RADIO 6 VINYLS DAY

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.

SIMON FINN - PASS THE DISTANCE

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.

JAN FRYDERYK CREATIVE SOUND - FAUN

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.

COIL - SCATOLOGY

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.