TIM BUCKLEY -SERFONIA

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...

VIP RECORD FAIR - KENSINGTON, LONDON

'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'.

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.

TEST SUBJECT 1.b - SEFTON BLATHER OF LONDON, ENGLAND

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.

BALTIK - BALTIK

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.

BEYOND ALL HOPE - EXCERPT FROM 'VINYL' DOCUMENTARY

Every record shop in every town has at least one total nut-bag and I would pay money to know which shop this particular punter calls home. I could quite literally watch him all day long... From a safe distance of course, say fifty feet back and from behind a protective barrier.

What makes this guy so special aside from his quest to own a copy of every single song ever made, is that he combines the whole obsessive 'record collector' thing with the multiple murderer look so well. It's flawless. I quite literally would not blink if he pulled a cheer leaders severed head from behind his back and began singing 'Heartbreak Hotel' to it.

I do wonder if I still worked in a record shop whether I would be brave enough to observe and document this man's character or if I would just panic and call the police every time he widened his eyes in my general direction. Still, knowing that he exists (or existed) makes me feel like my shit is not far off being together and for that Mr 'K-Tel Memory superstar' I thank you.

 

TEST SUBJECT 1.a - SELF (CONTROL SAMPLE)

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


I think it takes a 'special' type of person, somebody who is maybe obsessive/compulsive in other parts of their life. It could also have something to do with man's need to hoard, to gather. As for why specifically records? Is it that different to books? Not really, although there is something marginally more acceptable and less 'trainspotty' about somebody who buys a lot of books. I don’t think there is any one single thing that makes a 'record obsessive'. I have looked for a common denominator amongst friends and ex-colleagues but nothing really stuck out aside of a love of music from an early age. I was hoping to find a repeat pattern: torturing neighborhood cats or collecting the hair clippings of female classmates, no such luck. At this point my career as a record collector profiler has hit a brick wall.

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.