Its A Wonderful life - The Defeated People

Back then it was not cool promoting your own music. But hey those were different times.
Back then it was not cool doing covers but like-wise.
This year Mark Linkous went to meet whoever he thought was going to help him on the other side, which was also not cool.
This is a tribute.
http://www.hauntedbyfame.co.uk/sounds/wonderful_life.mp3

RIP Captain

metal machine music

Watch out the world's behind you!

The film I dreamt of making

King crimson - Elephant Talk

PP Arnold If You Think You're Groovy

I've always liked the fabulous PP Arnold this video is for French TV and has some mad French woman cutting in every few moments and there's a helicopter???
Todays music programmes could learn a thing or two.

Scopitone - Henri Salvador - "Le Martien"

 A Scopitone is a "Film Jukebox" invented in France in the early 1960's (from surplus World War II airplane parts apparently) and also the films which played on it. These films are  the precursors of  music videos as we know them.


This one is particularly marvellous

Plan B - Prayin (Boy Kid Cloud remix)

Darryl Reid main man in These Furrows and one half of Boy Kid Cloud remixes Plan B.
Great stuff!

THE WHITE HORSES TV THEME by JACKY

Stereolab- Nurse with wound Crumb Duck

1996 collaboration between Stereolab and Nurse with wound. Nice!

Amazon says
As their participation on Mouse on Mars's CACHE COEUR NAIF EP demonstrates, Stereolab is no stranger to collaboration. Working with electro-industrial legend Nurse With Wound might seem an unusual prospect for such a frothy pop band, but CRUMB DUCK brings out the best in both parties. The first twocuts feature Nurse With Wound alone, and are full of that group's trademark--dark, disturbing electronic soundscapes full of bleak, semi-gothic visions.
Predictably, things brighten up considerably when Stereolab enters the picture on "Exploding Head Movie"--the key turns to major, the vocals from ominous whispering to sunny crooning, and the rhythms from funereal to perky. The 13-and-a-half-minute "Animal Or Vegetable" is more a meeting of the minds--Laetitia Sadler's smooth vocal style blends with droning, churchy synthesizer until a thudding beat enters, and the creepy minimalism of Nurse WIth Wound meets the chugging pop of Stereolab head on. The results are as unpredictable as they are captivating.

Nurse With Wound - "The Bottom Feeder"

GWEN GUTHRIE hopscotch 1983 "larry levan remix" vocal version

Lydia Lunch and Rowland s Howard - Some Velvet Morning

The Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra Classic recorded by Lydia Lunch and Rowland s Howard in 1982

pixels - patrick jean

PIXELS by Patrick Jean from ONE MORE PRODUCTION on Vimeo.

killing joke - Eighties

So Nirvana fans, now you know!

Big Youth - Cool Breeze

Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi

Mik Artistik - Window Cleaner

The World Cup

England may not win - again. But we can all have a laugh at the expense of the Germans.

Devo - Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy

Ok Go - This Too Shall Pass

Joyous and Amazing.

Sonic Youth - Kool Thing

Maybe not young anymore but definitely sonic.

1990's Goo great cover, great band, great attitude and lets not forget great choons. 

Oh and Chuck D puts in an appearance too.

Tom Waits - Burma Shave

Tom Waits was producing music as a young man that sounded like he'd lived a hundred lives. His music is timeless and is the link from the beats to pop.

dEUS W.C.S (First Draft) and Roses.

I saw Belgium's dEUS in 1994 at the Lowlands festival in Holland. One of those performances that has stuck with me all these years, both familiar and unsettling at the same time, they were fantastic that day.
Worst Case Scenario is a great album when all around was post-grunge and pre-brit pop (Oasis were on the same bill somewhere near the bottom). Not really heard them since '99s Ideal Crash which had its moments but not as "out there".
This is from  Worst Case Scenario and I've added this great video for this from In A Bar, Under The Sea 

Wayne Cochran and his C.C Riders

He of the white pompadour, James Brown copyist or white funk legend.?
I don't know but there are some classics and hidden gems in his back catalogue. From teen death opera the Last Kiss (covered by Pearl Jam to Going back to Miami (made famous by the Blues Brothers).
And how about this for an album cover?

The Tubes - White Punks on Dope

I first heard this in the early 80s. Made in 1977 with punk and dope in the title I had to get the album. What Do You Want From Live!
I listened to it for a few weeks, got bored, lent it to someone - never ask for it back.

I'd heard about their wild stage shows but had never seen them. Saw this video the other day. Again from Whistle Test (get Jools off and get WT back) Its an amazing performance, a little bit unhinged.
Check it!

Crass - Nagasaki Nightmare

For years we've been sold this fairytale about the Punk rock pantomime. One band who seem to be written out of history are the anarcho-punk pioneers Crass. Often cited as being "more punk than thou",  Crass were living outside the punk rock rhetoric.  Crass were a collective producing abrasive politically inspired rock music as well as fantastic artwork.

They were definitely way ahead of the game with the coolest logos and artwork that informs much of the stencil wielding art anti-heroes and certainly laying the groundwork for Indie (creating their own label and ploughing the proceeds back into other like minded bands). They were a forerunner of the illegal Rave and the Rave culture of the mid to late 80s (holding outdoor festivals in unusual out of the way places that attracted thousands by word of mouth). 

You can hear the whole of the LA punk scene in Crass' music and they were never afraid to transcend the rules of that most Conservative of music Punk (Individualism, Not caring about society and what society thinks, small business entrepreneur ism , basically Thatcherism with gob). 

Not renowned for their sense of humour this track Nagasaki Nightmare was released at a time when nuclear war was a very real possibility and this sounds very scary indeed. 

Hurra Torpedo - Total Eclipse of the Heart/Totally shit from the start

I've always been a bit unsure about "comedy music", like any joke it is usually a throw away line that doesn't take too much repeat listening. In the past anthing from Rolf Harris to the Barron Knights turned me cold, (although Sun Arise Bring in the Morning is strangely playing in my head as I write).
 As a reference point for things that all bands should avoid, Spinal Tap wrote the lexicon on spoof rock, however their music only raises a wry smile and that's due to the titles more than anything else.
Re- discovering Half Man Half Biscuit changed all that for me, they have consistently produced classic seriously funny, darkly humorous tunes. SA at Bagging area posted National Shite Day a couple of weeks ago which should really be the national anthem, it's my anthem anyway. Flight of the Conchords have also produced hilarious tunes that de-construct whole swathes of the music industry and as a spoof band they certainly rival Spinal Tap in their faintly ridiculous, yet recognisable antics. Compare FOTCs Inner City Pressure with We Have Bands sad reworking of West End Girls.
Recently I've taken pleasure and  inspiration from bands that mess about with our notions of what pop music is and the way it should be played and definitely have their tongues firmly in their cheek. Check this I think you'll find it's less ridiculous than the original.




There's also one here for leicester City Fans about Kermogant's  ridiculous penalty

Japan - Adolescent Sex

Check this off the 1978 album of the same name, Japan were always pushing the envelope.
While everyone else was doing their punk or disco thing they were starting off the new romantic thing. While everyone was trying out the angular guitar stuff they changed to synths, when evryone else was doing synth pop David Sylvain was going avant-garde.

70s Russian music - Russian western Friend for enemies, enemy for friends

See if you can work out what is going on here!
Answers on a postc...

German 60s pop - The Lords

Amazing !!!!! No truly amazing.

French 60s pop - Francoise Hardy - Je veux

Sonics - Have Love Will Travel

Spencer Davis Group - Keep On Running

Here's one for SA.
Have a good one and I hope you raise loads for MPS society.

Joy Division -Transmission

For Mrs H. Good luck with the show
Nice little into of John Cooper Clarke, performing Chicken Town

Lift To Experience - Falling from Cloud 9

Since posting Lift to Experience the other day I can't get this one out of my head.
All the best guitarists have battered old cowboy hats and Jaguar guitars.

Gigs I have missed 04 - Shonen Knife

Hey sometimes life get in the way. This is a great Japanese band famed for having Kurt Cobain as a fan.
Pop punk doesn't get any purer than this.

I (no longer) believe in miracles

Oh yes I believe in miracles baby. Leicester City !!!!!
Unless it goes to penalties.
It went to penalties

Alexis Korner -Get Off My Cloud

I used to work in my dads pub washing glasses to get me monies for records. In the back room they had a jazz club which was well thought of. One night the place was packed to the rafters for this strange blues guy.
This guy turned out to be Alexis Korner. He was getting on and I hadn't a clue who he was. A couple of the "Beardies" told me he was very important cos he had discovered the Stones, and he did the Top of the Pops theme tune. Hey I said that was Led Zeppelin, No they, smiled condiscendingly, it was CSS (Collective Consciousness Society,) led by this gravelly voiced, leather faced, curly haired troubador.
As a champion of the British Blues Boom TM Mr Korner's tale of discovering Brian, Mick, Keith and pals is ingrained into the rock conciousness. 
Obviously I couldn't get enough of this stuff being an impressionable young music fan and I was sad to hear of his death in 1984 as I was myself  becoming adept at playing those old Stones and blues tunes myself.
Also check out his version of Tommy Tucker's HI Heel Sneakers, which I was going to post, but in light of the news today, oh my god the Tories are back! heres one for Cameron and his toffs


Note other musicians on this record, Kieth Richards, Steve Marriot, Nicky Hopkins and more.....





and Hey this is the BEST Top of the Pops theme tune EVER!

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

Its funny how you come to things. Back as a Kid I saw a Canadian band called April Wine on Whistle Test doing this song. I liked it so much I bought their album which turned out to be unbelievably crap. However from this experience I learned that the song itself was by King Crimson. KC are much maligned  prog rockers and I couldn't eat a whole one, but they are responsible for some of my favourite tracks and have introduced me to a myriad of different bands and styles through their associations and fluid line -ups. The obvious ones are Emerson Lake and Palmer (Greg Lake is the vocalist here) who have been a dirty word since 1976, but through these I heard Peter Gun for the first time (sampled by Basement Jaxx a few years back). KC and especially Robert Fripp are not a band to hang around long enough for you to settle into their sound, so its hard to love everything they have done,  and its hard to recommend a way in to them, Islands is possibly the most accesible. This is probably why I like them. By 1972 Fripp was collaborating with Eno ( in Eno's most exciting period producing the extraordinary No Pussyfooting;) and Adrian Belew (This is turn turned me onto Talking Heads) from 1981s Discipline, one of the most unsung albums by the popular music press.

In the the Court of the Crimson King has its dodgy moments especially lyrically as do all KC albums but it is still an amazing album check it!
Great cover too.
footnote
KC drummer Bill Bruford produced a series of drum sample CDs which I have used regulary over the years.

Buddy Rich - Throws a wobbler

This is funny!
Buddy Rich the amazing drummer is not too pleased with his colleagues!

Bands We've shared a Stage with 01 - Lift To Experience

Ok the first in a new series. I've had a bit of writers block with one thing and another over the last few weeks.
So a new series. Lift To Experience was a real experience. I've never seen a performance like it.
Josh T. Pearson was character like all great artists, who is probably a little unhinged and possibly dangerous to know.  Amazingly he is still relatively  unknown - this could be because he has gone deaf from the amazingly loud set up he had in a club as small as the Charlotte. The rig consisted of stadium sized Marshal stacks and  a huge rotary leslie that wouldn't have been out of place on a World War 2 bomber.
The noise he produced from this set up was literally awesome! (as in shock and awe).
Supposedly JP was a serious Christian with lots of Christian imagery in their songs not least 2001s The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads . I believe he thought of Texas as being some sort of promised land?
If all Christians produced music this earnest with as much sonic firepower they could have a chance.
check out Falling from cloud 9 as well
I could put Josh Pearson in my series of gigs I have missed too as he played a solo acoustic slot a couple or three years, just to prove he wasn't dead I suppose. I haven't heard from him/them for a few years, got this bit from From Wikipedia
According to their label the band is no more with no hope to get together again. Frontman Josh T. Pearson is currently pursuing a solo career. Andy Young formed a project with Elbow frontman Guy Garvey called Western Arms, which appears to be in a long hiatus, with one song, Blue on Blue, available on their MySpace page.

Swiss Guards - Reason Rides Shotgun

Hey hey it's Swiss Guards everyone. I don't know who's driving the wagon.....
Praying that the fools don't drive us into the dust.

Reason Rides Shotgun

The Fall - A Well Respected Man

last night i saw the fall for the first time. Pretty amazing really since our paths have criss-crossed many times over the years. I first became aware of The Fall as more than a name when they released Victoria (me being a massive kinks fan at the time). I first started to like The Fall when I heard Victoria played at the Hacienda. The Hacienda was this sort of warehouse in Manchester where we went to listen to indie music. Even though it was fairly new, it was pretty grotty, with its sticky plastic floor, like some serial killer's hideout in Dexter or something.
The show I saw last night was at Rock City in Nottingham, a fantastic venue and a sizeable crowd cheered Mark E Smith's every move.
I knew what to expect and Mr Smith did not disappoint. I was surprised, however, at how there is something ever so slightly pantomime about The Fall, even if a fight had broken out between him and the rest of the band, I think it would have felt like part of the show. He's been doing this so long that he knows the moves by heart and even the iconoclast in him knows which side his bread is buttered, he did his messing about with bands kit thing, without really changing their stride and kept the audience waiting a good 10 minutes before deciding not to do the third encore.Seasoned Fall watchers were delighted at a little smile he produced (rare apparently). Taking off his jacket and getting down to business, like some other people in the news this week demonstrating that he's a well respected man about town, doing the best things most conservatively.

Victoria @ Yahoo! Video

G Love & Special Sauce - Shooting Hoops

Sporting theme today as The Foxes make the play-offs. We're all excited as our brass supremo 'Ping' is the Post Horn man, Wembley here we come.
Can't think of too many good football tunes, that aren't by Half Man Half biscuit or the Fall so here's a basketball one.
 Hey I'm not into basketball, those guys are way too tall for this short arse, but this song from the great G Love and Special Sauce, makes me wish I was.
'Good moves baby? I'm the definition'

GURU - RIP

I think its safe to say that Guru took it some place else! That's the best you can do.

Gigs I missed 03 - Patti Smith

Patti Smith played at the Summer Sundae a few years ago. I was a bit of a pauper, I actually went to the venue and stood out back in the hope of catching a glimpse so I could bask in her reflected glory. I didn't see her or hear her on stage and shuffled off a bit embarrassed about what I was doing, being a grown man and all.
Malcolm the sound man played this before we went on stage a few weeks ago, it was a eureka moment, it all made sense this is where we came from.
Everyone always talks about Horses as the Patti Smith album. for me Easter is one of the most exciting records I ever heard, I know its the the commercial one and that Springsteen co-wrote Because the Night, but listen to this and you know you're getting the real deal. It might have been the age when I heard it first I don't know, but this is how rock and roll should be.
patti smith Rock and Roll Nigger

Killing Joke - Hosannas from the Basements of Hell

Hosannas from the Basements of Hell released in 2006, I wasn't expecting anything from this album. Thought these guys would be well passed their best. Probably making pipe and slippers music now I thought. Glad I gave this a punt.

This is an extraordinary track that could equally have been at home in any period in the last 30 years. Killing Joke were always out of step with the Zeitgeist. Often cited cited as influences by gothy industrial metalhead types, but don't hold that against them, this is great.

Invocation

MGMT, Time to Pretend

It not an outrageous statement to say that there is very little new in rock music apart from the application of new and different technology and the marrying together of different styles to create something unforeseen.

What we tend to get is cycles where kid hears parents records, discovers music of own generation, meets other people who introduce them to other types of music, this creates new hybrids, and so on. As with Steve Reich's tape phases, each new cycle will juxtaposition itself with something else, creating something fresh.
This is what's happened with MGMTs Time to Pretend. They know its out of their hands, "Everything must run its course", "Yeah its overwhelming, but what else can we do? "
Can't remember a band making me wish I was 18 again.
Time To Pretend


Viva La jeunesse

Gig I missed 02 - Motorhead

Motorhead at the Queens Hall Leeds, early 80s. My mates went, I chose to see the Stones instead.
Heavy metal started going all poncy about this time. Motorhead were and still are the epitome of no nonsense Rock n Roll.
"The only way to feel the noise is when its good n loud..."
Loved watching Motorhead on Top of the Pops. The TV audiences are just hilarious, this is not great quality, I'll post another if I find one.

Cliff Richard - Pointed Toe Shoes

Fashion! turn to the left….What goes around comes around. Heard this little ditty as a child, my mum was a fan, Its Cliff, everyone! Singing Carl Perkins’ less famous choon about quality footwear (I’m sure he had a foot fetish).

As a 60s fixated teen I had my own pair and felt very dapper, and wadda ya know pointed toe shoes are back again!
Pointed Toes Shoes

Allen Ginsberg - America

Never been blessed with a singing voice. I remember miming hymns at school, or deliberately singing them monotone. Singing can be taught, or the songs of Lloyd Webber wouldn't be infecting my personal space on a regular basis. But on the whole the greatest singers/vocalists are not about being able to sing, they are about being able to communicate something to the listener, whether this is emotion or words or both. No one can deny that Aretha, Elvis, Otis or (insert favourite singer) can hold a tune, but what they do best is emote; you can feel their pain, their joy. For three minutes you can be in their shoes (not always a good place to be), not a wage slave in some dreary office or workplace.
I suppose where I’m going with this is that singing can take on many forms and the mash-up between words and music to create an intellectual, communal, spiritual or physical reaction sometimes needs more than a rhyming couplet.
Allen Ginsberg wasn't just a poet, the delivery of his poems as with his contemporary William Burroughs is just as important as the words. As one of the 'Beat generation' TM, AG has influenced so much of the alternative music scene that sometimes I feel his contribution gets a little lost. He was there with Kerouac; he was around with Burroughs; thats him in the background of the most copied and famous music video of all time, Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues. I can't believe his contribution was just standing around.
I've always been interested in the spoken word element in music, since I first heard the talky bit in Elvis' Are you Lonesome Tonight to modern day Hip-Hop.
Throughout this blog I will be posting tracks and links to music and documentaries that I supposed have moved me in some sort of way - I didn't get Ginsberg until I heard this mash-up with Tom Waits' Closing Time. I've had this track for quite a few years now, but I still don't know who put the two together (anybody feel free to shine a light).
There will be a lot more spoken word stuff to come, and lot more from the people Ginsberg influenced in some sort of way. If you  listen this it could be about anywhere at anytime, some of the references may need updating but it is essentially about the same world we live in now.
America

Luke Haines and the cellist

I've been making music for quite a few years now, more than I care to think about. All the bands I've been involved with have been guitar based,  you know drums, bass, guitar and usually keyboards. We have always though incorporated some other element into our music, either electronics or 'classic' such as brass and more recently cello. My wife is is the cellist in our band. I was recently lent Luke Haines' essential book Bad Vibes by SA over at Bagging Area (check it out,) in which the cellist is referred to as the cellist throughout due to his perceived mercenary ways. I have long had a parallel (not the right word, more like the antithesis of..) career with Luke Haines ( him being successful and critically acclaimed and did I mention successful? And me being, er you know not). I have been aware of him since his Auteurs days. I worked with an school friend of his who also knew ousted band mate Glen Collins.  I have fond memories of Glen coming to stay at my flat attending a party with him and a bunch of Auteurs groupies!!?? Hey it was the most uninteresting party I've ever been to I wasn't a 'pop star' and arrived too late for the mushrooms, which made it possibly more surreal than if I had been on mushrooms. I attended this party in a marathon party session for me, I lived in Sheffield and managed to go out in Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Perth and Manchester in subsequent nights, I aimed to make it to Nottingham to make a full seven, but the groupie party  killed me off really. Obviously the cellist was not on the scene at this time. Anyway I digress with my tales of hedonism and name dropping. however my friends tales of Luke Haines' strange ways, which I actually found compelling and interesting. Whilst reading Bad Vibes I realised I wish I'd known this man he appears to have similar outlook to me and although his music is nothing like mine there is common ground. One day I hope to meet him become his friend and confidant. If he reads this he may start to worry, thats the problem with the internet these strange fixations used to stay private.
Anyway.

Gigs I Missed 01 - Sparklehorse

Throughout my life I have missed the greatest gigs that ever took place. I wasn't at the 100 club or the Free Trade Hall for the Pistols or Finsbury park for The Clash, or Woodstock or Altamount or in fact any gig before seeing AC/DC at Sheffield City Hall on the Back in Black Tour. But there are many gigs I wished I'd been at that I didn't see for some stupid reason. These occasions are often brought into sharp focus when someone does something stupid likes tops themselves. Mark Linkous RIP.
I didn't see this gig in Leicester because at the time I didn't know who they/he was - but I wish I had, I've been waiting for him to come back..... Perhaps I should have told him.

Elvis Presley - Crawfish

I was very young when I first heard this.

Didn't know what a Bayou was or a crawfish or New Orleans for that matter, and certainly didn't understand any sexual references or what a metaphor was; but I knew this was cool. 

I had only just grown out of Elvis (Gene and Eddie had long since taken his crown for me if I'm honest) when he popped his clogs and Johnny came along. I remember my mum coming into my room to tell me Elvis had died, but he already had to me.  Elvis had become all crap films and jump suits not spiky hair and straight Jackets. There was a big fifties revival in the 80s which manifested itself as souped up psychobilly, The Cramps, Stray Cats, Meteors, King Kurt,  et al. And later 50's imagery was married with 60s soul for the Levis ads, leading to all sorts of horrors (The Pasendenas/Bros anyone?). As I grew older and further away from the those innocent first forays into Rock and Roll, iIts difficult to to remember when Elvis really was cool (as opposed to delightfully kitsch). But music would never be as pure to me as it was at the moment I first heard this. A side is Trouble and Young Dreams BTW

Crawfish

Malcolm Mclaren, Jonathan Richman - 1,2,3,4,5,6

I was wondering where to go next then the sad news of Malcolm Mclaren's death popped up on the rolling news screen. This could be the time to get out all my Sex Pistol references and how punk changed my life and how we really showed it to the man, but I was only 12 so not in any position to cause any sort of revolution. Punk did change my life but thats another story. There will be many writers and bloggers eulogising about Malcolm Maclaren and he, i'm sure would have loved the attention.
As with Tony Wilson, that other great imressario who passed in the last year, Malcolm's great talent seemed to be that he could spot greatness and where there wasn't greatness he could somehow manufacture greatness.
I loved the double album of the Great Rock and Roll Swindle and hey I even believed Malcolm's "it was all me wot planned it out" shtick for a minute. Yeah I loved it for Sid and Steve, I was too young to have formed opinions with historical perspectives about Nihilism and Situationist stunts, I was with my mates at lemonade parties pogoing to Friggin in the Riggin and Somethin Else (we were punk one day, then suddenly we were all skinny black ties and New Wave the next).  
But I have the Great Rock and Roll Swindle to thank for introducing me to a really terrible Sex Pistols demo, which in turn introduced me to Roadrunner by Jonathan Richman. This demo instantly gave license to this future musician to know 'no matter how bad it sounds' its good enough to record as long as you've got the attitude and no matter how simple the riff you can play for as long as you want if only you play with attitude and you mean it.
Jonathan Richman, is a fabulous troubadour and the Modern Lovers a wonderful band producing varied eclectic and intelligent music, I cherish their songs and the influence on later generations. Roadrunner was never a Punk song in the way that the Pistols et al thought of punk, and richman didn't want to trash everything he reverered the old Rock n Roll, this was a song of literally getting in the car and listening to those old tunes with top down and the wind in your hair 'with the radio on' . JR understandably doesn't dwell too much on his associations with punk rock, he grew up like everyone else even that other JR, Johnny Rotten.



footnote
I was amazed to see Jonathan Richman as himself in Something About Mary, a terrible film don't watch it.

Steve Reich - Its Gonna Rain

Back in the early 80s everyone apparently was messing around with synthesizers. Nobody I knew was- they were all into heavy metal and as such learning to play guitar was a rite of passage. I was never very good at sitting down and learning by heart. Everytime I tried I started going off on flights of fancy and creating new stuff from the old (I'd never heard of post-modernism it was ripping things off). I bought an old reel-reel 4 track recorder from the junk shop hoping to start my recording career ASAP. I got my mates round who were to be the new band. I didn't know much, none of us did. This recorder did in fact have 4 tracks, however you could not hear back 2 of the tracks whilst recording. Obviously I didn't want to lose face in front of my new band mates so we ploughed on with the session recording each track without being able to hear what we'd previously recorded.
When we played back the results everyone understandably fell about laughing, this didn't sound like Led Zeppelin, in fact it didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before. I started to get excited about the possibilities that this had for making music. Unfortunately none of my new band mates saw the same possibilities and at this time it was more about being in band than producing great art. But I had been bitten by the recording bug. Very soon I had a share in a real 4 track and I started to learn how to do it 'properly wrong'.
I didn't hear about Steve Reich until much much later, or any of the other minimalists for that matter.
This is a bit of a documentary about Reich and his tape phases. When I hear the words "Its Gonna Rain" I am instantly transported into a room full of hairy, patchuli smelling grebos laughing at the most wonderful out of phase guitar solo in the in the history of rock and roll.
You need Schoolin'
Baby I aint foolin

LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

Yesterday's blog Gil Scott-Heron gets a name check in today's entry, but there again so does most of the music from the last forty years or so. James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem highlight the entire problem of thinking too hard about this sort of stuff, "everyone you know is more relevant than everyone I know". As someone who never seems to have been in the right place at the right time, or was but didn't realise it, I have long given up on notions of being "relevant". I suppose much of this blog will eventually reveal me as being slightly out of phase with any musical/pop-culture/art movement that has happened during my time on the planet.
Debate often takes place about the best song/lyric/record and it is usually valid at some moment in time; some people even choose a record and then base all other value judgements around this choice, if I had to do that then this would possibly be my choice (this week anyway).
Murphy deconstructs in  three and half minutes notions of musical revolution, issues about age, destroys preconceptions about genre, looks, style and jealousy.
Like Scott-Heron's the Revolution will not be Televised, he has produced a piece of music that demands repeat listening. He wants people to investigate the references, they are not some great secret for him to horde. He gives the listener a sense of belonging through acknowledgement that someone likes what you like and has experienced similar dilemmas (shared values anyone?). Most importantly he shows musicians a way forward without having to ape his style, its ok to be out of sync, keep at it, it s the others not in sync with you.


LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
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Gil Scott-Heron: Definition of a Poet

Ok inspired by SA I'm becoming a blogger. Trouble is where to start.You can't start at the beginning - you'll never get to the end. I'll start with my favourite album of the moment.
After spending too much time in prison Gil Scott-Heron is back with an extraordinary album.  I implore you to buy this album. I'm New Here is a real album as well, don't just download the odd track - listen to it all.
Gil Scott-Heron has always been there for me. Simmering away in the background. He was the one who told me the 'Revolution would not be televised', he was right. He was the one who said I'd be living in a 'Bottle'; He knew all along. He is the link between the artists who will appear in this blog, he is the link between the Beats, the rappers, the Ranters and the Ravers. He's the link between the Avant-garde(ers), the Jazzers, the leftfield indie kids, the cut-ups and samplers and the proggers. He links Burroughs to Public Enemy and The Beasties to Beasley Street.