it

And Scout Niblett's great version...

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Video: The Music Industry is Killing Music

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 04:02:33 -0700

Whenever Hazel and I sit down and talk about the state of the music industry the conclusion we invariably come to is that the problem is obviously the music industry itself. On last weeks The Review Show they had a short item by David Quantick which beautifully expressed exactly that...

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It makes me feel better #5: The Feelies playing Egyptian Reggae

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:58:00 -0700

Lovely video of The Feelies playing Jonathan Richman's Egyptian Reggae... in a hotel room (via Stan Demeski)

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