Even though they formed and released an album before most of the other well known punk rock bands, Australia’s The Saints get overlooked as one of the genre’s formative bands. They are still going (albeit through many line up changes) but the only alum that I would recommend is the 1977 debut (I’m) Stranded which features the excellent song on the same name.
I made the mistake of buying a three CD box set of some of their later stuff which has a smoother mid tempo pop-rock sound. I’ve only heard it a couple of times.
What I want to listen to is the early up-tempo raw buzz saw guitar type stuff that’s like the Australian Ramones.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the
smile upon the face I never thought I'd see you again...especially here in this Greyhound station...on Christmas Day...in 1998.”
Its that happy time off year, right? Yeah but what is the worst thing about Christmas? Well the shopping for presents is a bit of a headache. So are the Christmas songs. I don’t mean the Christmas carols I mean the same songs that get churned out every year. You know the ones. There’s no escape from them.
Shopping for presents in a crowded shopping centre that has the heating on fall blast and the same songs played over and over in every shop. That’s the worst part of Christmas.
But a seasonal song that I will be playing is the Jim White’s Christmas Day. Its not the most festive of songs festive songs and I certainly wouldn’t like to be stuck at a bus stop on Christmas day, but one of the great things about it is that there isn’t a sleigh bell to be heard anywhere.
“Now I'm out of prison, I got me a friend at last. He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie. His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen. Together we're gonna wait around and die."
Waiting ‘Round To Die is of course the classic Townes Van Vandt song about a man that goes from place to place to escape his troubles and finds some more on the way. It’s a stand out classic that many artists have covered. And the best cover of the song that I’ve heard has to be from The Be Good Tanyas which appeared on their second album Chinatown.
Okay so it may not come close to the version that Townes Van Vandt performs on the documentary Heartworn Highways [which is even better than the recorded version] but that could never happen.
Cam Butler is an Australian guitarist and composer who’s music I’ve just began getting into. From what I’ve heard of the guitar work it atmospheric, dark and melodic. Though I’ve not yet heard much of the string stuff yet (the next album that’s soon to be released has been recorded with a23 piece string orchestra) the song that I first heard from him and made me want to hear some more is a song called I Surrender that has a big band jazz feel to it. It sounds like a piece of John Barry music and really wouldn’t sound out of place alongside those big classic James Bond theme tunes.
Adam’s House Cat was the band that Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley played in before they went on to perform the Drive-By Truckers.
They recorded one album that never saw the light of day. This week I’ve managed to get hold of a download of the album Town Burned Down, its ragged and raw cow punk and the sound is a bit thin but its still a good listen.
They last song it an acoustic version of the song Nine Bullets that’s on the Drive-By Truckers second album Pizza Deliverance and is still a live favourite.
A great place to find some really good post-rock, experimental, ambient, drone, electronic, math-rock type stuff is from the Lost Children Net Label. And it’s a place where you can download the music for free as they care more about good music being heard than making a profit (and anyway do any record labels make much of a profit nowadays?).
There is over seventy albums available so if you don’t know where to start then I would suggest starting at The Silent Ballet compilations from which I’ve found many things to get further into such as French Teen Idol, Amberhaze, Orange Crush and Ben Frost to name a few.
Dirty Beaches is the guise that that Taiwanese born Zhang Hungtai goes under. Earlier on this year the official debut album Badlands was released on Zoo Records. I’ve recently came across it and its been on heavy rotation. Its minimalist and lo-fi and dare I say that there is even a Goth feel to it.
This song Sweet 17 is what first grabbed my attention, it sounds like Nick Cave collaborating with Suicide that’s been recorded on Guided By Voices 4-track.
The Jesus & Mary Chain just might well be one of my favourite bands (as in somewhere in the top twenty) without me ever noticing that they are. I won’t listen to them for months and months and then I can here one song and will have to dig through every album they made.
For me they didn’t do much wrong, whether it be the squawking feedback of Psychocandy, which still sounds as abrasive all these years later, or the clean sounding Stoned & Dethroned.
This time I’ve been giving some more attention to their final album Munki. Its not their but still has some cracking songs on it. Like Cracking up which was one of the best singles of 1998.
To name your band after a piece of cutlery is not the best idea. Has it got drug connotations what with cooking up on a spoon? No idea. But anyway, crap name but a great band.
I first become aware of the band some time around the beginning of the last decade when I heard bought the album Kill The Moonlight after hearing a song of theirs on some compilation CD. And nowadays I seem to take them for granted as they’re so consistently good.
No matter how many instruments are in the mix there’s always so much room in their songs, and a groove too. Like on this song from the album Gimme Fiction called I Turn My Camera On.
What with the new Tom Waits album out I like many are in a in a Tom Waits world. The new album is of course very good indeed but I’ve also been going through his back catalogue (something that I do about once a year).
For the moment I can’t get enough of Blood Money. Its Waits at his ram shackled best. With song titles such as Misery Is the River of the World, Everything Goes to Hell, God's Away on Business, Knife Chase and Starving in the Belly of a Whale you get the picture.
So on the first week of release Noel Gallagher and his Flying Birds perched on the top of the album charts. I have no idea what the album is like as I have no interest in it whatsoever. Maybe he’s actually put some real effort into the album. If he has then its about time as he’s been cruising on autopilot for years. Oasis finished a couple of years ago but the foot was off the gas long before that.
They never came anywhere close to their debut Defiantly Maybe. What about the second album What’s The Story Morning Glory? Give over, it had a few good songs but it doesn’t compare.
The second best Oasis album is The Masterplan which is a collection of early b-sides. The b-sides are better than anything on the third album Be Here Now. Which is when they really went off the boil.
My favourite song has to be (It’s Good) To Be Free which just edges over the Liam and Noel duet Acquiesce.
So this blog is mainly about songs that I like, but after tuning into Later With Jools Holland the on Tuesday night I feel as if I just have to write about something that I really don’t like. And that’s Lou Reed playing with Mettalica.
For the record I really love a lot of Lou Reed’s solo albums as well as all four Velvet Underground albums. As for Metallica, well there was a period in my teenage tears when I thought they were a great band but that’s about it.
I’ve not heard all of the album but what I have heard is sounds pretty ropey, but I didn’t think that it would be as bad as what I heard the other night on Later With Jools Holland.
The first song sounded as if they were all playing a completely different song that they all started at different times. Fucking awful.
Then at the end the play The Velvet Underground song White Light/White Heat. Fucking awful don’t come close.
Knowing that it would be a concept album I was a bit apprehensive about the latest album from Alt-country legends (in my eyes they are anyway) Richmond Fontaine. Singer songwriter Willy Vlautin is also a novelist and mixing that with the songs I wasn’t so sure about. Yes his songs are in themselves short story’s about drunks down on their luck but a whole album with a story continuation might just be a bit too straight on the nose.
And on first listen of The High Country it was, but only because of some spoken word pieces that have some of the worst acting that I’ve ever heard. The rest of the album has some good spoken word and quiet instrumental songs as well as some rocking ones where the band are in top form.
The album is growing on my with each listen. Especially now that I always skip the two bad spoken word songs.
Rave on is a song that wasn’t written by Buddy Holly but his recording made it as good as his. With good reason.
M. Ward recorded the song on his brilliant 2009 album Hold Time. His version is more laid back and has a nice riff on the acoustic guitar but it’s the overall sound that he gets that makes it a great cover version. It sounds fresh but also retains some of that old time recording feel that M. Ward is an avid student of.
The single song download has killed the CD single. The only reason that I used to buy singles was for the B-sides. Bands would usually chuck their left over’s from the recording sessions on a B-side but sometimes some interesting stuff would be on it too. Like a reworked or stripped down version of a song, or an interesting remix.
Such as the B-side to I Think I’m In Love by Spiritualized that has a remix by the Chemical Brothers. They give it their full treatment to great affect. As if they took the song stripped it back to the vocals and then pressed a button that says Block Rockin’ Beats.
I don’t listen to a great deal of English bands. The reason being that there’s not many good ones. If you listen to XFM all day and are therefore into landfill indie then you’ll no doubt think otherwise. But I’m not.
There’s plenty of good music coming north of the border but I’ve not heard anything much good of late on the other side.
That is until I heard the debut album from a band on Bella Union called Lanterns on the Lake who hail from England’s most northern county Northumberland. Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is folk music that often soars to an epic landscape.
Certainly the best album from an English band that I’ve heard this year.
In the area where I live there used to be an Elvis Presley themed restaurant. It was like a much more tackier Hard Rock Café where you can eat hamburger’s and fries while a Las Vegas period Elvis impersonator croons away in the corner. The place was thriving in the late 80s and early 90s but has long shut down as that sort of place is as dated as stone washed jeans and white linen suits with the sleeves rolled up.
Almost all Elvis impersonators do the fat jumpsuit period. Its easier than doing the lean sharp suited acoustic guitar swinging 50s Elvis.
In that period he was untouchable as a performer and had the songs to match. Like his first big hit Heartbreak Hotel.
Everything about the song is spot on. Elvis’ vocal range and phrasing, the double bass and brushed drums. Plus coming in at 1:22 is one of the finest guitar breaks in rock n’ roll, and it only last ten seconds. Then there’s the lyrics that are based on the suicide of a man who jumped out of a hotel window, with that and the songs haunting echo it’s kind of a Goth prototype.
Download Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel by clicking on this link.
I’ve mentioned the work of Greg Pappas who goes under the name ZXYZXY before. Everything he puts out is very diverse, whether it be post-rock, ambient or one song that’s a forty five minute drone.
I’ve spent some time with the latest release Subclass of the Dead (available to buy here) and each listen I get more drawn in to its multi-layered world.
And clocking in at ninety minutes it’s a big world to get drawn to and lost in.
The guitars take a back seat on this outing. Instead there’s more electronic, chillwave and some outright weird stuff that phases in and out of tune.
Every listen I find something new and its on the way to being my favourite output from ZXYZXY yet.
I’m keeping on with my blues trip at the moment, so here’s a classic from Howlin’ Wolf, the man with one of the best (if not the best then definitely the grittiest) voices ever put to record. Smokestack Lighting doesn’t follow the usual blues chord structure. What it does instead is locks into a riff and stays put.
It’s a song that’s been interoperated in ways before and after Howlin’ Wolf did it. But surely none better.
A recent purchase from the downstairs section in hmv is a two CD collection of blues man Elmore James. To my recollection I hadn’t heard any of his work before, but its old blues music from Mississippi so of course I had a pretty good idea. Its not going to be happy hardcore is it. And at six quid its worth a go.
Well its been on heavy rotation for the last couple of weeks. It starts off with the overdriven acoustic slide of Dust My Broom (with a riff that makes a regular appearance throughout) but some songs slip into jazz and swing with the piano or saxophone leading the way.
It was six quid more than well spent. And I can’t get that riff out of my head.
For a while now Mark Lanegan has become Mr voice for hire. Queens of the Stone Age, The Twilight Singers, Soulsavers, Unkle, Isobel Campbell and various others have required his services. It seems like the only creative output that he’s done of late is with Greg Dulli under the name The Gutter Twins. Need a rich baritone growl of a voive? Then give Mark a call.
All of this work is fine but he hasn’t released a solo album since Bubblegum in 2004. Which for me is the finest piece of work that Lanegan has ever put his name to. Including The Screaming Trees.
Its so sparse and yet so dirty with deep throbbing bass lines that compliment Lanegan’s voice so well.
So come on, make another solo album will ya.
Download Mark Lanegan Band - Wedding Dress from this link.
The days of multi platinum albums are albums almost gone, but what is extinct and has been for some time is the big selling live album.
I have a few live albums but I seldom give them a listen as the studio versions of the songs are always superior. Songs that took weeks or in the studio to get right are put onto an album that is often badly recorded.
The exception is Mogwai. Who‘s live recordings are on par with the studio versions. Like on Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003 which contains a mammoth eighteen minute version of Like Herod and a superior version of New Paths To Helicon Pt I.
And the version of Mogwai Fear Satan on the recent live album Special Moves is just stunning.
As good as the live recordings are, seeing Mogwai play live is something else.
Download Mogwai- Mogwai Fear Satan (live) from this link.
When I was in my late teens I had a VHS tape of the film Quadrophenia that I watched many times. Back then it was one of my favourite films and I used to think that the main character Jimmy was so cool. I’ve watched it recently and although I still think it’s a good film I’ve realised that Jimmy was a bit of a twat.
After watching the film I listened to the soundtrack by The Who for the first time in a few years and it sounded just as good as the last time I heard it. Its maybe the best album they did.
And one of the best tracks on the album has to be The Real Me. As good a drummer as Keith Moon was sometimes he tended to overdo it with constant drum fills and symbol crashes. On The Real Me all of that is still going on but its played around a driving rhythm and it lets John Entwistle’s bass guitar go off in a virtuoso world of its own. But to great effect.
To get a sample of the new album from The War On Drugs I was searching around a few blogs to download an mp3. When I played it I thought ‘this is a new sound for them, smooth indie dream pop, but fair enough, sounds pretty good'.
When I played it again I realised that iTunes was wasn’t playing The War On Drugs but I had downloaded some band called Work Drugs (similar sort of name, so that’s where I went wrong).
I’d never heard of them but it turns out that they’re a duo from Philadelphia (also like The War On Drugs) who according to their website make music specifically for boating, sexting, dancing, yachting, and living.
I don’t know what that means but to mean its decent indie dream pop.
Download an mp3 of Work Drugs - Swimmer Girl from this link.
The Velvet Underground have had their songs covered many times but I’ve never heard one version that is a match to the original version. That is apart from the Nirvana recording of Here She Comes Now that was originally on a split single with the Melvins but ended up on the With The Lights Out box-set.
The original is a short and gentle song from the otherwise abrasive and avant-garde second album White Light/White Heat. But Nirvana give it their full treatment and considerably boost it up in volume and length.
I would say that its actually better than the original.
Download Nirvana - Here She Comes Now from this link.
Angel is the opening track from the Massive Attacks third and best album Mezzanine (Blue Lines comes a close second).
It fades in with a brewing bassline that can only be out looking for trouble. When Horace Andy’s vocals come in they’re more understated than on his previous tracks with the band but it only adds to the tension that’s building underneath.
Something has to give and after two and a half minutes boiling point is reached when some rock is added to Massive Attack’s trip-hop sound with a distorted guitar riff and beefed up drums.
I can’t separate Angel and the cover art to Mezzanine they both represent the album well, as in dark.
Get an mp3 of Massive Attack - Angel by clicking onto this link.
For me one of the best albums of the 90s and one that I still regularly listen to is by the Welsh rock trio 60 Ft. Dolls. After a string of great singles starting with 1994s Happy Shopper their debut album The Big 3 came out in 1996 (1997 in The States where they got picked up by Geffen Records) and there isn’t a dud song on it. Straight up tuneful rock songs.
The second album Joya Magica from 1998 saw them expanding their pallet with some piano, strings and horns. There’s a couple of acoustic songs and some in a more Brit-Pop style (one with a bouncy rhythm, Shed Seven type horns and lyrics about the summer. All the worse traits of Brit-Pop.) that don’t hit the mark. The best songs on the album are when they do what they do best, which is play tuneful rock songs.
The band soon split and another Welsh rock trio came on the scene to have a lot more success. But the Stereophonics have never made an album as good as The Big 3.
Download an mp3 of 60 Ft. Dolls - Happy Shopper from this link.
“The piano’s stealing Lou Reed licks, licks that he probably stole."
Whether it be with Giant Sand, solo or various side projects such as The Band of Blacky Ranchette, Arizona Amp and Alternator or OP8, Howe Gelb’s musical output has been nothing short of prolific. There’s also many official bootlegs to go with the many official albums.
Out of all of them one of my favorite is 2003’s solo album The Listener. There’s the usual sound of Gelb’s picking at scabs acoustic guitar style, but it also features a lot of laid back piano and sparse string arrangements. Such as the second song Felonious with its brushes drums and Gelb’s close to the mic dusty tones in which he pays a homage to Lou Reed. “The piano’s still stealing Lou Reed licks, licks he probably stole."
Download an mp3 of Howe Gelb - Felonious by clicking on this link.
Been going through my hard rive and giving it a good cleanout. Mainly been deleting music files. Tracks that I have no intention of ever listening to, such as bad filler tracks on albums that only have a couple of good songs. Out! Live versions from bands who’s studio versions I rarely play. Out! Downloaded tracks that I was testing out but I never liked. Out!
Its tedious work, but I did come across some really good songs that I forgot I had.
Like the song Slow Down (Take A Look)from the Sonic's Rendezvous Band that I got from CD that came with a music magazine. I’d never heard of the band, but after looking into them it turns out that Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5 and Scott Ashton from The Stooges are in the band.
That makes sense as their raw garage rock sound is unmistakably from the Detroit Michigan area.
Download Sonic's Rendezvous Band - Slow Down (Take A Look) by clicking on this link.
There has been no action from Sigur Rós since 2008. Then last month their website revealed a trailer for Inni which is a DVD and double CD of the band's live performances at London’s Alexandra Palace.
I was at one of them gigs, and in truth it was a bit of a disappointment. Mainly because the main proportion of the show featured songs the recently released album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust which I didn’t get on too well with as their ethereal soundscape and sawing strings were replaced with playful up-tempo songs or ones with only singer Jonsi and a piano.
Another reason why I didn’t enjoy the gig as much as I thought I might is that Alexandra Palace is not a good place to see a band. Its not meant for rock music, also to get a drink you had to buy tokens and then go to another line to order the drink. So I spent way too much time in the venue queuing up.
But I’m sure that that won’t come across on the live CD, and as the songs are taken from two nights the track listing will hopeful span over their five albums.
No Doubt the song Svefn-g-englar that first grabbed my attention to the band will be on it. An old flatmate of mine came into my room when I was playing it and said "What is this poncy whale music shit?"
Yes it might sound like that but its a great piece of music.
Download Sigur Rós - Svefn-g-englar by left clicking on this link.
I recently went to visit my parents, and while in their garage going through boxes of C.D.s and cassettes I found a recording of me playing my first electric guitar. Saying that I was playing it is me being very generous to myself. At the time I knew a few chords but didn’t know any scales, though that didn’t put me off doing guitar solo’s where I played random notes up and down the fretboard. It didn’t help that the guitar was terribly out of tune either.
Its awful but not much more than Lou Reed’s erratic guitar solo’s on The Velvet Underground song I Heard Her Call Me Name. It sounds similar. It’s out of tune, abrasive, high pitched, metallic and sounds like it played with the same Yamaha guitar and cheep Peavey amp that I used.
Technically it’s the worst guitar solo put to record, but I find it endearing and its all part of one of my favourite Velvet Underground songs.
Whenever I walk into the flagship hmv store on Oxford Street a nauseous feeling rapidly consumes me. After a very quick browse at what they have in the ‘new biggest ever sale’ I soon make my way downstairs to the blues/country/world/classical/soundtrack/ musical/folk/jazz/comedy section to get away from the crowd and the new Rhiannon or Kaiser Chiefs release that’s getting blasted out from the sound system.
I know this sounds like I’m old before my time but downstairs is just an all round better shopping experience. Okay so maybe not if you don’t like any of the music they have but even if I did want the new offering from Rhiannon or the Kaiser Chiefs I would still go down there to pay as the queue is almost non-existent.
Luckily I do like a lot of the music in the downstairs section and its where I bought my best ever value for money music purchase that is Hank Williams Greatest Hits. A two CD album with forty great songs for the price of six quid.
Get an mp3 of Hank Williams - Lost Highway by left clicking on this link.
This is a great cover of the Beck song Jack-Ass by err… Beck. It first appeared as a B-side to the single but has since appeared on the deluxe edition of Odelay. Okay so it’s a re-working of the song but it sounds like a cover as its done in a full on mariachi style, complete with Beck singing in Spanish.
One of the main components of Jack-Ass is the sample of Van Morison’s old band Them performing Bob Dylan’s It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.
So Burro is sort of like a cover of a song that’s based on a cover of another song.
There’s another version called Strange Invitation which is stripped down to an acoustic guitar and strings. Its good but Burro stands out because it’s so different from the original.
When Bon Iver’s first album For Emma, Forever Ago came out three years ago the story of the album - After the break up of his band and a relationship Justin Vernon went back to Wisconsin where he recuperated in his fathers isolated cabin out in the woods - along with rave reviews was a great selling point, and I soon bought it without even hearing a note. In the main it lived up to what I hoped it would be, especially with the songs Skinny Love, For Emma and Flume.
So where did Bon Iver go with the recently released follow up? Well in some parts he's gone back to the 80s with bad sounding synth and keyboard. On the last song there’s even some cheesy 80s saxophone. Also the vocals are in a falsetto that has as much range as a water pistol.
It’s a huge let down. Especially after the in-between EP Blood Bank. With the title tracks slightly distorted chords, varied vocal range and well written lyrics its with out doubt my favourite Bon Iver track.
Shame that on the second album he decided to sound like fucking Enya.
Download an mp3 of Bon Iver - Blood Bank from this link.
There’s not too much subtlety from the London five piece band The Jim Jones Revue. Everything is full on and raucous as they play old time fifties rock ’n’ roll in a garage style that sounds like Jerry-Lee Lewis playing with The Sonics.
I’m a recent convert and what with them being from London I’ll soon get around to seeing them play live. I imagine it to be bordering on shambolic, with a feeling that the wheels could come off at any minute. The way this type of music should sound live.
Only thing is that the next time they play in London its at the Shepherds Bush Empire. Not one of my favoured venues. If only I got into this band earlier then I could have caught them in a in a small sweaty place that skinks of stale beer. That’s this type of music’s natural home.
Download an mp3 of The Jim Jones Revue - High Horse from this link.
My teenage metal phase was brief. But for while there I only listened to Megadeath, Metallica, Slayer and Pantera. I don’t listen to any of them bands anymore but I still put on a metal record every so often. I would be into the genre a whole lot more if it wasn’t for the vocals. Many times I’ve liked the heavy distorted riffing, pounding drums and throbbing bass and then the growling cookie monster vocals come in and ruin it. I just don‘t understand why they pretend to be some kind of evil devil from hell, its childish pantomime. And I can’t stand the high pitched Brice Dickinson type vocals either.
That’s why I like the instrumental post-metal of Chicago band Pelican. None of that growling of operatic screaming with them. Its heavy grooves that don’t let vocals get in the way.
Here is really good cover of an Earth song. A band who don’t need vocals either.
The Redlands Palomino Company are one of the best UK Alt-Country type bands around. Okay so on the surface there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of competition for that crown, but there’s a few knocking about. They’re a band that know their sound and don’t fret about wearing their influences on there sleeve. But what really sets them apart are the vocals. Some songs have slightly ragged voice of Alex Elton-Wall, some the smooth voice of Hannah Elton-Wall and sometimes they alternate like on the opening song Call Me Up from their recently released third album Don’t Fade. Its their first album in four years and sees them continue with what they do best. The Redlands Palomino Company don’t throw any curveballs into the mix, its ten straight up country rock songs with guitars, bass, drums and pedal steel. And it sounds great.
Download an mp3 of Call Me Up by The Redlands Palomino Company from here.
There’s nothing more smug than an indie rock fan who says “I was into (insert name of band) before they became well known.” And if the band in question is Guided By Voices then that would take smugness to a whole new level.
I’m not one of them people myself as I only got into them when they released a best of compilation called Human Amusements At Hourly Rates. By then main man Bob Pollard had broke the band up. So unfortunately I never got to see them live or could look forward to new releases. But its okay as its never too late to get into a band, and Guided By Voices can easily become one of your favourites. I go through spells when they're the only band that I want to listen to.
Some of their songs are Lo-fi, some just a verse snippet that comes and goes before you know it. Then there's indie rock anthems like this:
Download Guided By Voices - Glad Girls mp3 from here.
The last couple of days I’ve been listening to Björk’s first solo album Debut. Well its her first solo album if you don't include the one she recorded when she was eleven years old and the album of traditional Icelandic and jazz tunes.
The first time that I was aware of Bjork was when I saw an interview with her on MTV (back when MTV was worth watching). She was onset making the video for her first single Human Behaviour and spoke in an accent that I couldn’t place. When they played the video at the end of the interview it was clear that she didn’t sound like any other female pop singers. I was intrigued. Venus As A Boy was another great single with a strange video, as was Play Dead (that was released as a single but not originally on Debut), but it wasn’t until I heard Big Time Sensuality that I realised that I really do like Bjork. It’s a song that I regularly listen to. A song that I never skip when it pops up on shuffle. And it has that great chord change at the start of the chorus. I never tire of it.
And another really good video.
The other day I was flicking around the TV channels when I came across Top of the Pops 2. The song playing was the awful Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne. As I watched the in studio performance I realised something. That the band look as if they are in their thirties. After doing a quick Google search I found out that Fountains of Wayne had been going for years before they recorded Stacy’s Mom. When I first heard it on the radio I thought that the band must a crap new American version of Busted or McFly. Kids pop music with guitars.
Power pop bands pushing thirty or forty singing about being a teenager like Fountains of Wayne and Blink 182 are much worse than Hanson still singing Mmm Bop.
So let’s have some power pop that’s worth listening to. Husker Du had melodic pop sensibilities along with their frantic speed and buzz saw guitar. But when the band split up and Bob Mould went on to form another three piece called Sugar some of the melody’s were pushed to the front. Especially on the single If I Can’t Change Your Mind where Mould uses an acoustic twelve string guitar to give it a Big Star, REM sound type of sound.
It even got to number 30 in the UK charts. Back when some people cared about that sort of thing.
Download Sugar - If I Can’t Change Your Mind from here.
Apparently Foghat had a resurgence in popularity when one of their songs appeared on the video game Guitar Hero. Suddenly a whole new generation was being introduced to their crap boogie-blues-70s rock. It was my first introduction to Foghat as they are not at all well known in the UK, even though its where the band are from.
I played that edition of Guitar Hero and sure it was fun playing along to Foghat, but it was also fun to play along to the Scorpions. Neither bands I intend to listen to outside the realms of Guitar Hero.
After spending some time with the game Story of My Life by the Californian band Social Distortion is a song that I did want to investigate more. It sounds like a punk band covering Creedence Clearwater Revial and is much easier to play on an actual guitar than on the medium level on Guitar Hero. The album by the same name is worth getting too.
Download an mp3 of Social Distortion - Story of My Life from here.
I’ve been playing a lot of music from Athens Georgia’s down tuned noise-rockers Harvey Milk lately. And one song that I’ve paid special attention to is the opener from the 2008 album Life…The Best Game in Town called Death Goes To The Winter.
It’s a pretty weird song. The opening verse doesn’t sound like Harvey Milk at all with its clean guitar and quire boy vocals, it takes just over a minute and a half before it kicks into the usual thumping riff and growled vocals of Harvey Milk.
And what a great outro, with a tight one note riff and a guitar solo where the strings are being loosened until they are completely slack so the guitar solo turns into a low pitched rumble. Oh and after all that it ends with a single big piano chord that replicates that end of song chord on The Beatles A Day In The Life.
Download Harvey Milk - Death Goes To The Winter mp3 from here.
Laughing Stock is considered to be of the first post-rock albums. I see it more as a sparse post-rock outline, albeit a very good one. Either way, it’s a massive departure from the synth pop of their early albums. Laughing Stock should be played from start to finish, preferably late at night. The exception is the song After The Flood which I can play anytime of the day. It glides along with a hypnotic laid back organ riff and then sores up in the chorus with Mark Hollis’ restraint but still intense vocal delivery.
Halfway through the nine minutes of the song there’s a one note solo that I believe is played on a wind instrument synthesizer called a Variophone. It sounds like nothing else that I’ve heard before as the note grows a life of its own and is trying desperately to stay in tune. Or desperately trying to wriggle out of tune.
Like in Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl sometimes a one note solo is all the notes you need.
Download an mp3 of Talk Talk - After The Flood from here.
For years I only ever though of Bruce Springsteen as some old overblown stadium rocker. As a kid growing up in the 80s I always used to hear him on the radio, mainly the big singles from Born In The U.S.A. That album was made for the radio, its so compressed and everything is up loud in the mix with no subtlety. Plus its got them massive shouty choruses.
Then about three or four years ago I picked up a copy of The River in the sales. I liked it but like almost all double albums it would be better if it was trimmed down to one really decent albums with no fillers. I soon picked up the stripped down acoustic Nebraska and the breakthrough album Born To Run, both good but it wasn’t until I heard Darkness on the Edge of Town that I really appreciated Springsteen. Then I got Born In The U.S.A which I liked more than I thought I would.
Although I now have and like a fair amount of his work I wouldn’t call myself a Bruce Springsteen fan as such. I will listen to him every so often but I’ve no intention of ever seeing him live as a three hour set in an arena would just be too much to bare.
Everything you need to know about the Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band live show is in the 2009 Super Bowl half time show. It had all the theatrics of a three hour set condensed into twelve minutes.
In the first minute he’s already thrown his guitar in the air, made a preaching speech to the camera telling the people at home to ‘step away from the guacamole, put the chicken fingers down and turn the volume up,' jumped onto a piano, jumped down again and is lying back while down on his knees.
In the four songs that follow all the boxes are ticket.
High fiving the front row. Holding the microphone to the crowd so they can sing. Sliding on knees. Air Punching. Members of the band all singing the chorus into one microphone. Fireworks. Playing back to back with the lead guitarist. Big rock and roll ending.
You feel knackered just watching it.
Great for stadium rock and the half time show but I would prefer to watch the basics of a Neil Young & Crazy Horse show.
So I guess I do still think of Springsteen as an old overblown stadium rocker, but with good songs.
The Hombres were a short lived psychedelic garage rock band from Memphis. I only have one song of theirs called Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out). Its their most well know and the only one you need.
Its got a simple three chord riff and a laid back swinging groove over rambling vocals that don’t make too much sense. ‘Hanging from a pine tree by my knees, sun is shining through the shade. Nobody knows what it's all about, it's too much man let it all hang out.’
The best place to get it is from the brilliant compilation album Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 were you will also find many other short lived psychedelic garage rock bands who recorded one two great songs.
Download The Hombres Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out) mp3 from here.
While most of rock music’s elder statesmen lost their way during the 80s, Lou Reed ignored all the glossy production values of the time and found his way again. There’s no synth stabs or linen snare drums on the guitar driven The Blue Mask from 1982. Then at the end of the decade he released his finest solo album. New York was my first introduction to Lou Reed. Sometime in the mid 90s when I was about seventeen or eighteen my dad suggested that I listen to it, saying “If you like Bob Dylan then you might like this album.”
My dad was right. Lyrically I would put New York on par with any Dylan record. Set mainly to a late period Velvet Underground sounding backdrop (though there is a lounge jazz sort of song that somehow doesn’t feel too out of place) its full with stories set in New York City and takes swipes at many public figures and highlights many political issues. “Americans don't care too much for beauty, they'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream. They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach and complain if they can't swim.”
From New York I went on to Velvet Underground albums then back to the solo records. Some of his solo stuff I wish I hadn’t bought like Sally Can’t Dance and Berlin (I know Berlin is supposed to be one of Reed’s finest albums but I find it extremely dull), and some I still regularly listen too like Street Hassle and Transformer.
But in my opinion New York is Lou Reed’s finest Moment.
Around this time last year I got a self titled album by a band called Moonhearts. I played it once and then forgot about it. Until last week that is, and now its on heavy rotation. I know little about the Moonhearts. All I know is that they’re a three piece band that used to be called Charlie & the Moonhearts who play stripped down garage punk rock and are on Tic Tac Totally Records.
When I first gave them a listen it was just after I'd recently purchased the Gangliens album Monster Head Room. I think that took up my drenched in reverb rock quota for a while. Maybe I just needed to give Moonhearts one more listen.
Whatever, its doesn’t matter, it has my attention now. It’s a short energetic album, where the guitar is loud and the vocals are buried. There’s a few goofy titles (like Eat My Shorts) and a couple of mid tempo songs with strong melody’s. All which sound as if they have been recorded in a large bathroom.
I’m now going to see if I can get my hands on the album they did when they were called Charlie & the Moonhearts.
If you’re an instrumental band then its much harder to name a song. You can’t just take the first or last line in the chorus when there is no chorus. Even more thought might go into naming the album. Or maybe you can just open a book and put your finger on a random word and stick with that. That’s what the Washington DC progressive/math rock three piece Caverns seemed to have done by naming there 2008 album Kittens!
Today I heard Kittens! for the first time in a while and its just as fucked up as I remembered it. Over the shredding riffs and crashing drums there's a piano that's sometimes playing in a grand orchestral way and sometimes just plink plonking along.
If I listened to this sort of music for too long I would soon tire of it, but Kittens! doesn’t tire as its a short album of twenty four minutes.
Download an mp3 from Kittens! called Dance You Son Of A Bitch from here.
I’ve downloaded many music podcasts, tried them out and then deleted them. There are so many out there but most of them are ill informed rubbish or slow and boring. Podcasting is like radio. It can’t meander about. It needs a flow and that’s where the students who think they can record a podcast on their laptop after a joint or two go wrong.
Here are some music podcasts that are well worth a listen:
Sound Opinions
A Chicago public radio show that also comes out as a podcast. Its hosted by well informed music critics Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot. The show includes music news, record reviews, sometimes has live in the studio performances, sometimes has a feature on a theme or classic album.
NPR: All Songs Considered
Another Public Radio podcast this time from Washington D.C. It’s a varied one that could be a discussion about the best new music discovered at a recent festival. Could be an episode devoted to a certain genre. Could be a well known musician that comes in to have a chat and play some songs.
Word Podcast
No music is played in this podcast. It’s a few people from the Word Magazine - sometimes with a guest- who sit around talking. Music is discussed but it moves onto other stuff. The way that conversation does.
Musicheads
This is from the Minnesota Public Radio station The Current. Each week host Bill DeVille and two other dj's from the station give their opinions on three recently released albums. It’s a standard format that’s done well.
In a previous post about rock without guitars I didn’t mention Holy Fuck who are an electronic band that rocks a whole lot more than most skinny white boy bands like say, Razerlight. One of their hardest rocking songs is the last track on their second album Latin called P.I.G.S. It has the most overdriven pounding bass, industrial Nine Inch Nail type drums and a keyboard riff that sounds like Thin Lizzy’s twin guitar attack.
Why a band would have the word fuck in their name I don’t know. Its hard enough to get on in the music world without giving yourself such a handicap. Its supposed to be edgy I guess, like saying ‘yeah we don’t want to be in your corporate machine anyway man, fuck you’. Yawn. If you type Holy Fuck into Google their website is at the top of the list, but when they first started out it must have been well difficult. Especially if you then clicked on images.
For every reasonably successful band like Holy Fuck, Fucked Up or Fuck Buttons there’s hundreds of bands who fought that putting fuck in their name would be a good idea but got nowhere. Fuck People, Fuck The Facts, Fuck The World, I Just Wanna Fuck, Fuck Your Shadow From Behind, Fuck You And Die, Fuck On The Beach are some of the band names with fuck that I found on Myspace. Most of them Metal bands or Hip Hop because of cause its fuck you and the horse you rode in on music.
