32 RPM

RADIO 6 VINYLS DAY

2012-01-04T20:51:00.000Z

And I completely forgot the reason for the broken silence. There I was rattling around the kitchen of our new (old, very old) house treading carefully on the cheap slate flooring following a 3am run in with a fucking slug (scariest creature known to man) when Huey formerly of the Fun Loving Criminals, you know, the one who pretends to be from New York comes on the radio. Apparently it's vinyl day, which means our hosts can only play records.

News to me that they ever stopped, but then I am relatively new to the virtual format of radio. I say new to it, that's not strictly true. Cut to 1988 - 1992 and you would see me along with a million other teens clambering to record snippets of the John Peel and Tommy Vance shows (I know, I got it half right) in attempts to educate ourselves by way of jumbled together BASFs and AGFAs.

That stopped as soon a I got part time work enough to furnish my growing habit. Little did the unsuspecting patrons of the particularly poor restaurant that I waited/bussed tables at know that there tips were going on a black plastic addiction that would span decades.

Anyway, enough waffle. Huey is on the radio playing something predictably funky (The Dazz Band?) when he announces his guest, none other than the owner of the worlds largest record collection Paul Mawhinney:

http://32rpm.blogspot.com/2009/12/worlds-biggest-record-collection-its.html

Yep it's still shit and he's still trying to sell it. He explained that it was a true archive and that something like 77% of the records in the 'archive' did not exist on any format outside of said 'archive'. That there is good reason for this still seemed to escape the poor if not heroically dedicated man.

Anyway, the whole episode got me thinking about two things. Firstly, whereabouts in the UK Huey formerly of the Fun Loving Criminals might be from and secondly, it reminded me that I had a blog, one that I had neglected of late.

I'm not sure if it was before or after the Huey thing (my New Years Day was spent in the sole company of my sick son so it's a bit of a blur) but Liz Kershaw (She's the chirpy Northerner) also came on and was killing time by talking to somebody about why Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak was the greatest record ever. Okay, they had my attention. That's the kind of idiotic sweeping statement that I live by and one that I might even have made myself back when I was in the habit of playing Jailbreak on repeat both backwards and forwards.

Anyway, it all fell apart when said claimant turned out to be an early 20s student whom referred to the format's plural as 'Vinyls' and then began to wax lyrical about the late Gary (fucking) Moore.

It was around tea time that the whole Vinyl(s) Day really came into it's own. Somebody, possibly Stuart Maconie (No relation to the Police Academy character) played Don Bradshaw Leather's 'The Distance Between Us'.

I had never heard of Don Bradshaw Leather but needless to say the record from 1972 is the kind of thing I'd love to be able to put my name to. It's on the NWW list and Donald may or may not have been a member of Barclay James Harvest. Barclay James Harvest says no, but who can really tell?

I'd like to describe it but it seems about a gazzilion websites have got there before me and done a much better job than I ever could.

WMFU's Beware of the Blog had this to say:

The four lengthy tracks here are dense, swirling, and hellish tapestries of blurred instrumentation, squawking voices buried in the mix

Which is pretty bang on. What they don't say is that it's fucking awesome and well worth the $300-$400 US dollars it's eventually going to set me back. How could I not have already obsessed over this record? How am I going to live without it? How long is it before I strip naked and paint myself black and take to gurning with my hands wide open line awkward pink stars?

Anyway, all of this would have been forever forgotten if it wasn't for the over-keen electric guitar busker at Oxford Street Underground station last night. Whilst I didn't see him I was close enough to make out some of Gary Moore's elongated electric blues Les Paul wankery, as he widdled and diddled I caught the voice of a German tourist shouting enthusiastically at him. The only words I made out 'Das Ist Nicht...' (That is not).

I would like to think the end of the sentence that was lost to me courtesy of escalators and heavy seasonal tourist foot traffic was '(Michael) Schenkner'.

'Das ist nicht Schenker!'

In my head there is even a scuffle, the latent MSG/early period Scorpions fan coming off worse for wear at the hands of our fine transport systems very own Police force.

Anyway, BBC Radio 6's New Years Day Vinyl Day Day. Smashing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2012-01-01T18:34:00.000Z

Record shop wise, the last thing I remember is leaving Edinburgh's Avalanche records after bidding farewell to the owner. We chatted, he was less than hopeful about the future and the volume of stock Vs available space told a similar story. Plastic carrier in hand I nodded cordially at the attractive girl behind the counter and stepped out into a wet Scottish Summers day spying my wife and pram bound Son sat on a bench across the road.

Fast forward to January 1st 2012 and what's changed?

A huge chunk of last year was spent rediscovering the delights of late 80's to mid 90's (specifically 1993) Indie music, started as a US only obsession but soon blossomed to include acts as diverse as Felt and Chapterhouse. Sounds awful doesn't it? Well it's kept me pretty chuffed and I've spent approximately 100th of what I was caning on records this time last year.

The rest of my time was taken up by a shed load of personal and geographical change. It would also appear that I have walked away from a habit that has defined me for the past two or three decades.

I have quit record shopping.

Yes I still buy music, CDs mostly but that overwhelming urge to spend days on end trawling dead and dying record stores is gone. Just before Christmas I passed by Rat Records (It appears to be my de facto local and I wondered what was on offer). I don't doubt that five years back it would have been well worth a bi-weekly visit but now? Sure there were a few choice pieces on the counter but 99% of the shop was dry.

Am I saying that the game is up? That it's all about the internet? No. You just have to look further a field. Get creative. Go to the source like these guys...

http://www.dustandgrooves.com/

(Great, no exceptional site by the way Elion. If you don't do this full time you should)

But that's only going to work if you get off on Geographically specific music, and even then you can bet somebody got there well and truly before you. Just discovered the 70s Lagos scene or Trinidadian Funk? Guess what, so did somebody else, somebody with the air-miles and fiscal means to take home small chunks of the country in question. Anyway, I'm rambling, it's not even about that. Rat Records had a copy of Ornette Coleman's 'Of Human Feelings', the one with 'Times Square' on it for four quid. I could have turned it the same day but the thought of it flapping against my leg on the walk home was too much for me. I'm just done with it.

I mean, will I still stop by the occasional record shop on my travels? Yes. Will I obsess to the extent I used to? I hope not. I get my pleasures in a far more simple way now, my album of the year is freely available to buy for less than a fiver and the thing that's making me happiest at the moment is Shack's 'HMS Fable'. Besides, I may have developed a soft furnishings habit.

So what for the blog? Who knows, I'm still trying to work that out.

THE WEEKND - HOUSE OF BALLOONS

2011-07-10T19:44:00.001+01:00

To say this isn't my usual fayre would be something of an understatement. With the exception of R Kelly's unfathomably brilliant 'Trapped in the Closet' and an inexplicable soft spot for Cisco's 'Thong Song' Swing-Beat is not an genre for which I have professed any kind of love.

There are I'm sure millions who still insist on calling the likes of Bobby Brown, Bel Biv Divoe et al R N'B much to the char-grin of an army of 60 somethings keen to point out that this modern 'soul' music has absolutely nothing to do with the 'rhythm' and or 'blues'. Regardless I digress.

I also need to make an amendment to that opening comment. If memory serves there was a brief period during my tenure at college in the woefully dull northern town of Warrington when I acquired and played with some vigor some swing beat compilation tape or other. The reason for this, I have to admit is that I was under the impression that it would somehow make me more desirable to 'the ladies'. Did that clear perspex C90 TDK cassette of magic have it's desired effect? For me no, but I have friends who have a countless bedpost notches no small thanks to having wank taste in music such as the 'swing beat'.

And now following that foggily remembered admission I need to again eat my words and profess a new found love for said genre for after much umming that is squarely where The Weeknd's 'House of Balloons (Official Mix Tape' falls.

To say it is good is an understatement. The only thing stopping this of falling short of album of the year is the fact that it doesn't strictly exist. There is currently no CD, no vinyl album, no cassette (sorry Dan). I don't know the exact reason for this but can only imagine it has to do with copyright clearance. The album uses a few snippets of other peoples work and this could be reason for it's virtual only existence and the albums 'Official Mix Tape' monika. I should check... But I won't.

Instead I shall try and describe how glorious this album is.

I've had a number of conversations about it with friends and fellow music-nazis and as of yet I've not heard a bad thing said about it.

It's like the music they play at the end of a party when everybody is too high and too tired to leave. It's the soundtrack to dawn rising on a room full of fucked up people, broken furniture and blood stains. It's what you might play on your stereo if you were a date-rape magician, tapping a veil of ro-ho into a glass of cheap sparkling wine. It's the songs that might be playing when a gang of gate crashers turn up at the party from the start of this paragraph, force you to perform unnatural sex acts on them that may or may not involve two girls and one cup before stealing the still playing hi-fi, your wallet and your sex tired girlfriend.

'House of Balloons' is Bobby Brown with his hand up Whitney Houston's ass trying to clear the way with his crap caked fingers because she hasn't shit for days. It's Bobby and Whitney sharing a lovers pipe, huffing milky white rocks as a new day rises over tinsel town, kidnapped dolphins trying to escape from the pairs dirty and piss filled swimming pool.

The first track sets the mood suggesting 'You're gonna wanna be high for this'. High for what? Well if it's not rape then I don't know what it is. Catchy as fuck, production so dirty and blissed out that it falls somewhere between Salem and Destiny's Child. Add to that the kind of voice that would, if it weren't so fraught be at home as part of Dru Hill and 'House of Balloons' is cooking with the gas from a mobile home meth-lab bunsen burner.

I could go through track by track lamenting the numerous merits but will instead just say that highlights include 'Wicked Games' and 'The Party and The After Party'. (The one with the Beach House sample)

Not even the wrong-foot' at the start of track four 'The Morning', a Clapton like guitar lick is enough to stop this working completely, it's that fucking good.

Given this is a habit breaking review and that you cant 'buy' 'House of Balloons' I will also utter the words I never thought I would say: Download this album... Now.

The Weeknd are from Toronto, Canada and despite this uncharacteristically glowing write-up I do know and have never met them. By the sounds of this they are having way too much fun scraping silk clad hookers up off the floor and drinking Mandrax power shakes to go out and meet people.

EUPHORIA - A GIFT FROM EUPHORIA

2011-07-10T16:32:00.001+01:00

Goddamn I am tired. I'm now two thirds of the way through one of those 'blink and you'll miss em' weekends having done precisely nothing with my down-time. The past 24 hours or so might as well have been spent in an airport waiting room staring off through the soundproof glass at the coming and going of planes, transfixed by the grim monotony of it all.

In fact the only thing I recall about yesterday is a curry and spending far too much time reading of the ins and outs of the 'News of The World' phone hacking scandal and the 'newspapers' consequent closure. Wow is RebeCCa Brooks evil. I don't care what she says, she is either a liar or incompetent, either way she needs to go the fuck down with her ship. For somebody 'of the media' she is handling herself nothing short embarrassingly. Forget her past actions, I am talking about the scowl, the out of control King Charles the First ginger pubic hair explosion on her head and pouty lips. Seriously love, just for once tie your hair back, think about what you are wearing and try not to look like you are trying to make the camera melt with your demented black witch laser eyes.

In fact I hate the woman's hair so much that it got me thinking about other people's hair that I hate: Rob Tyner of MC5, the fat speccy one out of the Turtles and this guy... The one with the center parting from Euphoria. Seriously, fuck your hair. I had to put the CD on to remind myself why I own an album featuring such a hideous folic abomination.

Euphoria's 'A Gift From Euphoria' is another great reason for buying a CD player. When you do see a vinyl copy (there was one on the wall of Minus Zero records in Notting Hill last time I went in) it's always more than you would like it to be. Don't think I've ever seen one go for less than about 120 quid (around $200).

Anyway, tired of searching for a cheap playable copy I settled for buying a CD from Amazon about ten years ago, but not even that was as simple as it might have been. Turns out there's some kind of dance music organization called 'Euphoria' so you have to trawl through page after page of shiny and stupid looking compilation CDs.

Another reason for coming back to this of late is the anniversary of Mercury Rev and their 'Deserter Songs' album, that game changing Disney inspired soundtrack to a comedown. I was a big fan of 'Deserter Songs' and like many others it took me completely by surprise. I had hated everything else the band had done with a passion but I found myself won over by the strained honesty of the vocals and the mind-blowingly lush string arrangements. So where did it come from? Had the band succeeded in inventing a new genre, a musical hybrid the likes of which the tired and weary world of music had not yet heard?

No. As much as I'd be more than happy with that series of events the reality is that 'that sound' began here with the album's opener 'Lisa'. It makes 'Deserter Songs' sound like a facsimile, a glorious copy and paste. Unfortunately the rest of the album is a different matter, it's a cluttered exercise in attempting to sound like various hit (and non hit) makers of the day. The over all impression is of a band trying to find it's sound, dipping it's toes into the realms of everyone from IRA sympathiser Van Morrison to the Moby Grape. Because of this it has a similar feel to the Turtle's 'Battle of the Bands' album.

What makes this all the more frustrating is that they give the world a song like 'Lisa' and never throughout the rest of the album go back to revisit the magic. If only they had realized what they had done we might not have had to wait thirty something years for Mercury Rev to complete the picture.

So basically, get the CD, listen to 'Lisa' then move on to 'Deserter Songs'.

FUNKADELIC - FUNKADELIC

2011-06-24T21:03:00.000+01:00

Peter Falk died today.

Part of me finds it hard to imagine a universe without Columbo, at the same time part of me, if he's honest thought that your man with the crooked face and a cigar teetering from his lips passed a few years back. That in mind it's a good news/bad news situation. Good news that Peter Falk wasn't in fact dead. Bad news that sadly he is now.

I was never that into Columbo. I mean, no more than any other student bunking off college with nothing else to do in the early/mid 90's, eager to see who this episodes guest star was and at what point our hero would utter those immortal words 'Just one more thing'. My reason for missing Peter will be the film 1979 'In Laws' in which he plays a CIA agent along side Alan Arkin's anxious and out of his depths in-law to be.

It's a great film and despite the name being tainted by a piss-poor remake a few years ago I urge you to watch it if you get chance.

As seems to have become traditional, this has absolutely nothing to do with the record I am reviewing, it's simply what is on my mind at the end of a long and rainy day. I'd like to think I could come up with some clever way of marrying the two together, perhaps ending this review with the words 'Oh and by the way' or suggesting Peter's mac is dirty because of all of the funk raining down on him but I wont. Instead I will move swiftly along and talk about George Clinton and friends.

When did funk fall so spectacularly out of fashion? It's now at the point when it has almost, almost but not quite come back round again full circle.

As soon as I hear the word 'funk' paired with anything I give it a swerve. I have always viewed it as the last refuge of a tired genre. The tie-on ingredient that you might use in an attempt to revive any one of a dozen types of music. 'They' tried to fix Hip-Hop with the funk, they tried to fix metal with the funk, they keep trying to fix House with the funk and what do we have to show for it? Fishbone, Armand Van Helden and Warren G.

It reads like the track-listing for the kind of mix-tape you might play to somebody you wanted dead from over-exposure to average wall-paper paste tasting music.

Despite the word 'funk' bringing to mind a whole list of ugly, sickening images: white people dancing badly, bass guitars played way to high in a Mark King style, ill-advised 70's themed student nights, Bootsy Collins, It's important to remember that before all of that, before Yarbrough and Peoples made he worst song in the history of modern music (Don't Stop The Music), before it became the punch-line in an unfunny joke, there was this...

The first Funkadelic album is a well measured and perfectly balanced exercise in finding out exactly what happens when the energy, soul, rhythm and blues synonymous with Black music clashes with the loud electronic instrumentation more readily associated with psychedelic rock. Reading this back it's an over simplistic summary that is not without it's inaccuracies - Brown (James) had already spoken of 'the funk' and Hendrix had of course been sowing the seeds for this particular sound for a good few years prior. Regardless of this it's a summary that I am happy to go with.

I don't need to talk too much about the result because it's history. Needless to say it worked. 'Funkadelic' is playful, stupid, unexpected and ultimately it rocks as hard as anything being made in 1970. It transcends the constraints of it's genre and is so much more timeless than the P-Funk that Funkadelic evolved into.

Despite this I have a hard time listening to it. Why? Perhaps it's because I have a hard time separating it from the insipid genre that it spawned. It's stupid I know but I really can't put into words how much I fucking hate Yarbrough and Peoples.

In other news I just checked the news, Peter Falk is still dead.

SIMON FINN - PASS THE DISTANCE

2011-06-21T17:22:00.000+01:00

This is one of those fabled releases. One of those records with so many stories surrounding it that you are unsure about what is truth and what is infact urban legend.

Amongst the chatterings related to this I have heard that the master tapes, missing for decades are haunted and somehow made the woman who found them in her flat jump out of the window in a 'Damien the Omen' style.

I have heard that the the reason for the albums swift removal from the shelves only weeks after it's release was down to similarities between the shit cover and a Clark's (or similar) shoe ad that was running in the press at the time.

I have heard that Simon Finn was in fact part shark and breathed through gills hidden in his neck, beneath his wing tipped collar.

Who really know's what to believe? I do know that pretty much everything else on the 'Mushroom' label is not worth investigating, I also know that Simon can get his 'wail on' with the best of them.

I am also in no doubt that 'Pass The Distance' has earned it's place at the top of most people's 'Great Lost Album' list. It really is exceptional singer songwriter fodder despite the sleeve.

So did I 'get my stupid on' and bid upwards of 250quid for an original copy? I did not. Some guy in Germany put out a very good press on Mayfair records. It has a couple of very nice inserts, the sleeve is good card stock and the printing is really crisp. Each one is hand numbered (unless I dreamt that) and as far as I know it is official.

Quite why Tibbles, wait, do we still call him Tibbles or has that changed? Quite why David Tibet of love 'em or hate 'em neo-folk doomsters Current 93 didn't put out a vinyl version when he re-issued the CD I don't know. It seems nothing short of perverse. Either way, here it is.

It was my mate Simon (not Finn) why turned me on to this. He mentioned it a couple of times in passing and before excitedly buying a 90's bootleg of it from On the Floor Records in Camden. (What's the deal with bootlegs now? Is it suddenly okay to sell them?) Anyway. He said something along the lines of:

'This will be my most significant purchase of the year'.

And I remember thinking, wow, that's a pretty grandiose statement for a record by somebody called Simon Finn with such a ridiculously shit sleeve. But it stuck with me and I did some digging. Listened to some clips on the internet and tracked down a copy.

'Pass The Distance' is a fantastic excursion into hopeless urban bed-sit doom-folk. It's as huge as it is whiney. It's very powerful stuff in a massively negative way.

As most people will tell you the show stopper is 'Jerusalem', the subject matter of the song is obvious and on reading the lyrics you would be forgiven for thinking that Simon (Finn) is one of the Xian brigade, he is not. He is an acid casualty from the Syd Barrett school of fucked. By the end of the song our protagonist is wailing so hard that it sounds like he is about to cry. Couple that sob with some genuinely interesting instrumentation (and the help of David Toop) and you have something well worth devoting time to. Not too much time though because like I say, it's fucking miserable.

BEEHIVE RECORDS - GREENWICH, LONDON

2011-06-21T16:56:00.000+01:00

I don't know what it is about the Cutty Sark but the name alone makes me want to spit blood. I don't give a fuck if it is the last of the tea-clippers. I cheered when it burnt down.

Before you start, no my ranting isn't due to a particularly stale and obvious school trip to see said 'Sark' back in the 80's, I wasn't punched in the back of the head by the school bully as I studied the portals and the poop deck.

It has never sat well with me. The idea of a pointless be-sailed ship in permanent dry-dock suspended animation. It's like a ship in a bottle without the bottle. What was the point? You weren't allowed to play on it, it didn't go anywhere, it had a stupid fucking name.

'Look at that Sark'

'Yes, isn't it Cutty?'

'Oh yes, it's a very Cutty Sark'.

Fuck you.

Luckily, not three minutes away is 'Beehive Records'. Have I ever bought anything from here? No. Does that stop it being a solid stand up record shop? No it does not.

Beehive is an ideal shop if you are just getting into 'the game'. If you have no qualms about owning re-issues then the stock is solid and most of your Kraut, Psyche, 60s Pop, Prog needs will be met at little expense and with comparable ease.

It reminds me of Exotica Records (Portobello Road) circa 1995, before all of the good stuff mysteriously vanished but sadly in this case all of that good stuff, like I say is re-issues. There's a few bits and pieces on the walls and the decor suggests that this might be somewhere to find some truly exciting used stock, but no, not so much.

Even so, I will always stop by if I am in the area, just on the off-chance that the owner has decided to purge his private collection or that some local, newly widowed lady has decided to rid herself of that vinyl weight that hung from her husbands neck for the past fifty years.

Here's to cheery hoping.

In the meantime I will sit grinding my teeth as the Cutty Sark is rebuilt and googling words like 'arson' and 'undetected' whilst dreaming of fun with matches.

WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID? D.O.C RECORDS R.I.P

2011-06-21T16:25:00.000+01:00

Well this was always going to happen.

Yet I still feel moved enough to say a few words. When was the last time you came across a genuine second hand record shop on a suburban side-street? Yes I know it wasn't very good and that they had some kind of basement infestation that suggested death behind the walls but it was still a record shop. Still somewhere to go when that clawing urge comes a calling, that nameless day-terror that urges you to sacrifice potentially fruitful day-light hours in favor of the endless and pointless search. Now it is gone.

Hopefully Mr D.O.C's decision to close his doors forever was to do with spiraling rent, internet based competition and downloading rather than a less than the less than luke-warm review I found myself writing after a fruitless visit sometime last year.

Either way, farewell D.O.C Records and god-speed.

....I wonder if they had a closing down sale? Hope I didn't miss anything.

SEBADOH - HARMACY

2011-06-21T16:09:00.005+01:00

Something of a departure from my usual blog-fodder this. I have been encouraged to revisit the past recently for a couple of reasons, not least after being described as an 'indie dad'. I sat on that name for a while, mulled it over and whilst it was wildly inaccurate given my usual listening habits it was actually a label I really liked and almost aspired to.

It also made me get a little bit retrospective with my listening habits, caused me to have the likes of Dinosaur Jr on repeat on my Ipod whilst I was out in Asia.

When I got home I realized that I had almost completely erased a huge chunk of my musical learning. There was little to no evidence of my years spent as champion of the US Indie scene (very specifically US. The thought of British indie music leaves me cold, there is something very sallow, pale and unsexy about it. A bit like having sex with a Politics major in a Sheffield bedsit). I counted maybe 20 CDs and half as many records. Given that this was such a focus of my life for such a prolonged time it was almost as if I had deliberately tried to eradicate it's existence.

I suppose part of me did. It's a dead scene I thought, like Beat Happening said the revolution has come and gone. There is nothing sexy about finding a Superchunk album amongst a girl you fancy's record collection anymore. If anything it would just seem a bit like she needed to get on with a spot of well needed Spring cleaning, you might even question her personal hygiene.

And it was while I was thinking about how 'Indie', the indie that I used to know and love was dead and less than relevant that I skipped to the opening track of Harmacy on my Ipod. 'On Fire' is one of the most simple yet perfect singles I can recall hearing. From there I left on the entire album to play through.

Harmacy passed me by when it came out. Fickle as I was in my late teens I walked away from Sebadoh after 'Bubble and Scrape' in search of something more exciting, more obscure guilty of falling in to that old 'if other people have heard of them they aren't cool anymore' trap. Fucked up there then didn't I?

The rest of 'Harmacy' follows the well known Sebadoh blue-print, fast songs, quiet songs, quiet songs with fast bits. That said this outing is much more polished, less lo-fi that what came before it. Well worth a revisit, if you are in the mood for a reminder of a time rich with de-tuned and distorted discovery, a journey into 'electric white boy blues' territory in a boat shaped like a Fender Tweed Deluxe amp with a Lumberjack shirt for a sail.

So what did I do about this glaring hole, this gap in my record collection? Well I had two,no three choices. First off I could have got my 'ebay' on and sought out the original pressings of everything I ever rid myself of - A lengthy and particularly costly exercise, one running well into the mid-thousands. Second, I could do exactly that but instead of being format precious I could go the way of the CD, which is what I did. 32 CD's filling a particularly large hole including 'Half Japanese', 'Unrest' and such are currently winging their way to me courtesy of Amazon.

So what of option three: Walk away from it, admit that there is absolutely no point in trying to fill the gaps or relive the glory years. Concede that you have moved on and that people would point at you if you wore a Mudhoney t-shirt. Well you know what, I would have done but I put Dinosaur Jr's 'Bug' on after 'Harmacy' and it blew the fucking doors off the van.

Maybe this is just temporary but right now I am so Indie it hurts.

PETER WYNGARDE - PETER WYNGARDE

2011-05-22T16:02:00.002+01:00

It's Sunday and I still haven't got dressed. The windows in our compact and bijou London bolt-hole are wide open and the traffic sounds like it's in the living room, police cars and the occasional horn of an irate driver who doesn't understand the concept of a cycle lane. Anyway, I decided to sprinkle a little bit of fairy dust on this otherwise dull but sunny day with this...

It's rare for 'celebrity' records to warrant the amount of hype that can surround them but in the case of Peter Wyngarde's effort I can happily say that most of it is justified.

Putting out an album was hardly an unusual step for an early 70s television or film icon, with this Wyngarde joined the ranks of William Shatner, David McCallum, Richard Harris and many others. What was odd was the subject choice. We knew it was going to be saucy, the man's Jason King character was the blue-print for Mike Myers' Austin Powers persona after all. What the world hadn't prepared itself for was 'Rape' the song that owns the first side of the album.

Many reviews cite this as a social commentary on different types of rape across the world. I have a different take on it: The track comes after 'You Wonder How These Things Happen' (She was asking for it?) and the albums seductive opener in which Peter invites us in to his bachelor bad, asks us to sit down and pours us a drink, it's a first person narrative. I think the second track 'Rape' is also from Wyngarde's POV and it tells of a series of events that follows whatever was dropped in the opener's drink.

Well that's pretty shocking. Yes in 2011 it is, but then what isn't? You have to remember that this came very roughly around the same time that Jones and Moon were cavorting about in SS uniforms. The world was a very different place, one where terrorism was sexy, where children didn't go missing at the hands of paedophiles but rather 'ran off to join the circus'. I doubt very much that it even an eyebrow was raised back in 1970 when it appeared.

Years later though you don't need to wonder why it was never re-issued as is. The album is available in it's complete form as part of the Wyngarde compilation 'When Sex Leeers it's Inquisitive Head' where it is re-contextualized minus the above artwork.

Talking of the artwork, I imagine that just below the shot on the front sleeve our man is holding up a prisoner number and slimy moustache and bouffant comb forward is about to be dressed not in leather pants or a stylish safari number but prison blues marked with a nonce-wing ident.

The problem is that with an absolute juggernaut of a song like 'Rape' on it is that the rest of the album rarely gets a look in. I went through a period of putting the song on whenever anybody (potential girlfriends withstanding) came over. Never once did it receive anything less than a

'What the fuck?'

I first heard about this in the mid 90's and was lucky enough to come across a copy around then. The rest of the album is surprisingly well orchestrated and in places very catchy. 'Hippie And The Skinhead' is a standout as is 'Neville Thumbcatch' and in amongst the songs are a couple of breaks that would sit perfectly on 'Ill Communication' era Beastie Boys tracks.

Anyway, whether this is the worlds first and only 'date rape' concept album or not it's incredibly catchy and well worth a look.

THIS USED TO BE MY PLAYGROUND (CHESTERFIELD'S THURSDAY FLEA MARKET)

2011-05-21T13:06:00.003+01:00

I found myself back 'home' a few weeks ago and for the first time in forever this visit landed itself on a Thursday. Thursday in Chesterfield means one thing, well two things if you include the tradition of getting into a fight in a shitty nightclub after an evening of buy one get one free drinks based offers. Anyway, the thing that it means mostly is the 'Flea Market'. For much of the week the towns two squares play host to a good old fashioned market: cheap curtains, crockery, fruit and veg etc. But once a week on a Thursday (but then you already knew that) the once legendary 'Flea Market' erupts from beneath the cobbled streets.

For those reading from outside the UK a 'Flea market' is not quite as rancid or moldy as it sounds and as a rule insects are not involved. It's basically a communal garage sale.

Anyway I say once legendary because record shopping wise the Chesterfield Thursday Flea Market has suffered from exactly the same blows that the rest of the world has. The internet, Ebay the birth and death of the CD. These factors also seem to have effected the quality level of the rest of the junk on sale. Interesting military collectibles have been replaced by piles of clothes based jumble that would not look out of place stuffed in bin liners left outside the Spastic Society. The 'mucky book' man has cleaned up his act and now appears to focuses soley on yellowing Mills and Boon novels and crossword puzzle books and 'Video Nasty' seems to have vanished.

As for the record guys. There used to be three of four, a couple of whom also had stores on the legitimate Saturday market. The stock was of varying quality but always reasonably priced and you could pick up anything from recent Cure bootleg albums to much of the Vertigo back catalogue. I have a memory of seeing the COB album for about 4quid sometime in the mid 80's. I distinctly remember laughing at the shit album sleeve, which serves me right.

In 2011 there are two intrepid peddlers of plastic left. There are of course others with the obligatory torn and tattered plastic record box crammed with scratched copies of Paul Young's 'Non Parlez', uninteresting Deutsche Grammophon titles and Christmas albums but they would just as soon sell you an antique horse brass or Andrew and Fergie royal wedding mug so they don't get counted.

As you can see above there isn't too much left, a few crates, nothing to get exciting about but in fairness what is there is still relatively well priced. What's most upsetting is that 'Moustache guy' has thrown in the vinyl towel completely, I did try taking a picture of Moustace Guy' but he kept staring right at me, perhaps recalling a younger version of myself, school uniform minus tie excitedly thumbing a copy of Kiss' 'Music From the Elder'. Anyway, Moustache Guy is strictly CDs and DVDs now. Poor Moustache guy, given the recent resurgence of interest in records it looks very much like he backed the same two dud horses that are about to sink HMV.

So is it worth a trip to Chesterfield's once fabled Thursday Flea Market? I would say no, unless you still have a VHS video recorder in which case there appears to still be an unusually high selection of big box Warner and Entertainment Vide titles for you to get lost amongst.

BIG STAR - NUMBER 1 RECORD

2011-05-20T17:21:00.002+01:00

Well this is a lot like putting on a old pair of slippers or a comfortable pair of track pants that you might wear around the house after work, lounging pants if you will, pants that might have ketchup, beer and other such stains on them.

Unfortunately the first pressing also sounds like a pair of slippers. Memphis label Ardent obviously had other things to spend their money on besides quality shellac. Luckily this album has been released and re-released so many times that there is forced to be a half decent pressing out there somewhere.

So what can you possibly about this album that hasn't been said before? Well quite a lot if you don't like an impossibly forced close to nasal vocal style. Luckily it would appear that I do, which is odd because the mere thought of Geddy Lee is enough to turn my stomach.

'Number 1 Record' is basically 'hit' after 'hit'. It's an exercise in perfectly honed and fully focused guitar or power pop. I would stop short of saying that it rocks though because it doesn't. The internationally used 'Scale of Rock' has Cheap Trick representing 'absoulte zero' IE: The very least rockingest sound possible and this, 'Big Star' falls short of that. Now this isn't a bad thing. As a band they are aeons away from the demented and dull twatishness of Cheap Trick but do they rock? No, not really.

Big Star 'roll', and this isn't a weak joke aimed at the bands admitted love for the 'doob' either. They have a rolling sound, a sound that rolls.

So what's on the album? Well there's that song that Cheap Trick borrowed for 'That 70's Show', there's the blue print to Scottish Indie janglers Teenage Fanclub's entire back catalogue. There is also 'The Indian Song' which I flag because it's always stood out for me. Not necessarily as being any better than the rest of this truly solid offering but because it sounds like it doesn't belong. You could very easily drop 'The Indian Song' onto 'Forever Changes' and give it a Brian McLean vocal credit as it would sound perfectly at home there.

So is it all good? No, there almost has to be a weak link and that weak link is 'Don't Lie To Me'. That's what happens when a 'Rolling' band tries to 'Rock'. It just goes horribly wrong.

Now according to Google this album actually exploded when it was released which is news to me, I was under the impression that it was one of those under-peforming slow-boilers, something that wasn't given it's due credit until years later. But apparently not. So why didn't smash the charts? Turns out Stax (Ardent owners) had problems distributing the record so nobody could actually buy it.

To be honest it took me a good few years to 'get' Big Star. I'd owned it more than once (It's a pre-requisit for working in a record store) due to the fact that it came up in conversation on an almost weekly basis. The first time I gave it a spin I remember it just washing over me in the same way The Replacements and the Soft Boys still do. It was dull, wishy washy nothing special, I didn't get it. I do now.

BEACH HOUSE - TEEN DREAM

2011-05-19T17:33:00.001+01:00

So it looks like that particular 'peak in interest' is over.

Mental note to self. Don't say the words 'Animal' and or 'Collective' in succession again unless you want a million angry post-folk rave fans descending on you like one of the saucier plagues of Egypt.

Anyway, moving swiftly along.

Last night saw me back on the ravioli (walnut and gorgonzola if you are interested), as I chewed away I channel surfed until I found something that wasn't reality TV or a talent show. I came in about half way through what I think was the first Tomb Raider film. It's pretty fucking terrible.

So why didn't I while away the evening listening to something wonderful? Thin walls, baby downstairs, a stereo that despite my best efforts refuses to perform at low volumes. That and Angelina Jolie's cod 'English' accent hypnotized me into wondering just how bad it and indeed the rest of the film could get. Answer: Very.

I did manage to give this a spin this morning though and decided that in the absence of anything more interesting passing my fair ears I should share my thoughts.

So Beach House. I was turned onto the first album a few years back by a friend in Portland OR. when they had more of an overt Goth/Folk thing going on. That mood seemed to continue through to their second effort 'Devotion': Bleak, late night, Diazepam music. On 'Teen Dream' that slow and steady temperament is still there, Victoria Legrand sings like she is on the verge of falling asleep and it's a delivery that wears well, adding to the dreaminess (dare I say 'Dreampopiness') of it all. 'Teen Dream' is lazy sex music with the added bonus of improved song writing and tunes.

The backing for the most part hides behind a synth-wash of some sort or another that and cymbal heavy percussion. It's a good if not at times fulffy sound. That said it's obviously very deliberate and anything more clinical might drain away some of the band's magic.

Despite being quite partial to the sound of Beach House they don't get off that easily, even if one half of the band is the granddaughter of score composer legend Michel Legrand ('Umbrellas of Cherbourg' may well be the creative pinnacle of mankind). I've already touched on her at times questionable delivery. She sounds like she is from Hartlepool or one of the less glamorous areas of the North of England. Why such an odd affectation? Then it struck me, is it a misfired attempt at trying to channel some of Siouxie Sioux's dark energy? After all her's has become a popular voice to imitate/emulate of late.

Gripe number two with a bullet would be the album sleeve. It's bollocks. The albums predecessor saw the duo huddled around a candle-lit table, it was a good visual clue to the sound within. What is your man on the street going to think if he picks this up? Tapioca? Semolina? Rice Pudding? Bread Sauce?

Anyway, I would suggest that you listen to this but given the amount of mad propz it received toward the end of last year landing in pretty much every year end list I read, my guess is that you already have... Which in retrospect makes the above exercise, with the exception of the Tomb Raider opening a bit pointless.

SHIRLEY COLLINS AND THE ALBION BAND - NO ROSES

2011-05-07T13:48:00.000+01:00

I have to put my hands up and say 'I just don't get it'. This is fuzzy felt, it's blue peter, it's Pam Ayres riding a Shetland pony whilst she romanticizes corduroy and the three day week.

It is just not me. Now we've established that, I need to try and find out why it's anyone at all (except for the original listeners) in the year of our lord 2011. 'No Roses' doesn't have the curious instrumentation or acid tinged lyrics that make the Incredible String Band so appealing. Despite the inclusion of a couple of murder ballads, it's not dark enough to be 'death folk' and it isn't catchy enough to compete with Fairport Convention at their best. It's just a less than curious artifact from a time when other people were creating a lot more exciting or proficient music.

Add to this the fact that it was recorded in that sprawling metropolis of London and any visions of wooden caravans, camp fires and burning of wickermen should vanish in a puff of pipe smoke because the geography of it's recording betrays the sentiment sold on the sleeve and in the sound.

The front sleeve proudly lists the names of twenty seven players. You would expect a pretty huge sound from twenty seven people playing all at once but the reality is there's a lot of guesting through out, some of it very inappropriate like the saxophone on the opener 'Cloudy Banks'. Much of it sounds plodding, pedestrian, colour by numbers.

So does anything even come close to rescuing this from the 'File under: 'Maypole Dancing Shit' section?

Three things. The back of the sleeve (as pictured above) - Don't know who he is but that has to be contender for 'Neck Beard of the decade'.

There's a Jew's Harp on one of the tracks and let's be honest, who doesn't love a bit of the old Jew's Harp. It's an instrument so moronic that it comes full circle to being even more awesome than the triangle.

Finally there is the last track. 'Poor Murdered Woman'. Despite my playa hating I have to flag this as being a hell of a song. It's the only track where Shirley lets her 'hey nonny no' vocal stylings slip into something heart-felt and listenable and whilst the instrumentation is in no danger of setting the world on fire it does work, succeeding in painting a very dark picture of rape and murder from days gone by.

I'm assuming there's a rape in there anyway. As a rule of thumb I always assume that when they mention 'flowers' in folk songs they are actually talking about vaginas, and they mention flowers a couple of times.

Anyway. I'm glad I got rid of my vinyl copy of this. It had a weird clouding on one side when you held it up to the light and whilst it didn't smell of cat-piss it gave that impression.

This review was done from the Castle Recordings 2004 Release - Props as always to Castle for always dropping a couple of staples worth of insight, sleeve notes and pictures onto the CD as should I ever want a true insight into this patchy outing I am well armed.

So, 'No Roses'. Buy another copy of 'What We Did In Our Holidays' instead.

RECORD COLLECTOR - SHEFFIELD (RETURN MATCH)

2011-05-03T17:52:00.001+01:00

The down-side to living in a world of convenience that when the wheels fall off every minutes delay or unnecessary wait in line feels like a punch in the face.

My train home to see the folks was delayed by 90 minutes. Not only was it delayed by 90 minutes but it failed to get to it's destination being cancelled about thirty miles outside of my home-town.

It would have been a minor pain in the face if I was traveling alone, I'd have got lost in my ipod and read some ridiculous graphic novel. As it was I was traveling with family: Small child and wife, dead-body heavy suitcase and 'collapsible' stroller.

So what can you do? Well there's nobody to complain to, the staff (what there are left of them in 2011) know well enough to lock themselves in the guard car. That only really leaves one path of recourse.

There is something quite satisfying about punching the living shit out of a train. Yes my knuckles hurt and it was juvenile but that coupled with every swearword I knew and a couple I made up for the occasion seemed to do the trick. I waited until the carriage was empty after the impromptu alighting and steam was vented.

So what have I learned? Next time I need to get a train in the UK, it is more sensible to hijack a helicopter.

What does this have to do with records? Well I thought that I'd take time out to visit Sheffield's ever lovely 'Record Collector' shop in Broom Hill.

Was it worth it? Was a good time had by all? Did I come home sacks a bulging with all sorts of vinyl based wonders.

No.

Oh.

Record Collector has gone a bit shit and here's why:

It's not necessarily the inclusion of a handful of new vinyl (presumably to get them bumped up to 'Record Store Day' status, meaning access to loads of guaranteed to sell and be seen on ebay within days stock) but this does not help. The lines are now blurred, where is the NEW section?

It is that they haven't done a decent used record buy in what feels like a year. The walls are plastered with over-priced or over familiar stock. The racks? More of the same with the same few records that I take up to the counter on every visit in the hope that they are either somehow in better condition than last time I saw them or that my standards have slipped.

Despite the gripe I'm not bitter. It's still a shining beacon in an otherwise barren city. I got my hands dirty (literally) and bought a Father Yod album so I shouldn't moan too much, it's just that the shop has now well and truly fallen from my list of 'Record Shops You absolutely have to visit if you are in a 30 mile Radius', which is a shame as by now I can pretty much fit them all onto the back of a postage stamp.

TANGERINE DREAM - EXIT

2011-05-03T17:27:00.001+01:00

The problem with much of Tangerine Dream (apart from their name) is that the vast majority of the band's output from the late 70's to mid 8'0s can and does blur into one. Not to say that it's not massively listenable. I just wouldn't want to play a game of 'Name which album this Tangerine Dream track' is from because I'm guessing that not even Edgar Froese would get a perfect score.

So the source for the review is from one of the 'remastered' definitive CD's released by Virgin. They did a horrible job, flimsy sleeve, no notes and according to a mis-print on the spine this is a live album. That gripe aside the CD works and it sounds a lot better than a vinyl copy might.

What?

Oh come on. Do you really want the slightest crackle or pop to pepper the musics more quiet passages? I have much of the groups catalogue and can't think of an instance where I have preferred hearing it on vinyl. It's a case of the practicality of a situation outweighing the romance that might be involved in listening to this in it's original form.

Anyway, why am I reviewing this? Well somebody in the office just started playing M.I.A and it offended me to the point of having to drown out her racist hate-mongering ramblings with the closest thing to hand. Lucky for me it was this rather than a copy of the first Opeth album.

'Exit' starts off easy enough, the opener, imaginatively also called 'Exit' wrong-foots a little and ends up sounding like a reeled off list of holiday destinations bringing to mind mid-80's travel shows and that orange faced camera slut/reader's grandmother Judith Chalmers. Despite that it's not a bad way to kick off the album, suitably enigmatic and futuristic.

Much of the 'Exit' comes across as either Horror soundtrack or Porno music, maybe both, Horror/Porno. The type of sound that thanks to the like of Steve Moore and friends is well and truly en vogue. Basically it's like seedy new-age music.

Onto the album's other stand out 'Pilots of the Purple Twighlight', why? Because of the awesome name? No, because if you listen to the keyboard in the background this is where James Earl Jones voiced wunderkind Tay Zonday got the loop for 'Chocolate Rain' from.

Despite my best efforts of turning this up to eleven M.I.A still seeps through the more silent parts and my teeth grind in time. Can't she be arrested for something? Inciting violence or just making criminally bad records comprised of half-arsed samples and utter gibberish and mono-tonal lyrics.

'Network 23' comes on and as I am transported back to the 'Blade Runner' inspired audio future/past of 'Exit' all thoughts of a juvenile public school girl glamorizing terrorism fall away in favor of a wide and empty soundscape inhabited by nothing other than electronic pan-pipes and a machine that generates keyboard riffs especially for midnight chase scenes.

Great album. Any better than the three before it or the four or five after it, who can really say for sure? Edgar?

No, thought not.

PRIDE - PRIDE

2011-05-03T13:40:00.003+01:00

With a name like 'Pride' you expect something massively gay. What 'Pride' deliver is twee, jangly, Dan Fogelberg tinged blancmange... But it isn't particularly homosexual.

The reason for my listening to this album is mainly that it appeared on a 'beat head' acquaintance's 'want's' list and I decided to investigate. You know the type, flat-rimmed baseball cap, a vocabulary awash with Americanisms and an unhealthy knowledge of which track was sampled for which Hip Hop track and when. This in mind I shouldn't really be that surprised when it turned out to be not massively impressive.

Albums usually fall onto such lists because of a couple of drum fills or breaks, at best they are held up by a couple of half-decent tracks, one of which nearly always features that all important sound or instrument of the moment be it Fender Rhodes, fuzz guitar, Moog or the accordion.

Anyway, my point is that people become obsessed with these records for portions that they can dissect, play over, possibly loop and re-invent. The original body of the album cast aside, forgotten about and left un-played.

This however may not be the case with 'Pride'. Despite many of the tracks having some oh so tired 'break beat' or other rumbling along in the background there isn't really a stand out. Many of the songs are quite pleasant and the breezy and so laid-back it's horizontal sound that 'Pride' create is very listenable, if not over-inspiring.

It was produced by David Axelrod, the man behind The Electric Prunes always interesting soundtrack to a Christian Cult period ('Mass in F Minor' and 'Release of an Oath'). Sadly none of the stylings that made both of those records so catchy despite of their Xian content appear to have been employed here. It lacks quirk, it's mono-tonal, over sunshiny. I mean I can listen to it, I am listening to it now but it might as well be the soundtrack to a retirement home picnic.

Pride sound a bit like somebody has sucked all of the drugs, excitement and danger out of The Byrds with some kind of purpose-built soul vacuum-cleaner and instead replaced it with sand, sand and maybe a couple of shiny marbles. In fact I would go as far as to say that if ever there was an archetypal 5/10 record, this is it.

...5 1/2 if they said the word 'cunt' once in a while.

BILL FAY - TIME OF THE LAST PERSECUTION

2011-05-02T21:00:00.001+01:00

Before you get too jealous, this is a review of the CD remaster rather than an original Deram press of 'Time of the Last Persecution.'

I bought it from Amazon after an entire year of it sitting on my 'Records that people tell me I HAVE TO listen to' list.

So, I've listened to it.

Am I going to add it to my own personal 'Oh my shit! You absolutely have to listen to this record because it will make your tits explode with joy' list?

No.

It's alright, I mean he looks fucking awesome on the front cover and what a name for an album. So why doesn't it get a high-five or even a pat on the back? Two reasons really.

First off Bill voice sounds way to close to that of my musical nemesis Ronnie Lane. That's right, the guy who made every Faces record he sang on sound pompous to the point of being fucking ridiculous. Anyway, it doesn't do well to speak ill of the dead so I won't expand on that other than to say that I still have nightmares about that man's singing 'ability' years after hearing anything he sang on.

If you need persuading give 'You're So Rude' a spin and listen to the way he pronounces 'They've all gone to see AUntie Renee'.

Where was I? Right, point 2. The saxophone. It doesn't feature throughout but whenever it does rear its ugly head it does nothing to benefit the over-all sound of the record.

When I was first told I had to give this a go I was told it was like Skip Spence's 'Oar'. It is a bit, but instead of the psychedelic undertones of that album 'Time of The Last Persecution' seems to be lumbered with Ray Russell's blues based guitar wankery. It also sounds far too English, too polite, too far away from the action.

Oh and whilst I'm at it the drums sound very 'session'.

What does work is the piano (as does the fuzz guitar). If Bill could some how have seen his way to relying more heavily on this tool we'd have something closer to the whacked out Elton John I'd been expecting.

Without wanting to list tracks there are some corkers on here and I am sure I sound like a heathen when I say it would make great source material for other bands to run with and improve. In fact in reading that back reminds me of the time I upset pretty much everybody I knew by saying that I preferred Girls Against Boys version of 'She's Lost Control' to the original Joy Division one.

Another reason to give this album the time of day is the lyrics. If that's your cup of tea and you take into consideration that this album comes from a very different world, one where the Vietnam war was present tense, one where that Haight and Ashbury dream of love and peace had just tuned out to be 'right drugs, right music, right time' rather than the beginning of the glorious global revolution and it makes a lot of sense. There is bitterness, apathy and disappointment in this music and it sounds pretty good 40 years on.

XENO AND OAKLANDER - SENTINELLE

2011-05-02T20:29:00.001+01:00

Dear Xeno and Oaklander, are you French? I notice your album 'Sentinelle' is recorded in New York but you either sing in Gallic or a type of English that suggests that the language is not your first. It's just that you don't look particularly French, not to say I am looking for a beret and a string of onions, but I've seen pictures and I wouldn't say you look any more French that I do and I'm not French.

It doesn't really matter it's just that I was going to compare you to Mathematiques Modernes but just incase you aren't French I won't. Just to be safe what I will say is:

Xeno and Oaklander, architects of a newly re-discovered bed-sit lo-fi electronic world originally given birth to by the likes of Soft Cell have taken the concept mysterious and miserable down-beat electronica and smashed it out of the proverbial park. I think the cool kids call it chill or dark wave nowadays. Back then it was just plain old electronic pop.

Not to say for a second that 'Sentinelle' is a classic or necessarily even a keeper but they have certainly done their best to stay true to the original battle plan.

The electronics which come courtesy of both parties are pretty competent and as you might expect for a minimal excursion into the world of analogue electronics. Nothing fancy, couple of nice hooks a distinct 80's feel and what I would describe as a methodical Germanic tinge.

My issue with the group is the vocals, not so much the French language pieces but the robotic English that fills at least half of the album. When such delivery was part of Kraftwerk's schtick they were let off the hook because they were pretending to be robots. When the same vocal sound was of the Belgian New Beat scene (Front 242 etc) it was annoying but somehow the punchy and plain Fascistic sounds made up for that. Now in 2011 it falls South of quaint or kitsch and just sounds a bit silly really.

Part of me would rather have the entire album sung in French, if they are French.

Anyway, to give you an idea of what to expect from the sound I asked a friend what he would recommend off the back of the fact that I was blown away by Sally Shapiro's 'Disco Romance' album and he wrote the name of this band on the back of a receipt and passed it to me. It was all very exciting and covert. Unfortunately I couldn't really read his handwriting so it took a while to track down.

Was it worth it?

Yeah, course it was. It's alright. Not going to set the world on fire or anything like that but there are worse things to listen to on a Sunday night. Although after the events of last night I feel like I should probably be listening to Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' happily ignoring the true meaning of the song and instead seeing it as a perfect meathead anthem to celebrate the fact that they 'aced' that modern day Fu Manchu Osama Bin Ladin yesterday.

Mixed emotions about that, either way, Ding-Dong the witch is well and truly dead...

BEACH BOYS - SUNFLOWER

2011-04-16T21:55:00.004+01:00

I just caught the end of 'Gentlemen Prefer Blonds'. Jesus Christ Marilyn Monroe was a simpering idiot. Sure, she was an iconoclast and admittedly not unattractive but fuck me is she painful to watch 'act'. I would say 'I wonder how she got her big break' but I don't need to, I'd imagine those sculpted legs and sit up and beg chest defined the casting couch pre-req for an entire decade. What I will say is 'I wonder if those morgue slab rumors are true'.

It's interesting to see how certain ice-berg sized chunks of our cultural heritage seem alien in their uselessness here in 2011.

'Gentlemen Prefer Blonds' is perfect Saturday matinee fodder, brain-dead vintage pulp from a bygone era, a time of stuffy suits, airs and graces and plot-lines so contrived that they appear a parody.

Luckily for those of us stuck in the present, much of that popular culture flotsam of yesteryear does translate. We have the Rolling Stones, to a lesser extent The Beatles and other heavy hitters such as The Beach Boys. A funny group of chaps The Beach Boys. They didn't surf and they were grown men. What they did do was leave a hell of a cannon of work, one often hidden behind a deluge of very average tracks about cars, girls and surfing.

Amongst their more interesting work are the aft lorded 'Pet Sounds' (It's alright) and 'Smile' (we should get the final version at some point over the next couple of months). What they have two albums after 'Smile' (more accurately 'Smiley Smile' the unfinished 'Smile') is an unbroken run of three absolutely stellar albums: '20/20', 'Sunflower' and 'Surf's Up'.

Lets talk about 'Sunflower' because that's the album that I put on to drown out Marilyn's idiot voice. The title of the album and ever cheery sleeve are misleading. This isn't the seemingly sunny proposition that it presents itself as, the darkness that reverberates throughout the follow-up (Surf's Up) is also evident here. In fact the albums closing shot 'Cool Cool Water' dove-tails perfectly into the foreboding opener of 'Surf's Up'.

I inherited my copy of 'Sunflower' from my dad. Out of interest he bought it from 'Brierley's' (I would imagine of Brierley Hill near Birmingham England) for 62 1/2p in 1970. I don't remember him ever playing it but do recall it sitting tucked down the side of a silver Philips all in one surrounded by white shag-pile carpet.

That's not all that makes it special. The cover looks like an ill- rehearsed family portrait or team-shot and despite the great rainbow of colours and logo that frame it, this has to be contender for one of the most average album sleeves ever.

What saves it is the pictures on the gatefold. The group appear to have taken it upon themselves to don fancy-dress. Most interestingly of which are Alan Jardine's choice of dressing like a street peddling monkey grinder and more sinisterly Mike Love's decision to dress like some kind of bearded and potentially sinister deity surrounded by children. Anyway, rather than over analyzing this I will talk about the music.

'Slip on Through', 'This Whole World', 'Add Some Music to Your Day', 'Tears in the Morning' and 'Forever' are the standouts. What do they sound like? You know the drill: Vocal harmonies, considered slightly grandiose instrumentation and catchy as fuck. But 'Sunflower' has the added bonus of a slight twinkling of the darkness that reflected the often turbulent and fragile inner workings of the group at this time, one that would be fully realized on 1971's 'Surf's Up'.

They do not make them like they used to.

EARTH - PENTASTAR: IN THE STYLE OF DEMONS

2011-04-15T15:57:00.004+01:00

If I said this was Earth's best album would you hold it against me?

I can almost sense a hoard of 'Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version' fans battering down my door and demanding some kind of redaction.

Truth is, as painfully unhip as it is to say. 'Earth 2' is a fucking tough listen. Yes it's instrumental in the state of modern metal. Sunn(o))) would not be without it. In retrospect it could be that had Dylan Carson not made us all sit through a 73 minute double album of tiresomely slow guitar chuggery that our metal brothers might have gone the way of Yngwie Malmsteen or other Dragonforce like widdly-diddly idiots. And I suppose that 'slowest band in the world' would make a nice addition to anyone's resume.

So on to the album at hand. The opener lay's out the bands game-play from the outset. It's faster than anything they have done before - Which is to say it is still very slow, but at least within the realms of listenability. I'm being harsh, it's better than that. It's solid, down-tempo Sabbath type riffage. Hypnotic and ever so slightly bluesy.

'High Command' treats us to more of the same but with the added treat of lyrics, actual words!

The third track 'Crooked Axis For String Quartet' is something else entirely. When I first heard this back in 1997 I thought it was just one chord. I put this down to my shitty stereo. Listening to it today it's as if some of Steve Reich's 'Phases' era work has bled through from the other side of the tape. It's actually very pretty, not a word you often associate these son's of Seattle with.

'Tallahassee' is pretty much the blue-print for where the band would see themselves just under a decade later. The twang of Americana bathed in the kind of fuzzy distortion with which they are synonymous. It kills and is the only track they did that ever made it onto a mix tape for a girl. (NB despite my best efforts the relationship did not go very far)

There is something of a far Eastern feel to 'Charioteer (Temple Song)' and were it not for the inescapable metallic sheen that Earth produce it could almost find a home on something by Popol Vuh.

The last 1/3rd of the album's a bit of a miss, it smarts of the group desperately trying to stretch the proceedings from EP to LP territory, there's a pretty 'by numbers' Hendrix cover, an instantly forgettable piano excursion and a reprise of the opening track to end with. Were it not for the fact that the last song on the album takes the theme somewhere else completely you might feel a bit short changed but as it is it's a solid pillar to end on.

I got this from Relay records in Bristol during my final year at college, sold it about ten years back, re-bought the CD from Everyday Music in Portland OR and then got a new copy of the LP from Music and Video Exchange in Camden about three months back.

Which reminds me. Tomorrow is 'Record Shop Day', so go out, join the lines, buy a load of limited shit by bands you don't really like and put it on Ebay... Then with the money you make, buy three copies of this and play then simultaneously and at slightly different speeds because that would be fucking awesome.

ZOLA JESUS - STRIDULUM II

2011-04-13T18:14:00.001+01:00

I am reviewing this because it's been on my work desk and staring at me for the best part of 5 months. Also because I am not entirely sure that the fawning and in-depth write up I want to give Deftones 'White Pony' would be appreciated by anybody apart from me (Just to say it's in my top 50 albums and if you don't own a copy get over that Nu-metal labeling and treat yourself).

I've had this in and out of the CD player (also on my desk) since around Christmas and it's really grown on me. To be honest I hadn't been sure what to expect. The personnel listing wasn't exactly inspiring: One person (Nika Rosa Danilova) with a keyboard. It could quite easily have fallen flat like a Jamie Lidell gig with a broken sequencer. But it doesn't. Given the lack of other instrumentation it's a surprisingly dense piece. It's brooding, dark, haunting, it's all of those other words that appeared in reviews of the record when it came out in the middle of last year.

The whole album is like an elongated study of This Mortal Coil's version of 'Song to a Siren', and if you ever saw that track used in the trailer for the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre then those visuals add even more credence to that line of thinking. It comes from a very black and pained place, somewhere close to death.

Another thing that undoubtedly every review of this so far will have pointed out is how close her Nika's vocal range is to that of Siouxsie Sioux. At first her delivery was massively grating but like the music that accompanies it, in time you find yourself immersed.

Despite all of this and my repeat listening at work, I am trying to think of circumstances where I might choose this as a soundtrack and I am coming up short. You can't really have sex to it unless that sex involves ropes and potentially knives. I wouldn't want to drive to it, unless my driving culminated with a high-speed and slow motion chase resulting in my untimely and messy crash based death. It's not ironing music unless I am contemplating ironing my hand and or face. You get the picture - It's very emotional, borderline wallowing music or like I said, maybe something you play when you are having knife sex.

So given I don't intend for copious amounts of blood to feature in any love making in which I might partake I will leave this on my desk, safe in the knowledge that it's a suitable accompaniment to putting together elongated and over-styled Power Point presentations.

JAN FRYDERYK CREATIVE SOUND - FAUN

2011-04-11T20:18:00.003+01:00

This guy is German. (At least I think he is German)

He's a piano player.

He does not have a Wikipedia entry.

If I could stretch to more than a dozen words in German there would be some clues as to the man's history and background on the rear of the sleeve. Sadly the comprehensive notes, probably outlining the making of the record and the chief protagonist's history are a series of 'k's, 'z's and umlauts.

Given this I shall take my customary tact and make something up...

Jan Fryderyk discovered the world of Jazz after being admitted to Ansbach Military Hospital as a child. He had complained of a chronic stomach pain and on examination doctors removed approximately 4oz of human hair from his stomach and intestinal tract.

Jan Fryderyk had a hair eating problem, unlike most people with this affliction the hair was not in fact his. At weekend Jan would roam from barber shop to barber shop with an eye to scoring a snack and had been doing so since an incident involving a wig on his seventh birthday.

It was whilst he was recovering from the operation that Jan heard some G.Is stationed there playing John Coltrane's 'Blue Trane' and he was hooked.

To this day nobody knows how or why the hair eating problem started. What they do know is that despite a relapse in the early 80s his passion for the jazz piano has all but cured him.

Sound wise, this is obviously piano led, but don't let that put you off. It's not a painful Cecil Taylor excursion into the land of the solo plinkity-plonk. The other players here do a fantastic job of filling in, covering for and adding to Fryderyk's key-happy ways.

I need to single out Alan Skidmore formerly of Kieth Tippet's 'Centipede' here for a special mention. He's an exceptional saxophone player and he has a tidy beard. He does soft, distant and gentle AND 'I'm having a shit-fit' both surprisingly well. I say surprisingly as he's a Brit and despite evidence to the contrary I still firmly believe that 'Jazz' is the realm of the dead (with a few exceptions) American.

Quite who to thank for rest of it I do not know as Peter Giger(Pictured above), Doug Hammond and a guy called Trilok Gurtu all contribute percussion of some type or other. The sheer amount of skin beating gives you some idea of how good this could and does get.

It isn't indispensable by any means but when the repetitive percussion gels with the piano 'Faun' comes alive in a wholly entertaining and mostly enjoyable way.

NICK CAVE AND WARREN ELLIS - THE ROAD (ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK RECORDING)

2011-04-10T18:08:00.008+01:00

An unusual choice for lounging around on the hottest day of the year but there you are.

After a failed evening of trying to get people to witness the power of my fully operational Hi-Fi system courtesy of an array of old favorites, I thought I'd try putting it through the paces with something new.

I can't help feeling a little disappointed that after months of research, waiting, saving and spending the reaction to my new stereo was mixed at best.

'There's not much bass'.

I took this to bed but said nothing until my wife mentioned it again on a trip to the supermarket.

'There's not much bass on that new stereo of yours is there?'

This came in the middle of an unrelated conversation about grass strimmers so maybe it had been playing on her mind as well.

Sound is a very personal thing, some people like it rich, others analytical, others still tainted or tweaked with an extra helping of bass or a cranked up high-end. What do I like? Jesus, I don't know, I just want my stereo to sound half decent. GIven the amount of money and time I spend on finding the software it's common sense to invest a proportional amount of money in the thing that makes the sound come out.

I hadn't had an issue with the lack of low end until it was pointed out by a room full of people. What to do? Well I could ignore it, get on with my life and dedicate the man hours to something less dull... Or I could start looking for a couple of concrete slabs to place under the stands with a hope of somehow capturing some of the vibrations that may or may not be dissipating through the heavy pile carpet.

I am not educated enough in the ways of classical music to try and work in any similarities here, but it reminds me of the 'Music For Egon Schiele' album by Rachels although I'm pretty sure that's a cod reference to make.

The first time I heard it, the music accompanied the film and it worked in the context of the particularly dreary and miserable as a motherfucker images. Without them much of the mood is the same. This is not 'get up and go!' music. It's the sound track to a particularly long and painful day. It's music for heavy reflection. Lets not forget, it's also music for the end of the world, for cannibalism, fields of fire and pushing a supermarket trolley into the mouth of oblivion.

The slow, meandering string led sound aside for a second, let's look at the protagonists.

Warren Ellis, is not the man who wrote some of the finest comic books of all time but rather the multi-instrumental guy with the colossal beard who played with the Dirty Three. His talent and ear for musical drama is obvious.

Nick Cave needs no introduction and I won't say any more about him than these recent forays into the world of movie music have done him nothing but favors. They have rounded off his CV in the way that most maturing musicians can only dream of. If only Madonna had taken a leaf out of his book rather than attempting to remake and reclaim that same faded glory album after album (they are only months apart in age). If only she had thought to trade just one leotard for a shred of the dignity that surrounds Cave's work but no, Ciccone will die on that treadmill, gaunt, unloved and living in the past.

So where was I? The soundtrack to The Road. If it weren't for the occasional metallic screeches, obviously there to underline certain points of the films sheer horror this could be an every day listen. As it is these very occasional hideous early period Einstruzende Neubautenesque shrieks take the edge off a bit challenging me when all i want is to sit back and go,

'Mmmmm, nice strings, lovely arrangement....shame about the bass'.

Well worth a listen this.

PRINCE RAMA - SHADOW TEMPLE

2011-04-04T17:45:00.005+01:00

I listened to this on Saturday while my wife took a well deserved break by way of the local nail salon.

We had already watched most of the WW2 submarine film classic 'Up Periscope' in which a young James Garner (of 'Rockford Files' fame) attempts to single-handedly sabotage a radio station based on a Japanese island whilst the crew of his sub anxiously await his return. At least I think that's what it's about as the sound was mostly down in favor of that last Bruce Springsteen album.

Either way it looks like films about submarines are a hit with my son. I suppose at 4 months old what's not to like right?

He started to get a bit antsy towards the end so we moved to his brightly coloured and ridiculous play mat. It's one of those things with two ajoining arcs crossing over it. The idea is you hang all sorts of different toys from it for him to chew and or play with... mostly chew.

What might make an interesting soundtrack to these proceedings I thought? After a brief rummage in the CD cupboard I pulled out an unopened CD copy of this album. It made the cut not because of the band's association with Animal Collective but because of the sleeve. The colours matched the play mat perfectly so it seemed silly not to see if I could exploit that marriage further.

The little guy on the mat seemed to greet the sound pretty well. I placed him at equal distance between the speakers to make sure he could appreciated the full stereophonic picture. 8 songs came and went and I have to say it was not the worst soundtrack to an afternoon spent shaking rattly toys in the general direction of my son.

Prince Rama used to be part of a Hare Krishna commune. I know this because I looked on google. Without this insight I had already decided that I was going to describe this as 'Death Yoga' music. I have in the past dabbled in the ways of the Yogi and was familiar with many of the lyrical chants. I hadn't however ever expected to hear them married with a dense and dark multi-layered soundtrack that at times brought to mind Goblin and other such synth-pounders. For some reason and I cannot for the life of me put my finger on this, It also brings to mind 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'.

The plus point of their sound is that it conjures a sense of ceremony, of a worshipping, a large group of people concentration on a common cause. direction.

The downside is that as I listened crouched on the floor in my son's general direction, soft-toy scale model of Spongebob Squarepants in my hand I kept getting this over whelming urge to go into Downward Facing Dog or Cobra Pose.

So anyway.

'Death Yoga'.

Yeah, why the fuck not?

DYSC WORLD MUSIC - SCARBOROUGH

2011-03-26T14:20:00.004Z

Originally this review started with some contrived link to Simon and Garfunkel but on reading it back it didn't really make any sense so I scrapped it.

The other week saw me on vacation in Whitby, great I thought, a chance for me to go to the town's 'Fruitshop Records', sadly 'Fruitshop Records' is now a children's wear boutique and the children's wear boutique did not sell any records. Luckily I had a plan B in the shape of a drive about 20 miles further south to Scarborough, home of the most awesome monument to Victoriana, The Grand Hotel. Seriously, why isn't this in every guide book of the UK? We are talking about what was at one time the world's largest hotel, a 300plus room bohemoth built like the Titanic.

This was my second visit to Scarborough's 'Dysc World'. You will be relieved to know that it is not in fact a Terry Pratchet themed fantasy record shop but rather a normal every day used record store that has taken on board tour shirts, DVDs and that kind of fayre to stay afloat in these uncertain times. They also sell Poppers (Amyl Nitrate) just in case you were wondering where you might score yourself a heart rush followed by a throbbing headache featuring a floating green dot to blur your vision.

The first time I visited 'Dysc World' a couple of years back the stock was much the same, some unusual sections, 'Rainbow' for instance got their very own divider. In case you are wondering this also doubled as an Ian Gillan section and yes, there was a copy of the 'Future Shocks' album. Anyway, I picked up a few bits and pieces but nothing much to really speak of. On this trip however I came away with a few things including first presses of both 'The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' and 'The 5000 Spirits' by Incredible String Band both very reasonably priced.

I was in the middle of wondering how a shop like this might stay open in a northern seaside town with high unemployment and the now obligatory influx of Eastern European immigrants (No issues with anybody from the former Eastern Bloc at all, it's just that in my experience they are not know for their love of used records) when a couple of people came in doing what looked like a weekly DVD box set exchange.

'How much for the complete series of Firefly?' etc.

It's a pretty tiny shop and much of the given space is used to display CDs, DVDs etc. That said, if you are in the area it's well worth a visit, especially if you are an early 80s metal completist.

RIECHMANN - WUNDERBAR

2011-03-25T14:15:00.005Z

I suppose if I were to stay true to what I has actually listened to today this would be a review of the majesty of Irene Cara's 'Flashdance'. Luckily it is not because it's a terrible song that I can't defend but also one that I am more than happy to listen through as and when it appears at 'random' on my MP3 player. (Kind of like the whole of Erasure's glorious 'POP' album)

This had been on a fair bit at home though so I thought it was worth talking to.

The images that the name 'Riechmann' conjures up do not necessarily tally with the picture used for the front sleeve. Was I the only one expecting our man to be dressed like he was in the Waffen SS? Anyway, 'white face' with blue lipstick and dusted hair is also good. Kind of Klaus Nomi style utter cod but also good.

Luckily the similarities with the previously mentioned late castrato pop-opera idiot end there. This is high-quality late 70's electronic music fresh from the Fatherland. 'Wunderbar' is not a concept album about a late night drinking establishment, what it is is a strangely fluid and metallic sounding collection of almost timeless songs. It's chock-full of gliding synth work and washes the kind of sound that has become very en-vogue of late (this might go some way to explaining this album's recent re-issue.)

This said it's not without it's faults. The opener and title track desperately needs the 'Doctor Whoisms' sucking out of it. It plods, sounds derivative. it has a sleeve that screams 'second rate Kraftwerk, These moans aside it's a very solid entry into the genre and the remaining tracks bring to mind the highlights from Vangelis' 'Blade Runner' score at times confidently out-doing it.

Riechmann was from the same Dusseldorf school as Klause Schulze which goes some way to explaining away the sound. I have to come clean and admit that whilst I understand the sound of 'Dusseldorf school' music I am still unsure as to whether this is an actual school (all blazers and ties) or if it's a conceptual school as in 'school of thought'. Either way.

Sadly our man Riechmann was stabbed to death weeks before this was released (leading me to believe it was an actual school as this is a pretty standard occurrence around such places London) meaning that aside of the hooky looking 'Riechmann/Streetmark' album this is his only recorded solo output. So to conclude, it's good. It's well worth buying. It's also worth going the extra few quid and getting an original copy as they go for around the 20 mark. In theory it should sound better and if it doesn't you at least have an original that smells of that electronic time of wonderment.

FRANCEMUSIK.BLOGSPOT.COM

2011-03-25T13:56:00.003Z

And there was me thinking my day wasn't going to get any better after a nice and crispy copy of Richard Pinhas' 'Ice Land' finally landed on my desk.

Awesome blog alert!

Not something I have given space to before but in a search for images for my current 'wants list/bingo card' I discovered this site. It is utterly amazing in every respect. Yes it's written in French. No I don't speak the language beyond being able to ask for directions to the library but holy shit if the international language of music doesn't speak for itself.

I came away educated, titillated and with an overwhelming desire to get on a plane to France to get my 'hunt' on.

I suppose it's also something of a reality check. I am never going to own all of the records. Just when I think I'm in a place my desire or addiction has subsided, where I can sit happy and thumb through those that I own at my leisure, maybe even playing the occasional record something like this comes along: A deep and un-mined vein rich with suggestions of how I might spunk eighty quid on something black round and wonderful.

Take the above for instance: I don't even buy 7"s but this left me questioning my own parameters, maybe it's time to break my own rules so that I can give a home to what might be the greatest picture sleeve the world has ever seen.

Not that I have some strange 'hoard-all' desire like the man from the 'Vinyl' documentary to own a copy of every song ever recorded. (I wonder if he finally caved and went the way of itunes). I do however have an at times unquenchable thirst for new, exciting music and beyond that beautifully printed heavy stock laminated gate-fold sleeves that smell of days gone by.

Anyway, merci bien Monsieur Francemusik, tres bon!

Go there now, join up, learn French, but don't download the music because downloading music is very bad... But maybe not as bad as spending all of your time and money in used record shops.

GALAXIE 500 - THIS IS OUR MUSIC

2011-03-24T15:46:00.005Z

God this is fay. There has been a Galaxie 500 shaped gap in my listening since I scrunched my face up as I heard a cassette of theirs around 1992. Anyway, I decided I needed to revisit said band just to make sure I wasn't missing out on something wonderful. I was not.

Yeah it's totally passable if you like the Pastels. If you don't it's way too wishy washy and forgettable.

Jingly-jangly guitar, a very slow-tempo and production that favors the Bowie circa 'Raw Power' 'recorded from behind the sofa' method. It's unsubstantial, instantly forgettable and too dreamy. I mean I like dreamy, Mazzy Star did it to perfection, this is just kind of annoying though. It's the soundtrack to a frail lactose-intolerant teenage boy falling down a thick-pile carpeted staircase in slow motion.

The reason for my revisitation is that in print they would often get mentioned in the same sentence as Rugby's world changing and ever (almost ever) awesome Spacemen 3. Maybe it's because of vocal similarities or maybe it's because both bands have numbers in their names. (I could easily have ended up with Maroon 5 playing on my walk home).

The reason for me specifically choosing 'This is Our Music' was the Ornette Coleman album of the same name, i wondered if there might be some head-nod or similarity. Unsurprisingly there is not.

What to say other than if I was a female college student doing a degree in 'Social Studies' circa 1990 I might really like this. I could eat fried Tofu to it while I brush my hair into my face to hide myself from the world. At best I could have bad and instantly regrettable sex to it with some guy with shoulder-length hair that I met at a party whose name might be Ian to it.

...And Ian would not call me back.

IN YOUR EAR RECORDS, BOSTON

2011-03-24T15:19:00.003Z

So this place has something of a reputation. It's supposed to be one of THE places to go to 'dig the crates'. Maybe it is. I'm not a crate digger and the chances of finding something mis-priced, misplaced or forgotten in 2011 are slim at best. The Japanese guy who has apparently extended his stay due to the tragic nuclear/water based situation on the home-front is a crate digger. He is loving the 7" boxes.

There is also a woman with what can only be described as a homeless air about her sifting through a box of what looks like electronic jumble.

'Jack! I'm going to buy the DVD player. We don't have a DVD player, it's five bucks.'

Another guy comes in minutes behind me asking where the 'dollar bin' is. Despite this I soldier on and check and double check both the 'World' and 'Jazz' sections stopping only to take in the overweight black dude mesmerized by an entire wall of cassettes. He is skipping through them on his Walkman muttering as he does so.

I find nothing.

The 'A to Z Rock' section looks more like hell on earth than anything else but I persevere, skipping the less attractive sections. Sections like 'Bee-Bop Deluxe', 'Alex Harvey Band', 'Sad Cafe'. Okay so there wasn't a 'Sad Cafe' section but their album did crop up in the 'S' section. Anyway, you get the picture and it's at about this point that I start to loose the will to live and instantly regret not only paying the $26 cab fare to get here but also the 3 hour window I have given myself to spend 'leisurely perusing' said racks.

There is a 'Psych' section with jolly and hand drawn graphics for certain bands and sub-genres. Unfortunately it's currently the home of the dull, the obvious and the reissued.

It's a shame as the guy in the hat with the grey hair who appears to own or at least run this place seems very friendly, not that i attempt to engage him in any way, I am far to absorbed at the task in hand - Attempting to salvage something from a place that has it would seem been systematically picked over by everybody on the planet with a turntable apart from me.

I do manage to cobble together a small pile of potential purchases including a first press of Big Black's 'Racer X' from the confusingly titled 'Imports' section. Apparently in this part of Boston 'Alternative and Indie' music is called 'Imports'. But it's no good. The mood has left me. There is nothing in here that I am prepared to pay excess baggage on my flight home for. (NB: Fuck Virgin atlantic for its recent and paltry 1 case 28kg limit)

I leave the shop starved of air and empty handed.

The homeless lady does not buy the DVD player and Jack puts back the copy of Turner and Hooch that he had been considering.

SALEM - KING NIGHT

2011-03-23T22:17:00.006Z

I'm a bit late to the party with this one but given it's been on what can only be described as 'heavy rotation' for the past couple of months I felt I should do it the justice of at least a few column inches. I narrowly missed seeing them play at the weekend (sold out) and I was so gutted that the fine mexican food and cans of PBR at the Motor City Lounge that took a poor second place lost all of their taste.

I asked a few people what would make the top album's of 2010 list and aside of the long drawn out bouts of silence peppered with 'fuck me it was a shit year for music' the only other common denominator was this 'King Night' by Salem.

Personally I had managed to avoid all of the fuss surrounding this, mainly because I thought it was by Z-list metal band Salem but also because the people telling me to go listen to it couldn't really explain why I should or what it sounded like.

In time cool monikers for the genre apparently championed by Salem came along.

'It's Witch House'

'It's Rape-gaze'

Well what to say other than 'You had me at hello'.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect other than some really dense, mid-fi beat based music and the first couple of times I played it that's exactly what I got. Kind of like sorry for it's self trip-hop (ugh) fed through the Kevin Shields machine. Then I started using it to calm number one son when he wouldn't stop crying, well okay mostly it was to calm me but as I did I started to get into it.

To say the sound is dense is an understatement, Salem have succeeded in packing so much into their sound it plays like the needle is being dragged through a dirty old suitcase stuffed with shit-stained clothes salvaged from a hospital incinerator and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Its music that's so dirty that it smells. Really though, it does, of beer, of sex, of heroin shit on stone-washed denim.

High pitched keyboard squeals layered over budget drum machines with a voice at the back of the mix so smacked out and slowed down that if the singer needed a Black Metal name he would be called Mogadon. There's some orchestration in there as well and surprisingly, the entire thing managed in part at least to come across as anthemic. Something that despite of itself you could imagine a room full of people dancing to.

I now find myself in the same position that my much hipper friends found themselves in last year: Trying to recommend something to people without really being able to label the sound or explain the musical motive, but that's okay because it's about fucking time.

ACADEMY RECORDS - WILLIAMSBURG, NEW YORK

2011-03-23T13:11:00.006Z

It was a sunglasses day. One of those days where the sun jumps out at you every time you turn a corner blinding you as it defies the time of year and makes you wonder 'coat or no coat?'. I opted for 'no coat' and regretted this decision right up until buying an old M65 field jacket from a used store. Anyway after nearly freezing to death and a couple of minutes of temporary sun based blindness I found her.

I've not been here for a few years and the last time was pretty brief due to the fact that my wife was in tow.

Despite what the carrier bag says the other branches of Academy Records have closed down and this one stands lone it's finger raised as a 'fuck you' to all of the downloaders, the CD buyers and the people who casually pass by the store front assuming it's a laundromat or something, oblivious to the potential for pure magic that lies within.

I say 'potential' because so much of the 'Academy' experience hangs on what's in the used racks. This is more unpredictable territory than usual because New York gets hit by vinyl hunters, record collectors and idiot 'beat minerz' more than any other city I can think of.

Sadly I was in Williamsburg with work so I could only afford a quick 'in and out' as it were but in the 20 minutes or so I stayed I got a good feel for the place. The racks were patchy, the dance music section was unnecessary and not particularly well sectioned, the 'just in' bins were stripped bare and stuffed with filler and the Rock A to Z section was predictable. 'So where's the magic?' I hear you cry Rice Krispies and milk spluttering from your mouth as you do so.

Well I'm glad you asked. The magic is on the walls, behind the counter and in the 'new' records section. The Indie/Alternative racks were brim full of dead impressive stuff. The walls had a couple of highlights, amongst them a Harry Partch ballet album from 1973 that I bought and the second Animal Collective album complete with poster, which I didn't.

The staff swayed between massively helpful and too kool for skool but then this is a record shop, you'd feel cheated if there wasn't at least a little bit of attitude. You need to get cold shouldered by the guy with the beard every now and again. (NB The guy with the beard was actually very helpful I am generalizing here)

So, no whilst Academy isn't a contender for the hallowed 'Possibly Best Record Shops in the World' list (who is nowadays?) it's not far off, it's way better than the one that used to be downtown on 17th and whatever and I'd work there tomorrow if I could.

GOOD RECORDS - MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY

2011-03-22T20:42:00.004Z

So this place is on 7th and 1st or something, not far from Other Music, one of the remaining places for new releases on the island now that Mondo Kim's bit the dust.

It's alright you know this place. Very friendly, good size and layout, something boutiquey about it. Very attractive lady behind the counter who was more than happy for me to check out the stuff she was cleaning before it was priced. The only slight down side to this place is one synonymous with most of shops in and around this area - They are chock full of Hip-Hop. The Sound Gallery, A1 Records etc. They all feel the need to ram the crates with the 12" artifacts of a dead musical genre.

I mean yeah, some of what came out under that particular umbrella is up there and I could comfortably fill a few C90s with the highlights of the 'Rapness' but really? In 2011? Are people still listening to this in a non post-modern or ironic way? Next you'll be telling me that nobody has identified it as thinly veiled black homo-erotica. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all. I for one like nothing better than watching a buff and shirtless Hip-Hopster gyrating in front of a slowly pulsating large car whilst his trousers fall down.

So to conclude and move on to my thoughts about 'Good Records': Yes Hip-Hop is rubbish and it's a shame New York can't get over it BUT 12" of 'Love Me or Leave Me Alone' by Brand Nubian should be in everybody's record collection right next to '93 Til Infinity' by Souls of Mischief.

We established that half of the floor space is only worth a skim, so what about the rest of it? Nice selection of Jazz, Soul, Rock a modest but pretty impressive Avant section and a fuck load of rare-ass Reggae. The wall was home to some corkers on Black Jazz records and it's the only place I recall going that had three different Doug Carn records in stock.

Anyway, I liked it, it smelled nice and I bought something there. I can't remember what it was as I am still sorting through the 30 plus records that made it home with me from this particular trip.

To conclude. If I was still a resident of Manhattan this place would be a regular haunt, I got the feeling I could happily hang out there just listening to stuff, waiting to be inspired - Even if the hot girl behind the counter asked me if I had just come back from a skiing trip due to my awesome hat and jacket combination.

So go to 'Good Records', it's friendly and clean and unlike a lot of places I shop, the other punters did not smell of piss. Huh! Maybe I just made a connection? Despite their other short comings, people who listen to Hip-Hop do not smell of piss.

MOEBIUS AND BEERBOHM - DOUBLE CUT

2011-02-24T20:24:00.013Z

I touched very briefly in my previous post on the state of affairs in Libya. A leader losing grip and a people tired of years of tyranny and oppression in search of a better life. It's such a shame that Muammar couldn't keep his shit together as I fear the world of international politics will be a much a much duller place without him. World politics has gone the same way as New York in recent years: Mondo Kim's has shut down and there's a Starbucks on every corner. Yes he is 'evil', I read a piece on the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre and everybody is more than aware that despite attempts by our former government to gloss over the fact, he was entirely responsible for the Lockerbie bombing.

These hideous crimes against humanity aside let's look at the case for the defendant: He was, it turns out shockingly handsome as a young lieutenant coming up through the ranks. He takes his tent everywhere with him, he seems to operate exclusively with a female special forces guard, he dressed like michael jackson and got away with it. Muammar is a style animal, an ever changing thing of fashion wonder and excess, sunglasses and a crooked smile endlessly spouting utter lunacy not hears since the reign of Idi Amin.

He's a character (yes an evil character) but he's a character and there aren't many of those left. Take Germany's Angela Merkel for example - A fat and styleless Ann Robinson, her political sandbagging and denial of financial turmoil mere footnotes to the fact she dresses like a day release patient going to a Christening.

Why is it the bad guys dress so much better? It's not a new thing either. The staggeringly forward thinking yet timeless fashion of The Third Reich is well documented but what nobody seems to have cottoned onto just yet is the subtle and underplayed suave stylings of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I swear to God/Allah that Dior are dressing him on the quiet. His bearded look has been copied the world over as has his undone smart -casual chic. Again, such a crying shame he's a mass murderer who justifies his dictatorial actions through religion whilst laughing in the face of the West.

The first track on Double Cut is contender for best opener in the world ever, it's fantastic, slow and brooding, pulsing 80s synths, all very much of its time. So much so that it sounds like it could have been recorded with the help of Libya's very own bad man right around the time he was dressing like he'd stepped out of the video for Thriller on his way to blow some shit up.

'Hydrogen' pulses by in very much the same way a quirky Germanic signature on the ever growing face of electronica, slightly more clunky and repetitive.

Track 3, 'Narakose' is awesome because it sounds like I recorded it myself when I was a bit drunk, same instrumentation and lush studio but without the help of Muammar, Moebius and your other man.

Track 4 'Doppelschnitt' I don't remember because I started this review a few weeks back and didn't get chance to finish it off. In the meantime It would appear we are at war with Moebius and Beerbohm's third keyboard player and on another continent that latter day jewel of the Orient - Japan appears to have fallen into the sea.

Not much to say on that really, not yet. All of the observations about lost world class record collections and quieter aisles in Beatles sections across the US are misplaced, tasteless and way too early. I can't comprehend living with that still utterly shocking tragedy and here's to hoping I never have to.

I re-listened to 'Doppelschnitt', all 21 minutes 43 of it and it's further proof that this sly dog of the Africa's has a soundtrack with his name written all over it. I can see him rockin' the Toni Basil patented 'pop and lock' to this as American fighter pilots high from watching Top Gun one too many times crash and bail all around him.

If it wasn't so patently obvious that Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a Strokes completist the search for his very own theme would start right here - Man, he must be well Jazzed that their new album is out.

NOAH HOWARD Vs GENE WILDER

2011-02-22T15:54:00.007Z

I've been listening to a lot of 90's US indie over the past couple of weeks, more specifically Sebadoh and it's weird, In that time Egypt's own Dr Evil has stepped down and the ever stylish and entertaining king of Libya also appears to be on his way out. A butterfly flaps it's wings in London...

Who knew the true awesome power of Lou Barlow's lo-fi love-torn cries?

Work commute soundtrack aside I managed to indulge in a very interesting compare and contrast experiment last week.

I took it upon myself to answer that age-old question:

Who would win in a fight between Noah Howard's 'The Black Ark' and the soundtrack to Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Okay so in the end it turned into more of a Pepsi challenge than a no-holds barred Ultimate FightingTM cage-fight kind of fight but either way the results were interesting.

Ladies and gentlemen in the blue corner all the way from New Orleans, the dark destroyer, free-jazz heavy weight Noah Howard's 'Black Ark'! And in the red corner weighing in at approximately 120grams the soundtrack to Gene Wilder's magnum opus 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'.

Obviously it would have been tough for me to judge this one myself, I have a lot of emotional baggage attached to both records which would make it impossible to be an impartial judge of the proceedings. This is why I have employed the help of Ren mystery kid and all round awesome midget person...

So. 'Black Ark' starts out okay. We like the drums. Then the skronking starts and our resident judge looks a little perturbed. He manages to sit through the first side without breaking into tears but about two minutes into 'Mount Fuji' the first track on side 2 he starts to panic. At first it sounds like he's trying to sing along but in no time at all his wailing is evident. I manage to settle him down sufficiently to sit through the rest of the album but as 'Queen Anne' comes to a close it's not looking like a good night in the ring for free-jazz.

As a side I bought this from The Sound Library in New York. The Sound Library has now closed.

'Willy Wonka' crackles to life and straight away I can tell he thinks this is in a different league. Is it the instrumentation, the candy-coated lyrics or Gene Wilders creepy but caring voice? All I know is he likes this. 'Pure Imagination' flows into 'The Candy Man', then 'Cheer Up Charlie' and straight into 'I Got a Golden Ticket'. Punch after punch it flows like a greatest hits album. In fact it's only the 'Oompa Loompa' songs and interludes that stop this from being a stone cold hit for the judge.

As it is every time they start he has a face of fear, a look of confusion and this is understandable. There was always something wrong about the Oompa Loompas. They were a bit 'rapey', Funny haired orange-faced fuck monsters, dressed like painter and decorators in an attempt to distract you from their true modus operandi - Oompa Loompa's don't want to put up your flock wallpaper, they want to set fire to you and eat you.

Despite this there is a clear winner and it's sadly it's not Noah Howard.

Admittedly unsurprising results correlated and published I can now go back to wondering about the true power of 90's American indie rock. Could Sebadoh really be used as a sonic weapon in the global war against oppression? Could we explore Mars if we were able to successfully harness the power used in the recording of 'Bubble and Scrape'? I just wish I hadn't played Yo La Tengo on the way to work as that may or may not have caused a catastrophic earthquake in New Zealand.

SIMPLE MINDS - REEL TO REEL CACOPHONY

2011-02-18T12:24:00.006Z

Not sure why the song 'Changeling' came into my head while I was on nappy duty but it did. It got me thinking about the power of early 80's Simple Minds, the clinical majesty of their original unfettered vision and I felt compelled to commit my thoughts to pen and paper (virtual pen and paper).

The album 'Reel to Reel Cacophony' was one of the first I ever owned. I bought it on cassette whilst on a caravanning holiday with a former school friend in Bridlington. Given that by this point Scotland's finest had already released 'Once Upon a Time' starting with their second album might come across as ambitious. Given Jim Kerr's haircut on the back of the prior album 'Life in a Day' it could even be considered brave and or bold.

Unfortunately it was none of the above. It was however £3.49 from Woolworths, a whole pound cheaper than any of their later albums. This might seem paltry but back in the heady days of 1985 and aged 11 a crisp and green pound note was a fuck lot of money, a veritable kings ransom.

Anyway, I bought it, played it in the caravan and came away a bit non-plussed. This wasn't the Simple Minds of Top of the Pops, It certainly wasn't the band I had been hyping the fuck out of to my friend. At one point during playback I decided it must be faulty, but no. Over the following weeks I found myself revisiting the album drawing a similar conclusion each time - I should have ponied up the extra quid and bought 'Sparkle in the Rain'. I kept playing it though because at that stage in my music based habit, owning circa ten albums and about the same amount of pre-recorded cassettes every inch of music counted.

Eventually, thanks to the arrival of newer predominantly 'metal', specifically Kiss records I could afford to give up on it. In time I forgot about the album, or at least I thought I had.

I re-bought it for a couple of Euros in Germany a few years back and put it on to see how it faired. 'Reel to Reel Cacophony' came before the critically re-assessed period of the groups history, it's prior to 'I Travel' and 'Theme For Great Cities', no electronic anthems or obvious Hoxton floor fillers here. Anyway, needle goes on record and fuck me if I didn't remember almost every word, every single change and beat. I still have no idea what any of the songs are about but that 'Reel to Reel Cacophony's' content has spent the last 25 plus years sat in my head waiting to be called into action is no mean feat. And just when I think it's over, that I'm done with that mysterious album with it's plain blue textured sleeve it pops up again without warning.

Beyond being a reminder of days gone by, of a cramped caravanning holiday, a friend who turned out to be an utter dick and his mum who I think I wanted to fuck, this is a killer album. Well not killer, that's the wrong word. It is however solidly built, unusual, well balanced and totally under-rated.

WAX FACTOR RECORDS - BRIGHTON

2011-02-15T22:46:00.004Z

As I write this I am listening to that 'new' lost Bruce Springsteen album that got released late last year, 'The Promise' or something. It's alright y'know. No, it's not in any danger of re-writing musical history and I don't really see this as any gritier or 'raw' than the rest of 'The Boss' resume but it is totally listenable.

The issue I always had with Bruce is as prevalent here as it is on the rest of his albums. The piano is too loud, the harmonica is too loud, the fucking saxophone is too loud and the guitar is at the back of the mix being filtered through a pedal that might as well be labeled 'Hush now'.

It's not that 'The Boss' cannot rock, it's that somebody in his camp will not allow The Boss to rock. Not sure if it's that ginger bird that looks a bit like Bonnie Rait or the fat guy with the Sax, could even be that bandana wearing scamp Little Stevie. Whomever it is they cock-block the man every time he tries to 'tie one on' and the outcome is the same, wet paper bag of a song rather than the flaming death-cock of destruction that it could be.

I saw 'The Boss' once when he played in Holland back in 2004. Met a girlfriend there, beautiful start to a predictably doomed relationship. I was going through something of a zero-tollerance 'three counts' phase and I walked rather than try to salvage something perfectly good.

This review isn't about Bruce, it's not about Dutch girls either. This review is about the mighty 'Wax Factor' records of Brighton. This is the second time I have shopped here. The first time a few years back was a total and utter wash-out. Partly due to the fact that it was the last of about six shops visited that day and partly due to the fact that I was unaware of the owners party trick of filing a lot of the good shit alphabetically underneath the racks. (3 copies of Amon Duul's 'Wolf City' for example).

But what made this visit exceptional was the literally over-flowing 'Electronic/New Age' section. Rather than bore you with a list of the purge I have taken a picture of the 'Brighton collection' above. Holy shit. Much 'Mutant Sounds' fodder, lots of synth washes and bleeps, clattering and clumsy late 70's early 80's keyboard wave business. All very exciting. I'm still working my way through the pile, the highlights of which I will attempt to do justice here.

So, about the shop: Standard books and records layout. There might have been CDs as well, I don't remember for certain as I was 'in the zone' for the majority of the duration. I say 'majority' because the very charming lady behind the counter managed to metaphorically slap me around the face and wake me from my vinyl based wankery everytime I caught her eye and for that I thank her, it's good to be reminded that there are more exciting pursuits out there. I should also thank her for the copy of Cluster's 'Grosses Wasser' that she kindly pulled up from the basement.

'Wax Factory' is rammed. I can only imagine how good it might have been a decade ago. That said it still managed to surprise me in 2011, which given the typical shop owners reliance on such misleading tools as 'Popsike' or the seemingly default 'Discogs' is no mean feat. A goregeous OHR first press of Tangerine Dream's 'Electronic Medidation' for less than thirty quid. Hells yes.

So to conclude, if ever you find yourself in Brighton, pebble beached home of the pier that got burnt down during the filming of The Who's 'Tommy', scene of the IRA's attempt on our former premiere's life, go to 'Wax Factory' before I get chance to return and there might still be some awesome records worth giving a new home.

Back to my unintentional opening briefly. I saw some kind of special on Bruce 'The Spring' Springsteen's Superbowl performance from a couple of years back and oddly enough found myself utterly touched by it. There's one part where he's talking about how the show went and he recalls how at one point post 'knee slide' he just looks up at the sky beyond the crowd, beyond the lights and the cheers and for a moment he connects with something else, a celestial silence more profound than his surroundings. Then fast as it happened it is over and he's back there in front of millions playing that song where the xylophone is too loud and the guitar sounds like it's the evenings designated driver.

JOHN BARRY RIP

2011-01-31T13:24:00.003Z

Oh fucking hell.

First Peter Christopherson, then Trish Keenan and now John Barry. Jesus Christ.

What to say apart from 'thank you'. I'm sure the papers will concentrate on the boring stuff, the tiresome Bondy themes and the soundtrack to 'Dances With Wolves' and if it had been anybody else, yes they would be the details of a fair and glowing epitaph. As it is John Barry was responsible for some of the all time greatest musical pieces in the history of the galaxy: The music from 'The Persuaders', 'Midnight Cowboy', 'The Black Hole'. Hugely influential, beautifully listenable and one of the people instrumental in opening my ears and dragging me away from the often all too predictable world of punk rock.

Heart attack at 77. Shit.

As slight as it may be there is an upside: At least John wont have the hideous misfortune of having his death trumped by that of Norfolkian man-mountain Bernard 'Turkey-ham' Matthews.

SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK - FLAUNT IT

2011-01-27T14:28:00.005Z

I am going to make a claim now. I am going to stab my flag in the moon:

'In the next few years 'Flaunt It' will be re-evaluated by the music press and by the time they are done with it the album will be heralded as one of the greatest records of the 80s'.

To those under the impression that SSS were merely misguided teen-friendly electro-pop the above probably sounds like the talk of an utter fuck-puddle. But let me try and qualify my opening statement by furnishing you with some perspective: B.A.D (Big Audio Dynamite), that comedy project that your man from The Clash started with Don Letts is already being re-assesed. Apparently they were something new, fresh and dangerous, they fused 'hip-hop' beats with punk guitar chops. It seems to have escaped peoples attention that they did this very badly and that despite their multi-cultural barrier breaking facade they were harder to listen to than a dog turd with a pair of white ipod headphones dangling from it.

Add to this the fact that the dreary and bland idiot-hop of De La Soul is already being hailed in a similar manner, is it really that improbable?

I should probably clarify the above mark so that it doesn't come across as a lazy snipe. There was nothing exceptional about De La Soul, they have a sound like a hairdryer set on low accompanied by a drum machine made out of marshmallows. They were so fucking boring that '3 Feet High and Rising' could have been prescribed as a cure for insomnia.

The same however cannot be said for this Sony TV-glasses assisted glimpse into the future of music. 'Flaunt It' is still as exciting today as it was when I had a BASF cassette copy playing on my Walkman as I sat sulking in the back of the car on the way to visit my Grandparents.

Musically it's Elvis meets Suicide. Jet-fueled hi-tech Blade Runner inspired party music sung by a guy with three foot hair and a fishnet stocking on his face. What is not to like? I mean we are talking about the band who (at this stage) refused to be photographed unless it was at night, the band whose opening gambit was to blow up a helicopter in the video for their first single as they posed with an arsenal of automatic weapons.

So why the cultural cold shoulder?

It's obvious, they were aimed at the Smash Hits and No1 magazine readership, I even recall individual band member posters complete with profiles coming with one particular title. They were set on world domination from the get go, none of this standing in the shadows and waiting to be discovered business... And that's why WIRE magazine feature endless pean's to Martin Rev and not Martin Degville. Sigue Sigue Sputnik had already sold out before the second this album hit the shelves: The space between songs is used to advertise hair gel and style magazines, Tony James wears an Atari t-shirt. Unlike the two quirky New York misfits who got bottled off every time they tried to play CBGBs, SSS placed themselves as a product.

And this is what modern music is missing. The kids of today have those fucking retards The Arctic Monkeys et-al singing about drinking cheap cider and fingering the girl from the chippy when what they need is tight leather pants, fur coats, film samples and guitar's shaped like laser guns. It is quite possible that you have the cure for the inner-city stab-a-thons right here: Turn the rude boys and wanna be gangsta's on to this business and they'll be comparing lip-gloss and collections of vintage Japanese electronica rather than leaving each other to bleed to death in train stations.

If that sounds too much like fun, you can take off the high-heels, scrape away the eyeliner, wash out the pink hair dye and you are still left with a very solid collection of listenable songs. 'Love Missile F1-11', '21th Century Boy', 'Sex Bomb Boogie', 'Atari Baby'. Yes there are fillers but nothing to swing the balance or to detract from my opening statement.

I'd love to see this remixed, made even more relevant to 2011. It wouldn't take much, just the eradication of a few 'Yello-isms' and the keyboard stabs that sound more at home on the soundtrack to Ferris Bueller's Day Off (That 'comedy' film where he fucks over his best friend), maybe more of an emphasis on the twin drumming and a wash of feedback. But given that's unlikely to happen I'll just have to stick to playing this a lot more than I should, especially when I have pretty much everything Alan Vega and Suicide did right next to it on the shelf.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen here's to the fifth generation of rock and roll...

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - SURREALISTIC PILLOW

2011-01-26T13:28:00.003Z

I was baby sitting whilst my wife went to a hair appointment and needed to find some form of post bath entertainment for Mystery Kid. This came in the form of Jefferson Airplane's second album. At this point he has already absorbed a fair chunk of Neil Young and Lou Reed and this seemed like a logical progression. Admitted back to the speakers, can of Tetley's in one hand and baby-rocking implement in the other is not the best way to absorb 'Surrealistic Pillow' but times are tough.

Everybody knows this record, if there is a used record shop in the US that doesn't have a copy I am yet to find it. It sits comfortably in the majority of people's 'Hottest Album's Of All Time Ever' lists. It was a significant milestone in the development of yada, yada, yada.

This is, I think my third copy of this album, not because I have a habit of falling out with it and casting it aside but because it's been upgraded. I started with a battered first press from Limelight Records in Santa Cruz (Props yo!) and then bought another, cleaner copy somewhere else along the way. Now I was more than happy with that until the above Japanese press appeared in my local store. I had them both for a while but couldn't really justify my growing multiple copy problem and got rid of the US press.

Funny that, getting rid of the original in favor of a later Japanese pressing, not the first time though. Did the same with my 'Trans Europe Express' - it's amazing what a thick stock card sleeve and an Obi can do for my vinyl libido.

Anyway, 'Surrealistic Pillow' is a really good record that stops short of being 'Great' for two reasons: It's uneven and The United States of America did it better. Maybe I am being too harsh but the other-worldly psychedelia hinted at here by the likes of 'White Rabbit' is a theme that they not only improved upon but one that they smashed out of the park and into space.

Why is it uneven? Unwanted injections of blues and guitar-noodling, in fairness to them this was recorded in late 1966 so the whole 'Psychedelic' movement was in it's infancy. RCA probably felt an end to end whacked out mission statement was not going to shift units. It's not just me that doesn't like the deviation though. As if by magic every time the boogie woogie crept in my son would cry uncontrollably (Mental note - Play Status Quo to him to observe reactions to prolonged exposure)

I should probably play up the album's strengths though as despite the above I am very fond of it. Obviously 'White Rabbit' is on it, I could write an essay about that track alone, it's cultural impact, it's use as a soundtrack to celluloid and books alike. 'White Rabbit' is a giant blue whale of a song, it's stratospheric, an anthem to anybody and everyone who ever dabbled with LSD. It has 'Somebody To Love' on it and if you can get the image of Jim Carey doing karaoke to it in the 'Cable Guy' out of your head then it's a great song. 'She Has Funny Cars' is worth a punt as well but the album's savior, it's most solid representation of the records titular umbrella - 'Today'.

Holy shit in a handbag 'Today' is epic, understated but epic and Grace Slick doesn't even contribute beyond a backing vocal. This track is probably on every mix tape I did between 1993 and 1998, it's a perfect song.

Two things I did not know about 'Today': Marty Balin, the singer of the song, and the one who got punched out by a Hells Angel at Altamont actually wrote it for Tony Bennett to perform (This never happened). Secondly, that bearded fuckwit and Ice Cream namesake Jerry 'the teddybear' Garcia plays that awesome repeat guitar part. That would normally be enough to put me off, a reminder of turtles walking to a station and tie-dye t-shirts but no. It's a killer of a song despite of his efforts.

Anyway, 'Surrealistic Pillow', yeah still pretty groovy I suppose.

*Oh and I get bonus points for writing a review of a Jefferson Airplane record without mentioning Haight and or Ashbury.

PICADILLY RECORDS - MANCHESTER AND THE INCREDIBLE INTERNET

2011-01-23T12:13:00.008Z

So this is a first.

My reason for this review isn't a recent visit to their physical premises but rather the use of their on-line shop. Yes they stock a lot of faceless dance music bollocks but what a great site.

This used to be a regular port of call back in the early 90's when I was at college in Sheffield. I've only visited their 'new' premises a couple of times but when they were off the high street round the corner from 'Stolen From Ivor' I'd stick my head round the door at every given opportunity. The product mix always had a strong leaning towards 'dance' but it appears they have made it their bread and butter in the past years. Makes perfect sense I suppose: Selling 1 Shonen Knife album Vs 23 copies of Whigfield's 'Saturday Night' (Or whatever the fuck people dance to in 2011). Pure economics - Even if you are going to hell for it.

Anyway, enough already, back to the positive hyperbole.

There were a couple of new bits and pieces I was after so I popped down to Soho in my lunch to hook myself up. Well despite being friendly enough London's 'finest' could not product the goods. Disappointed, I was walking home when I heard a voice in my head all booming and Godlike:

'Try Piccadilly Records... They have a website... Go out and kill people'.

So I did. I'd been on the site before briefly in 2006 but never bought anything, I was living in New York at the time and a colleague (a DJ) swore by the site and bought pretty much everything he played from them. Now that should give you some idea of how 'on it' the guys at Piccadilly must be - One store in Manchester Vs the whole of the Eastern seaboard.

Anyway, the site's easy enough to use and even if a virtual flick through the racks is never going to compare to emerging smelling of mould from some backstreet real record shop, they had everything I was looking for so mad props for that yo.

The best thing about the site is the 'Just in' column on the right of the screen. As stock comes in it's featured in a rolling bar of clickable Jpegs. Sounds a bit like I'm getting excited about nothing but it is updated at such speed that you feel like you've got he freshest bread of morning at your fingertips.

So to summarize: Well worth a visit.

Okay, so that's great but what was the point of that particular plug?

Well, it just struck a chord. Its interesting to see how some stores are weathering this musical storm pretty successfully through savvy evolution.

Plus I fancied a trip down memory lane. It is 1991, I am in Piccadilly, I am wearing a fish-tail parka with a hand painted Sub Pop logo on the sleeve and a lumberjack shirt. Although my hair is slightly confused my direction in music is quite clear, it either comes from Washington DC or Seattle or it doesn't exist. The world is a very exciting place. Jesus, I used to get goosebumps walking into that shop, it was so fucking exciting, each record an adventure waiting to happen, every carefully thought through purchase a token of legitimization for my formative years, a bit like collecting Pokemon in a Tad t-shirt I suppose.

Anyway, that shit is all gone, the hair, the coat, the shop, my copy of the first Action Swingers album. What hasn't crumbled like dust in the wind is Piccadilly Records, so hat's off to you... Even if you do charge too much for post and packaging.

PALACE BROTHERS - VIVA LAST BLUES

2011-01-23T11:05:00.005Z

This was yanked at random from the racks earlier this morning. I've been giving a lot of time to all things Will Oldham of late, he's a tough cookie to keep up with and seems to shit out an album on an almost bi-monthly basis. To be honest this could be part of the appeal - Ooooh just think of all those spines staring out at you in date order. This is probably how James Last got so big, an obedient army of mindless completists just waiting for the latest moustachio sleeved album to hit the shelves.

I have no love for James Last and luckily that is where the similarities between him and the cuddliest man in music come to an end. I find something colossally wholesome about Will Oldham or Bonnie ' Prince' Billy - I don't like using that acronym as it sounds Scottish and consequently makes me think of Irn Bru and Big Issue sellers (Interestingly enough he does look like a Big Issue seller). I find listening to him is a bit like eating a couscous salad: I actually feel like it's doing you good as I eat it. Will Oldham is horses, rolling hills, he's a Powell and Pressburger film on Christmas Day. That's why I find myself playing it now, it's perfect Sunday morning music to sit my son in front of, his synapses firing ten to the dozen and taking in every off-kilter tone and wonderfully tuneless wail.

There's nothing controversial about WIll Oldham, nothing tasteless or difficult. The only thing remotely challenging about him is keeping up with that quick fire out-put. Yes he sings 'If I could fuck a mountain' in 'The Mountain Low' but he does so in such a nice beardy boy next door way that it's in impossible to take offense.

So, on to this 'Viva Last Blues'. It's more electric than much of his output - The opener on side 2 'Work Hard/Play Hard' comes as something of a shock, it's tempo and delivery a lot more ferocious than you might expect. There are other songs that share the former's mood but not it's perfect battered pitch and delivery. The rest of the album is as you might expect: The greatest voice in contemporary Americana accompanied sparingly with guitar and the occasional addition of rhythm.

I think a problem with Will Oldham might be that has such a prolific output and so much of it is totally listenable, completely enjoyable that it's hard to find exception in that body of work for better or worse. I have my favorites, the Tortoise collaboration comes to mind but there isn't much that's head and shoulders above. 'Viva Last Blues' is no exception.

'But it's Palace Brothers!'

Yes, but if you care to get out some paper and an HB1 and draw a graph plotting the boy Oldham's works casting aside any old skool indie allegiances any money this sits bang smack in the middle of that scatter graph along with 80% of his work.

This said it really isn't such a bad thing. It's good to have a constant in your life of some kind, somebody musically reliable and despite his turning up in the strangest of places - Jackass, a Kanye West video etc, someone who is for the most part at least thusfar, predictable.

I like it, and as he rocks back and forth on one of those bouncy chair things, so does the little man*.

NB* - Reading that back I feel it important to clarify that I am actually talking about my son and not my penis.

DISCHIVOLANTI - MILANO

2011-01-21T17:29:00.003Z

So this is one of those places I passed when it was shut last time I was in Milan. I pressed my face against the glass in the hope it might some how meld with the liquid and allow me a kind of 'fish eye' view of the interior. This did not happen.

Anyway, last week I was sent there again for work to observe the well dressed people of what is generally regarded as Italy's fashion capital. It didn't take very long for me to pull this place up on a map and work it into my day's itinerary. Was it worth the detour? I would say so. I left with an 1976 Italian press of the frustratingly hard to find 'Tarot' album by the Cosmic Jokers. It wasn't cheap but now that that particular search is over I can rest a little and score it off my now imaginary bingo card (it was very real until I left my hard drive on a flight to Boston).

Dischivolanti is possibly the worst name for a record shop in the history of man. This is entirely because a.) I have no idea how to pronounce it or b.) what it means. I am guessing it's a head-nod to the yacht from that Bond film, that or this guy was massively impressed by that Mr Bungle album from the mid 90s. Either way he spelled it wrong.

So what of the inside of said shop? Yeah, it's not bad. I don't have much to compare it against as I've only ever been into a handful of other Italian record shops over the years, even spattering of records and CDs, few gems on the wall, unhealthy amount of what looked like static stock under the shelves. Regardless of that the owner was very friendly, I think - My Italian consists of about ten words done in a Joe Dolce 'Shaddup Your Face' style accent. Either way he smiled at me when I pointed toward the wall where the copy of 'Tarot' was sitting and seemed to understand when I said:

'Can I get that please?....Tarot...Tarrut,,,That one..,Cosmic...Yeah'

He even chipped a bit off the price which is always appreciated.

So how to rate this shop?

How to rate any of these stores that are brave enough to still be hanging in there? They should get medals. Medals but also points deducted for boring and tiresome stock. I really don't ever need to see another copy of that Christopher Cross album with the flamingos on the front.

Yeah, it was alright but Dischivolanti is not in danger of worrying the few hallowed stores that have been mentioned up to now in the 'Greatest Record Shops in the World' list but then that particular occasional feature is becoming more difficult to write on a daily basis. I mean shit, the last time I came out a new found record shop fully aroused could well be a couple of years back. Who to blame? The hoarders who refuse to die? The websites that artificially inflate the pricing structure? The landlords who would rather triple their rent and have Starbucks as a tenant?

Maybe I should try and flip this. Surely the lack of hunting grounds makes the sport all the more exciting? The competition that much fiercer... Yeah, that's it. Now I feel like one of those sailors on that island chasing down the last of the Dodo meat.

Probably tasted like chicken anyway.

TRISH KEENAN RIP

2011-01-14T14:07:00.004Z

Not sure what to say really.

Trish Keenan, lynchpin of one of the few contemporary bands I gave two shits about has passed away. This is normally the part where I'd make a quip about something or other, her voice or her hair. I can't, Trish had magical hair. Dark brown flowing locks with a healthy 'wash day' sheen, occasionally a fringe (bangs) that framed her face perfectly. As for her voice, it was almost peerless in it's beautiful and unwavering melancholy... And now she is gone.

Few artists will ever come close to leaving behind a back catalogue as spotless (despite parts of Tender Buttons) and sadly brief as hers, I for one was hooked from the opening harpsichord bars of 'The Book Lovers'.

I met her once, Broadcast were playing with Stereolab in Wolverhampton in support of the 'Work and Non Work' comp that had just come out on Duophonic. I knew nothing of them before that night but came away mesmerized and with something of a new school boy crush. The conversation was briefer than the time I spoke to Nina Persson and went something along the lines of...

'I thought you were really good'

'Thanks'

But still, suddenly that seems to say it all.

Trish Keenan, I thought you were really good.

x

STONE ANGEL - STONE ANGEL

2011-01-08T13:36:00.008Z

OR

Much has happened since my last entry, not least the naming of my son. I think I'd underestimated just how tough the entire naming process could be. In the UK there is a six week legal limit to give your baby some kind of title, I don't know what happens after that but needless to say we were down to the wire when we finally agreed on some kind of label for our bundle of joy. Yes we could have run our finger down the current and achingly dull 'Child Names Top 10' stopping at the first one that wasn't a name shared with one of my wife's ex-boyfriends but really? Doesn't exactly reek of creativity, care or thought does it?

Anyway, moving on to today's subject 'Stone Angel' by 'Stone Angel'. I bought this due to the fact it got nothing short of mad props in the book Galactic Ramble (Worth a look if you're in the market for a record based read). It's a private press from 1975 and regarded by many as an unsung classic of the Acid Folk genre.

'What so you spent three hundred quid on the original?'

'Nope, I put it on my Christmas list and was more than happy to receive the CD from my mum and dad.'

'Judas.'

'You wouldn't say that if you heard it through my new stereo. You'd be too busy with your hand down the front of your pants writhing in aural ecstasy.'

New found father-hood has got my brain working in an entirely new way, in no short time, amongst other things I've invented the 'Scream Helmet', 'The Milky Finger' and the under arm tampon for men. The first two are fairly self explanatory the third I will expand upon. I'm not sure if it's a side effect of becoming a dad or not but suddenly I'm sweating like a mother fucker. The smell isn't an issue as much as the almost incomprehensible amount of moisture emitted by my armpits. It's as if that particular pat of my body has decided I'm living in a sub-tropical climate, a jungle or the like.

And exactly what does that have to do with 'Stone Angel? Well as I sit here and write with the window wide open, despite the cool breeze and low temperature I am sweating, the armpits of my t-shirt moist and clammy

I have tried every deodorant and anti-perspirant out there even a special one for stinky women but no. I still arrive at work every day with tears of moisture running down the sides of my torso. Tired of this I took the matter in hand and wedged two large folds of kitchen towel underneath my arms before setting off on my commute and you know what? It actually worked. Yes my rummaging in my shirt and producing wads of flowery ultra-absorbent paper raised questions in the office but that's a small price to pay for a new level of dryness - Manpons - Underarm tampons for men.

This reminds me a lot of the music from 'The WIcker Man', the tempo and the Jew's harp, the aprons and worrisome moustaches, 'Stone Angel' has it all. But Is it any good? Well, we're on to track 3 and it's not offended me in any..... Oh wait. We are now nuts-deep in 'Hey Nonny Nonny' territory with the added 'bonus' of a Roy Wood of Wizard sounding guitar.

'Traveller's Tale' is up next and it's alright, but I have to be a honest it's a bit too much folk and not enough acid thusfar. I mean at the moment we are within 6 degrees of separation of 'The Wurzels' and that's not somewhere I feel particularly comfortable. I dunno, maybe I woke up without my 'Folk' head on but this just makes me want to drink cider and say 'Ooo Arr' a lot in a Naughty Fred West Country accent.

It's nice enough when the singing stops, the flute and the guitar is fresh, bright, meticulous even. Unfortunately the sum of the parts is just a bit... Is this what Tractor drivers listen to when they are hauling pig shit up and down back country roads at five miles an hour? I bet it is. I bet this was sold as mail-order only out of the back of Farmer's Weekly. You see it's conjuring all of the wrong images. I want to close my eyes and see something like the sleeve of 'The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' instead I've got an image of Devon's favorite son of comedy Jethro sat in a hedge. I feel dirty. I feel like eating a 'plough man's lunch' and having sex with a pig.

Not sure there's any coming back from this. I think that term 'Acid Folk' is batted about too freely 'Stone Angel' is just plain old straw chewing, trousers held up with twine, mead drinking Folk, the kind they warn you about at school and to that young sire I say 'Hey Nonny NO!'

And before I forget I should make it official. I am now the proud pater of one Ren Josef Ramone Robbins. Future drummer with some awesome hardcore revivalist jazz-core band, that or the fastest man alive, I'm not fussy as long as he doesn't up in agriculture dancing round a maypole to this tripe.

Montgomery Chapel - Search Party

2010-12-12T18:40:00.005Z

My new born based musical experimentation hasn't really reached the heights I had hoped it might. In fact beyond the occasional foray into the late 70's disco based inferno or dip into mid-period Neil Young our house has been as quiet as a mouse.

One thing that hasn't been as quiet as a mouse or in fact quiet in any way what so ever is my still nameless son. Some days he sounds like a lamb with it's neck trapped in a barbed wire fence, some days it's closer to an air raid siren. I've actually tried 'getting in to it'.

It was the middle of the night and the scream was in full effect.

'If this was a Merzbow record...Imagine it's an alto saxophone... Pretend it's Alvin Lucier' I thought.

Didn't work. In fact the entire internal dialogue was pointless as Japanese porn with it's annoyingly high-pitched moaning 'schoolgirls' and pixelated pubic areas.

Hard to believe I have a life-time of this as I honestly have no idea how I am not going to puncture my ear drums with a geometry compass or one of those things my wife uses to make sure that the insides of jacket potatoes cook through.

Anyway, one thing that did slip through the net was the CD reissue of Montgomery Chapel's 'The Search Party'. Apparently it's a bootleg and the Erebus record label is a new front for the guy that did all the UK prog bootlegs on Radioactive a few years ago. If it is we should lay siege to Amazon and rise up and stab them with the pointy edges of our broken CD cases because that's where I got it from. Forget the student riots over tuition fees,'potentially pirated Xian space folk' is the real issue here.

I don't condone musical piracy, that's the reason for the lack of MP3s on this site (that and a lack of basic understanding of how you might put MP3s on a blog) but if this hadn't been released (rather shadily) then I for one would never have heard it which would have been a massive shame because it's really rather good.

It's out of tune lo-fi West Coast psyche inspired genius for the most part. Yes there's some shit filling in the gaps of awesomeness but don't let that put you off checking this. There appears to be very little information out there about this band, which is good, it means I can make stuff up...

The lead singer was called Snowflake Jackson and she was a born-again ex- go-go dancer who stole money from the mob to make this record in an attempt to spread the message of our lord to a wider audience through this private pressing. She employed the help of three other members of her congregation none of whom had ever picked up instruments in their lives but instead relied on the guidance of Jesus Christ to show them how to make chords and blessed musical shapes.

Sadly this dream was short lived as a few days after the modest launch party the mob caught up with Snowflake and glued her to the tracks of the roller-coaster on Santa Cruz pier before running a car over her. They found her head in the candy-floss maker.

There really isn't much else aside of a sinister back story that could make this record, I mean CD any more exciting. The Xian angle is toned down to the point of depressing so it's in no danger of being a buzz killer. In fact the entire package from the cover to the tempo says 'pagan witch cult' way more than it does 'praise the lord' so don't let the the worry of accidentally being bathed in the light of our lord Jesus Christ when you listen to it put you off.

Well impressed with this, even if I did sound a lot like Violent J from ICP in that last paragraph.

'Fucking magnets, how do they work?'

Oh and lucky for me my vinyl based format snobbery is on a temporary hold because a copy of this goes for north of $1200.

MY NEWBORN BABY Vs FAUST IV

2010-12-01T17:27:00.006Z

Less than a year ago I was leaning out my apartment window despite of the snow drinking red wine and playing Faust IV really, really loud. Did I honestly think than only a few months later my world would have changed so much? That's a negatory.

Let me start by dispelling a few myths about the birth process. Yes, I know this 'blog' is about vinyl records and that shiny new Dutch invention, the saviour of the music industry the CD but if you ever go there or already have the inside track this might be worth your time.

When a baby comes out it is purple, it has a point head (just like Jefferson Airplane said) and it's covered in goo. It looks at you silent and exhausted with black eyes with an expression that can only say 'what the fuck?'. This is a far cry from any Hollywood or soap based pregnancy, no smiling pink and healthy little man, instead you are faced with something that could well be an extra from a bad Sci-fi horror.

The bonding, the serotonin rush of unadulterated chemical love.... Again, not something that necessarily happens straight out the gate. In total honesty my first night as a parent was spent wondering why my wife was holding a plastic stunt baby and me trying to work out if there was any way to reverse the whole process.

Day 2 on the other hand, when I held him. Not something I can describe beyond saying I have never felt so alive or unconditionally in love. I don't know his name, (for now we call him MR X like the Ultravox song) but I do know that I am a proud father and more than that a guardian, the Secret Service agent willing to take a bullet for his very own little Richard Nixon.

Anyway, back to that night in German, my leaning out of he window trying to annoy the overly noisy club goers below by playing Faust IV...

A few people including Julian Cope formerly of turgid and foppish New Romantic's 'The Teardrop Explodes' have this in their 'Top Hot Kraut' lists, one guy in particular, a german music journalist from way back, I forget his name (tell stories much?) has this as his all time favorite album ever. Would love to know why? For me it sways between half decent but 'done better' to utterly unlistenable. In fact my soul reason for choosing it was to aggravate the lederhosen wearing idiots below: A kind of declaration of sonic warfare along the lines of the US military attempting to oust that Southern dictator by playing Twisted Sister really loud.

It's just not very good. It's obvious, outdated and done better.

'Would you care to expand on that?'

Not really I'm off to see if I can find a Ramones baby grow instead.

Fuck!

2010-11-28T22:04:00.003Z

Erm, so my wife's waters just broke and she's in labour . Out of interest I was listening to some ridiculous late 70's French synth compilation that did not incidentally come out on vinyl.

The thing about french synth wave or dark wave is that it's a little bit fruitier or warmer than the stuff coming out of say German or Belgium at the same time. It's also clumsy in the respect that a lot of the lyrics just plain don't make sense..

Oh, no, here we go. This one is going to have to wait.

Holy fucking fuck.

ROYAL TRUX - SWEET SIXTEEN

2010-11-28T18:52:00.005Z

And another?

I'll be honest, I'm killing time while my wife paces the room, gets down on all fours or sits on a pile of cushions five feet high. She's slowly going in to labour. The plus side is that the house is spotless, apparently they call it 'nesting': Whilst I haven't woken up at 4.00am to find her scrubbing the kitchen ceiling (supposedly this is not unusual) everything is neat, tidy and in its place ready.

Ooooh! There goes another one. They are still a good 15 minutes apart at the moment as we are still coming out of 'False Labour'. No I'm not referring to those cunts led by the Hamburglar's body double that we only just ousted from power (arumpatish!) Apparently It's some kind of bodily fake-out. Labour but not labour. Anyway, I'm rambling. To be honest I am doing anything I can to take my mind off what's coming. Not in a bad way, I'm not in denial, it's more of a self preservation kind of way. I honestly think that if I sat sober in a cold room and dwelled on what happens next for more than a few minutes I'd shit my pants. Excited? Fuck yes. Prepared? What as in do we have a stroller? Yes. Prepared mentally? Fuck no!

Anyway, another great album that didn't get a look in on vinyl 'Sweet Sixteen' by Royal Trux. The fact that this bad boy never made it onto everybody's format of choice is nothing short of a mystery. In fact as and when I get to heaven and meet The Baby Jesus it's first on my list of questions.

'Come my child, you have led a kind and gentle life, now I welcome you to heaven, do you have any questions?'

'Well, there is just the one....'

(Two actually if you count Lembit Opik's unfathomable and continued success with the ladies)

That to this day 'Sweet Sixteen' is the only Royal Trux LP not available on....LP. It's fucking retarded. I mean didn't they think to reissue it around the time of the Weird's War album or the first RTX (Jennifer post Trux) record?

It's absence remains a crying shame.

Sonically 'Sweet Sixteen' is Royal Trux's most ambitions record. There is so much going on at any one time that multiple listens will identify layers that you didn't thing were there the first time.

'Is that a marimba?'

It's still dirty and somehow lo-fi but it's an all together different ball game from 'Twin Infinitives' era Trux. It's the same blueprint, it's made with the same fucked beyond fucked post-Stones 'up all week in the same clothes' stylings but this time out two heroes are joined by what sounds like a cast of thousands... well okay, four or five maybe. This is the '70s rock' record, stadium filling pomposities coated in coke and triple live concept albums.

Oh, we're going for a walk to try and induce real Labour....

Holy shit it's cold out there - Weather man says minus 17 and snow on it's way.

Anyway, where was I? The story goes that the Trux made this record deliberately over-baring and in-accessible in an attempt to get out of their record contract, a kind of 'Metal Machine Music' fuck you. But if that really is the case, they failed massively because the likes of 'Morphic Resident' and 'Golden Rules' are the band at their best.

How are you supposed to prepare mentally for father-hood? Well there's a million books out there, a few decent films like 'Away we Go' and okay, I can only think of 'Away we Go'. I'm sure there are seminars, counciling sessions and the like but really what's that actually going to do other than take up 'transitional time'? The last 'me time' until I'm pensioned off to some retirement home to piss my pants and argue over the remote.

Ha! I'm going to read this back in a few months and feel bad. In the meantime I'm going to listen to the Royal motherfucking Trux.

SPAIN - SHE HAUNTS MY DREAMS

2010-11-28T18:27:00.002Z

Right so first out the gate..

Without my disappointing change in policy this honest to God slice of amazingness would never have graced these pages. For whatever reason Spain never saw fit to release their second effort on vinyl. I used to lie awake and wonder why? Maybe they forgot, more plausibly it could be that the good folks at Restless Records told Spain that they had and Spain went to bed happy, content that they had succeeded in creating the greatest break up record of all time across all formats. Wow, I bet they were pretty bummed when they saw it come back from the pressing plant as a cassette and CD only...

Spain 'Hey did you guys here our new record?'

Everyone 'No, but we saw your CD was out...'

Yeah, that's fucked. Nearly as fucked as the conversation Neil and Jennifer must have had when Sweet Sixteen hit the shops.

Anyway, despite this 'She Haunts My Dreams' is out there in a pocket sized, take it to parties and wow your friends friendly format... Not that I would suggest playing this at a party for a second, not unless the guests were recovering from heartbreak, a death in the family and or on diamorphine.

I don't want to sound too much like I have Spain's balls in my mouth although yes, admittedly that is the way it's going. She Haunts My Dreams' is a one trick pony. A mono-tonal pean to lost love and heart break, nothing more and nothing less. But holy shit, it does it so well. Its beautiful. It's Sinatra's 'In the Wee Small Hours' for the 2000s. Yes the lyrics border on bad Grade School poetry in parts and there isn't a single unnecessary note or flourish but this stripped down restraint is part of the magic.

I first heard this back in 2000 and was introduced to it by a record shop colleague who had been rotating between this and whatever Pinback were doing at the time for a week or so. After a couple of listens I was hooked, to the extent that for a long time this was one of six or seven CDs that I owned.

What can I say, I've had sex to it, been dumped to it, drunk copious amounts of red wine to it and looked out the window on a winter morning hung over as fuck to it.

'She Haunts My Dreams'

Does what it says on the tin.

PHILIPS INTRODUCE THE COMPACT DISC!

2010-11-28T17:57:00.004Z

NO, REALLY.

I've been toying with the best way of breaking this, mulling over, deleting half written entries -Half cocked explanations of my change in policy, whilst scratching my head. After a couple of months of living with this life-alering changer in policy I have decided that the best thing to do is just come out and say it.

I have resumed the purchase of Compact Discs.

I know, what the fuck? Right? Only six months ago that I suggested there might be a link between international terrorism and the CD. But there you go, I have fallen back in with that now nearly dead format of school girls and house wives.

Part of me feels like that guy at the back of the Dylan concert back in 1966 'Judith!', the other half, or just over half is pretty smug about it all. Why? Well have you seen how cheap CDs are nowadays? Ever since the MP3 meant that music could rain magically from the sky and directly into your computer nobody is buying them, nobody. That makes for a pretty healthy hunting ground in my new and digital remastered opinion.

It also takes the edge off the fact that two of my better sources for interesting vinyl have dried up, One due to geography and one at the hands of a caped Phantom of the Opera like character who has a gift for raping the bins and exiting stage left with anything even half decent before I'm even out of bed. This coupled with my distaste for vinyl re-issues goes some way to explaining away my turn-coat actions, It just makes sense. Not least because I can now listen to music I always imagined was out of reach. In retrospect it seems nothing short of perverse that I refused to budge from my single-minded vinyl only (and no reissues) approach in the first place. But then hey, what's life without opinions and discipline?

SO now to get on with enjoying this new-found technology, this compact, space and pocket friendly every-man alternative without sounding too much like Lord Haw Haw of course....

THE FLIRTATIONS - THE FLIRTATIONS

2010-09-11T12:59:00.003+01:00

So lets turn this shit up yo.

The first time I heard 'Nothing But a Heartache' was at a very low budget Northern Soul night above a pub in the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield about fifteen years ago. I seem to remember the music being played on one of those 'Disco Van' two turn tables and a microphone all-in-ones perched atop a randomly flashing home made light-box. I might be wrong but the entire proceedings definitely had an early evening tenth birthday party feel, to the extent where if the beer had been served in plastic beakers with a side of crisps and fairy cake it wouldn't have been massively out of place.

The sound was terrible and the majority of the clientele as clueless as I was: Not a bowling shoe, vest or baby powder puddle in sight (not a bad thing). Even so I still managed to get shit from somebody who was more 'Northern Soul' than I was (not exactly difficult) for dancing to it 'all wrong'. My interpretation of the music had been very much 'Elvis '68 comeback' hips and flailing arms. Apparently this was not how it was done...

Anyway, the song came to an end I asked the guy with the confusingly heavy metal hair and collection of 7" carry cases what I'd been listening to. I promptly forgot the name but not the song and after a couple of bad karaoke iterations to friends in the know managed to track down a copy of the album it appears on.

I'd like to be able to review the entire album, say that each track on it lives up to the promise of the record's opener. That the masterful orchestration and genuine sound of almost punk like urgency that makes the title track so compelling resonates through out but I can't. Truth be told I have never managed to get past that first track. Not because I have heard the first few bars of whatever comes next and opted out but because I can't help but skip back to the start in order to relive the total, utter and complete fucking glory of 'Nothing But a Heartache'. In the unlikely event that you don't know what I am talking about 'Nothing But a Heartache' goes something like this...

No, I have no idea why they are on the set of a Black Sabbath photo shoot either but I am already searching Ebay for a bright orange fitted jump suit. It's only a matter of time before this song ends up as a bi-line, a sampled beat or backbone to some Beyonce bullshit musical poison in the same way The Four Season's 'Beggin' got re-appropriated by Madcon and then played out and to death so enjoy it while you can, before it' selling you some shoes you really don't need.

THE EAGLE HAD FUCKED OFF

2010-09-11T12:41:00.001+01:00

Or rather I have fucked off from 'the eagle'.

So why the long pause?

Nervous breakdown? So shocked by the piss-poor re-mastering of Duran Duran’s self titled debut that you have been unable to face daylight since it’s release?

Well there was that, but the main reason for my taking the foot off the proverbial gas was that my ramblings were in danger of turning into a diatribe of my seething hatred for my surroundings and circumstance. Thankfully both have since changed for the better and I can now say from safe distance:

FUCK BAVARIA AND FUCK A CERTAIN SPORTS FOOTWEAR BRAND.

But rather than going into deep and personal detail about the trials and tribulations of the past 24 months and how re-locating to ‘that’ part of Germany was the worst decision of my formative years, I will breathe deep and move on safe in the knowledge that what didn’t kill me at least armed me with an enviable collection of interesting Brazilian and German records.

I can’t let ‘Ze Deutcher experience’ go completely though, it has after-all stained me, filled me with such disdain for certain people, systems and situations that my experience will no-doubt provide teeth-grinding reference points throughout my witterings. But for now at least consider it ‘parked’. Besides, this is supposed to be a blog about listening habits and not my all consuming desire to set fire to the place I used to work.

So moving on, I also felt it important to revisit and re-activate 32prm because I now have a different angle, an ace in the hole, a perspective that was not there before. NO, I didn’t become a Wings completist and shell out a grand for the picture disc of ‘Back To The Egg’…. I am going to be a dad. A Goddamn shit-sucking dad.

Each father before me has uttered the same weary and tired-eyed line ‘It changes everything y’know…’ So safe in the knowledge that my world really is about to be turned upside down for ever, lets see what it does to my listening habits…

Oh and as a footnote. It hasn't escaped me that it is 'that' day. RIP WTC Krew, my thoughts are with you as always.

SHUT DOWN

2010-04-19T12:20:00.001+01:00

Executive decision made. Won't be updating 32rpm for the forseeable future. Am growing a huge beard and thinking of starting a Cult though if anybody is interested?

JAZZ SUNDAY

2010-04-11T13:15:00.014+01:00

Today started with the best of intentions, early rise, go to the gym, make a start on my ever growing 'things to do list'. My first mistake was getting up late and starting the day by trying to clean my bike in the bathroom shower, my second was deciding to cook dinner while my bike dried.

The problem with cooking with wine is that it is physically impossible (if you have a mouth) to not drink said wine whilst cooking. Given that I was already one glass of red down by midday the chances of me ever seeing he treadmill or that thing from Empire Strikes Back that is supposed to improve upper body strength are zero.

So what to do? Well the kitchen is a mess, I have a glass of Italian red in front of me and I am now on my third 'Jazz' record of the day. That makes it 'Jazz Sunday'. I have never had a Jazz Sunday before but a good friend of mine swears by them, not every Sunday of course, the only things that should happen every Sunday are fairy cakes and 'Last of the Summer Wine'.

Anyway, onto my 'Jazz Sabbath'.

It started innocently enough when I pulled 'Brilliant Circles' by Stanley Cowell out of the racks. That was when I was busy trying to navigate my bike past the bathroom sink without taking out the mirror with a stray pedal. You don't need 'Brilliant Circles' by Stanley Cowell. It's an okay album with a great sleeve that looks lovely next to a copy of 'Black Ark' but in reality it's just that - 'Okay'. It's a shame, had it been a 'death jazz' pean to ritualistic murder entitled 'Brilliant Circles (Of Dead Children)' it would no doubt be up there in my top ten (regardless of what it sounded like).

From there we go to sublime. I picked up my first copy of George Shearing and Nancy WIlson's 'The Swinging is Mutual' at college. I was nuts deep in my Hard Core/Easy Listening phase and this is one of the few artifacts that managed stay with me until now. My interest in the 'Easy' scene was started by the LP 'I Swinger' by Combustible Edison, a band who I only ever explored because they were tied to Sub Pop. I eventually graduated from listening to the daytime cocktail soundtracks of these revivalists on to countless other musicians that you might file under said section.

The main problem with the 'Easy' scene is that the utter kack out-weighs the listenable at a staggeringly high ratio. You can beat the truth out of any 'Easy Listening' collector. You only have to pull out a few fingernails before getting them to admit to 'only being in it for the sleeves'. Anyway, water boarding Percy Faith completists aside 'The Swinging is Mutual' is a lovely record that brings to mind a time of innocence to which I was never party. Well I say innocence, I suppose technically it brings to mind a time when they hadn't thought of a name for Pedophiles and children weren't murdered but rather 'ran off to join the circus'. A time when violent loutish behavior was attributed to 'the lads just letting off steam' rather than being a of 'hoody epidemic'. Makes me wonder what the Daily Mail was doing fifty years ago? They certainly weren't killing the music industry by gluing free 'Best of' CDs to the front of their Sunday papers.

To conclude, 'The Swinging Is Mutual' is so light its almost see-through but that really isn't a bad thing and because of the likes of 'The Things We Did Last Summer' and 'Born To Be Blue' I imagine this is one of the few albums I currently own that I will still be listening to should I make it to retirement.

The same can not be said for Horace Arnold - 'Tribe'. The title track is solid self aware 'Spiritual jazz' but the rest of the album isn't exactly sure where it's going. They seem to attempt to cover too many bases without actually succeeding in getting anything in particular done.

That said the next offering 'Science Fiction' by Ornette Coleman has the same issue but it doesn't seem to matter. I have no idea what the fuck he is going on about but it doesn't seem to matter. I can't hear space ships or any Arthur C Clarke-like future worlds in here but it works. This could be because my good will is extended to full by the opener, a vocal led track that featured none other than Indian goddess Asha Puthli. The rest of side two is pretty average fayre given the awesomeness that Ornette is capable of. There is a brief moment on track three 'Street Woman' where it is easy to imagine Bundy K Brown cracking one out with one hand and pressing record on his cassette deck with the other. (Pure Tortoise).

Holy shit in a shoebox if the last song on side one doesn't just make me eat my words but throw them up and smear them all over my genitals. If that was Ornette Coleman singing he should do it more often. Tremendous. Side two seems to be in much the same vein. 'Rock the Clock' has what sounds like a bass put through a phaser and a distortion pedal. Ah! Asha's back for the next song. Liking this a lot and wondering why I haven't had it on as anything other than back ground music in the past. The rest of the album plays out in a similar pattern - Utter genius interspersed with very average OC noodlings.

Now I could be entering 'Jazz overload' here because John Coltrane's 'Meditations' sounds like a chimps fucking tea party. I picked this up in Amsterdam from 'Record Friend' a couple of weeks back because I have a thing for the spines of Impulse records (they look really good in a row). 'The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost' (Track 1) is something of a monolith in avant-jazz circles, regardless I'm not in the mood. Could be because I ate way too much and am now stuck to the sofa contemplating another attempt at leaving the house, for air if nothing else. 'Meditations' does pick up after the initial honked and overblown assault but 5.30pm on a Sunday really should be more 'Sketches of Spain' than stretching the boundaries of what is and what is not listenable.

The rest of 'Meditations' is much more in keeping with it's name, I don't feel as if I am being challenged to some hip listening contest completely unsuited to the time of day.

So, as 'Jazz Sunday' draws to a close and I contemplate stretching an evening out as long as possible before the inevitability of another short sleep and sickeningly dull week at work. It would be nice to think I could use this new found sonic wisdom in the work place, somehow apply it to my daily routine with the hope that it might stop the days melting into one long useless stint in the waiting room of life but that's only going to happen if I get a record player for my desk and filter every work based email as spam.

Wow, that's depressing. That's Sunday's for you. Even 'Jazz Sundays'.

CELESTE BOURSIER-MOUGENOT AT THE BARBICAN, LONDON

2010-04-08T21:07:00.006+01:00

So this is the thing I went to a couple of weeks ago at the Barbican. No idea who the guy with the girls name is but this was really well worth a look, even if we did have to wait in line for over an hour.

The basic idea is that he gets birds to unwittingly play human instruments by landing, shitting and or building nests on them. The effect as you can see was surprisingly coherant.

LAURA ALLAN - REFLECTIONS

2010-04-07T20:35:00.001+01:00

Right. I've set myself a task: Review the Laura Allan album in the time it takes my ravioli to boil. Why? You might ask. Well it's challenges like this that keep us on our toes, give us the edge so that if ever we should need to do mind-battle with other-worldy creatures we are ready. My body might be that of a tired and approaching middle aged man but there is no reason (degenerative mental illness aside) that I shouldn't have the mind of a mother fucking ninja well into my 90's.

My wife seems to think our generation is going to live longer, that our parents will live anything up to ten or fifteen years longer than there parents and so on. I think she's talking balls. At least I hope she is. Things will go 'Soylent Green' in no time if she's even close to right. We are already running out of water and y'know, the other stuff that everyone is always going on about. Also there's the whole carbon footprint thing whatever that is. All I know is that petrol is more expensive and I miss my V8 Triton F-150 Truck more than most of my dead relatives.

Anyway, changing up the speed a little. I am listening to hippy music. Honest to God hippy music. The most disturbing part is that I like it. Laura Allan is a female Alan Stivell. Alan Stivell is the French or Belgian guy with the wild hair who plays his harp on a beach to look mystic. Alan Stivell records are underrated and very cheap to buy which is something of a travesty - Not least because I own three.

Laura Allan likes to wail, quite literally over her harp. If it wasn't so completely private label, home made and amateur sounding it could be the stuff of cheap perfume ads. As it is it has evolved into something far more exciting: A blend of the spiritual, the quasi-religious. If I listen hard enough through the chimes I can hear open fields, I can see...

Fuck my pasta just boiled over.

Sadly it would appear that my cat-like writing speed is not what it was. A day for tough lessons all round. First I loose out on that tight Italian time-trials bike on Ebay and now this. Maybe the beauteous sounds of Laura Alan can teach me humility, patience, to be at one with a world of burnt pasta and failed auction site bids? Possibly, but I have a feeling that if I commit this to heavy rotation I could end up smelling of soap and owning multiple cats, buying bulk consignments of dream catchers and mailing them to all of my friends with poetic God tinged well wishes... Maybe I should do that anyway, just to fuck with em?

So we've talked the music. We have talked he music haven't we? To re-cap - Laura Allan is flutes, harp, wind chimes, wailing and the occasional pean to the baby Jesus. Honestly it's not as bad as it sounds. Anyway, moving onto the important stuff. Laura Allan - Hot or not? Shit I don't know. The sleeve shot's a bit hazy and could just be showing her good side. The picture on the back of the record is better (she appears to be naked in both) but I can't decide. She looks a bit 'West Coast granola' for me. I mean, I probably would but... Nope, Google comes up with a completely different Laura Allan (who incidentally would definitely get it) so I'm on the fence with this one.

If you like 'New Age' music circa 1980 this has to be on your 'Needs' list. If not and you fancy something to take the edge of the new Burzum LP why not give it a shot.

SCOTT WALKER - SCOTT

2010-04-05T16:26:00.003+01:00

It made sense to continue my Easter listening with something in a similar vein, vocally led and easy on the ear. An afternoon spent reshuffling my records and realizing I don't currently have a copy of 'Fifth Dimension' pulled this out. I got very enthusiastic about this about a year or so ago when I re-discovered 'Such a Small Love' the second track on side 2. It's a very rare thing indeed - A perfect song. So what about the rest of the album. To be honest I don't think I have listened to this in it's entirety since college.

As pony as it sounds it could well have been Jarvis Cocker's musings that led me to explore the world of Scott Walker. I'm sure that he was cited as an influence in a Melody Maker cover interview or something similar, quite why I read it I'm not sure. As much as I respected what Pulp were doing it was a million light years from my then listening habits which I seem to remember were stuck somewhere between NOFX, Easy Listening and bad Hip-Hop at the time. Anyway, a copy of 'Scott' turned up in my local used record shop (Vinyl Vault) and I gave it a go.

Pretty sure I came away from it non-plussed: I couldn't hear the boy Cocker in it and there was no guitar, fast-forward ten years later and I had successfully over-looked this in favor of the latter two 'Eponymous' LPs without thinking twice. Not sure what it was that made me play it again but I did. I think I managed to play 'Such a Small Love' twenty times on one night exploring various scenarios for it's use, my funeral, a second wedding, a pseudo-non-religious Christening. It's kind of like a fore-runner to Robbie Williams' 'Angels' in so much as it's an all encompassing 'Births, Deaths and Marriages' anthem, only without the gurnings of the former Take That cheeky chap.

I hadn't really appreciated quite how much of that simmering epic quality saturated the rest of the album until listening to it on headphones just now. It's fantastic and all of the clues are there, the pre-cursors to the utter insanity of 'Stretch' or 'Climate of the Hunter'. Scott is a man obsessed with hookers, heartbreak and death, all of that to a symphonic accompaniment to match many film scores. Makes you ask what can possibly go wrong? Well to be honest very little. Much as I would love to tear this apart with my bare teeth and then use it for toilet paper it's not possible. The sleeve's great. The arrangement, the music, the lyrics are great.

I suppose if I was to nit-pick I'm not massively into the name Scott. It's a bit shit. It brings to mind the Scottish, reminds me of Terrier dogs for some reason, or an older kid I went to school with who I let beat me up because I felt sorry for him. Also it rhymes with 'snot'. Snot Walker.

Anyway, buy this, but don't get the 4 Men With Beards press or I will find out where you live and take a shit in your fridge.

BRIDGET ST JOHN - ASK ME NO QUESTIONS

2010-04-05T14:57:00.002+01:00

I might be wrong, but I think it all started with The Animal Collective. After much musical squirming to fit their particular peg into the 'Mainstream Alternative hole' they finally became music press darlings about five or six years back. With them they dragged much from the past, Vashti Bunyan, The Incredible String Band and to a lesser extent and through lazy press name checking rather than anything else, Bridget St John. I suppose a one sentence review of the above might read: 'Bit like a female Nick Drake' but then that would be selling BSJ, for that is how I intend on referring to her for the duration of this review.

I haven't heard the comparison before (This could be because I was busying myself with collecting the ThreeOneG back catalogue or something similarly futile and eventually un-worthwhile) but BSJ sounds an awful lot like Nico, that's Velvet Underground's Nico rather than the drummer from Iron Maiden. The big difference would be that BSJ's delivery is infinitely more tuneful and where Nico had that worn in skag beaten art-whore edge, BSJ sounds like puppy dogs, summers day picnics, fabric conditioner adverts featuring animated teddy bears.

That really shouldn't be a recommendation but it is. BSJ successfully replaces Nico's tired, late night rusty needle foghorn with something sweetly naive and sprightly. This said, on reading the lyrics it becomes obvious that despite the virginal delivery there is a strong chance that acid or other hallucinogens did come into play, take the lyrics to 'Lizard Long Tongue Boy'

'Canoe in maroon time and grow your way through time - whenever you come I'll be there'

Right. Add to that the vacant look, 'don't give a fuck' hair and paisley dress and BSJ definitely has something illegal going on even if it isn't the heroin.

So, yeah, nice post-Easter, 'Bank holiday Monday' listening this. Very pleasant and a good aural substitute for what tradition usually sees me do with this day: Watch 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' whilst sticking myself to the sofa with chocolate Easter egg based flotsam. Yes, I miss the bit where the guys face melts at the end but I'm pretty sure I can find that on Youtube without sitting through the rest of it and shouting at the screen with the same tired annual observations:

'Doesn't he look young?'

'So this was set after 'Temple of Doom' but it was released before it?'

'How doe's he stowaway on board the submarine? He cant get in. He'd drown! You can't open the hatch from the outside, I mean surely you can't... Even if you could submarines are small, they'd find him and shoot him as soon as it climbed down.'

So despite my music based ramblings, let us not forget the true meaning of Easter...

Harrison Ford in a Fedora hat brandishing a whip and looking mighty handsome.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD - DUSTY IN MEMPHIS

2010-03-31T12:50:00.032+01:00

It's been a quiet couple of weeks in the wonderful world of the unhealthily obsessed. I did manage to take a mid 70s press of 'Bryter Layter' off the wall of the Soho branch of MVE at the weekend and yesterday I got the Marvin 'Hannibal' Peterson LP I'd been after for a while but aside of that, all quiet on the Western Front.

That said there was a period of about 40seconds last night when I thought that one of the big numbers on my Vinyl bingo card was finally going to get crossed out in blobbly red marker pen. I was in the always unpredectable, often over-priced tatt store 'Music and Books' flicking through the 'Justins' when I came across a copy of the first Ash Ra LP. Holy cock up a lamp-shade. At 30 Euros I decided it would have to be way beyond fucked for me not to take it home.

The sleeve was in good shape and my hopes were high for the vinly. I mean what could possibly have happened to the record for it to be 30 Euros, maybe the owner had got the message about his over-pricing and done a pendulum swing in the other direction. Even on seeing that Side 1 was what you would technically call Bad Plus, I was still considering adopting said record until I flipped it. Holy fuck if there doesn't need to be a new category for grading called 'Cunted'.

Somebody, most likely a very high and paranoid German had tried to carve their name into the playing surface with a knife. Awesome. Even on seing this I wasnt completely beaten so I drew my nail across the grooves to see if it might play. Nope, I'm guessing a series of 1mm deep gouges the wrong direction would probably be enough to confuse even the most determined of needles. Anyway, to cut a long and dull record shop based story short, it stayed where it was and as a footnote fuck the guy at 'Music and Books' for even putting it out.

Not sure why this should surprise me. He put a copy of the Floh De Cologne LP on Ohr out for 60 with a chip out of it that ate into the majority of the first track.

Penis.

The only other big revelation from the past week that comes to mind is that i have started at a gym to try and shake some of that record chiseling fat: The additional girth that accumulates when you spend your weekends and evenings leant into a rack of stale smelling vinly rather than going out walking or playing football. I am trying to build the rest of my physique up to match that of my fingers, my 60 mile an hour record rack flicking digits.

So enough of the wittering. What's been on the turntable yo? Well there was this, but then isn't there always? 'Dusty in Memphis' is the kind of listening constant that ensures it's always being played by somebody somewhere and with good reason. It's a solid record. Yes it sounds way too close to Bobbie Gentry for comfort and no, she never managed to channel her girl-love based sexuality into her music in the same way as Nina Simone did. But hey, this record has to be in everybody's Top Ten 'sexy time' albums, has to be. There isn't a filler on here and each and every song is sung in the key of 'fuck'. Dusty's voice sounds like she is sat on one of those Sybian self-pleasuring machines and even the orchestration manages to sound 'saucy'.

A perfect example is 'Breakfast in Bed', a song that should bring to mind coffee breath and soggy cornflakes sticking to your back but it doesn't, it sounds like Dusty is singing about getting pounded from behind by a fireman... or fire lady armed with a strap-on.

So on to the downsides: First off the picture is incomplete, I hate to say this but you need to buy the expanded CD to witness the full glory of Dusty in Memphis. Or if you are insecure and obsessed with the pointless like me buy the CD and the UK first press on Philips and a German press just incase you ever find yourself in a situation where you need three copies.

The other major downside is the cover. It's shit. The US release of this got a much more apt 'Dusty in a night gown looking slightly surprised with her hands over her mouth possibly wiping something from her chin' sadly Europe got stuck with a particularly unflattering facial close-up framed in frog green. Still, when you are faced with a musical monolith as sizable as this even I can over-look the short sighted stupidity of the Philips art department.

Great record.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO 32 RPM! 1 YEAR OLD TODAY YES.

2010-03-24T10:29:00.011Z

Ahem...

(Sung to the tune of the traditional 'Happy Birthday')

'Happy Birthday to me, yeah that's fuckin' right... Cos it's been a year today, since I did my first post.'

Has it really been an entire year since I first got the idea to document my listening habbits? Well, according to the Gregorian calendar, yes... yes it has!

So, am I any wiser? Have I come close to making any sense of it all? Finding reason behind the pointless compulsion, behind the seemingly endless collecting of neatly packaged music-based ephemera? No.

All I know is I like records, I like to buy them and sometimes (though not always) I like to listen to them. Is it pointless? Yes it is, but I ask you this: Is it as pointless as stamp or baseball card collecting? Say yes and I will kick you in the face.

And what else have I discovered over the past 12 months? Well, I had the revelation that Talking Heads have at least for me become borderline un-fucking-listenable and should be filed under 'O' for 'Over-rated. I learnt that Beggars Opera are shit, that Bossa Nova music is as irritating and repetetive as House.

I also discovered no end of complete gems, records that blew me away, fucked me sideways and because I like lists here are 5:
5.) Muddy Waters - After The Rain (The John Spencer/Royal Trux blueprint, worn out, tired and dirty as fuck)
4.) Eroc - Eroc IV (Sounds like it was recorded yesterday, dreamy ambient masterpiece with odd French cafe overtones)
3.) TRex - Tanx (Underrated and close to coked out Bolan perfection, should have a mirrored sleeve)
2.) Machiavel - Jester (Wailing castrato over some awesome Moog action from Belgium)
1.) Walter Franco - Revolver (Post Tropicalia stone killer, unexpected to say the least)
I think on reflection what this blog has taught to do is fine tune my buying habbits. I've learnt a few expensive lessons, buying albums for one track or in some cases part of a track, because of the label or in the case of the horrendous Baltik album becaues of the font on the sleeve is not the way to go. Equally there is little point in spunking mad cash money on a whim purchase, or something you only 'kind of wouldn't mind to want to have'. Focus, focus and filter, that's my mantra for the next 12 months. No more pointless hoarding or possessed completism, just focus and filter. Aaaah.

After much chopping and changing I have whittled the records I do own down to something resembling a neatly ordered progression through genre, by highlights. Flicking through it almost makes sense. It might make perfect sense if almost everything I owned wasn't available for free in digital format at the click of a button. That said I'm not sure this idea of invisible music will last forever, too much of it is rooted in image, in the physical. In memories.

Anyway, I am done waffling, Summer is coming and I'd like to think that with it maybe some swimming, cycling or something that involves being outside, in the fresh air rather than flashing black circles under an inadequate light source in an attempt to read matrix numbers might be the order of the day.

RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK - PREPARE THYSELF TO DEAL WITH A MIRACLE

2010-03-22T16:13:00.008Z

So it's been a tough week for reviewing records, not least because my aurally focussed time has been taken up in the main part by reassessing the first three Metallica albums on CD. Much as I would like to tell you about how well certainly 'Ride the Lightning' and 'Master of Puppets' have stood the test of time and how Cliff Burton shits all over Phil Lynott I can't, for the simple reason said listening pleasure was had by means other than vinyl. Stupid I know but without rules what are we? I review a CD and we are one step closer to total chaos, just like on that film about the guy who is trying to escape from that futuristic prison island. I think it's called 'Escape From Futuristic Prison Island'.

Anyway, so we've touched on what I am not going to talk about, so what pray tell am I going to fill the next four or five paragraphs with? That my friend is a fucking good question. Now would be a good time to wax poetic about Big Star and the late Alex Chilton but I'm not really in the mood for analysing the lyrics of 'Feel' or going on about what a shame it is they were overlooked or misunderstood for so long.

I could fill some space with an update on Germanic noise pollution or talk about how due to mystery illness I have been bed ridden and snot covered for the majority of the past week, but I won't. I will however get more than a little excited about Rahsaan Roland Kirk's 'Prepare Thyself To Deal With A (Motherfucking) Miracle'. I picked this up from 'Jump Jump' records in Portland a couple of years back and for some reason didn't get around to listeining to it. I think it was part of a bulk purchase and it just got forgotten about.

It came back to light after the middle of last week saw me taking an hour out of my busy schedule to re-sort my records into 'genre' order (really? fuck yes.) Now this jig around was not for practical listening based reasons but rather an attempt to truly sort the wheat from the chaff, to purge myself of that Asmus Tietchens record that nobody needs and to iron out some of the creases in my record 'accumulation', to make sense of it all. Anyway, in doing so this ended up being found and played.

Things we should all know about Roland Kirk...

1.) He was born Ronald but changed his name to Roland after a dream told him to
2.) Roland was blind
3.) He often played as many as three saxophones AT ONCE
4.) After a stroke he lost most of the use of one side of his body, he modified his instruments and still managed to play two saxophones AT ONCE

This record is painfully good. It's an adventure like all good music should be. You don't know where it's going or quite what is going to happen next. It's heavy on the drone and the instruments commanded by the genius Rahsaan Roland Kirk include 'Black Mystery Pipes' and I shit you not ...'Nose Flute'. I'm a long way off having heard everything put out by Roland Kirk but for me, this stands out more than anything else of his that has passed my ears. It's more enchanting than 'The Inflated Tear', as listenable and more intreaguing than 'Blacknuss' and shows just how far Jazz came in under a decade. 1964's 'We Free Kings' sounds as if it is from a time before space ships, which I suppose it did.

Without wanting to touch on individual tracks too much, 'Saxophone Concerto' touches the cosmic awesomeness of Sun Ra's better work and needs to be heard to be believed. It's a crying shame to think that merely four years after it was recorded he would be dead from a second stroke and although I am sure he tried, this time no ammount of instrumental modification could get our crazy fat cheeked skronking God to make another sound.

Great album.

ROLLIN RECORDS - WEST WICKHAM, LONDON

2010-03-17T16:34:00.012Z

So I've actually visited this place twice in the past month or so and only narrowly managed to avoid making it a hatrick this weekend. Why? Because 'Rollin Records' is a pretty fucking good record shop. It's not cheap but then if it was it would be empty. It's certainly not local - Took me about 90 minutes each way from Camden but it is well worth a visit, should you be stuck with a few hours to kill one Saturday (NOTE: They close at 5.00pm) my advice is hop on a train to West Wickham and get elbow deep in the racks.

So what does makes this place so special? For starters the Mr Rollin (Whose real name I imagine to be Dave) is one of the few people out there who seems to know what 'Mint' means. None of that piss-poor psuedo-American grading here: If it doesn't look like it just came out of a still smoking time-machine fresh from a trip to 1967 then it isn't mint, that simple.

I won't bore you with a list of my purchases, but I did come away feeling a bit like a big bass fisherman from the cover of Angling Times.

'It was this big!'

(And I am no longer looking for Unhalfbricking, Five Leaves Left or S.F Sorrow)

As well as an interesting stock 'Rollin' prooves an enjoyable place to shop. Friendly owner, attractive wife both of whom are totally accomodating, there are browsing stools for the lower racks and if that's not enough they have a more than adequate discount policy if you are buying a few records.

There's even a decent chippy across the road so you can have pie and chips while you wait for your train back to Cannon Street station to show up, what more could a man want? In fact the only down side I can think of is that they are strictly cash only and the nearest cash machine is about ten minutes walk away, still it's all good exercise.

Not sure when the above was taken but you will be releived to know that they no longer sell guitars - Guitars get in the way of records, they have a habit of falling over when you least expect it and besides a record shop that sells guitars is the same as a Video rental shop that sells Film based fancy dress (which come to think of it is as close to a bankable business plan as I have ever had).

Anyway, for some reason this is shaping up to read almost like honest to god 'copy', makes me wish there had been a fire or at the very least a mysterious smell anyway, I might as well end it in the same tone...

Come to 'Rollin Records' because I honestly can't think of a better record shop in or around London... And that's saying something.

BLUE CHEER - VINCEBUS ERUPTUM

2010-03-17T14:23:00.008Z

So exactly what the difference between 'the birth of heavy metal' and a dull and elongated electric blues jam is I do not know. 'Vincebus Eruptum' is cited by some as the starting point of all things metal, a pre-cursor to Sabbath a slow distorion-laden exercise forming the 'A for apple' at the start of the heavy metal alphabet. So why does it sound so much like 'boogie woogie'?

Okay so there's nothing massively wrong with it but the promise that the sleeve seems filled with just isn't there. I owned this album once previously buying it, I think on a trip to the US years and years ago. I didn't really like it then so quite what prompted me to rethink my Swiss inspired strategy of non-commitment to this particular record I don't know. Is it the sleeve? I mean it really is a killer sleeve. For those of you unfamiliar with it, not only is it a goregeous screen print but it comes on a texturized card stock so that the writing is debossed. Oooooooh. If you catch it in the light it has this goregeous dull metallic sheen that has a live of it's own.

Unfortunately the music is instantly forgettable, so much so that I can't really recall it well enough to recount. All I can say is that two things came to mind whilst pottering around my flat with this cranked up.

1.) 'This sounds a lot like Status Quo'

2.) 'This is not as good as Slade'

Neither of these thoughts are the kind of thing you really want to materialize in review form if you are Blue Cheer. If you are not Blue Cheer they are the awesome release poster sound bites that you can only dream of...

Blue Cheer 'Vincebus Eruptum' - Not as good as Slade - 32rpm

This record really is massively dull, which is a shame as their 1971 album 'Oh, Something, Something' is great and I will get around to reviewing it at some point in the future if only to balance the Blue Cheer books.

In other news, I have a cold, a cold or something. I am tired and wish I was in bed, even though I know I am going to be kept awake all night thanks to Germany's fondness for celebrating absofuckinglutely anything and everything, for tonight is St Patricks Day.... Night. Really the fact that they will all be turned out in Shamrocks and Guinness hats should come as no surprise given that they took an entire week to celebrate the RIO Carnival less than a month ago, fucking idiots.

Still I suppose anything to distract them from the reality of their situation: They have a chancellor with the worst haircut in politics, the national dish is a hotdog without the bread roll and although this may well be specific to Bavaria, there is the out-line of an Iron Eagle on the side of Burger King.

MAGMA - ATTAHK

2010-03-10T09:24:00.019Z

In the words of the great Nickelback 'it's been a while'. I did write an aborted entry that explored in great detail the pros of removing Beyonces head with a bread knife but when it came to justifying it, it wasnt that I couldn't, but more that I shouldnt let such trivial things as that fact that I actually believe her to be the devil bother me. So that particular slice of music based torture-porn will at least for now stay in my 'draft' box.

Where have I been, what have I been doing? Well I did a spot of charity work feeding homeless street punks, learnt to hand-glide and found God.

Oh wait, no I didn't, I've been record shopping. I'm always getting feel good, outdoor spiritual activities mixed up with pissing my money up the wall in the company of piss stained old men and baseball cap wearing idiots.

So what's on the turntable today I hear you ask? It's Magma and their jolly 'Attahk' album. What do we know about Magma? Well we know that Magma was a German hard-core pornography distributor responsible for much of the Dolly Buster back catalogue, but it's not that Magma. This Magma is a group of French loons led by the always idiot-haired Christain Vander.

Imagine Tiny Tim in a speed singing competition backed by impossibly fast drums and various other high end instrumentation that gives the over all effect of mice attacking your brain, well thats 'Attahk'. There is a thin line between clever and stupid and I'm still not sure which of those camps this particular entry falls into. Yes its woefully annoying and the HR Geiger 'AIDS baby' sleeve makes me want to be sick on it but after 'Attahk' ended, when I listened to something more normal, something with a human tempo I just kept thinking 'When is this going to take off? When is it going to go to warp speed spastic?'. That would surely suggest that our man Vander is onto something no matter how much like Miss Piggy he sounds.

So if you slow the record down long enough to hear what the classically trained Christain Vander is singing you will be surprised to hear that it's not French, it's not English either. It is in fact Kobaian. A language not of this earth invented by said Vander. That's right he actually invented a constructed language for our delight and delictation... or was it because he was a borderline cult leader nut-job? Either way much of Magma's work is sung in Kobaian.

Anyway, back to that sleeve. I haven't posted it here because I don't want to look at it. Whilst it's isn't actually the most repulsive record sleeve ever it isn't something I want to be affronted by everytime I come to bitch about records or fantasize about killing MTV stalwarts. Google it if you really can't live with the mystery. Too much time has been spent on it for it to simply be labelled shit and maybe that's why it offends me so. Anyway, in place of the sleeve we instead have an early shot of the Magma cult. Mushroom headed Vander second from left.

I know it's not as catchy but Magma should have been called 'The Cosmik Hitler Fucking Youth' at least that way you get the general idea of whose going to be behind the curtain when you go and see them live. Without the insight and given the confusion over the name I for one would have expected a naked and top heavy German woman with 80s hair intent on inserting her fist where God hadn't planned it to go.

RECORD PALACE OF AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

2010-02-25T13:32:00.008Z

So last week saw me in the fair city of Amsterdam for work based reasons and on Thursday night I found myself with just over an hour between leaving work and a business based dinner. Hmmm, what to do? A former resident of the city I was armed with two things: The knowledge that Thursday night is late night shopping night and a mental map of at least nine record shops within the city limits. Before even plotting a course I found myself marching briskly alongside a canal in the rough distance of 'record shops'.

I worked out that the nearest decent shop was Record Palace. Record Mania was closer but I never had much luck there. I did buy a copy of the first Runaways' LP from them years ago, but I left it on a tram so it doesn't really count. Anyway, about five minutes later I am outside. The lights are on, I push the door... The door is locked. The only way of describing the feeling that washes over me is sheer panic. I try not to let this show as the owner comes to the door and unlocks it.

'I am sorry we are closed, we are open again tomorrow morning.'

'Thanks but I am only here for the night.'

I am not sure what happens next, maybe he took pitty on me or feared for my safety. Basically he asked me if I was after anything in particular, I mumbled something about Frank Zappa and he let me in.

The shops owner is called Jan, Jan is a particularly cheery bloke once you get him on a subject he is passionate about, say European Avant Jazz. Safely ensconsed I took to the racks like a Beagle tearing apart a Fox in one of those Anti-Hunting campaign videos. Jan keeps the Jazz in the basement and his fondness for the genre is obvious when you see that it takes up more room than Rock and Pop A to Z. I do a quick once through and then take my time on the individual sections that look most promising. I have an original ESP Fontana copy of Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds Vol.2 in my hands withing seconds. It leaves the shop with me.

Back upstairs Jan is going through a newly bought stack of used records and takes great delight in showing me some Sunny Murray albums that neither of us has seen before. He is very accomodating and although from prior experience the stock in the shop can be hit and miss it is well worth a visit should you be in the vicinity. As we talk he explains that he has no problem with me taking my time.

'The Japanese just called, they are coming straight from the airport.'

I had got there just in time. No doubt the shop would be laid to waste and raped like Nanjing within the hour. Jan's comment surprised me. I had been under the impression that the Japanese collectors were still licking their wounds from the beating the Yen got a year or so back. I was wrong.

The above 'Intel' is confirmed when I talk to the owner of Rollin' Records at the weekend. (I will expand upon this particularly fruitful trip later on)

Lock up your A1/B1 Matrix numbers, it looks like there's a storm a coming.

BEATLES - YELLOW SUBMARINE

2010-02-24T14:31:00.009Z

(This is them circa 'Magical Mystery Tour' before you get upset)

'Chart wise' at least this is generally considered as The Beatles 'crappest' album and whilst this isn't the only reason for it's inclusion here this fact certainly helped in my decision to dedicate column inches to a review of it. Why? Because despite them being insanely listenable and directly responsible for the shape of modern music, I am not a Beatles fan. Why? Because they are the Manchester United of the music world? I think that's fair but no, it's because when something becomes so over explored, analysed and revered it looses much of its appeal.

It's like wanting to go on a wilderness walk and finding a paved and signposted route instead. Everybody has been there, so much so that they have built rest areas and McDonalds have a road side franchise every twenty miles on each side. That's not adventure, not even if the scenery is at times remarkable. The Beatles are like a musical slut, everybody has fucked them and it is armed with that knowledge that I embark on this particular journey.

'Yellow Submarine' is a record or two halves in the most literal sense. George Martin's orchestration for the animated film fills the whole of side 2. Side 1 is a combination of old songs, new songs and re-hashes. I would love to know what the 'Fab Four' were thinking when they came up with this. To be honest I doubt they were, between the druks, the in-fighting and the recording of 'The Beatles' (The White one) which was released not two months prior they probably had their hands well and truly full.

So I haven't seen the film since I was about four but the clips and the screen grabs are massively appealing and as a project it seems perfectly in keeping with the ever evolving persona of that Beatles beast.

Musically this album has both one of my favorite Beatles tracks 'Hey Bulldog' and also what can only be described as the final two human bone carved keys to the gates of hell and eternal damnation - 'Yellow Submarine' and 'All Together Now'.

The title track is harmless enough until the sound effects kick in and we have a man talking pinched nose down what sounds like a length of hose with a funnel at the end. it's creepy, it's vile and just as you think it can't possible get any closer to un-concentual ear rape the voice starts a snooty sing-a-long-a-Ringo. If I close my eyes whilst this song is playing I see a combination of the 'Saw' series playing over the top of a three minute edit of 'Caligula'.

...But this is nothing compared to the emotional response that 'All Together Now' conjures. Oh my fucking god, I am being flayed alive by a man dressed in shit smeared mustard spandex, flip-flop footed and pig-masked and he is not going to stop until he feeds me my own flayed and pickled penis. Honestly, if they had used this to illustrate the serial killer in 'Manhunt' instead of Iron Butterfly's 'In a Gada..' it would be the greatest film in the history of man...

Okay so those two veritable rotting carcases of musical death aside, what are we left with? The George Martin score is in offensive if not painfully dull but the other songs are alright and given that the excellent 'Hey Bulldog' is one of them it's enough of a reason to buy and keep this record, as if the sleeve alone wasn't.

IGGY POP - ZOMBIE BIRDHOUSE

2010-02-16T18:31:00.020Z

Over recent years Iggy has reinvented himself as a man of the people. His baby friendly face is now the thing of insurance adverts, the new Iggy could quite happily sit on a bill of the Royal Variety Performance without raising a single eyebrow. And despite this being a million miles away from his trailer park roots, his appetite for heroin or the fantastic insanity of his out and out nihilism I wish him nothing but well. Is it selling out? Who gives a fuck. He's 63. I don't think it's asking too much to afford the guy who invented The Stooges a little bit of grace here. Despite there being something of a grey area in his output a world without him would be Pottery Barn with a Coldplay soundtrack.

So let's take a look at a record from bang smack in the middle of the afore mentioned 'grey area', (unofficially from 1979's 'New Values' to 1990's 'Brick By Brick') The 1982 album 'Zombie Birdhouse'. I can see this album coming up for some kind of re-appraisal in the very near future.

It's far from perfect but the 80's metallic sound that helps define it is not too far off being en-vogue right now. Brings to mind newly hip and utterly clueless 80's Metal Urbain in parts. On top of that the album has a few true stand outs. 'The Horse Song' for example, my reason for re-buying this record after so long.

I bought my first copy of this from the mighty Relay records in Bristol in what must have been 1994 off the strength of the previously mentioned track. A version of which had appeared on the SST compilation 'Duck and Cover' (Think it was The Leaving Trains). I am guessing I off-loaded my copy of the above album because i'd expected it to come a little bit closer to the proverbial 'hits', 'Passenger', 'Lust for Life' that kind of thing.

As it is the songs on Zombie Birdhouse are a mess, lazily sung, ill-conceived but now however many years later all of these things actually add to it's charm. There is much in the way of bummed out noodling and at times it actually sounds like Iggy is intent on destroying anything that even remotely resembles what you might call 'traditionally listenable'.

The two big stand-outs 'Life of Work' and 'Watching the News' are much darker than the rest of the album, bordering on industrial in tone and in the case of the latter, Krautrock in rhythmic repetittion. Looking at the sleeve of the album, I can't think of anything less in keeping. It is an awesome cover though. It's hard to say why it works, it just does. Looks very much like Iggy in exile, which I suppose given the relative failure of his solo career at the time was kind of the case. The previous two albums 'Party' and 'Soldier' bombed and on listening it's easy to understand why.
To be honest, that Zombie Birdhouse works is just a quirk of time, kind of like discovering that an out of date tin of peaches somehow tastes better twenty years past the sell-by due to some freak of fermentation. Despite that, it's well worth giving a listen, especially when it's the kind of record you still find in the cheap racks.

CLUSTER - CLUSTER '71

2010-02-15T19:26:00.013Z

So this is actually the 1980 reissue of Cluster's first album. My defence for owning this particular beast? The sleeve of the original is massively shit. It looks like bad robot art. I mean not to say this is much better but it does have a certain DIY aesthetic that is an improvement on the first press. I picked this up in the US when I was going what I call 'Ebay crazy'. It was around the time that the GBP and the US Dollar were going two for one and despite being paid in US Dollars I talked myself into believing that everything everywhere in the US was in fact half price.

As a concequence I worked through a hefty wants list and ticked off pretty much everything on it during the three month period that my wife was still living back in England. To this day that tax Dutch tax rebate I was squandering went on 'Unforseen relocating costs' and not a mint copy of Amon Duul's 'Disasters' and the like. I shall now try and tear myself away from reminiscing about my years of financial idiocy long enough to say a few words about Cluster's first outing...

There wasn't a lot of this kind of business about in 1971 and with good reason. The world was still quite rightly dominated by rock dinosaurs, stadium bands and proto-glam. The singer song writer reigned supreme. So imagine then that you release an album without a.) any actual singing and b.) any discernable song writing. Yeah, that's not really going to pay the bills now is it?

Cluster '71 is not a bad album by a long chalk but it does make you ask where ambient krautrock ends and bottles full of carbonated water being shook up and opened in time to car alarms going off in the distance begin? Is that a hedge strimmer? Not to say it doesn't work, it has a lot in common with Throbbing Gristle's 'Heathen Earth', in fact it's almost like its much quieter older sister.

In places this record barely whispers and were my copy anything less than shiney and new looking it would be little more than a soundtrack to a log-fire crumpet toasting.

Example: Side 1 actually finished about three minutes ago but I thought the dull thud and click of the run-off groove was part of the final track.

And now to ask that thousand dollar question, do I need it? No, absolutely not. Chances of me listening to it again before the dawn of the next dacade? Very slim. But equally, chances of me getting rid of it? Absolute zero. Not seen another on of these in ages. And that my friend makes me a very complex kind of wanker indeed. Am I keeping it for bragging rights? It's not even a first issue. Do I truly believe it is a magical window to another world? It's unlikely. Why then? Why not just put it in that trade pile? Well, because it's nice isn't it.

There you have it folks. Cluster 71. Uneventful but nice. You're right, doesn't exactly scream 'Go out and buy me!' does it?

GAL COSTA - GAL

2010-02-15T16:28:00.011Z

The thing I like most about Tropicalia stalwart Gal Costa is that she has not just one but two eponymously titled albums, 'Gal Costa' and 'Gal' (as in Costa). That is the kind of nihilistic behaviour that can only be matched by calling your first studio album 'The Best of: Double Live'.

I will skip the politics and the revolution, the imprisoned musicians and the giant tea cup Rogerio Duprat is holding on the front of the scene setting 'Tropicalia' compilation album and instead go for Brazilian music's neck, stabbing it repeatedly with my blue Biro pen...

Much of what came from the Tropicalia scene is below average. There I said it: At times it is little more than badly disguised Bossa Nova music wrapped up in third rate outsider art.

Am I saying this to be controversial? No. I've had a year or so to dig fairly deep into it as a genre and whilst the good does outweigh the drivel it is at an unexpectedly low ratio. Take Gal Costa's 1970 album 'Legal'. It's rubbish (See review). The second Os Mutantes album is massively overrated as well.

'But it's a musical revolution!'

'What's your fucking point?'

If the East German's had formed a musical movement prior to the decomissioning of the Berlin wall would it mean that hours on end of Scorpions inspired 80's hard rock Umpah bands were suddenly worth listening to? No. Not even if they did have awesome hair and tiger print spandex. Umpah music is Umpah music, doesn't matter if that Flugelhorn is playing 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' or not.

I need to not turn this into a list of bad Brazilian records which is what seems to be happening so I shall move onto one of the gold stars on the Tropicalia report card.

Gal Costa 'Gal'. Gal Costa's previous album 'Gal Costa' is good but I get the sense throughout that she is having trouble letting go, going with the movement, stopping with the clapping and the fucking Bossa Nova. Why do so many cultures have such a problem with leaving their 'Traditional music' at the door? Anyway, here it's as if she has swallowed the mystery pill and pissed on her bongos.

In letting down her hair what she gives is a seductive brand of Western inspired pop filtered through the Brazil Freak-out machine. The accompanyment is random, unexpected and ranges from super-fuzz guitar to gentle strings and random yelping. In other words, I am not sure I can recomend this highly enough. 'Gal' is truly exciting and surprisingly rewarding.

It's a bit like licking an old 9V battery and not knowing if you are going to burn your tongue or not but only in a good and slightly more Brazilian way.

KRAFTWERK - COMPUTER WELD

2010-02-14T12:08:00.017Z

The screaming kids have replaced this morning's drunk revelers and once again I am up and about. There should be a saying 'Dead like a German Sunday'. I will refrain from using this as a forum to go off on the German Church again but thanks to those guys (worship and kebab's aside) there really isn't anything at all to do here on the Sabbath. So once again I am faced to find entertainment by making some sense of the wall of records that dominates my sitting room. I pull out a copy of 'Computer Weld' and think about cleaning the kitchen.

Imagine this band with an agenda, a personality. I am not asking for some 12 point plan (although it was the making of Nation of Ulysses) but something, anything other than the silent side-partings and plastic faces. Much as this element is revered by many, for me it's Kraftwerk's biggest FAIL.

The lack of traditional frontman is commendable, it makes for equal opportunities and the chance for a group to work as a unit but for that unit to hide quite literally at the back behind a wall of Stylaphones and other such electronics cries 'Chicken shit!' Admittedly they were an ugly bunch and being first post-war generation German there shyness is at least partly understandable.

But Kraftwerk are without a collective voice and for me this will always mean that despite being one of the most important groups in history they are saying absolutely nothing. Not a fucking thing. As if to echo my sentiments they have been successfully interviewed less times than the baby Jesus and when they are cornered for long enough they have refused to answer questions about anything apart from racing bikes, on occasions even using robot stand ins.

So what stops this being faceless techno bollocks? Let's take a look: One of the greatest sleeves in the history of music (I shall refrain from saying the word 'Iconic' because it's over use sends me into a red rage) and slightly less superficially we have an absolutely corking record. Yes the opening track 'Computer Weld' and 'Nummers' are almost identical and were this anybody else I might thing to ask for a ticket refund after the show but it's not it's the mighty Kraftwerk. The band have been credited with inventing everything from dance music to elecro, Hip Hop's predecessor. That's a pretty hefty resume and all the more reason that I find their silence so utterly frustrating.

So what could Kraftwerk have done to fill this personality gap? I'm not suggesting they shout 'fuck' at live performances, but it might be nice if they actually turned up for them instead of cowering back stage and playing behind a curtain, again substituted by robots. We aren't dealing with the wizard of Emerald city here, they aren't some untouchable fucking royalty as much as the act like it. I know they have their own agenda but I can't for the life remember what it is they are trying to achieve so I have to question if it's actually working.

But just imagine if Kraftwerk had ploughed their moogs through a back line of Marshalls after just one show, or if Ralf or Florian had got fucked up on drugs and thrown a TV out a hotel window. Any one of those token rock n' roll gestures would for me least launch this band into the stratosphere. All it would have taken would have been a middle finger at the audience or a gob of spittle launched at a photographer.

As it is I imagine the Kraftwerk biography is possibly the dullest read on the entire planet and despite their musical cannon, as appealing as it is they will always leave me cold in a similar way to the words 'British Jazz'.

SATURDAY NIGHT - MIDDLE AGED MAN'S AGORAPHOBIC MIX TAPE NUMBER 2

2010-02-13T17:27:00.019Z

And so it begins again. What started as a search for my copy of 'The Velvet Underground' has turned into another 'Middle Aged Man's Agoraphobic Mix Tape'.

Why was I searching for the VU album I hear you ask? Was it perhaps to play the albums closer 'After Hours', a perfect soundtrack to the short days and apocalyptic weather that are currently suffocating my apartment? Was it to see which way Lou Reeds arm's are pointing on the back sleeve? (Apparently there are two different versions, one harder to find than the other - Amazing what you overhear at record fairs or not.) Nope, it wasn't because of that either. It's 'cos I just picked up a very nice early Stereo copy for ten Euros. Bit of a click here and there but still a lovely bit of history. But you already had a perfectly good copy of the record minus barcode? Yes but this one is a bit older....

Riiiiight.

I shall refrain from thinking too hard on the above and instead perhaps carve the word 'obsessive' into my forehead with an art knife after I've completed the task ahead:

Pick enough records at random to fill a 74 minute CD and see what comes out the other end...

God your interesting.

Yes, yes I am. You can call me 'Mr Funtime' if you like.

No, that makes you sound like a particularly low-budget male escort who has in-call premises minutes from Kings Cross Station and offers a special that might be called 'Wigan Ass Sandwich'.

'Uncle Funtime?'

'Oh yes, that's much better.'

So, onwards and upwards....

'Middle Aged Man's Agoraphobic Mix Tape Number 2'

First off the starting block is is Embryo with 'Warm Canto'. I have unintentionally set a very laid back mood, what sounds like the slow brother of 'Whiter Shade of Pale', Procal Harum with learning difficulties if you liket. It's a very loose Krautrock jam pulled together on occasion by an organ and what sounds like violin. very sombre, very downbeat, utterly in keeping with the city of fuck outside my window. Anyway, lets see what fate offers up for track two...

I run my fingers across a face of spines and pluck at random. Huh, Pink Floyd 'Meddle'. Not bad. 'One of These Days' actually dove-tails in really nicely even if David Gilmore does come very close to killing it stone dead with some Brian May-like guitar wankery. If this is a shape of things to come I'm going to have a veritable Hippy fest on my hands. A truly cosmic night in. Oh, I'm liking this.

Unrelated why is tinned soup so expensive in Germany?

So this time around I don't need to attempt to justify my actions: I know that this is not how Saturday nights are meant to be spent, I know that this is horribly antisocial especially given that I am 'supposed to be' at some new bar opening. But maybe this can be seen as a glorious fuck you to the norm, the expected. Yes that's right, I'm starting a social revolution by sitting on my ass and listening to music whilst drinking beer. Who knew that stimulating positive cultural change would be so easy. At this rate 'Strictly Come Dancing' will be punishable by death and Davinda MaCall's head will on a pole outside parliament by the end of the week. Ooooh Anarchy. But would a fascist police state really be the lesser of two evils? Yes. Yes it fucking would.

Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want

Never a truer word spoken. Now where were we? That's right, back to swapping Davinda McCall's severed head for some social freedoms. Still sounds like a bargain to me and tonight I shall sleep and dream about the live televised execution of that shampoo advertising shit monkey.

The maudlin sound keeps a rolling as we head from the Stones assisted choirs of the previous track right into Flying Saucer Attack territory 'In The Light of Time' is one of the better songs on the album 'Further'. I always felt that FSA could have been so much better than they were. Like with much of their output 'Further' is patchy at best and unfashionable as it is to say so Mogwai did it so much better.

Holy Shit if the mix tape god isn't smiling down on me!

Pierre Henry 'Le Voyage' jumps from the shelf. This is Peter's concept album based around the Tibetian Book of the Dead. I believe the opening track 'Breathe' concerns itself with final breaths, spirits and shit. Anyway, much breathing, what sounds like flies and balloons being deflated, definitely one to play at parties this. Oh this is good, even if the gatefold sleeve does smell a bit moldy.

More poetry! Moebius and Plank 'Rastakrautpasta' and from it the albums opener 'News'. Awesomeness! I would be even more enthusiastic if my knuckle wasn't bleeding all over my keyboard. I cut it open slamming my window violently as some feeble show of discontentment at the beered up Germans outside. Why the fuck didn't the Marshall Plan make provisions for this? Blip, there it goes, my 'K' key just got a crimson make over.

Blood loss and shakey fingered typing aside this is really starting to come together. 'Candy Maker' chugs from the speakers. This Tommy James and the Shondells track from 'Travelin'' is a favorite and something that I would actually put on a comp. were I making one. Its Royal Trux through and through. Underrated band Tommy James and pals. It seems this evenings musical adventure is actualy evolving into a perfectly shaped statement of some sort, laid back, down-beat and ever so slightly cosmic.

I spoke to soon. Grace Jones is up. I'm not knocking her for a second but 'La Vie En Rose' from 'Portfolio' just blew my late night moody battleship out of the proverbial water. Continuity aside this is a stunner of a song.

Cold beer hisses open and middle finger is raised out the window in the direction of the nosiest club in Nuremberg. Fuck you ambivalent bouncer! I am listening to the crazy Jamaican with the man's hair and there is nothing you can do about it.

Ladies and gentlemen we apologize for that brief detour into Gay disco land, I am pleased to announce that we are back on course with Nico 'We've Got the Gold' from 'The End'.

Deadpan experimentation out of the way we move on to 'Fresh Maggots' and 'Rosemary Hill' from 'Fresh Maggots'... But it's a Re-issue! Traitor! sell out! Tell you what, send me your RCA copy and I'll gladly donate this to the Spastics. 'Rosemary Hill' is nothing short of a shining star. It is what I can only describe as worryingly beautiful and no, I have no idea what that means.

And now there is blood on my sofa.

Mythos just launched us into space with 'Robot Nurse' from their Quasar album. Interesting record this and something that will get it's own review in the very near future. It sounds a lot like somebody took the theme music from the Krypton Factor and decided to turn it into afully blown concept album. Good work Mythos. Not sure if this is where The Locust got their keyboard sound from or not but its exactly the same.

Next up, Suicide is in the house! Okay this was actually about the fifth record I pulled out but things seemed to be going so well I really didn't want to drop a Ramones shaped spanner in the works and spoil the flow, I opt for 'Rocket USA'. I firmly believe that if Sigue Sigue Sputnik hadn't handed he rains over to Pete Waterman for their second album they would be remembered just as fondly as Rev and Vega. 'Flaunt It' has become something of a main stay on my Ipod and it's fucking tight.

Once again I have rigged the vote. Broadcast 'Still Feels Like Tears has to come next. It is the perfect evolution. What is weird is that there are far too many blue looking record sleeves, I mean it's almost spooky, especially when I just pulled Eddie Gale's 'Ghetto Music', another blueish sleeve. The track 'The Rain' is this odd spiritual folk jazz anomaly all detuned acoustic guitars and gospel wailing sandwiched between trumpet attacks. It destroys planets, once again my mix tape is fully operational.

So the length of the opener means that the next song is the last, the closer, the pay-off. So lets see what it is. Back to the rules for this parting shot and no cheating....

Okay, so I cheated. It was the Butthole Surfers but seeing as they featured in the last one of these things I did I figured I would instead pick the next record along which was none other than Jon Lucien's 'Rashida', so we end with the title track. Nice as Jon's voice is even if the lyrics are a bit 'Chocolate Rain' it's the strings that make this: harp, violins, what may or may not be a mellotron. What else do you want for Christmas? I leave the record to play out and to a click.

Anyway, to recap this is how the chips fell, admittedly yes, there was an element of manipulation but nothing beyond grabbing the next record along or thinking 'now is not the time for an eighteen minute jazz odyssey.'

Embryo - Warm Canto

Pink Floyd - One of These Days

Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want

Flying Saucer Attack - In The Light of Time

Pierre Henry - Breathe

Moebius and Plank - News

Tommy James and the Shondells - Candy Maker

Grace Jones - La Vie En Rose

Nico - We've Got The Gold

Fresh Maggots - Rosemary Hill

Mythos - Robot Nurse

Suicide - Rocket USA

Broadcast - Still Feels Like Tears

Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music - The Rain

Jon Lucien - Rashida

So, to conclude, pretty spot on that. I am very much a happy camper and the hunt for more Jon Lucien starts now ! ...Okay, once I have dabbed the congealed blood from my finger and laptop.

TREES - ON THE SHORE

2010-02-09T20:05:00.006Z

So I'm going to go out on a major limb here and say it...

'I want to fuck the chick out of Trees'.

There, it's done, I got it off my chest.

I have no idea what she looks like and my admittedly appalling maths tells me that she is anywhere between 60 and dead years old. Why such a wild and potentially flawed gambit? I hear you ask. Well Celia Humphris for I believe that is her name just presented me with the first music I have wanted to masturbate to since Belinda Carlisle did 'Leave a Light on'. Actually, wait, no. I did briefly flirt with the idea of banging one out to that Hillary Duff single from about five years back as well but anyway...

I have heard this album before but never really given it the attention it so rightly deserves. I am obviously slow to the starting line with this due to the fact it was given a very considered re-issue treatment a couple of years back. Celia's voice is that of an angel, an angel next door wearing a skimpy t-shirt and hockey socks. This record, as I am sure every other site on the net will tell you is nothing short of English Folk gold dust.

All I know of the rest of the band comes from the sleeve notes of a CD compilation called 'Gather in the Mushrooms' and that is that the band is called Trees. Pretty informative I know. I could regurgitate various facts and figures farmed from Wikipedia and the like but I don't really see the point - And that's not just because my internet connection is playing up.

What I will do is briefly lament about the first time I heard that CD. It was on holiday with family and friends in Portugal. The last Johnny Cash album had just come out and that and 'Gather in the Mushrooms' were on heavy rotation from the kitchen table to the balcony and on occasion on the beach. Not exactly holiday music I know but I was making a concerted effort to play something that had a wide reaching appeal. It didn't work and often as not the CDs were being substituted for ABBA and or Tina Turner. If ever they form a supergroup there certain members of my family who could quite literally explode with excitement.

Now let's take a look at the sleeve: Crazy midget woman throwing milk at the camera, okay, well that's great. An exercise in 'how not to sell me a record' if ever there was one. 'On The Shore' looks like it smells of dirty beard hair, cat food and cigarettes which is a shame because the record itself is nothing short of stunning.

Not to say the album isn't without it's dips. The final two tracks on side two 'Little Sadie' and 'Polly on the Shore' explore what can only be described as Country and Western territory and there's just something very odd about these Acid? Folk stalwarts opting to do that, I mean why? Unless of course you are the Stones circa Exile then you can do what you like, all is forgiven. But that really is the only criticism I can level at this work. The instrumentation is beautiful and its played without fault throughout. Now I don't know anywhere near enough about this scene to go into too much detail so all I will say is 'On the Shore' is fucking awesome, go and buy it.

Now all I have to do to complete the picture and satisfy my folk based sexual curiosity is try and outbid those crazy cats on Ebay who seem convinced the band's first album 'The Garden of Jane Delawney' is worth over a hundred quid.

NB: I just successfully Googled a picture of the lovely Celia, yes it was black and white and less than detailed but off the back of this I am more than happy with my opening statement.

GET SOME! Celia you saucy folk music urchin.

TEST SUBJECT 2.b - ROB MARS (FORMERLY OLLIE GRIND OF CRUCIAL YOUTH) NEW YORK, NEW YORK

2010-02-09T13:02:00.008Z

Rob pictured second from right

1.) Why do you think people become obsessive about records?

For me much of record collecting is about the hunt. This has become increasingly easier in the past 15 years with the internet making everything available to us. Prior to that I would be so excited to wake upon a Saturday morning and scour the bins at St Marks Sounds, VenusRecords, and all of the other NY record stores for any of the records onmy list. Records also have a great format to accompany the sleeve art. Once CDsbecame the new format for music it lost its magic. Noone really likes things that are small!

2.) Would you say that you were obsessive about records in the past?

I was most obsessive about records from 1985 to 1995 when I was listeningto mostly punk. The limited pressings and colored vinyl really did it forme. After moving back to NY from Portland I had to give up the obsession due to space issues so I pared down to the essentials.

3.) How many records do you currently own?

Unfortunately when I moved back I sold about 1,500 records so I am down toabout 500 between 12"s and 7"s.

4.) What is your most played record ever?

Because of the rarity of much of my collection I tried to keep it inpristine condition so I would copy them to tape and listen to them from there. I still listen to Slayer "Reign in Blood" at least once a week so that is pretty much my most played record of all times.

5.) What do you think your record 'collection' says about you?

I think a record collection is like an personal diary of your life. There are the dark secrets that lurk with those "soft" albums that you don't want anyone to know about and then there are your passing crushes like those times you actually listened to gangster rap but your collection as awhole gives people the story of your life in musical form.

6.) Favorite sleeve?

Anything Iron Maiden. Up the Irons!!

7.) If the creator of the cosmos could see you record collection what do youthink he would say?

Can I borrow that Cough/Cool 7" right quick!

8.) Which record that you don't have would you most like to magically appearunder your pillow?

The last two records that I never got where Deep Wound 7" (Pre-Dinosaur Jr) and the Last Rites
7" (Boston hardcore pre-Slapshot). Either of thosewould be acceptable.

9.) As a musician and former mover and shaker within the 80s New York HardCore scene, music must have influenced you considerably growing up, what were your pre-hard core listening habbits?

In the 70's I was listening to KISS, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Bruce,Eagles and into the 80's it turned to AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Ozzy which ledme to heavier bands like Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax. I think the punkinfluence from thrash metal led me into black metal, punk, and eventually hardcore.

10.) Can you pinpoint an event in your life that has gone some way to shapingyour listening habits?

In the late 70's I remember riding my bike through the back of my grade school playground and the older neighborhood kids were in the back oftheir pickup drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. They were cranking Led Zeppelin "Black Dog" and I heard it and it was like a voice from God! Iwas changed after hearing Led Zeppelin in a positive way! Denim jackets with patches and cold beer...C'mon.

11.) Do/Did records make you happy?

They made me neurotic when I was collecting but now that I have toned it down I am happy to go through my albums and remember where I was when Igot each one and what I felt on my first listen. I am sad that I sold 3/4 of my collection but I still have the memories.

12.) Record shopping wise what's given you the biggest buzz?

Crossing off the Antidote "Thou Shalt Not Kill" 7" after finding it at anobscure record store in North Jersey. That record is a classic that spawned bands like Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits.

13.) Have you ever dreamt about record shops or record shopping? if so please expand.

My record collecting dreams always dealt with Misfits records. Danzig really new how to hype up rare pressings and limited covers. He has a discography in Thrasher magazine that made me drool trying to find all ofthem. I was so sad when I was back on the train going home to New Jersey with no good finds and knowing that certain records were hanging on thewall at whatever record store.

14.) What is your favorite record store ever?

Venus Records when it was on 61 West 8th Street. I remember it was when Mike Page worked there and he was such a rad dude even though he busted on all of the hardcore kids. Every band traveling through would stop overthere and they always had the rare pressings and colored vinyl behind the counter and would only offer it to you if they liked you. It was a magical time for New York Hardcore and I am happy that I was around to witness the greatness.

15.) Having spent a lot of time in and around the record shops of St Marks Place in NYC do you have any amusing record shopping based stories you mightcare to recount?

Spotting Bernard Goetz in Venus Records when it was on St Marks and myfriend wanting to offer him a Public Enemy record. If you dont know who heis look here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz

16.) How much has that area changed?

I think that Manhattan as a whole has changed since Giuliani really stepped up the police force and made the city a safer place. St Marks used to bethe squatters, punk, alternative hangout but in the past few years it has become restaurant row for mostly Asian restaurants. The food is good but the street is no longer what it was. I think Trash and Vaudeville is the last remaining punk holdout on the block.

17.) How will you dispose of your collection when you die?

Hopefully I can donate it to a museum. Will there be a punk museum by that time?

18.) Do you still have that original 7'' of the Misfits 'Cough Cool'?

I still have all of my Misfits records. They were a band that changed mylife in a good way and I spent so many years looking for that record that I could not part with it.

18.b) Where do you keep it and what time are you at work until most nights?

Its safe in a concrete bunker 3 miles below the earth guarded by vicious fairies armed with lasers.

20.) Name three records that you believe have shaped the universe around you.

Led Zeppelin IV, Slayer "Reign in Blood", and Youth of Today "Can't close my eyes" all for different reasons but they all represented hearing something so new at the time that it still gets played at least once amonth if not more.

21.) Name one album that you believe represents the pinnacle of human musicalachievement

Duuude..any Yngwie Malmsteen record...

22.) Worst album ever made?

In my opinion J esse C amp and the 8th S treet K idz was the worst corporatemarketing wanna be fake punk record ever made. Probably why St Marks fellapart as a punk hangout. Just kidding.

23.) Do you think that collecting records ever had a negative effect on your social life?

Totally the opposite because it involved my friends, traveling to recordstores, going to shows and being a part of a social scene based aroundskateboarding, punk music, DIY fanzines and art.

D.O.C RECORDS - HOLLOWAY, LONDON

2010-02-08T16:07:00.015Z

Three days later I am still really not sure how to put this in to words. Occasionally I write reviews of used record retailers, worship the great, lament the better ones and have a bit of a dig at the shit shops (Da Capo of Berlin I am talking to you). What to do then when you are confronted by a shop so far from the mark you are forced to re-evaluate the past?

I imagine this is how astronomers feel when they discover a new star or a new galaxy, your perspective of distance and time and infinity suddenly alters, changes slightly. Changes drastically.

D.O.C Records is the record shop equivalent of what is known in weather terms as 'a perfect storm': Blind grading, ambitious book based pricing and a stock nested in a dank basement that is what can only be described as patchy at best, the records sandwiched amongst the most impressive collection of over-priced VHS videos I have seen in a long time.

I feel the need to add an upside here on the off chance that the friendly and helpful owner ever reads this: you were both friendly and helpful and for that I thank you.

Now back to painting a picture akin to Bosch's vision of hell...

No i can't, being a blog bitch or wannabe Michael Winner of the record world really isn't me, at least not today. I will just say that the trip was something of a dissapointment especially when you take into consideration the setting: Off a main road in North London, tucked away in a suburban street a long hike for the Asian/European 'Axis of Evil' currency tourists and not mentioned anywhere.

It has all the hallmarks of the thing of legend (Pied Piper Records of Northampton circa '95 for example) a gold mine, a holy temple of all things flat round and plastic. But no. I mean yes, some (and I mean some) of the stock is there: The Stooges - The Stooges first press but it's 195quid and judging by the copy of Led Zep III (Out at EX/NM - Record had a gash across one track making it unplayable) It wouldn't have been worth checking even if I did have an urge to spunk mad money on it.

The main issue with D.O.C however was the fact that something, somewhere in the shop was rotting. From experience it smelled like rats had possibly got between the floorboards before dying and initially that made staying long enough for even the most fleeting of views a bit difficult. I say initially because after about five minutes and around the time I hit the Kinks section my eyes had stopped watering and my lungs had adjusted. Amazing what the human body is capable of enduring for the most paper-thin promise of reward.

'No! Wait, just give me five minuts, I know you can't breathe but there might be a copy of that G.T.Os album in here....Stop crying and look goddamnit!'

And the worst part is this is not my first visit to said shop. I went fully armed with no expectations to be met and no reason to return. It was a Saturday and I was sat in my local pub when I was hit by that 'oh so familiar' overwhelming compulsion to get to a record shop as soon as possible.

The entire trip can be summed up in the words of my chiseling partner for the day...

'Let us never speak of this again.'

TIM BUCKLEY -SERFONIA

2010-01-31T12:30:00.007Z

Sleeping tablets seem like such a good idea at the time: A sure-fire fool-proof good nights sleep. What you tend to forget or push to the back of your mind when popping that 10mg white wonder is 'the morning after', the sleeping pill comedown. I was out of bed for about 11.00am this morning and finally woke up about twenty minutes ago. The interim was spent bouncing around my apartment like a confused and slow motion pinball scoring points off the toilet, sofa and kitchen surface. Ugh...

Even now I am not quite back in the land of the living, one foot still in that place between here and asleep. So was it worth it? An entire morning sacrificed in the name of a nights sleep free of German fucking idiots singing and dancing outside of my window? Yes, I think it was because for the first Nuremberg Sunday in a long time I am not fantasizing about rolling hand grenades down night club stairs, about waiting with a Polaroid at the entrance to start snapping my handiwork, laughing at the limbless as they struggle to escape the flames and debris. Severe yes but noise pollution, sonic torture they do strange things to a man. Strange things.

And talking if 'strange things' (Whoooopa!) Tim Buckley's 'Sefronia' is on my turntable. It's the first time I heard it and I can't for the life of me remember where this copy came from. I imagine I picked it up around Christmas. Now I always had this pinned as 'Bad Buckley' (File along with 'Look At the Fool') but I was obviously wrong. Okay it's not staggering like 'Blue Afternoon' or 'Starsailor' but it's not half bad... Wait, but it kind of is. Half of it is 'not great' so I suppose technically it's 'Half not great'. But let's concentrate on the half, actually more than half if I'm honest that is great. Tim seems to nail it almost every other song, his voice pitch perfect, equal parts tortured genius and Dan Fogelberg and the orchestration is clear crisp and expertly balanced. Oddly enough this is also the records undoing. There are places where it sounds close to Jim Steinmen era Meatloaf 'Bat Out of Buckley' if you will.

I really should give 'Look At the Fool' another go off the back of this. Not least because it's his death rattle, his final act before he accidentally O.D'd on beer and horse. I wonder if he sings about dolphins and 'brown nipples' on on that as well, I do hope so. The song 'Martha' that comes after the idiotic but catchy 'Peanut Man' is really, really good. The strings are fantastic, definitely a keeper.

Something else wonderful about this record is the sleeve. It's the 'Mona Lisa' of record covers. Is he frowning? Is that an 'enigmatic smile'? You really can't tell if he's happy or if he needs a shit. There is obviously something going on inside his head, its just impossible to say what it is. Maybe he had to take sleeping tablets the night before?

So in conclusion, would I stick my neck out and recommend this? Yes, I think I would but with a caveat: This is not 'Star Sailor'... But it's not, not 'Star Sailor' if you get me? Imagine somebody took 'Star Sailor' and put it in the washing machine, hung it out to dry and ironed it really well, well that's kind of 'Serfonia'. Your favorite jeans with a crease ironed down the front of the leg.

VIP RECORD FAIR - KENSINGTON, LONDON

2010-01-27T14:56:00.017Z

'Is it a spiral or a spaceship label?'

'I went to school with Graham Bond, he was a nice chap...yes that's right threw himself under a train at Finsbury Park tube station.'

'I fucking hate you!... I am not a rich man, I live above a hairdressers, here six hundred quid, now give me the fucking record. Thankyou.'

'I have one of the best 'Apple' label collections in the world and I have an acetate of 'Freak Out'... nearly.'

It's official, it would appear that as test subject 1.b so eloquently put it, we truly are all 'cunts'.

On Saturday I spent my morning in the company of men, the likes of whom would no doubt crack old peoples skulls for the right record. Fusty, broken and bent middle aged men who dream of spinning black circles and A.1/B.1 matrix numbers, men who live with their parents, waiting for them to die so that they can turn the family home into more records and downsize. And what's funny is I say this as if I am any different, somehow better. Okay, I don't live at home and I wouldn't wantonly wound or maim anybody for any record...

............STATIC ...........

Okay, that's a much tougher question than I had anticipated it being, I need to park it for now, take it 'off-line' and address it at some point in the near future when I am feeling substantially less 'needy'. Anyway, back to my point, the point I was making when I realized I might consider the life of a vinyl mercenary. I read this back and I sound like I somehow believe that I am better than these trainspotters just because I am at least partially self-aware. Truth is I am here with them, admittedly no, not for the 8.30 'early bird catches the worm' entry but I am there non the less. If I wasn't so helplessly consumed by my obsession right now this would be a downright tawdry place to be, miserable beyond belief. All unpleasant odors and wax jacket and tracksuit pant combinations, sausage-roll snacks and sugar-heavy soft drinks. The entire thing is vinly indigestion, a giant cultural belch. A big fat record burp that smells of the night before, of stale beer, crisps (potato chips) and whatever microwave meal... But it also smells of something else, beneath the initial pungent stench is a very different odor, that of shellac, of the dynaflex, of the carefully stored Garrard Lofthouse card board flip-back sleeve.

Before I move on I feel the need to squeeze out one last 'comparison'. It's like finally coming across a desert oasis, fresh water, palm trees and all only to find it full of dirty hippos, shitting in the water and talking about 'unpeeled Butcher sleeves'.

Fuck it, I am thirsty, I have been walking for days, I dive in and resist as I might, I turn into a hippo.

I actually refrain from talking at these gatherings as much as possible, not just because I am particularly anti-social but because I can never think of anything to say. Too many records, brain focuses all efforts on speeding fingers, cataloguing images with mind...words too difficult bar the occasional 'I'll take those please'.

I stop for a Coke break, for I have fallen slave once again to the mighty caffeine. Merely months ago I had been drug free for almost six years. I deliberately choose a table across from two happy and harmless looking types. Were it not for the encyclopedic babble being spewed from their occasionally foaming mouths I would have had them pinned as 'day release' patients: Both in grey anoraks, v-neck jumpers and brown shoes topped with pleat-front courds. I am guessing at the finer details of the trousers - they are sitting down.

Between them they have two very deep cardboard 7" record mailers, each designed to carry about 100 singles. Inside, what looked to be every single single the Rolling Stones had ever released.

'I seem to remember getting this one off you, yes that's right, Argentinian picture sleeve... lovely... Never played.'

I am caught staring open mouthed, part in adoration and part in wonder at where they live and how. With the hiss of my Coke bottle I get back to my lonely purchase - A mono UK press of Love 'Forever Changes'. Not something I thought I would have in my hands when I woke up this morning and a bargain at 40 quid. As the day goes on this bag will get heavier, eventually multiplying into three gaudy yellow plastic carriers each with the VIP record fair logo and show dates printed on. Eventually they will be flanked by the kind of guilt at over-spending that I try to reserve for particularly well reviewed restaurants.

Now the face of record fairs in the UK has changed a lot since last time I partook. For one the Japanese are gone, no doubt the fair isle of Nippon finally sank under the weight of all the vinyl pillaged from the US and Europe throughout the 90's - Can't say it doesn't serve them right greedy fuckers. Where are you now Tetsuo? What's that? Trade me a water-damaged Mono 'Village Green Preservation Society' for a life preserver? Not this time pal.

The rest of Europe however is here in force taking advantave of a weak currency and air-fairs that cost less than a tank of petrol. Also the prices have gone through the roof - In some cases two zero's added to previous mark ups. Much as I would like a copy I am not about to spend 1250 pounds on Vashti Bunyan's 'Just Another Diamond Day' even if it is 'minty'.

....You do know that 'Minty' isn't actually a word dont you? Unless of course you are referring to the taste of something. It's 'Mint' you fucking moron. You are as bad as the youth who pluralise 'Vinyl' adding an unwanted 'S' to the end.

The second half of my trip down the rabbit hole sees me suck up a very pleasing array of spiritual jazz and rock staples, one dealer in particular is massively helpful. He is selling off a few of his records due to space related issues. Christ only knows how many he has at home. I cruise the remaining stalls aghast at some of the prices, yes these are rare records, but unless you only come here for bragging rights and a hard-on shaped like a Wings 'Back to the Egg' picture disc then really, what's the point?

I also stop by the only store to have multiple copies of the one record I really wanted to come away with Fairport Convention's 'Unhalfbricking' - car boot sale fodder not ten years ago and now touching three digits for a decent first press. I examine all three different versions of the record. Exactly when did EX start meaning Good Plus? I heard this guy banging on about the importance of grading not an hour ago. Would love to see what one of his 'Mint' records looks like... 'Minty' probably.

So, finances at an end and buckling arms I bid a sub-concious farewell to my fellow hopeless chiselers and leaving them to their trestle tables and over-stuffed cardboard boxes I head in the general direction of the bus stop, more than aware that I could have bought a shitty but used car with the money I just spunked up the wall.

Oh the horror.

COIL - SCATOLOGY

2010-01-27T14:22:00.010Z

This record would appear to be massively apt for the current climate and matching mood. This morning it was minus 14, I opened my front door and was assaulted by the kind of cracking and concrete like air that says 'death if you wear the wrong hat'. I have been in colder but it has always been for positive 'happy happy' recreational reasons: Chicago - record shopping, New York - record shopping, Amsterdam - three guesses?

But to be face-raped by this kind of weather not through choice but necessity, fuck if that doesn't ever make me miserable. Not even the weekends spoils (VIP record fair - review to follow) can detract from the fact that right now I am at a psychic low of below-freezing. Right now I am not just questioning my buying habbits but my very leaving the house, nay my bed. The office is shit as ever, two thirds empty and utterly silent. I could be at home listening to 'Scatology' really loud.

So the sound of 'Scatology' is not exactly what you might call 'cheery'. Quite why I put it on last night when I knew I was having trouble raising even the most enigmatic of smiles I don't know, but I did. I suppose after a car journey to Berlin last week that saw Starship's 'We Built This City on Rock n' Roll' played three times I am pretty much impervious to anything.

'Scatology' is integral to Coil's mythology, an important part of their Crowleyesque quasi-non/religious poop and blood worshipping synthesiser based insanity due to it being somekind of beginning. When I first heard of the group it was in association with 'Wax Trax' (Ugh) records and in retrospect I don't know if their brief period with the label was a genuine attempt at selling themselves to the RevCo/Ministry crowd or not. I imagine they had every chance of having a fan base to rival that of Skinny Puppy (musically parallells can be drawn with all three previously mentioned bands) and conquering Canada but it didn't happen. Now was it something to do with releasing a concept album about shitting? About shitting and then playing with it? About squeezing it through your fingers and smearing it on your face? Now I don't know for sure but if ever I felt safe in an assumption it would be now...

Yes you can hear toilets, melancholy 80s keyboards and a very angry John Balance but it's never as base as you might expect. It stops a long way short of anything too toiletty and is wonderfully deadpan throughout. Now unlike their peers (Death in June, C93, NWW etc) Coil actually managed to build on their manifesto of muck rather than falling short in later years. Sonically they became more powerful and visually more exciting but as starting points go this is a good one.

Unrelated: I run the risk of incurring the wrath of Angela Merkel and the German tourist board in saying this but seriously, if you can avoid ever coming to Bavaria ever as long as you live, please do so. It is the black, black heart of a very ugly place and that in mind track one, side two: 'Solar Lodge' - 'Watch the black sun rise.'

Slightly more related: Sadly no, my copy does not have the 'anal staircase' post card pasted on the front sleeve.

UPDATE 20/4/2011: It does now.

TEST SUBJECT 1.b - SEFTON BLATHER OF LONDON, ENGLAND

2010-01-19T12:45:00.004Z

Find below second test subject responses:

1.) Why do you think people become obsessive about records?

Some people are just obsessive, aren’t they? Some people watch porn, some people buy records. Some people do both.

2.) Would you class yourself as obsessive about records?

Yes, but I’m in recovery.

3.) Do you have any 'rules' regarding what you will or will not buy?

No, because that’s not very punk rock, is it? Though having said that, there are certain patterns that I seem to follow. For example, I only buy jazz and reggae on vinyl. I’m not sure why I do this, other than the obvious – I’m a bit of a cunt. If you’re talking about setting restrictions on my purchases like only buying originals, then no – I’m not that much of a cunt.

4.) Approximately how many records do you own?

Just records, not CDs or 7”s? About one thousand six hundred and ninety four.

5.) Is there a reason for your accumulating?

Other than being a cunt? I guess I have always been an insecure person with a desperate craving to belong. Collecting records is like being part of a gang only you don’t have to talk to the other gang members. It’s socialising without having to socialise – perfect for the socially inept. And the generally misanthropic. Working in a record shop for nearly fourteen years may have had something to do with it though. What can I say? I was born to do it – I’ve got chiselling fingers.

6.) What is your most played record?

I don’t know. I’m getting on a bit, so thankfully most of my listening took place before the invention of the ‘play count’. I’ve listened to The Go-Betweens’ 1978-1990 a few times though and Codeine’s Frigid Star has been played once or twice over the years too. As have Philophobia and Hatful of Hollow… But ‘most played record’? Sorry, can’t help you mate. Ask a teenager.

7.) What do you think your record 'collection' says about you? Four letters. Begins with C. Possibly preceded by the word ‘pretentious’. Either that or I’m superfuckingcool. It’s a fine line.

8.) Favorite sleeve?

Too many to choose just one…

Ivor Cutler – Jammy Smears

[“C’mon you fuckers, I’ll take the lot of you on. Who’s first?”]

Bob Dylan – The Times They are A-Changin’

John Phillips – John, the Wolf King of LA

U-Roy – Dread in a Babylon

Elvin Jones and Richard Davis – Heavy Sounds

The Ornette Coleman Quartet – This Is Our Music

Eno, Moebius, Roedelius, – After The Heat

Eno, Moebius, Roedelius, Plank – Begegnungen

Flying Saucer Attack – Flying Saucer Attack

The Fall – Hex Enduction Hour

Contortions – Buy

Silvester Anfang – Satanische Vrede

But if you were to push me into a corner and wave a loaded gun in my face, I’d probably have to go for Vivian Jackson and the Prophets’ fantastic Conquering Lion.

Forget black dudes in sharp suits and pasty white kids with pillow cases over their heads trying to look scary; forget giant plumes of marijuana smoke and drug fucked daughter fuckers wearing top hats. This sleeve is an absolute joy; it’s so vibrant and colourful, it just makes me smile – even though the kid looks kind of sad. (Weirdly the only pictures I could find online were really pink, the sleeve I have is a wonderful red.)

[Incidentally, Vivian Jackson aka Yabby You died on 12th January 2010. Once more death edges a little closer.]

9.) What record are you currently searching for?

I don’t do a whole lot of ‘searching’ any more (as I say, I’m in recovery), but I still like a good chisel when I get the chance. I’d quite like to get my hands on an original copy of Arthur Doyle plus 4’s Alabama Feeling. And Center of the World Vol. 1 and 2 by Frank Wright Quartet. Oh, and I wouldn’t say no to a copy of Crippled Pilgrims’ 1984 EP Head Down-Hand Out (on Fountain of Youth). But I’m also looking forward to getting Richard Skelton’s new album Landings. It’s not just about old rare records, you know. And I don’t suppose I’ll ever really stop.

10.) Is there a visual side to your accumulating of records?

Well, I don’t use a colour swatch when I go record shopping, if that’s what you mean. But I have bought plenty of records over the years just because they had a good sleeve, Music From the Far North, for example, which is a compilation of Finnish and Swedish folk songs on Argo from 1967 (my copy even has the bottom right hand corner completely torn away); and Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show by Neil Diamond, which looks so good you forget it’s a Neil Diamond album and is almost as good as it looks. There are many more.

11.) Can you pinpoint an event in your life that has gone some way to shaping your listening habits?

What like playing football as a kid and being told by the coach that proper footballers don’t wear pants? It’s a bit of an odd question, Matt. But if you insist… when my son was born we listened to a hell of a lot of reggae. For some reason he really liked Prince Far I, particularly the track ‘Tribute to Bob Marley’ from Voice of Thunder. I’ve heard it’s got something to do with the rhythm being similar to that inside the womb, but that might just be reggae bollocks. As my son got older and moved in to his own room, I found myself listening to more music in the car – a twenty-five year old grey Volvo estate – cruising round the back streets of south-east London, with the window wound down, the sunroof open, listening to Billie Holiday and the Beach Boys’ 20 Golden Greats really fucking loud. Sometimes I wish I smoked a pipe.

12.) Do records make you happy?

Of course. And sometimes they make me cry. Sometimes they make me want to drink. Sometimes they make me want to jump up and down like a crazy man and punch people in the face. But I guess you mean, ‘do records, ie the physical slabs of black vinyl, make me happy?’ Then no – they’re just slabs of black vinyl. It’s all about the music, isn’t it? Or is it? There is definitely something about records. Aesthetically, I mean. I have always got more pleasure pulling a record out of a bag than a CD or a fucking cassette. Turning the sleeve in your hands, studying it, feeling the weight of it, slipping the record out of the inner, placing it on the deck, dropping the needle into the shallow groove… the ritual of it. Yes, records make me happy. But sometimes they make me feel empty and shallow. Like drinking and wanking.

13.) Record shop wise what's given you the biggest thrill?

If you’re talking about purchases, then it’s got to be the time David Tibet sold a load of records in to the shop where I was working, including these Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp records that I’d been after for ages, things like Black Gypsy and Pitchin Can. Stashing those records felt pretty good. As did buying a UK original version of Noah Howard’s Black Ark for about fifteen quid. Otherwise, listening to Trout Mask Replica. For some reason, it always sounds amazing when played in the shop. Same with the Minutemen.

14.) Do you ever dream about record shops or record shopping? if so please expand.

No, I’m not mental.

15.) What is your favorite record shop ever?

MVE, 28 Pembridge Road, Notting Hill, late nineties. Don’t get me wrong, it was shit, really shit – stocked with the worst records that no-one wanted to buy, we’re talking the real dregs, and most of the customers were worse – but I worked there with these really great guys and I fucking loved it. Shit records though… Or maybe Norman’s, which was a stall in Gravesend Market. It’s where the chiselling began. I was still at school and we’d go down there at lunchtime, all excited, and flick through the racks buying all these white labels and records by bands we’d never heard of like The Flaming Mussolinis and Fra Lippo Lippi. But are either of these my favourite record shop ever? Probably not.

16.) Having worked in a record store for some time, describe the 'amusing record shop based event' that springs most quickly to mind.

There was this time a bloke came to the counter to sell a load of records. I asked him if he had any ID. He didn’t and he started getting all annoyed, like ‘don’t you know who I am?’ He then went over to the racks and came back with a copy of The Only Ones’ Baby’s Got A Gun and threw it on the counter, saying: “Will this do?”. I turned to a colleague who shrugged his shoulders, suggesting it was OK. Ten minutes later I turned to my colleague and said: “How the fuck was I to know that there was a short, fat, bald bloke in The Only Ones?” I looked up, and John Perry was standing right next the till, not three feet away, flicking through Rock & Pop A-B….

17.) How will you dispose of your collection when you die?

I won’t, I will be dead. My son will place them in a boat, set them on fire and push them out to sea, acrid black smoke reaching into the sky. In his hand he will be holding one record from the collection that he has carefully selected that he will treasure and play each subsequent year at the exact time of my death. Who fucking cares? I will probably have sold the lot years before in order to pay child maintenance.

18.) Are you allergic to nuts?

Nope.

19.) Name three records that you believe have shaped the universe around you.

‘Oh’, ‘Fuck’ and ‘Off’.

20.) Name one album that you believe represents the pinnacle of human musical achievement.

‘The pinnacle of human musical achievement’? Will you listen to yourself? Christ. The original soundtrack to Fame? What about Double Nickels on the Dime? It’s punk, it’s jazz, it’s funk, it’s a little bit country and you know it got soul. Hell, it’s even got Van Halen. D. Boon and Mike Watt – fucking corn-dogs.

21.) Worst album you ever bought?

This is where I bang on about Sgt. Pepper’s being shit, isn’t it? The thing is, I’ve never bought Sgt. Pepper’s. Why would I? And that’s why I’m really struggling with this. It’s not the worst album I’ve ever heard, but the worst I’ve bought. Sure, I’ve bought plenty of records over the years that turned out to be a bit shit, records that have gone straight into the trade pile – often without a full listen (you can just tell, why waste more time than you need to, huh?) But none of them was Sgt. Pepper's. Or Celine Dion, for that matter. So which of this bad lot was the worst? I just don’t know. I mean, who remembers the shit ones? You don’t make note of a bad wank. Do you? That said, I once saw Coldplay live at Glastonbury because my wife wanted to see them, and before the first song had even reached the chorus, I turned to my wife, said “Hold this”, handed her my pint and puked all over her shoes. I remember that.

BALTIK - BALTIK

2010-01-17T21:25:00.001Z

The snow is melting like the wicked witch of whereverthefuck and with this the week starts a new. A weekend of nothing aside of the usual is behind me: drink, slouching, being kept away by roudy Germans leaving the night club opposite, pasta and this...

To be honest my motto of 'Always judge a record by it's cover' has a pretty low success rate, I have no idea where it came from but it's my motto so get your own. Take Baltik - Baltik for example. It looks incredible, important, like the missing link between Nordic Prog and Black Metal. It isn't.

Baltik starts with the kind of twin guitar assault that brings to mind lazy period Big Country at best. It is nothing short of disgusting. It's the theme from Top Gear but in slow motion and without the pay-off of watching Clarkson be borderline racist about motor vehicles. Sadly the pain doesn't stop there. Track two and the majority of side one is late seventies show tune ballads with the kind of soft rock accompaniment that betrays the sleeve as much as it is instantly forgettable.

So why do I own this? All I can say is that it sounded a lot better when it was played to me at a friends house. In fairness the second side is an improvement and the female lead is solid throughout but its not enough to change the fact that this is a pop/rock album that has been blown up and bloated by those crazy beat collecting guys, labeled inaccurately with the 'P' word (Prog) and had its price hiked way beyond where it should be.

Regardless of the fact that the vast majority of this record is dishwater dull I won't be getting rid of it just yet. The last track 'Long Long Weekend' is good, and for now at least enough to save the entire dire mess. And besides that, the sleeve is so convincing that I can almost pretend to myself that it really is some kind of long lost break-through Pagan Electronic Drone LP.