BOOKER TO AND THE MGS - UP TIGHT

'Wont somebody help me please.'

I know Fredrick Knight has nothing to do with this record, (although I think they are both on Stax) this was actually more of a genuine cry for help.

I got rid of my copy of 'Up Tight' less than two months ago. It was a reissue I bought on holiday in Spain, again with my mate Nathan. On this occasion the event sticks in mind not because of the record shop but because of the fact that we ended up getting stuck in the town of Gerona after somebody misread a bus time-table. Anyway. 'Up Tight' goes out... Then yesterday, guess what? 'Up Tight' comes back in. So that's great but can I ask why? Yes, because this time it's a shiny U.S First press with a nice pasted on back sleeve and it smells great.

PRECURSOR TO A DISSECTION

Above: Stamford Prison Experiment (The actual experiment, not the band)

I have decided it is time to try and take things to the next level, to go some way to explaining away man’s fascination with vinyl records in more scholastic terms. In order to do this I have approached various people and asked them to answer a series of questions in a loose interview format: The idea being that this examination or dissection if you will might reveal enough about ‘us’ to piece together some kind of rough behavioural study.

GRIMEY'S RECORDS - NASHVILLE. TN

It’s my wedding anniversary today and once again I am too far away from home to celebrate with anything more than a wank and a bowl of ravioli (not necessarily in that order). I really need to get my personal geography sorted before I loose the gift of communication with other human’s completely. If only I had the patience or brain capacity for a second language maybe then I would turn into an honest to God social butterfly and flitter my way to a planet sized promotion not just at work but also in my social life.

DOROTHY ASHBY - THE RUBAIYAT OF DOROTHY ASHBY

So I have decided to risk being struck by purist lightning and review a reissue. Why the change of heart?  Have I gone soft and handed in my Record Shop Fascist membership card? Not exactly although there was a moment of realization a few days ago following a conversation on the subject. There are gaps in the records that I own, some of which will most likely never be filled because I have an idiot 'no barcode'/first press only policy (It swings from one to another to suit). This record for example - 'The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby', never seen a decent copy for less than a couple of hundred dollars and that is for me crossing a line - the used car line. Shit as it might be, you could buy a used car for around the same sort of money.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: Record shop?

So in alcoholic terms, it has been four days since my last purchase.

Yes the weekend saw the briefest of browsings but nothing more. How do I feel? I just hope my local is still open by the time I am done at work. If the weather hadn't been such a headline hogging whore (Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow!) I might have made it to one of several new and un-sacked (at least by me) record shops. Unfortunately, as it is I had to make do with the kind of scraps you might feed a dog: A novelty LP bin on the corner of a TV memorabilia stall at Spitalfields market, a dog-eared pile of 80's fayre outside an antiquest stall in the East end. Nothing that was ever going to be even remotely fruitful. Still, it kept my fingers busy, the craving at bay however temporarily.

THE MISFITS - WALK AMONG US

Challenge to self: Review this record without mentioning the weather once.

The Misfits back catalogue is a mess, endless live albums, re-released live albums, best of compilations, E.Ps and this 'Walk Among Us', the bands only real full length record. Yes there have been others since the re-apropriation of the name courtesy of the cartoon antics of which ever surviving members ill-advised attempt at a resurrection we are talking about this week: Point missing, post-event foot notes, the kind of records that make you squirm when you casually flick through the 'US Punk' section. But enough of baiting Jerry and Doyle and back to the glory days...

POSSIBLY THE GREATEST RECORD SHOPS IN THE WORLD (# 2 in an occasional series) COB RECORDS PORTHMADOG, WALES

It has been far too long since I last visited Cob Records but I just googled it and it would appear that they are still very much there http://www.cobrecords.com/

In the absence of a first hand trousers down drop and cough style examination I cannot really review it in the present tense, although I looked at their on-line catalogue and they do have a copy of Yoko Ono's 'Fly' for twenty quid which is a steal (as long as it has the poster - with or without post card, fluxus eye thing) so I feel that it is safe to assume that at least some of the magic that made Cob (First opened in 1967) so incredibly special is still there.

FRIPP AND ENO - NO PUSSYFOOTING

So, another year, another review.

Although the modern calendar dictates that my surroundings are a year older than they were last week everything looks pretty much the same. It's still snowing and I am still spending far too much time record shopping.

'And what did the festive season bring?' I hear you ask. Despite the record snowfall and drifts I did manage to squeeze in a brief flying visit to Record Collector in Sheffield courtesy of one particular brave taxi driver. Was the journey worth the cab fair? Hells yes. There is always something in that shop worth having a punt on. It's just a massive shame there are no listening facilities - That said, guy with the 90's indie hair that works there is more than happy to play stuff for you. I just didn't want to take the piss.

END OF THE DECADE HOT 10 MUSICAL ROUND UP OF THE HOT 10 OF BEST EVER 10 HOT LP ALBUMS OF THE HOT 10 DECADE

'Hey evah baddah wuur Jedwards!' Jedwards

Seeing as the world and his wife seems to have got in on the Pitchfork style list-o-mania to mark the end of this decade in modern music I decided it only right that I should be in on the act.

I read a lot of other peoples lists and nobody seemed to get it quite right, a few publications forgot that the U.S existed (Guardian/NME), others that the year 2000 is actually part of this decade (Stereogum) and it seemed to slip the collective minds of all involved that 'Metal' became a legitimate musical force over the last ten years and should no longer be prisoner of it's own genre specific year/decade end lists. My personal favorite other than the fact that Thom Yorkie obviously bought Pitchfork.com sometime in 2003, was that somehow Kasabian seemed to have convinced Britain's only surviving weekly music paper that 'Pauper Lunar Piper Fuckface' was in fact not a joke album.

I've left this late on the off chance that something might come up the inside lane to both stagger and shock me like The XX managed to do with their debut. This has not happened. The past few months in contemporary music have been what wine connoissuers might call dry and tasteless. Initially I had this down as a list of fifty, then thirty but decided I was being a bit too wishy washy, had a failure to commit and forced myself to cut away not only all of the chaff but half the wheat as well.

This should be in reverse Miss World order but it's not. If you would like to view it this way scroll to the bottom and work up.


TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE DACADE...

DR. JOHN THE NIGHT TRIPPER - GRIS GRIS

Times like these you wonder if eating a pommegranite is really worth the time and effort it takes. I say that not as a clever segue into this review, suggesting that the piece is hard to get into and ultimately perhaps not worth it but because I am actually eating a pommegranite as I type.

Things we know about Dr. John...

• Dr. John sang the theme music to nineties teen sit-com 'Blossom'.
• Dr. John is not in fact a doctor
• Dr. John's real name is Malcomn

Dr John, also released 'Gris Gris' in 1968, a record so fiercely individual that I am more than happy to wipe his slate clean, forget the fact that he not only lied about his name but also his occupation, forget that 'In his opinionation the sun is gonna surely shine.'

THE WORLDS BIGGEST RECORD COLLECTION... IT'S SHIT

It's bigger than a really big house, it weighs more than a planet (probably) and if you were going to count each record on a seperate finger you would need 3 million fingers. And it's for sale... 

http://www.thegreatestmusiccollection.com/

Or should I say, it's STILL for sale. Why hasn't it sold? Because it's shit. Okay, it's not all shit, but the vast majority of it, realistically 95% of the worlds biggest record collection is utter donkey doo. Why? Because Paul Mawhinney (proud owner) never learned the word 'Filter'. Filter, filter, filter.

SATURDAY NIGHT - RANDOM MIDDLE AGED AGORAPHOBIC MIX TAPE

Why are you staying in alone on a Saturday night?

Because It's snowing outside, because its really fucking cold.

Why are you really staying in alone on a Saturday night?

Because I have mental problems.

I have been extended two separate Festively themed invitations for this evening both of which I have declined employing the most paper thin of excuses, cheap brown finger toilet-roll thin excuses. It is cold outside, but is that really reason enough to be sat in alone shut away from the world on a Saturday night? I know that in reality a Saturday night should be no different from any other day of the week but popular Western culture dictates that it's something else, something special. Saturday night is after all alright for fighting, worth spelling out whilst wearing platform heels and tartan trousers, a roller-skating jam and whatever the fuck it was Whigfield said it was. (I only recall the pigtails and Balearic piano).

BRAINTICKET - PSYCHONAUT

Question: What record starts off making you feel like you are a miner on the face of music? A miner crawling, cramped through a dark passageways, his way lit only by the lamp on his helmet, chipping away a the rock face, a miner who has just struck a thick vein of musical amazingness, the likes of which he didn't think was even possible? What record starts like this and ends sounding like off-cuts from the spit-roast corpse of Emerson, Lake and indeed Palmer?

Answer: See Above.

ALAN VEGA - ALAN VEGA

Have a cracking Christmas...At Woolworths.

Over a year after I first googled 'Woolworths Christmas advert' the images, especially now haunt me like the hastily buried corpse of a young boy might. No, even that doesn't quite go to explain the sheer horror and sickness I felt when I first watched a combined cast of The Goodies, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Russian dancers, Ballerinas and that woman with the bowl cut present their Yuletide extravaganza. I really don't want to go into too much detail because I need to do anything I possibly can to stop the images coming to life in my head so all I will do is post a link so that if you really do feel like you must see the above ensemble attempt to sell you Maxell C90 Cassettes and the like all to the sound of some ABBA meets Brotherhood of Man evil supergroup you can. Link and article continue after the break.

ALICE COLTRANE - WORLD GALAXY

So I can't think of a better way to end the weekend than on a cloud of other-worldly harp strings and dramatic orchestration courtesy of Alice Coltrane. The sinister interludes and occasional dischord are not helping my hangover but it could be so much worse and besides the state of my head is entirely my fault. I attempted to drink myself to a level of inebriation that would mean that my ears stopped working, that the cunts outside with their cigarettes and endless Germanic chatter, their laughing and joking would leave me be just for one night. It worked - The price is a hell like cranial throbbing that has definied much of my day. This aside I do feel all the better for one nights full and undisturbed sleep - I just try and see it as practice for fatherhood. The nocturnal interruptions that is rather than the binge drinking.

DAVID BOWIE - LODGER

If I slept last night I don't remember it. For somewhere that looks dead and is closed at least half the time this particular part of Nuremberg is noisy as fuck. It' starts around nine o'clock, the doorway opposite my apartment is a night club and next to it a seemingly lawless drinking establishment, one that thinks nothing of opening until 6.00am Monday morning. When these mother fuckers finally shut up shop the street cleaners take up the mantle and make as much noise as they can cleaning up the broken glass and cigarette ends. Then, then it's up to the builders a few doors down to keep me awake.

PORTISHEAD - DUMMY

'It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under uh-huh huh huh huh.'

So once again the god of 'Pulling records at random from the shelf ' shines on me with this. Not even sure of the last time I listened to it but I do know it totally fucking rules. So, first time I heard it? I got this copy shortly after it came out, I remember buying the 12 of 'Glory Box' exhausting it as what the youth of today might call a 'shagging' record and then finally buying this. The album made things a lot easier, no more getting up partially clothed from a sex bed to skip a needle back to the start of a five minute song, the album bought me time, a whole twenty minutes per side (or similar).

T REX - TANX

Although I am still reeling from the awesomess of one recent purchase in particular: The below Sergio Mendes LP, there has been much room for this particular album in my life over the past week. For reasons unknown I halted my exploration of all things T Rex at Slider. When I was about 13 I had a double cassette compilation that included works beyond that but beyond playing it in the car with my dad as an exercise in bridging the generation gap I remember little of it.

'He died in a car crash y'know, drove his mini into a tree.'

'Really? I thought he'd be driving a Jeep.'

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 16.22 (PINK FLOYD - ATOM HEART MOTHER)

So during the course of today's exercise my readership has actually reduced by a staggering 10%, conceeded there were only ten 'readers' at the beginning of the day but that is still the kind of loss you don't want to highlight in a pie chart beaming onto the boardroom wall. Maybe I need to be doing more swearing? Less self analysis and more talking about music. Pretty sure I could treble the readership if I refocussed the content to included my second hobby of compulsive pornography viewer. 'Records I am listening to on my record player and pornography I am watching on the internet.' ... Might actually be something in that, just need to work on the title.

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 15.33 (DJALMA CORREA - BAIAFRO)

I just used Babelfish (an online translation application) to explain to a customer that I would not be buying his records because I was only looking after the shop. Truth be known, had he not already come from the record shop next door who had refused them I might have had a look, but if they had turned them down then, wow, they were shit.

In the time lapsed I have hidden from one customer - a guy from work, not because my temporary second job might be viewed as a conflict of interests but rather because I am an anti-social shit who makes uneccesarily heavy work of occaional pleasantries. At times I am utterly incapable of even a 'Hi how are you', I mean, yes I can say the words, but can I do it without sounding insincerre, without sweating, looking awkward? That's a negatory.

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 14:28 (SERGIO MENDES & BRASIL '77 - RAIZES)

A lady with three of her front teeth missing just tried to sell me some CDs.

Shortly afterwards another customer appears, a polite browser, no discerning features. I pretend I am German and nod as he talks. Eventually he leaves and I am alone with Sergio Mendes and his Brasil '77. Good album this. A million light years away from the mid to late 60's fodder more readily associated with lift muzak. This is something of a tribal/world/spooky free jazz sound clash. Well, less of a clash, more of a blend, it's probably a lot like coffee or something.

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 13.30 (LINDA MCCARTNEY - WIDE PRAIRIE)

Okay so it looks like the record player is, for now at least back up and running. Personally I can't think of a better way of celebrating the fact than seeing what this sounds like. I am for obvious reasons full of anticipation here. This is where Paul's very own Yoko get's to flap her wings (Wings! Get it?). Linda's musical history is forever tainted by the isolated sound desk tapes of her 'backing singing' that did the rounds in the late 80's. This in mind I am expecting something as wonderful as the Shaggs here...

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 13.01 (GAL COSTA - LEGAL)

This could turn into somekind of endurance blogging, a veritable marathon of typing reviews of records, CDs rather that I really don't want to be listening to. This in mind I reserve the right to abandon 'Operation:Record Shop' without prior notice, not least because up to now my day reallty isn't worth writing about.

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 12:28 (POPOL VUH - HOSIANNA MANTRA)

I forgot to mention in my last log the reason for it's running late. Didn't have a password for the computer.

Anyway, by this point the record player has inexplicably stopped working and I can't find the lights for the back of the shop. I suffered through more Steve Windwood/Traffic than any man should have to. I had been under the impression that I needed a copy of 'John Barleycorn...' but beyond the drums and flute of 'Freedom Rider' it really is a nothing record.

LIVE RECORD SHOP REPORT 12:07 (BLACK SABBATH - BLACK SABBATH)

So my day has not panned out quite as expected thusfar. Currently I am sat in near darkness listening to a scratched CD copy of Traffic's 'John Barleycorn Must Die'. Battling with the Ys and Zs of a German keyboard. Anywaz the day so far...

CELEBRATING MY 80th ENTRY

I wanted to do something special to celebrate that all important 80th anniversary. According to the internet In wedding terms I would be celebrating my 'oak' anniversary, which is interesting. I would have guessed at some precious stone above diamond, but no, coffin wood it is. Anyway, I got to thinking, I should review a Black Oak Arkansas album or something or other to do with wood, but then I thought, 'no, that's a shit idea'.

Then as luck would have it something truly wonderful happened...

CODEINE - THE WHITE BIRCH

...It's the most wonderful time of the year! (sung with equal parts gusto and Christmassy cheer)

Traditionally, and when I say traditionally I actually just mean the past four or five years, rather than say since I was four, this record and a handful of others will now stay on heavy rotation until the weather lifts and the bears come out of their caves. This basically means I will hear it at least twice weekly until the end of March.

TIM MAIA - TIM MAIA RACIONAL

So what do we know about Tim Maia? We know he is dead, that he died in 1998, that he was a Brazilian singer song writer who did not age as well as he might (his head in particular changed shape in a very non flattering way as his twilight years approached). We also know that in 1975 he recorded the album Racional. At this time Tim was a member of the Universe in Descenchant cult.

VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO - THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

I decided to wait until I finally had an early press of this before commiting it to the annals. Reviewing anything other than an original peelable banana sleeve just seemed criminal, as if something was missing from the experience.

I finally found an 'affordable' copy on returning from my holidays. In fairness I had seen it before waving at me from the racks, slightly too expensive and with an unfortunate case of spine wear creeping at least three inches from the base to just below the title writing. I could just about see past the fact that the top of the banana has seperated about 20mm down and that the print at the edges is dulling but the spine, something I am particularly anal about always put me off until now.

BACK

So I am back. After a pregnant pause of nigh on a month my fingers are tapping away as they recover from a night of making up for lost record shop time. Already my tan is fading, patches of peeling skin forming on my shoulders as my shit turns back to normal. Sierra Leone saw everything ranging from 'runny like soup' to trying to pass an sizeable unsanded wooden stump... But this is 32RPM and not Brownycolwny.Blogspot.com so I shall cease and desist with that particular line of copy.

BILL PLUMBER AND THE COSMIC BROTHERHOOD - BILL PLUMBER AND THE COSMIC BROTHERHOOD

This was supposed to be a review of Blue Cheer's 'Oh! Pleasant Hope', that being the record I am most excited about at the moment but I can't find it so this will have to do.

So what happens when an insurance salesman from Wisconsin drags his pals away from the bi-weekly 'Lodge of the Hectic Moose' meeting and convinces them to pick up and play a host of Indian instruments? 

This is what happens.

DINO VALENTE - DINO VALENTE

I feel sick. I've eaten too much. Well it was either that or the ill advised horizontal lying down that I decided to get with as soon as I was done with the eating. For some reason my re-heated chili and rice dinner fueled me with the urge to take to the sofa, legs slightly elevated courtesy of the chair arm. Now I am paying the price. My digestive system is truly confused and my body hates me.

DICK HYMAN - THE AGE OF ELECTRONICUS

When I was younger, when I first heard of this guy, his name used to have me in fits of hysterics. Fifteen or so years later I just about have it under control, it hasn't been an easy few years though, I mean 'dick' and 'hymen' in same name? Whilst it was never as tough as when I first found out that American's said 'period' instead of full-stop, it was tough going non the less.

BAD BRAINS - ROCK FOR LIGHT

Scouting through Pitchfork.com's end of the decade round up the news that the ipod has been around less than ten years genuinely shocked me. How quickly we forget the joys of our first walkman and the invention of the auto reverse button.

In retrospect it has been a busy decade for music based technologies. The CD died, against all odds the vinyl record came back (to some extent, although not sufficiently to save a lot of already very average record shops), record labels spent much of the latter part of the past ten years shitting their collective pants as it became increasingly obvious that the vast majority of the public really were more than happy taking music without paying for it. Not sure what they expected, the MP3 makes music invisible and by default worthless to many. No more impressing girlfriends with your neatly catalogued CD collection...

PHAROAH SANDERS - WISDOM THROUGH MUSIC

As a silent protest to the fact that the whole of Germany is on involuntary consumer lock-down in the shape of a public holiday that falls on a Saturday I have spent almost the entire weekend in bed, a bed-in if you will, a John Lennon like gesture to the world, sadly without a young Yoko Ono to keep me from writing bad rock n' roll. The main difference being that time was spent, not talking to the press or sleeping but rather watching series 2 of Prison Break. I can hear Angela 'the haircut' Merkel shaking in her ill-advised fuck me boots from here. I showed her. I showed them all... Kind of.

FRANCIS BEBEY - HEAVY GHETTO (ANTI APARTHIED MAKOSSA)

So September was quiet, it was never intentional, just happened that way. Any record buying pattern that I might have went unchanged, I managed a trip to Amsterdam, London and spent more than a fair share of my time in my two (count 'em) local haunts. They weren't particularly forthcoming with the proverbial goods until last Thursday night. Could have been an aligning of the stars, some mystical payback for a pretty shitty week, who gives a fuck. After a good couple of weeks of digging with nothing to show for it aside of 'record fingers' I finally hit something resembling pay dirt.

THE TURTLES - THE TURTLES PRESENT THE BATTLE OF THE BANDS

Tough record to sell to me this. As forgiving in nature as I am it is almost impossible to see past the fat speccy cunt that takes up half the sleeve. Not even Oliver Reed (Top Right) can help.  I have had this record forever and I cant remember where I got it from. I  manage to make mental note of the approximate price and origin of pretty much every record I have - because I am THAT exciting, but this one, hmmm, this one is a mystery. Maybe it was planted on me, or maybe it was always there, an unnoticed prop in my formative years, under my bed as a hormonal teen discovering myself with the help of some cheap magazine.

MUDDY WATERS - AFTER THE RAIN

As the leaves fall, the clocks turn and we bid farewell to yet another Summer a wasted my journey into 'The Blues' begins in earnest and has already pulled up what can only be described as double fucking awesome or DFA for short.

Aparently in an attempt to make Muddy Waters (And Howlin' Wolf) more relevant to 'the kids' Chess records 'suggested' they make electric/psych albums. Muddy's was called 'Electric Mud' something I am yet to hear and currently trying to get a copy of... 'After the Rain' is what followed. According to various sources this still holds much of the previous album's appeal but isn't such an obvious move in a new and for the artist unwanted direction. Muddy went on record as describing 'Electric Mud' as 'Utter shit'.

EARL HOOKER - 2 BUGS AND A ROACH

So prior to this my knowledge of the blues was nothing beyond remembering to name check Robert Johnson when the subject arose. For whatever reason I have never had the slightest interest in the genre, as soon as the blues or a bit of the old boogie woogie crept into anything that did enter my statosphere it was instantly dismissed with a swift lifting of the needle.

I say 'for whatever reason', who am I kidding, I know exactly why I have given 'the blues' such a wide berth... Three words 'Gary Fucking Moore'. Now he was alright while he was busy pretending to be a guitar carrying soldier widdly diddling over marching drums but then he did his blues album and... well, it's fucking crud.

GINGER BAKER - STRATAVARIOUS

Although music historians may contest this, the Derek and Clive fan's amongst us know who Ginger Baker is. Ginger Baker went to Africa to 'teach the blacks how to drum'. So as inventor of tribal rhythm and it seems drumming itself the man has a lot to live up to.

Well much of his career was spent sporting a very fucking brave ginger beard, the kind that (gingerness aside) many a Hoxton hipster would shoot their mum for right now. So cool beard -Brownie points. Same points deducted for Cream. I have tried and tried with this band and despite the sleeve of 'Disraeli Gears' being nothing short of a full blown corker, I've never made it all the way through. My passionate distaste for the boy Clapton doesn't help but that aside, electric blues, it seems is just not my thing, especially at the hands of a bunch of London? dandies who couldn't be further removed from the root reason of Blues if they tried.