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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Tabs on Tapes

I've just listened to the second report on the BBC about a minor resurgence in audiotapes in as many days.

Whilst it is definitely nice to hear tape labels owners being (very briefly) interviewed on Radio 4, I still don't get this thing where people gas on about how hip they are by virtue of rocking a walkman instead of an iPod on the bus. This seems to have been around on the fringes for a few years now...

I mean, I AM pleased to see a few more tapes around again - the CDR pretty much took over for a bit in the homemade music circuit, & who could love an MP3? It's just that it seems a bit rich to talk about them like they're something everyone had forgotten about. I mean, I only stopped taping stuff off the (DAB) radio in 2005 (!) & the raves didn't swap wholesale to CDs until about then either. By then, the revival had pretty much begun... Yeah, so I was a bit behind on my home technology, but I bet I wasn't the only one. I still keep piles of tapes at work & at my parents' house to listen to when I'm there & the only reason I don't turn to them at home so much is cos so few new ones get added to the pile...Most of my tapes ARE now in the loft, but only cos I've got tons of them & the vinyl in the flat demands it!

I'm definitely no tape fetishist...outside the homemade circuit & the occasional charity shop oddity, I don't go searching them out...but did they ever REALLY go away?!

5:51 PM

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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Noughty, Noughty, Very Noughty...Top 100 of the Decade

I’m going to keep this just to music....I may lap up a fair bit of the net, politics, art, TV, books, some film, etc, but music remains my main area of interest...
I’ve fairly consistently said what a weird decade it has seemed for music (as have many other people), & the mantra remains the same...No Revolutions (well, no musical ones...the modes of delivery have obviously gone through endless changes). For a watcher of new music, the whole of one’s second decade of devotion being so lacking in new forms is disappointing, but then that partly goes with having devoured so much & being able to see the roots of just about everything. My outsider mainstays of the nineties (gabba & noise) remain high in my thoughts. The other (ragga) has only relatively recently fallen a bit behind through the overuse of cheesy vocoders. The only really consistent large area of musical innovation to join these in my heart has been the ever-changing realm of UK Garage, enough to thrill many but still massively indebted to the nineties & flawed in its habit of regularly slipping into dull devotion to bling or violence. In fact, for a decade so predictably derided throughout this one, the nineties still seems to hold a lot of sway (second only to eighties throwback mania). Yet even the recent final open re-acceptance of the nineties (Toddla T’s show this week seemed largely to consist of grime records sampling early nineties house records) comes as something of a disappointment.
As the mantra also always runs though, there have been many great individual records & a multitude of interesting little microgenres to give us fun, enjoyment & safe passage through the tripe...
And wow, has there been some tripe... Popbitch this week reported the best-selling singles of the noughties as follows...
1. Will Young (Evergreen)
2. Gareth Gates (Unchained Melody)
3. Shaggy (It Wasn't Me)
4. Tony Christie/Peter Kay (Amarillo)
5. Band Aid 20
6. Hear’Say (Pure & Simple)
7. Shayne Ward
8. Kylie (Can't Get You Out Of My Head)
9. Bob the Builder (Can We Fix It)
10. Atomic Kitten (Whole Again)

Hardly surprising, but still depressing...and notice how most were from earlier in the decade (one presumes they either didn’t count downloads or singles sales really have gone through the floor). Only the Shaggy record is half-decent (can I count Amarillo as a Blackpool guilty pleasure?!), and even that is a paean to the pleasures of sleazing around behind yr girlf’s back. (To be fair, the nineties list is terrible too, but at least it’s not nearly all reality TV people & charity singles).
So here goes...I’ve gone for a very imperfect top one hundred of musical THINGS...I’m not even going to split it into singles, albums & live...my gig aide memoire list has long gone to pot, I’m not going to trawl old tape comps, half my recent CDs are at work & it’s as imperfect as such a list always will be, with many records leapfrogging others from the original anal lists I’ve made at the end of most of the individual years. Not only that, but everyone will mock my cheesy, comedic, highly personal choices (one or two of which are only so important to me cos I was involved)...but hey...it gives a good impression of what’s made the decade for me as interesting as the last one, even if in very different ways...
I will just mention first that I was surprised how many rap records there are on here (I make it about 37 records with raps on!), as I haven’t listened to that much hip hop for years now. I think that when it is on form, hip hop is right at the forefront, making big leaps forward in the form of very catchy records. Hence, there might not be many big ones to choose from, but those are all darn good ones.
--------------------------

..-------------------------
100-98) Special mentions go to the following:
Outkast “Bombs Over Baghdad” (2000) – The first round-up I read, that from Pitchfork, had this as the track of the decade! It did pretty much knock me off my feet when I first heard it, with the genre-bending D’n’B-ish rhythm & psych guitar plus its prophetic title, but I must admit I’ve barely listened to it since...Too much at once?!
Daft Punk “Discovery” (2000/1) – One of several of the early wave of eighties throwback thingums that you could characterise as defining the sound of the following decade. I like stuff that throws me & I must admit I shook my head & wondered just what they thought they were doing when “One More Time” came out...pretty backward after “Da Funk”, I thought. The stuff grew on me, but it was all a bit shiny-sounding to really do it...although of course, that’s I imagine what makes it so beautiful to most people...sleek like some kind of posh high-end car...
Throwback Mixes: I have to mention Playgroup’s “Party-Mix” & Steinski’s “Nothing To Fear” (both essentially bootlegs I think). The former at the time seemed like the high-water mark of the eighties reissues, with its constantly engaging song-every-twenty-seconds cut n paste aesthetic. In fact, it was probably more of a start than an end. The Steinski mix took a while to fully percolate through my brain, but as with Playgroup, I’m impressed how he still knows which bits matter in pieces of music. I had little interest in Nelly etc until I heard them rehashed the Steinski way!
97) The Strokes “Last Nite” (2001) – I thought the Strokes were a bit obvious to start with, but they definitely knew how to worm a tune into your head. Like it or not, the first album lorded it over the start of the decade like a paradoxically short colossus. Classic harrumphy lyrics to boot too: “Baby, I feel so down/And I don't know why/I keep walkin' for miles”…
96) Half Man Half Biscuit “Bob Wilson – Anchorman” (Editor’s Recommendation CD EP, Probe Plus, 2001) – How does a silly song by Half Man Half Biscuit get above the Strokes?! I marvel that this band continues to regularly come up with tracks as good as stuff from their much earlier in their lengthy but sporadic career. The EP this came from was possibly their most complete record to date and it is hard to pick a favourite, but that they can write a tune engaging enough to interest me in Bob Wilson for a couple of minutes is testament enough to their powers! ‘I’ve been to Kent, Gwent and Senegal/I’ve even been to look for Jim Rosenthal/Found him on his knees at the Wailing Wall/Crying: “Bob Wilson – anchorman!”’.
95) Common “The Light” (2000) – I’ve probably written about this one before on my blog. An at times slightly awkward but altogether too rare attempt from the hip hop world to be genuinely nice about women.
94) Dynamite Hack “Boyz In the Hood” (2000) – A strange bedfellow for the previous tune, this acoustic cover of the Eazy E rant simultaneously seems to glory in & deconstruct the original’s rampant misogyny, violence etc. It was a cheap shot, but a hell of a catchy one – which is actually quite an achievement, cos the original is a tuneless dirge!
93) Mrs Cakehead “Gift Week” (Happy Xmas From Bacup CD EP, c.2006) – Bacup’s premiere reggae act on a very digital vibe, giving a sorta gleeful yet slightly bemused account of the influence of free downloads on the music industry! “Finally come, & its here to stay...its gift week, its bloody gift week!”. http://www.myspace.com/mrs..cakehead
92) Sean Kingston “Beautiful Girls” (2007) – I’m a sucker for a “Stand By Me” sample & the “Suicidal” & ”When I went away/For doin’ My first crime” lines bring an interesting angle to an otherwise simple little break-up song.
91) The Business at Rebellion, Blackpool, 2002 – I love the Business & this was a simple explanation of why. Those oi bands get grief for being right-wing all the time, but they came on after Dead Kennedys (who they praised) & brought thousands of people together in simple ecstasy & with a big heart (my favourite moment was probably the slightly funny but somehow touching speech about what good eggs the security guards were!).
90) Birds of Prey Live, Packhorse, Leeds, 2006 – Part of a staggering all-dayer on one of the rare occasions these days that I got away from home for gigs. The sheer visceral power of this band (something to do with the more arty but also excellent Birds of Delay) was phenomenal.
89) Foreplayers “Got Some Donk (Totally-Donk-Tastic Mix)” (Foreplay 12”, 2005) – A pretty straight-forward record really, but one I seem to come back to again & again. It’s a bounce record with the a capella from Obie Trice’s “Got Some Teeth” over the top plus shedloads of scratching etc. Blackpool connections helped too.
88) Babycham “Hands Off My Property” (For Da Streets Part 7 bootleg 12”EP, c.2001) – The slightly over-hyped ‘mutant pop’ mash-up genre of the time masked a broader increase in mash-ups that yielded some great results. This one was more a favourite at the time than now, but is still pretty monolithic, making the best possible use of otherwise-only-passable hip hop tunes from Bubba Sparxx & Puff Daddy as a backdrop for Bounty Killer protégée Babycham to do his thing...
87) Damian Marley “All Night” (2005) – “Welcome To Jamrock” was massive, but for me it was this cheeky little number that showed the Marley clanster’s skills off best. Total throwback early nineties-style pop dancehall all the way...
86) Babycham “Middle Finger In the Air” (Mad House 7”, 2002) – That man again. I quite liked songs this decade about people doing things their own way & telling everyone else to go hang...possibly cos of growing up into an adult in my own idiosyncratic way...brilliant Eastern European-sounding fiddle riff too (The Return riddim).
85) Blowjangles Live – I have played with the East Lancs band on numerous occasions & at their best, they are pretty inspiring...slightly tipsy community band based around brass instruments (mainly saxes), doing covers of the most beautiful reggae & black pop numbers, with soaring solos. Long may they continue...
84) DJ Mujava - “Township Funk” (This Is Music 12”, 2006) - A Kwaito record from South Africa was one of my WOW moments of 2008. Nothing more than a One Man & His Dog-reminiscent, Chicago-esque house track fed over some African rhythms, it spewed out of Dave Pearce's Radio One show with such force that I had to ask my housemate what it was & then listen to the end to make sure I found out when she didn't know. Not had one like that for a while...
83) Darkstar “Need You” (Hyperdub 12”, 2008) - Provided one of the few 'Huh?' moments of that year. Featuring loops that unexpectedly but totally work together, it has been described as 'Chip-Garage', referencing the computer-game derived niche-nerd Chiptune microgenre. The genius of the record is that - for all the special bass production techniques employed by dubstep's techno-bods – they were trumped by someone who just mixed the damn thing really high up, kept it all pretty lo-fi and crucially managed to keep the vibe throughout. In an era overrun with tedious vocoders & autotune, Darkstar even managed to triumph through use of a vocoder, employed as it should be, on the only, short vocal, played like a sad robot pining for some far-off love.
82) Bong Live, Packhorse, Leeds, 2006 – At the same gig as Birds of Prey... Dronedoom (if that is what we call it) has been a strange one for me....it is the genre I am most fascinated by without wishing to listen to it anywhere near regularly. Marzuraan were actually the band that freaked me out as my first noughties suck on the genre (until I twigged there was an “Earth 2” vibe abounding). I think it works best live though but very VERY rarely get to see any of it. Bong were narrowly the best of several dronedoom bands on that day (including the aforementioned Marazuraan). The Leeds folks seemed nonchalant about it all (seen it all before, no doubt). It bowled me over personally...
81) Apple “Mr Bean” (Street Tuff 12”, 2007) – Another one that weirded the hell out of me when I first heard it....what was it all about?! Soca 8-Bar with backwards-sounding chords? The very oddest, roughest, most basic & hermetic early incarnation of the generally enjoyable but smooth UK Funky style that has re-invigorated the Grime world recently.
80) Sosumi “Feel the Tribute” (Sosumi 12”, 2002) – A mash-up entirely stuck in the nineties, one might think, but the combination of the pumping Dyewitness riff, classic Shades of Rhythm vocal & almost-unfeasibly-popular- ..up-north Asha “JJ Tribute” piano drop made it one of the key early bounce records, the whole scene finding its way through stitching together old tunes to suggest new pathways.
79) Rustie “Zig-Zag” (Wireblock 12”, 2008) - The Scottish wonder-kid who claimed his style to be 'aquacrunk'. I guess that was a joke, and I could kinda guess what it would sound like from that description, but it all sounded kinda puerile to me. Well, "Zig-Zag" made a monkey of me...psychedelic-as-hell woozy queasy low-slung rushes all the way.
78) Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth “Kill Or Be Killed” (Full Watts 7”, 2000) – DJ Scud’s ultimate breakcore call-to-arms, which has been discussed as being one of the best records of all time recently on Dissensus. Proper earbleed bizness, but somehow crafted into an accessible little pop number.
77) Maximum Hustler - Module Two (Recall 12”, 2004) – Delightfully fluffy-yet-crunchy bit of bounce, with lighter-than-air synth tuneage sprayed with obligatory Chuck D samples.
76) Abradab “Jedziemy Po Ziolo” – Ace Polish pop hip hop tune (apparently about going to the dealer’s house) that I’ve covered previously on my blog.
75) Burro Banton “Phenomenum 2” (Massive B 7”, 2000) – I’m pretty sure this is an old lyric rehashed (and also covered elsewhere on my blog), but it’s a seriously great one.
74) Goonies Never Say Die Live & on CD – Blackpool’s premiere instro post-rock band give me chills...
73) Chezidek “Leave the Trees” (2005) – Dainty little one-drop dancehall number in the great long tradition of subterfuge in pop music, providing a story about saving the world that’s blatantly actually all about legalising cannabis! “Leave the trees, and let them be/
Can’t you see, you’re destroying the environment”.

72) Higher Council Of Mars Live, West Coast, Blackpool, early 2006 – A great band who I loved in all their incarnations. Their brutal, never-changing noise rock duo riffage from this point remains my favourite.
71) Poco Loco Live, especially at the Methodist conference thingy, Winter Gardens, Blackpool – I used to play in a samba band. It was largely great fun. We got asked to play loads of random events. The best for me was this bizarre national Methodist event where the Empreess Ballroom packed out for us & people were conga dancing round the room...wow!
70) Editors “Bullets” (2005) – By the looks of it, the Editors are the key point at which mine & my girlfriends’ tastes meet. Most people seem to roll their eyes & dismiss them as Joy Division wannabes - & they probably are – but I never much liked Joy Division & yet these work for me somehow. I think they take just enough of the grandiosity of the Coldplay/Muse crowd & mix it with intelligent lyrics & tunes that have a distinctly melancholic feel but some sort of faith in life at the centre of them. Plus some pretty chiming guitarwork too.
69) Jah Shaka at the Rocket, London, early noughties – I made the pilgrimage to see Shaka a couple of times whilst I lived down that way & at times one really felt transported by the definitely religious music played by the great laidback guru with his one turntable and his picture of Selassie cellotaped to the wall.
68) Blackout Crew “Put A Donk On It” – Something of a comedy record but Mr Reynolds is RIGHT, it DOES seem somehow better than a lot of the genuine stuff. It’s just such a complete novelty...and supported by a charismatic video with some very funny skits on the music styles being lightly joshed with by the song.
67) Missy Elliott ”Pass That Dutch” (2003) – One of those hip hoppers who seems to spew utter bilge until it comes time to write a hit single, at which point it comes out effortlessly. As one of my friends summed it up: “When Missy drops it, it stays well & truly dropped!”: “Listen up muthaf*ckas, you have five seconds to catch your breath”. And as if that wasn’t enough, it came in the period when people were adding snippets of other tracks at the end of their videos. Missy, naturally, gave us the best of all those twofers...
66) Ludacris “What’s Your Fantasy?” (2000) – Every schoolboy’s favourite naughty rap tune (and possibly the best sex boast rap since Kool G Rap’s “Talk Like Sex”). What I particularly loved about it was the way he covered all bases, even visiting my own domain: “How 'bout in the library on top of books/But you can't be too loud”.
65) Ceramic Hobs “Al Al Who” (Pumf CD, 2007) – Fourth proper CD from my favourite band & Blackpool’s most impressive modern musical sons. A slightly more angular, Bogsheddy/Big Flamey feel to this one.
64) Astral Social Club “Lunar Caustic Clan” – Still unreleased at time of writing, some recordings by Neil using beats by myself. Its an edgy collaboration at times, but Neil continually impresses with his imagination & his ability at times to aim for the soul in a blissful orgy of trebly twinkly goo.
63) Mordant Music “24 Million Or Sell Neverland” (Mordant Music 12”, 2008) – A Jacko-baiting wonder & the point at which Mordant started to live up to their rep. The first time I listened to it on rough old headphones in a shop, I had to ask to have it blasted on the speakers to see if it really was quite so distorted. There wasn’t much difference. I love a record that picks a subject well off the beaten track & I spent much of the following weeks gurning my way round empty corridors at work whispering "Miiiicchhaeeeeelllll....2 ..4 milllliiiooonn or sell Neverland" to myself! It’s ended up feeling completely of its time after this year’s macabre events. Don’t stop til you get enough!
62) Miss Kittin & the Hacker “Frank Sinatra 2001” (Emperor Norton, 2001) – Sleazy silly electro from the time when such things were still tolerable & relatively novel-sounding. “In limousines we have sex/every night with my famous…frieeeeendszzz”.
61) The Streets “It’s Too late” (2002) – the album version of this is a little dry & there’s a nice band live version that’s preferable. Either way, this is basically the record that should have had the success that “Dry Your Eyes Mate” got. This too was one of his more heartfelt, personal ones, but this one at least had less embarrassingly badly-written lyrics. The scenario is a well-thought-out one, with a guy who puts everything else in front of the thing that really matters (don’t all us guys do that at some point?). It gets extra points for the park & melancholia motifs reminding me of “Sitting In the Park”.
60) Skream “Midnight Request Line” (Tempa 12”, 2005) – After years of dubstep being talked up but having for me turned much duller than its quieter beginnings with El-B & co, it suddenly threw up this most beautiful, Detroit-indebted record. Like all the best, it was simple but well-arranged, eerie but uplifting.
59) Missy Elliott “Work It” (2002) – More classic Missy bizness.
58) NERD “Lapdance” (2000) – You want the original of this, not the horrendous band-style remake. The Neptunes were awesome thought-provoking producers in their time & its just such a shame that most of their own stuff was so pompous. They hadn’t got to that stage yet on this one, it was just a full-on sleazefest. “You can find me drunk, whip it it might crash/Or find me chillin with crackers, who like Clash…”.
57) Editors “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors” (2007) – More grand stuff from Joy Div-Lite.
56) The Dawn Parade “Hole In Your Heart” (Electric Fence Your Gentleness CD EP, 2002) – Teenage poetry inna Manics-Lite vein from these East Anglians, in bar far their best number. I saw them playing magically shambolically & being teenagey in an Ipswich park once & wished I was their age again.
55) The Streets - Get Out of My House (MC Version) (Blinded By the Lights CD EP, 679, 2004) – It seems a bit much to have two from The Streets in the top 100, but this one barely involves Mr Skinner at all...it’s a showcase for some of grime’s best of the time (Kano, Bruza, D Double E & Demon) to tell an entertaining & somehow kinda old school hip-hoppy cheesy tale about trying to get a lassie out of the house before mum gets home: “Coz my mum she soon come back to the house/So after the quickie you have to quickly get out”!
54) Ceramic Hobs “Straight Outta Rampton” (Pumf CD, 2001) – The second album. Not quite as complete an album for me as for some, but filled nevertheless with some great, edgy tunes, including the prophetic “Islam Uber Alles”.
53) Pitman “Witness the Pitness” (Son 7”, 2002) – Fantastically grouchy & opinionated UK rap that for me bettered the Roots Manuva record it was based around. “We don’t give a frig about yr friggin’ aerial/so stick it up yr ar*e with your pirate material...”.
52) Missy Elliott “Get Ur Freak On” (2001) – Something of a defining record at the start of the decade. In some ways I probably more enjoyed the seemingly endless official & unofficial variations than the original itself, but it really was a production tour de force from Timbaland, with a rap to match.
51) Barbarians Live, West Coast, Blackpool, 2007 & 2008 – Probably the closest I’ve ever got to being in danger of my life at gigs has been standing near the front for the noisy metal-bashing couldn’t-care-less-about-t..he-audience’s-safety Barbarians. Pure exhiliration.
50) Monopolka Live, Beerhouse, Manchester, 2006 – I organised a bunch of dates on this tour & then failed through circumstances to make most of them, so when I finally caught the Russian noise machine in action, it was a bonus when he blew away all the other very excellent acts on at the alldayer, Cossack-dancing his way through so much blatantly-brought-in vodka that he ended up getting all future noise dos at the venue cancelled! ‘Insania’, as some greasy cretin would say...
49) Musical Mob “Pulse X” (Inspired Sounds 12”, 2002) – Another one that’s here as much for what it did as what it was. The most basic, grittiest, cheap of records (as are so many of the firiest party-starters), it defined 8-Bar, which almost immediately then spawned Grime, from which much of the decade’s developments thence sprang forth. Important record, then.
48) Rigamortis “Pillface” (GGM Raw 1 12”EP, 2007) – I think this gets relatively high up because although there has been plenty of decent gabba-derived sound this decade, there’s been sadly little of much genuine character. Massive Pacman sample? That’ll do it then...
47) Wiley “Goin’ Mad” (Treddin’ On Thin Ice CD, XL, 2004) – First entry for Wiley, arguably the maverick innovator of the decade. This one was a thoughtful yet slightly silly examination of madness. The most amazing thing about this guy is that when he is on form, he has got it all – production skills, a good solid rapper & great lyrics too.
46) Little Man Tate - House Party At Boothy’s (2006) – Think I’ve covered this one in the blog. Mindless, retro indie, but utterly enjoyable & evocative.
45) The Bergeracs – Machines (MP3, c.2006) – I saw this band pass me by somewhat at the Winter Gardens & then sometime later got bewitched by a number of songs from their Myspace, yet somehow managed to miss seeing them again before the split. Reminiscent at times of the likes of The Wedding Present, whilst sitting very well in the Libertines era.
44) Mastgrr “Cooking By the Book (A Lil Bigger Mix)” (c.2008) – Outrageous & filthy little mash-up of Lazytown & Lil Jon that has been infuriating the Lazytown people for months over on Youtube. The best part is that it is a perfect little bit of pop music.
43) Hermit Live, Lowther Pavilion, Lytham, 2008 – Always-enjoyable chiptune act get the gig of their life in front of a manic crowd of underagers inbetween lame pop-punk groups. The floor gets thoroughly pounded & I leave with a massive smile on my face. Utterly idiosyncratic & undeniably enjoyable.
42) Hefner Live, Colchester Arts Centre, c.2001 – I always thought Hefner were OK & really liked one or two tracks (particularly “Hello Kitten”), but thanks must go to the soundguy at this gig, because you could hear every word, every note clear as a bell, and that really helps with this band...Real hang-on-every-word stuff from the romantic old pervs.
41) Wiley “They Just Can’t Get Along With Wiley” – Actually I’m still not quite sure what this is really called. Great tune though.
40) Heffalump Trap – The first (noise) rock band I ever joined. Flawed but greatly enjoyable & at times, as at the last gig in 2008, really exhilarating. Thanks for all the nice comments.
39) The Bergeracs “Untold Story” – More from the unheralded ones...
38) Wyclef Jean “Perfect Gentleman” (2000) – I thought most post-Fugees music was terrible, so this was an unexpected treat. I’m not going to completely fall for sleazy Wyclef’s “Nothing wrong with pulling a lapdancer” schtick, but the music & lyrics combined bring you pretty damn close: “You calling her a hooker? He without sin cast the first stone”.
37) Shackleton “Blood On My Hands [Original Mix]” (Soundboy’s Nuts Get Ground Up Proper 12”, Skull Disco, 2006) – 9/11 did really require a defining record to come from it & I was never gonna be satisfied with any of that gungho crap that emanated from the States afterwards. Well, it took a long time coming, but one worthy of the crown eventually made an appearance. Don’t be fooled by all the press about Ricardo Villa-whats-his-face’s over-long, muddy & slightly turgid remix, it is really all about the delicate, lo-fi, flawed original. It gains most power from being a little obscure in the lyrical department. It’s fairly obviously about the Twin Towers, but it isn’t 100% assertive about that & whilst it is almost morosely melancholy, the role of the protagonist in the piece is by no means certain....the moralising in this most moralised-about affair is left all to the listener.
36) Astral Social Club “Octuplex” (VHF CD, 2009) – Featuring a smidgen of me again, but really here because it’s almost like a greatest hits, with a wide range of collaborators & some great tracks that seemed to have escaped release only to have been saved up for this baby. If you get one Astral record, make it this one.
35) Ying Yang Twins “Wait (The Whisper Song)” (2005) – There is a comedy routine (Chris Rock I think) where he talks about how clever he thought this was when he first heard it – gargantuan bassline, finger-snaps, whispered vocals...and then he fingered out the lyrics & all sophistication ebbed away: “Wait 'til you see my dick /I'm gon beat that pussy up”?! I felt the same. There is just no denying it though…it’s a great record, probably the seal on the deal for the southern states take-over of hip hop. They may have nothing to say & say it in a mumble-mouthed way, but those southern guys have got all the other ideas right now…

34) Beenie Man “My Wish” (c.2001) – I didn’t even realise this was an R Kelly cover to start with. Beenie delivers one of his best social conscience lyrics, employing every trick in his vocal book to whip up passion for the plight of the ghetto-dwellers.
33) Chris Morris “Bushwhacked” (c.2001) – there are a bunch of versions of this, but it’s the utterly filthy short a capella one I have in mind. Who DIDN’T want to hear George Bush Junior saying very rude things?!
32) Aphex Twin “Avril 14th” (Drukqs, Warp, 2001) – Who would have thought that the most convincing moment from the Twin this decade would be a tiny little sketch on solo piano?!
31) Charity Shop Orchestra “Sitting In the Park” (Hoofboy 7”, 1999) – Argh...I’ve just found out this is out of the time bracket...ah well, I definitely didn’t get it til I moved back down south. Just a lovely straightforward remix (more a remix than a cover, I think) of one of my favourite songs...add a few little light breakbeats, stir, and...very obscure classic (only three matches on Google!).
30) Eminem “Kim” (The Marshall Mathers LP, Interscope, 2000) – Probably the most disturbing pop record I’ve ever known to NOT cause any great stir upon its release. Maybe I’m a bit of a girl, but I find this utterly hair-raising.
29) Wiley “Ice Rink” (Wiley Kat 12”, 2003) – It is the ‘devil’s mix’ version of this on the B Side that really freaked me, being the first time I’d heard one of his decidedly peculiar beatless instrumentals (designed for easier riding by MCs at clubs & on the radio). Another of those rare moments when something genuinely new completely throws you, and again made on the cheapest equipment known to man.
28) When People Become Numbers (dual vocalist line-up) – Blackpool’s amazing gem of a metal band. Metal people & genres are inscrutable creatures, but they themselves described it as ‘math grind’. I suspect some metallers would turn up their noses at it & say its not as good as X or Y, but for me it was fantastically insane & the greatest joy to have it going on in my town for a year or two.
27) Wolf Eyes Live, Jabez Clegg, Manchester, 2006 – The first & still the only time I’ve ever seen people stage-diving to noise music in my fourteen years of going to such gigs. Life-affirming in the extreme.
26) Desalvo Live, Connolly’s, Blackpool, 2008 – Sweatbox gig for the ex-Stretchheads, put on by my good self & Kate Fear.
25) CSOD “Wasted Again [Original Recording]” (MP3, c.2006) – You want the original of this: the version on the “Wasted World” comp is good, but not as good. Lyrics by Stormy Weathers I believe: “I’m at war...with my brain”. The definitive punk drinking mentality song, sadly being circulated in the post-vinyl/CD days when it’ll float around in the ether & on very limited CDRs, then disappear entirely...which will be a shame... http://www.myspace.com/cso..duk
24) Dandy Warhols “Bohemian Like You” (2000) – A bit of a smooth production job that ended up seeing it plastered over ads all over the place, but the Dandy Warhols are a better band than that suggests & channel genuine bandishness into some pretty clever little songs about life in the slacker generation. This one is the ultimate distillation of that.
23) Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster “Torrential Abuse” (Celebrate Your Mother 7”, Island, 2002) – I never saw these live. I heard they were staggering. This is the closest they got on record to what I imagine that sounded like. It is a blistering, dark, looming, vicious piece of music that fully justifies all those Birthday Party comparisons. It’s such a shame they turned into a dodgy Nu Metal band, but then it could never go on like this forever...
22) The Haddenham One – A Lane In Spain (Pumf CDR, 2009) – My own album finally completed, after many years of tinkering, with the help of Stan from the Hobs & various other people. Do I genuinely think its the 23rd best record of the decade? Well I certainly like it! :-D).
21) Half Man Half Biscuit “For What Is Chatteris” (Achtung Bono CD, Probe Plus, 2005) – I swear I nearly cried when they played this in Blackpool. It’s pretty obvious from one or two of the lyrics that he has never been there & it was just picked from small-town names in a hat, but being from very nearby, it tickled myself & a few pals immensely: “You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce/although there was a drive by shouting once”.
20) R Kelly “Trapped In the Closet” – Where to start?! Much as I want it to go on forever, its a little too lengthy to get much further up the chart. Nevertheless, the genius of inventing the RnB cliff-hanger pocket soap opera is well worth a high entry. Some hilariously brilliant couplets & a remarkably durable never-changing musical backdrop are just a couple of the features that made this a highlight of the decade...and then there’s the midget, the ‘package’ etc etc.
19) Three 6 Mafia – Sippin’ On Da Syrup (Loud 12”, 2000) – Think I’ve covered this one elsewhere on my blog. Glossy tribute to codeine cough syrup: “This here shit will knock you down/Knock you out, make you fall asleep when you're on them wheels”.
18) Bearsuit “Hey Charlie Hey Chuck” (Sickroom Gramophonic Collective 7”, 2001) – Norwich Nu-Twee band, who are always entertaining but have never bettered their extremely tentative-sounding debut single. I saw them live around the same time, in London, and they were wonderful, with just the same almost-too-nervous-to-play ..-yet-quite-adventurous outlook.
17) DPM feat Shizzle, Napper & Bruza “Have Some of That” (12”?!, mid-noughties) – One of the punkiest of the grime records, powered by a pounding rhythm track & Bruza & co’s almost music hall-style patter.
16) Pitman “Words” (It Takes A Nation of Tossers LP, Son, 2003) – I think again I may have covered this elsewhere on my blog. The comedy rap prince took a totally unexpected (semi-) serious turn & came up with a slightly whimsical, melancholic look at the absurdities of the modern world.
15) More Fire Crew – Oi! (Go! Beat, 2002) – Like some other heralds for weird new musical genres (Rotterdam Termination Source’s proto-gabba “Poing” comes to mind), this looked like a novelty at the time, with the most basic rhythm track possible, lyrics at times sounding like a tuneless rapped version of wooden acting and lyrics on the hackneyed subject of people picking on them about trying to be MCs. Lucky then that all this bleakness was pretty much a template for grime.
14) Peaches “Fuck the Pain Away” (The Teaches of Peaches LP, Kitty-Yo, 2000) – Another that came at the start of the decade and never went away. Perhaps the unlikeliest sex star in the world, it is just a shame that she went harder on the crass porny element than the scary-liberated-woman element on later records (Impeach My Bush? Indeed!). This one still sounds pretty awesome, if unfocussed, with the Pottymouth Queen dealing in some sorta sexual-freedom-in-lieu-of-..anything-better mantra over a rough ride of a rhythm & never-ending strings of cymbal crashes...
13) Mrs Cakehead “Cheesy & Cheerful” (Cakemon CDR, Fiend, c.2002) – Pretty much my motto...
12) The Killers “Mr Brightside” (2003) – The first indie disco record since “Bohemian Like You” about which I knew nothing & had to find out...brilliant lyrical tale & just the right amount of keyboard intrusion. Doesn’t look like they’re going to come close to it anytime soon...
11) Ceramic Hobs “Shergar Is Home Safe & Well” (Pumf CD, 2003) – The best Hobs album for me, a perfect set, listenable end to end (again & again), brilliantly produced, great thought-provoking lyrics...a real pleasure.
10) Dizzee Rascal “I Luv U” (c.2002) – For a moment, it looked like garage & gabba were going to cross-polinate! This sounded pretty stunning when I first heard it on the net through headphones but it sounded much more satisfying coming over a full system whilst shopping in HMV....what a record to cross-over...merciless stuff...
9) Jeffrey Lewis “Back When I Was 4” (It’s The Ones... CD, Rough Trade, 2003) – I could probably have had more Jeff Lewis in here. When I hear dreary acoustic people, this is usually what I want them to sound like: it’s so easy to fail to be original as an acoustic act yet here’s someone who manages originality over & over again by staying true to his own thing. He is always slightly touching, but this one really gets me...puts him up there with Loudon Wainwright for understanding things beyond his years.
8) Snoop Dogg feat Pharrell “Drop It Like It’s Hot” (2004) – As if the Neptunes hadn’t gifted us enough & then gone off the boil really badly, they proved who was king again with some tongue clicks, some spraycan sounds & Snoop on the best form of his career.
7) Morrissey “First of the Gang To Die” (2004) – I’m not a ceaseless Mozz-watcher, but when he is good, he is really really good, and this romantic slice of life ranks with his best, with the band on form & a classic tale from the wrong side of the tracks evoked through some beautifully unlovely imagery.
6) R Kelly “Ignition Remix” (2002) – I will be surprised & disappointed if this isn’t in most if not all of the decade-end charts...Nearly universally liked (or at least found amusing), this might be the most perfect piece of pop music so far this century.
5) Clipse “Grindin” (2002) – I first saw this bleak bit of drug-dealer chat on the music TV channels & snorted with derision at how low hip hop had fallen, with some pretty cock-eyed-sounding rapping over some under-cooked beats, lots of idiots trying to look hard in the video & lyrics encouraging nonsense from their contemporaries. Yet again though, it was one of those records on which times turn. The confusion gave way to an appreciation of the distinctively innovative flows, the clever rhymes, the sparse but catchy rhythm, the inward-looking discussion of crime. The starting point for one of the best new groups of the decade.
4) The Crimea “Lottery Winners On Acid” (Shiny Beast CD, 2002) – There’s a couple of versions of this. I prefer the original, but both have things to recommend them. When I lived in Aberystwyth at the turn of the decade, I wasn’t expecting to ever take much interest in local heroes The Crocketts, so it was a great surprise when they transformed into The Crimea and came up with this absolutely splendid & warped love song: “We walk through the streets like lottery winners on acid/everything she says I was thinking anyway”. Just the tonic for yet another version of “Unchained Melody”.
3) Wiley – Wot Do U Call It? (Treddin’ On Thin Ice CD, XL, 2004) – The ultimate Wiley record for me (and there were plenty of contenders). Lost in the moment, it will end up impenetrable to anyone not around at the time to recognise the discussion of microgenres & their names that he is talking about. Really, though, he is just saying “Stuff you, I’m going to do whatever I want anyway”. Yep, another one of those records...and a manic & essential one at that. “Ready to say my goodbyes/Goodbye to the man who don't like me/Goodbye to the woman who don't like me/Goodbye to the fingers pointin at me/Goodbye to the promoters that hate me/Goodbye to the people that's hasslin me/I'm turnin over a new leaf…”.
2) Ed OG feat Masta Ace “Wishing” (My Own Worst Enemy CD, Fat Beats, 2004) – I was pretty late on this one, but it got cained when I got on it. A traditional bit of hopeful, conscious hip hop from two sadly largely-forgotten MCs, which stuck out a mile amongst all the negativity.
1) Twista feat Jamie Foxx & Kanye West “Slow Jamz” (2004) – I quite possibly played this more than any other record this decade, so for all its very obvious cheesiness, I think it better get the vote. Like the Sean Kingston & the Dawn Parade numbers, it takes you right back to some sort non-existent earlier period in your life (in this case involving a penchant for eighties chicken-in-a-basket soul as opposed to stretches in young offender’s homes or angsty slamming of bedroom doors!). A seriously lush-sounding record, it is far better than any of the records it references, but even the very fact that it’s about old records appeals to a saddo music collector like me. Oh, and thank god it predated the latest craze for vocoders...
--------------------------
I’ve gathered some of the more readily-available tunes from this chart into a Youtube Playlist here: http://www.youtube.com/vie..w_play_list?p=FF4B7F4601F6..A3DC

12:14 AM

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Friday, October 09, 2009

FES FEST 09 - Sat 21st November - Section 25 & Ramleh

SECTION 25

With a constant core of the Cassidy brothers since 1978, these contemporaries and friends of Joy Division released four albums and numerous singles via Factory Records during the 1980s of wildly disparate and always adventurous sounds ranging from doomy post-punk to psychedelic improv to proto-acid house. Since successfully relaunching in 2006 two new albums have been completed and gigs have been played all around Europe, with Section 25 resolutely refusing to pander to a nostalgia crowd and continuing to evolve, and singer Larry Cassidy proving himself to be a truly enigmatic and charismatic frontman. Their first Blackpool show in almost a year.

RAMLEH

From London and founded in 1982 by Gary Mundy (also a founder member of Skullflower), Ramleh are possibly the most influential band you've never heard of. Their fierce early 'power electronics' recordings (to be re-released imminently as a six-disc box set on Harbinger Sound) helped spawn a worldwide subculture of noise music, while their '90s abject space-rock phase was many years ahead of its time and the world is only just catching up - the band were given a six-page hagiography treatment in The Wire magazine earlier this year to coincide with their comeback single 'Switch Hitter'. This show by the three-piece 'rock' version of Ramleh (Mundy, Di Franco, Watts) is the first non-London UK show for Ramleh since 1996! Not to be missed.

plus...T.C.H. PHASE EIGHT GAS CLUB (aka Ceramic Hobs) - the UK's Kings of Bad Mongo continue the unhinged quest for the ultimate psych bad trip. Eight-piece lineup, likely to be our final local show for some time.

This night is in memory of local legend Fes Parker/Eddie Smith who died earlier this year, soon to be commemorated in John Robb's 'Death To Trad Rock' book and CD. It seems a suitable tribute to a brave life spent doing uncompromising art and music to have a lineup of similarly unconventional artists doing their stuff. The ridiculously cheap entrance fee of FIVE POUNDS includes a free album by Fes Parker 'Side Room'. Door tickets only from 9 PM, first come first served.

6:52 PM

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

Uberwants

............

“I WANT” DON’T GET:

UBERWANTS FOR LATE JULY ‘09

philreadsbooks@hotmail.com

Really, really, really desired records, CDs & tapes

(or good quality CDRs/MP3s thereof, unless otherwise stated),

for sensible prices or trades…

A slightly longer list (!) etc can be found at http://www.discogs.com/user/philbeard

Stuff I’d be willing to trade for items of similar value is listed at the bottom…

Rob Acid – Fantasy Street 12” (Shot Toolz, 1999) - acid

AMK – Hi-Fi 7” (Banned Production, 1994) – noise – original only

Apple – Mr Bean 12”,

Siegalizer 12” (Slimting white label, 2008) – uk funky

Astral Social Club – Skelp 7” & CDR (Trensmat, 2008) – drone – original only

Beenie Man – No Under Age 7” (Hammer riddim, 40/40 Productions, 2003) - bashment

Butcher Sam – Passions of A Woman 12” (white label, 1990) – piano house

Canopy & Matrix – Rough Business 12" (feat. “Arkines Lost”, Space Records [Wolverhampton], 1995) - ambient drum & bass

Morny Cash - I Live In Trafalgar Square (music hall)

or the Richard Thompson cover (1000 Years of Popular Music DVD + DCD on Cooking Vinyl, 2003)

Caustic Window – Joyrex J4 12”EP (Rephlex, 1992) – techno

Celsius – VPR. Theme12” (Virtual Pulse) – hardcore techno

Ceramic Hobs – Fuck Da Police tape (Face Like A Smacked Arse, 1998?),

Noisy Tape, Eleven Years In the Making (Spite),

Recycled Music tape (RRR)

psycho-punk

Wild Billy Childish and the Blackhands – Play: Capt'n Calypso's Hoodoo Party CD (Damaged Goods) – lo-fi ska

Henri Chopin – Petit Livre Des Riches Heures Signistes Et Sonores D'Henri Chopin 7” (Galerie J & J Donguy, 1987, 1000 only),

Alphabet Et Glotte 7” (Hot Air, 1999) – sound poetry

Clubstation – Pull Over 12” (Legend, 2001 or Clubbb Box, 2003) – hard house/donk

Joe Coleman - Infernal Machine Pic. Disc LP with booklet (Blast First, 1990) – experimental – original only

Copper Cat – Stay In School 7” (Party Ride riddim, Pot of Gold, 2000),

Run the Version 7” (Street Life riddim, Gold Pot, 1999),

Go Mek Some Money 7” (Problem riddim, Pot of Gold, 1999) – bashment

Crescent – Lost 7” (Planet, 1993) – lo-fi

Crosstalk feat Soif – The Boys 12” (Metrovynil, 1984) – hi-nrg

Culver – Cherry Blossom Girls 7” (Turgid Animal, 2008, 200 only) – powerdrone – original only

Paul B. Davis - Pretty 12”EP or white label promo (Beige, 2001),

Enter the Mystical Faggot 7” (Frank Wobbly & Sons, 2004, 250 only) – idm

The Deadkirks – Ten Commandments 12” (Mid-Town, 1992) - gabberhouse

Demon Rocker – Iron Lady/Stick Together 12” (Unity),

Demon Rocka – Bad Boy No Ramp 12” (Unity) – dancehall

Dexplicit – Dubz Vol 1 12” (More 2 Da Floor, 2005) – bassline garage

Diplomat & Trouble – Praise the Acid 12” (Social Parasite, 2001) – hardcore techno

Disciples of Belial – Songs of Praise 7” (Praxis),

Goat of Mendes 12”EP (Praxis, 1995) – speedcore

Distorted Waves of Ohm – Strange Rotation 12”EP (Eurk, 1995, 500 only),

With Intent To Distort 12”EP (Eurk, 1995),

Surrealist Sketch Show 12”EP (Eurk, 1996, 500 only) - acid

DJ Mac & DJ Rob – Feel the Rhythm 12” (Spring, 1991) – dutch tekno

DJ Smurf/The DJ Producer – Gusset Typist 10” (GGM Raw, 2008) – speedcore

DQE – Masturbation Made A Mess Out Of Me 7” (Feel Good All Over, 1992) – riot grrrl

Drumsound, Simon “Bassline” Smith & the Ragga Twins _ Ragga Twins Story 12”Picture Disc (Sativa/Easy, 2007) – drum n bass

El-B – El-Brand 12” (white label, 2000) – UK Garage

Gus Elen - Down the Dials - music hall

Enchantment – Dance the Marble Naked CD (Peaceville, 2009) – doom metal

Escape From Brooklyn – Ecstacy Recall 12” (!Hype, 1992) – techno

F&N – Space 12” (Mid-Town, 1991) – dutch house

The Fast – At the Gym 12” (Channel, 1984) – hi-nrg

Fifth Era – Anti-Christmas Pre-Release 12”EP (Fifth Era, 1997) – doomcore

Fingers Inc – Distant Planet 12” (Jack Trax, 1988) – deep house

Flinty Rank – Gunman Style (B side of Jack Wilson & Demon Rocker – Chuck It 12” on Unity, which I have the A side of),

Carlton Dread – Chatty Mouth/Flinty Ranks – Gunman 12” (Unity),

Kenny Knots – Mr Chattabox/Flinty Badman & Richie Davis - My Lover Gone 12” (Unity) – dancehall

Christoph Fringeli & Pure – Anti-Christ 12” (Sub/Version, 1997) – industrial drum n bass

Serge Gainsbourg/Conlin Nancarrow – Equuator Soundtrack 7” (Dolor Del Estamago) – pop

Geeneus – Detroit 12” (Dump Valve, 2003) – grime

godheadSilo – Thee Friendship Village 7”EP (Kill Rock Stars, 1993) – noise rock

God Is My Co-Pilot – Songs of Praise/4 Steps Down the Road To Trouble & Refused Medical Attention 7"EPs (Making of Americans, 1991),

Ykt Flot! 7” (1993),

Melt-Banana split 7” (HG Fact, 1994, 1000 only),

Ootko Sa Poika Vai Tytto? 7"EP (Trash Can [Finnish], 1995),

Children Can Be So Cruel 10” (Miguel, 1997),

Bz Bz Ueu split 7”EP (Music a la Coque, 1998)

queercore

Goodiepal – Mort Aux Vaches 2004 Ekstra 5” vinyl (Paradiso, 2006) – experimental – original only

Greylox - Call the Cops 12” (Buzz [Ruff Tuff & Wicked Stuff] white label, 1992, 500 only, or the virtually identical 2008 bootleg; I already have an MP3 of the A side),

Curly Greylox - Fools Rushin’ 12" (Buzz white label, 1993) – jungle tekno

Haji Mike – Mousiki 12” (Kebab Kulture Music, 1992) – ragga jungle?

Hijack – Hold No Hostage 12” (Music of Life, 1988) – Britcore

Hithouse – Acute Sense of Hearing LP (Hithouse, 1991) – house

I'mpact – Smoke In the Sky 12” (Radar, 2001) - trance

The Ink Spots - Ebb Tide 78 (King, 1953) or 18 Hits LP/CD (King, 1996) – proto-doo-wop

Invisibl Skratch Piklz – A Cup of Skratch & A Slice of Cut 12” (bootleg) – turntablism

JFK – Woelf tape (Broken Flag, 1988) – industrial

Jo – Apollo 9 12” (Awesome, 1994),

R-Type 12” (Awesome) – drum n bass

The Bobby Konders Project – Cool, Calm & Collective LP (Desire, 1990) – reggae/house

Le Syndicat – Corrumpate CD (Pure, 1995) - industrial

Larry Levan – Live At the Paradise Garage DCD (Strut, 2000, with booklet) – ny garage – original only

Rob Life – Catchin' Grooves CD (Breakin' Bread, 2005) – hip hop

Lion Roots Jungle LP (Lion Music, 1995) – ragga jungle

Alvin Lucier – Music On A Long Thin Wire DLP (Lovely Music, 1980) – drone – original only

Buddy Max - Many Styles & Sounds and The Great Nashville Star Is a Flea Market Cowboy LPs on Cowboy Junction,

Together - Our Masterpiece, Little Circle B, The Great Nashville Star and The Story of Freda & Bud LPs,

The Life To Fame & Fortune LP/CD,

Gold Record Award Winning and Orange Blossom Special CDs,

Tribute to Challengers Crew of Seven & Apollo Moon Capsule's Crew of 3 and Cowboy Junction Stars tapes [c'mon, someone upload the early stuff]

country

MC Kinky – Twisting the Mind & Won Love 12”s (white label, 1992) – ardkore

Metamorphism – Illusion 12” (Weirdo Wax, 1994),

The Mekanix 12”EP (Weirdo Wax, 1994, 500 only) - techno

Echo Minott – Murder Weapon 12” (Muslym) – ragga jungle

Monoshock – Pink Jelly Vibe tape (Chocolate Monk, mid 90s) - garage psych

New Bad Things – Concrete 7” (Rainforest, 1993, 610 only) – art rock

Ninjaman, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man & Ninja Ford – Bad Boy Lick A New Shot (Jungle Bullet) 12” (Greensleeves, 1994) – ragga jungle

Nutmeg – And In England They’re Going Mental 12”EP (Molesworth, 1987),

Electric Putty LP or CD (Ground, 1989, 1000 of each only) – indie

Old - Hold On To Your Face CD (Earache, 1993) – gabba

Pinchers & Mega Banton – Hill An Gully Rider 12” (Black Scorpio) – dancehall reggae

Pleasure Game – Le Seigneur Des Tenebres 12” (Music Man, 1991) – belgian tekno

Po! - Bedroom Tapes Vols. 1-4 (Rutland),

Live In Leicester & Fragile Debris (Outtakes) tapes (Rutland),

Grains of Sand 7” (Rutland, 1991),

Things That Might 7” (1992),

Not Marked On the Ordnance Map LP/CD (Rutland, 1996),

A Page A Day 7” (Elefant, 1996),

The Alphabet 7”EP (Rutland, 1997),

Horse Blanket Weather CD (Rutland, 1998)

twee

The Predator – The Power of Evil 12” (Industrial Music, 1992) - ardkore

R!!!S!!! - Lake DLP (No Fans, 1990) – experimental – original only

Cutty Ranks – Remixes 12” (Suburban Base, 1995),

Cutty Ranks/Poison Chang – Rumble In the Jungle Vol 2 CD (Jungle Fashion, 1995) – ragga jungle

Redshift – Sweat 'N Groove 12”EP (white label) - acid

Rimarimba – In the Woods LP (Unlikely, 1985) – experimental

Ronin Inc – On Tha Mix!! 12” (Ronin, 1990) – hip hop

Ruth's Refrigerator – A Lizard Is A Submarine On Grass LP/CD (Madagascar, 1991) – kitchen psych

Rustie – Bad Science 12”EP (Wireblock white label, 2009) - wonky

Saba Tooth - Gal A Pose 7” (Wicked Man riddim, Killamanjaro, 1996) – ragga

Jesse Saunders – On & On 12” (Broken, 2003) - house

’77 Punk covers of Velvets’ “Heroin”

Egyptian Shaduf chant recordings

Shackleton/Appleblim – Majestic Visions 12” (Skull Disco, 2006) – dubstep – original only

Sister Smurf – Pose Up 12” (Tupp Cutts, 1995) – ragga jungle

Sonic Subjunkies – Turntable Terrorist 12”EP (DHR, 1995) - breakcore

The Sound of Rotterdam Vol 1 12” (Rotterdam) - gabba

Sounds From Silence LP/CD on Bella Roma (contains “Hurrian Hymn (the Song from Ugarit)” from c.1400 BC)

Speedyq's – Epileptik Mix 5 CD (Epileptik, 2003) - frenchcore

Milovan Srdenovic/Jar – The Erotic Nature of the Mercury Experience tape (Jarmusic) – experimental

Sulfurex – Point Break 12” (EXtortion, 1994) – acid

Syncom Productionz – Dammit! Acid Burned My Phuckin Brain D12” (Syncom Productionz, 2001) – acid – original only

Tantra – Hills of Kat Mandu CDS (Unidisc, 1993) – disco

Think Tank – A Knife & A For 12” (Hakatak/Tommy Boy, 1990) – hip hop

The Tinklers – U.F.O.s 7”EP (Frownland, 1995),

with X.X.O.O. 7”EP (Music a la Coque, 2001) – outsider music

Tribal Rhythm – I Won't Stop Acieed! 12” (Breaking Bones, 1989) – acid

Ultrafex – Severe Breakage 12” re-press (High Octane Payback, 2006) – drum n bass

Don Van Vliet – Stand Up To Be Discontinued CDEP (Nur/Nicht/Nur, 1993) – spoken word

v/a – Blackpool Rox 7”EP (Vinyl Drip, 1980) – post-punk

v/a – David Mancuso Presents The Loft DCD (Nuphonic, 2000) – disco

v/a – Demagnetized DCD (Magnetic North, 1996) – acid

v/a – Electronic Panorama QLP (Prospective 21e Siecle, 1970, boxed) – experimental

v/a – Experiments In Disintegrating Language/Konkrete Canticle LP (Arts Council, 1971) – sound poetry

v/a – Fuck That Weak Shit Vol. 1 & 3 7”EPs on Pitsbull (1 feat. Fruitcake & No Tomorrow Charlie, 1000 only; 3 feat. Fruitcake offshoot Garment Bladder, 1200 only) - garage psych

v/a – GGM Raw 001 & 003 12”s (GGM Raw, 2007-8) - speedcore

v/a - Join the Queercorps 12" (Queercorps, 1998) – queercore techno remixes

v/a – Lockers LP (ERS, 2000) – locked grooves – original only

v/a – Mekandroids CD (Eurk, 2001, 500 only) - techno

v/a – M=O=S (Members of Skrewface) Vol 1 12”EP (Skrewface, 1997) – gabba

v/a – PCP 12”EP (R&S, 1992) – gabba

v/a – Ragga Jungle Dubs CD (Greensleeves, 2007) – ragga jungle

v/a – Trunculence 7”EP (NO PART OF IT, 2008, red vinyl, 333 only) – noise – original only

v/a - Yes LA Pic. Disc LP (Dangerhouse, 1979, 2000 only) – post-punk – original only

Vibracathedral Orchestra – Vibracathedral String Band/Drum Troupe 7” (Freedom From, 2000),

Girls with Rocks In Their Hands 7” (The Great Pop Supplement, 2003, 111 only),

Royal Park/Brudenell 7” (Gold Soundz, 2004, 420 only) - drone

Ricardo Villalobos – Vasco EP Part 1 D12” (Perlon, 2008) - mnml

Davy Walklett – Genitalmania tape (Jarmusic) - experimental

Waveform - The Poet 12” (white label, 1993) – this is my number one want now…never seen any sign of it anywhere…

Peel played it a coupla times & I have a ropey tape of the main track, which is a lovely sparse Future Sound of London-style ambient dub track, with a lengthy sample of Richard Burton reading a mysterious piece which transpires to be about Christ: “I was a carpenter”. Peel also played another track off the record, which was similar (possibly another mix of the same track?), but instrumental.

Doing yet another search & guessing Peel got it slightly wrong, I’m thinking there is a good chance that it is Waveform “Earth, Beat, Heart (The Ambient Poem)” on Different Drummer – anyone know if that is right before I splash the cash on it?

Wiley – Frost Bite white label 12” (Wiley Kat, 2003),

Snowball white label 12” (Wiley Kat, 2003),

Eskimo 2008 12” (Mystical Dubz white label, 2008) - eski-beat

World Power Alliance - Kamikaze 12” (Underground Resistance, 1992) – techno – original only

Worried Well - Don't Get AIDS 12" (Lonely Boy, 1988) – synth-pop

Adam X – Vs Audio Sex 12” (Direct Drive, 1992),

Psychodelic Grunge 12” (Direct Drive, 1993) – acid

X-Crash – Descension 12”EP (Drop Bass Network, 1994, orange vinyl) - acid

And A Coupla Books/Mags I’m Also After…

Martin Barker - Action-The Story of A Violent Comic (Titan, 1990, hbk)

June Alison Gibbons – Pepsi-Cola Addict (New Horizon, 1982)

Albert Goldman – Disco (Hawthorn, 1978)

Muckraker #1-3, 9 (mag & CD)

I WILL TRADE…

Collectable ones first. I'm now using Discogs grading, record first, then sleeve, as that is where I'm mainly selling stuff...full details of each item can be found via my Discogs page...

Acid Perverts – Get It Out/Stick It In 12” (Smitten, acid techno from Ant & the Geezer) – VG/Generic - £4

Boyracer – From Purity To Purgatory 7”EP (Sarah, 1993, Bradford twee) - VG+/VG+ - £11.50

Cat Power – Headlights 7” (The Making of Americans, 500 copies only, first & very scarce single, a copy of which was in John Peel’s legendary singles box) – EX/EX - £25 equivalent

Clock DVA – Sound Mirror 12” (Wax Trax) – VG+/NM - £4.95

Cyborg X – Big Moog 12” (Cluster, acid techno from the Liberators) – G+/VG - £7.20

Dizzee Rascal Vs Musical Mob – I Love Pulse X 12” white label – VG+/Generic - £35

DJ Sass – Fascinating Rhythm 10” (Hardcore Mafia, gabba) – NM/Generic - £5.95

DJ T-1000 – Electrohead 12” (EAR white label, 1995, very bold & stark electro techno) – VG/Generic - £4

DX1 - Jungle Rave 12” (Cruise International, 1991, not jungle but pretty weird) – VG+/VG - £7

Frame By Frame – Lies 12”EP (Scratch, 1985, new wave/synth-pop randomness) – VG+/Generic - £5

Hallucinogen – Angelic Particles 12” (TIP, early goa trance) – VG+/Generic - £6

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2:46 PM

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Next Heffalump Trap gig, with Earthling Society, Trapped Nerve, Brud

Friday 10th July, West Coast, Abingdon Street, Blackpool

Earthling Society - international space rock

Brud - Neue Deutsche Welle?

Trapped Nerve - cold soul

Heffalump Trap - psychodelic space drones

£2

10pm-2am

12:47 PM

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

Risible

I keep forgetting to mention RISIBLE, the little lo-fi electronics + vox project myself & Simon from the Ceramic Hobs etc have put together. Simon has made 33 CDR copies (I think) & probably distributed them all by now. My copies are gone too, but if you lobby him (try the Oz Oz Alice Project in my firends), he might do some more. Here is a nice review of it (fair to middling on some other related projects!) from our pal Joe of Bidoche Musique...
---------------------
Ship Ahoy!

I met up with an American bloke yesterday, one who had seen the insides of prisons, drug rehabilitation, physical ruptures, isolation and death wishes. I gave him a copy of Risible. He needed it. Quite the Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "I'm a good person". Sure.

Listened many times to this album and find it quite amazing. The words and lyrics of DJ Powergen Course (who I now realize is Simon!) are top notch. The beatbox can never replace the drum lad, but for the articles on hand, do a neat job. The other day, I listened to Oz Oz Alice - first outing (the zip that I acquired after perusing the Blackpool Bands forum). No comparison. Lo-fi noise, squashed words, roundabout.

Quite strange that Oz Oz Alice and Heffalump Trap both have the same personnel albeit different "managers". What a way to go. The Haddenham One & DJ Powergen Course team are the future. Oz Oz Alice doesn't cut it with me, at least until I could see them live and compare to the formidable Ceramic Hobs.

Don't be offended - take it like MEN!

your friend in arms,
Joe Fleury (Bidoche Musique)

8:50 AM

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Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mrs Cakehead, Brud, Heffalump Trap, Hadfield/Juanito gig 16 May

Hello All

This gig is coming up soon now.

The Mrs C/Heffalump one in November was very well-attended & much enjoyed, a really good vibe. I'm hoping this one will be similar & am pleased to have taken all this time to help set it up properly.

Mrs C & Heffalump are back, & this time we are joined by long-lost German new wave band Brud and the Hadfield/Juanito performance poetry & soundscape duo. As ever, there'll be plenty of wild & wonky DJing inbetween, and doubtless some similarly odd projections, plus the usual West Coast drink deals, late opening etc etc...

Really hope you can join us...

----------------------------------------------

Mrs Cakehead (Bacup reggae lunacy)

Brud (Neue Deutsche Welle?)

Heffalump Trap (Blackpool spacedronenoise)

Miles Hadfield & Carlito Juanito (Manchester performance poet & Blackpool accompanist)

Sat 16 May, West Coast, Blackpool

10pmish - 2am
West Coast Club Above
Abingdon Street
Blackpool

DJing probably from Digamix, Kate Fear, Ging & co...

Film projections

£2 entry

9:21 AM

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Twits

Thought I ought to point out that as well as here, I've been over on Facebook for ages now (which I mentioned before), & Twitter now too. Here seems a bit quiet recently, which is a shame, as I still think here does some things better (including listening to music, which is pretty essential for me).

Facebook is very good for Groups, which then send you emails about stuff. On the music side of things, thats its best feature really. Probably best I don't overbroadcast my address over there, as its also more about personal stuff I think than here is, but you'll be able to find me if you want to...

Twitter is a bit overrated, but it IS interesting reading what comes through from people, at least once you've joined a good set of them up (& quite different ones on there to Facebook to Myspace, which is also part of the reason I'm keeping up with all three sites). I'm not posting as much as I might, but hopefully I also only post vaguely intersting stuff, as opposed to one-word replies etc. http://twitter.com/philblackpool

It should also be noted that its interesting seeing which of these sites survive & which get abandoned (or at least aren't popular in this part of the world)....anyone remember Friendster? Then theres Bebo, which is scarily open to kids...etc etc...

6:44 AM

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Saturday, February 21, 2009

WHAT A DONKY

I’ve just been watching Vice
mag’s donkumentary (can’t believe they didn’t use that pun!). I saw it
mentioned on Little Boots’ Twitter feed – so there you go, there is some point
to Twitter!

I felt compelled to write a

little off the back of it, which I may follow with a fuller ramble about the
North-West rave scene at some point later (& I’ve attached at the bottom a
previous bit I wrote as part of a longer piece about Italian dance music). I’ve
seen the North/South divide a lot clearer since I moved to Blackpool six years
ago than when I previously lived in Leeds for three years. I’m always a bit
ashamed when I see my fellow Southerners treating Northerners as if they are an
undiscovered species, & on this occasion they even subtitled the entire
documentary! They attempted to cover this up by subtitling the presenter too
(the aforementioned Donky), who I was going to completely disregard as an idiot
with a stupid fashion hair cut, until the last part, when he made some quite
heart-warming comments about how the up-for-itness of Wigan Pier had explained
it all to him (& then ruined it by, on reflection, talking about “the
horror, the horror” on the voiceover). It was quite funny seeing him getting friendly
stick about his poncey outfit, as that was exactly what happened to my friend
from down south when we went out raving up here a few years back. On one level,
I can see Vice were making the effort to relate to the various scallies (&
they deliberately picked a good few fruitloops in amongst the pack) & the
approach was clearly to try to make the North-West seem exotically bleak &
menacing, just like Grime’s crucible, Bow. They also did an amazing job of
keeping Scouse House completely out of the picture, with not a single rococo trance
flourish being present, reinforcing the idea that the scene is based entirely
around the unstoppable pounding ‘donk’ sound all the time. I must admit, the
donks are more persistent here now than previously & can wear you down over
an extended period, but it is hardly the only thing being played... ....

All this amounts to a pretty
thin veil though, covering a huge sign saying “Northerners are a bunch of thick
morons who chuck hundreds of pills down their neck & can hardly speak”.
Ironic, considering the subtitler couldn’t even spell “weird”! I also find it
amazing that a magazine that can be quite on the money at times re: music is SO
far behind the pace...I must admit that it seems to have taken Blackout Crew’s comedy
genius “Put A Donk On It” to wake the country up to Donk, but you expect that
of the Guardian etc. I think I first started hearing Donk records around 2004
(Lee S’s “Got Your Number!” sticks in the mind as a particularly blatant early
use of the sound). Can you imagine the Londoncentrics taking four & a half
years to wake up to Grime?! By 2007, that was in need of resuscitation! The
donkumentary seemed to make it out as if it was a new, rabid explosion of
interest, everyone foaming at the mouth at this new discovery, when in fact I
doubt the rave scene here has gone up or down in size much since the big
national drop-off in the late nineties. Since the early nineties, the
north-west scene has had as defined a history as any other, splitting off from
the national scene because of the local preference for Italian house, then
adding in a dollop of Scottish bouncy techno, falling back to a pumped-up house
position when the Italian & Scottish stuff dropped off & then regrouping
around vocal euro trance records (Scouse House), a particularly local strain of
hard house known as Bounce & Bounce’s ultimate bastard child & more
successful heir, Donk.....

Anyway, I persevered, mainly
to see if I could glean anything new out of it. They certainly drove around a
good bit, hitting Bolton, Burnley, Wigan & Scarborough (I didn’t realise it
was popular over there). Considering it was only one week being filmed, there
seemed to be LOADS going on. It was nice to see Bad Behaviour getting
interviewed (one of the more credible names), and to catch glimpses of Electron
Records in Burnley (which I rather liked the one time I went in, about eleven or
twelve years ago) & Power Records in Wigan, which I really must go back to.
....

The biggest surprise to me
was the number of guys on the scene taking steroids. This was counter-balanced
nicely by the honest picturing of quite a few scratty, scatter-headed
middle-aged Donk fans who clearly never came down from their first pill in
1987, but the lightbulb came on in my head. No wonder it felt much less loved
up & much more testosteroney when I went to Sanctuary last year than on any
of my other coupla-times-yearly visits to north-west raves. I hope that gets
knocked on the head sooner rather than later. ....

There was also a very brief mention of the Spanish stuff, which is the
big thing the last year or two (I must admit, I’ve fallen a bit behind, but
Password Records come to mind), & it was nice to see Bon Lee’s name on
screen, as I’ve been following him since he first started, playing a lot in
Blackpool. Also, I’ve still never been to Wigan Pier (although I’ve been to the
musically similar Maxime’s in Wigan a coupla times & greatly enjoyed it),
but it’s nice to see that getting some press again. It is pretty much an
institution, having made its name with electro in the eighties & staying
the course. ....

In the group of people I generally hang out with, I’ll admit that the
north-west rave scene is probably as derided as it is down south. However, from
knowing the wide variety of kids at the school I work at who are into it &
from having gone dancing innumerable times on it, I know it to be pretty much
as rich as any particular scene coming out of London. There may not be the desperate
determination to do something new all the time, but sheer natural selection
leads to as much development as in any other scene anyway. Besides, why shouldn’t the north-west kids have their
own thing? It is winning hearts over, anyhow, having apparently pretty much
taken over from Makina in the north-east (coaches of ravers from there now come
over to Wigan Pier & Sanctuary) & spreading further & further east
& south. There ain’t no shame in pure, unadulterated dance music, and on
that count, Donk is closer to the source than most.......

-------------------------------------------------------

EXTRA! EXTRA!

After I wrote the above, I thought it might be of interest to Simon Reynolds of http://blissout.blogspot.com , who has recently been showing interest in the Donk scene. He graciously added a link to this onto his blog & also asked for a few recommendations. My reply turned into half of the further article I mentioned above that I migth write, so I thought I may as well add it on here...

"I mention a few artistes in the blog article, particularly Password Records from Spain, who seem to be the latest heavy influence & the latest twist in the Spanish Makina scene that has been so popular in Newcastle since the turn of the decade. Not sure this is to my taste, but you can almost taste the Sunny Delite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8yhaaje4Qs&feature=related
or look up "Spanish donk" on Youtube - some is trancy, some more donky...sounds more effective in a club...

This one reminds me of that sort of experience, the way the sounds sorta bend round a corner at you...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqZkWapCTRw&feature=related

This one is more like the older Makina stuff, but with a donk on it!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ZFRsCeiko Pretty fluffy!

I also really like this one, which I think from memory is a north-east makina guy...the donk isn't as beefy as of late, but its got a slightly spooky/unsettled feel not on any other modern northern tunes I've heard: M-Jay "Gone Wild" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD05Iq3RCXw

And here is an old-style makina one that I've only just identified. Great strange lyric. Linda "Fill My Belly": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-G7hSX3kWM

Alex K from Australia (of all places) was all the rage when it was more Bounce than Donk. This one sums that up fairly well - "Tell Me": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Otd1_PxlE

As does this...nicely nutty, a definite favourite of mine & the one that precedes the guy's epiphany in the final part of the donkumentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfmpUMvg1hQ , so it's still being played about two years on... This is the record: http://www.discogs.com/Total-Controle-Static-Bounce/release/1069865 . [edit: I love the title of this btw - it refers to the sample, but much as it's a neck-wrecker of a tune, there is a 'static'/caught in the moment feel to all this stuff - like you're stuck int he loop!]

This one is on the meeting point between bounce & donk. Shows how they take daft pop songs & make something a bit more ravey out of it (if a bit cheesy): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZMlx5D5Sqc

This one has the carousel feel of late 90s happy hardcore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k9d_UGb70A&feature=related

Wigan Pier 63 seems to be the most recent Pier pack, & if you flick through that (all on Youtube), you'll see how it tends to be one donk/bounce track, then one cheesy vocal trance, then donk again, etc, unlike the rather lop-sided "suits us" look at things that Vice did, where they seemed to suggest everyone up here was braindead from hearing a donk three times a second all night...

I realised whilst looking around this morning btw that the phrase "Bounce" has come back in a lot in event names, etc...possibly a backlash against all the publicity on Put A Donk On It?!"

I'll also just add to the end that I feel I ought to mention my current bounce crush tune of the moment, which dates back to about 2005, Maximum Hustler's "Module Two", which you can hear a ropey clip of HERE: http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR146853 . I think it manages the perfect balance of bouncy, tough tracky parts with looped hip hop samples (Last Poets & Public Enemy) & fluffy, lighter than air breakdowns.

And FINALLY, all this got me wondering what the very first donk track was...naturally it wasn't created out of thin air. I looked past turn of the decade hard house like Ingo's remix of Fergie & BK's "Hoovers & Horns" & Club Robbers "Search For the Ball", also from 2000, which I only just heard but is very distinctly a proto-Donk record. I wasn't too surprised to find myself landing on Klubbheads' 1998 "Kickin' Hard". The Dutch act have never quite done it for me, but have always seemed to be lurking at the back of north-west boxes, under various aliases (including Drunkenmunky's well-known Eminem-sampling "E"). They have come up with a style that has been very influential, particularly via their mid-nineties chart hit "Klubbhopping", whose very locked-in looped hip hop samples & tracky feel has been used again & again ever since on records beloved in this part of the world, albeit usually pitched up quite a bit & with added ravey sounds! "Kickin' Hard" was previously unknown to me & is also starkly slower than current stuff, but the Donk is very much there, as are the endlessly repeating hip hop samples. Long way from that to "Put A Donk On It" though!

PREVIOUS BIT (from the Italian House piece)

It wasn't until 2003,
when I moved to Blackpool, that I started to work out much of what had happened
after 1991. Big music fan as I am, I was blissfully unaware of the fact that
this later period of over-emotive Italian Parmesan had become the new Northern
Soul. I had long been telling people throughout the late nineties that happy
hardcore had a similar vibe to Northern Soul, with youngsters shunning more
fashionable styles in favour of bombing wraps and staying up all night, dancing
to chirpy songs until they collapsed, but here was the real thing. All of the
above was true of the Italian stuff, but added to that was the fact that it had
survived as the oldies scene for the young crowd, aficionados of the new Bounce,
Donk and Scouse House tunes reaching back to rediscover their predecessors from
the boot-shaped Mediterranean land. Not only that, but the nearly-always
impossibly obscure records seemed to uniformly command high prices (even for
this era when vinyl pressing is more and more expensive) and were being bootlegged
right, left and centre onto compilation EPs.

This all became apparent to me within weeks of moving. Remembering the
strangely 'other' look of the names on flyers and the releases in shops in
Blackpool when I visited a few times in the late nineties, I bought a local
tape pack and was immediately struck by how different the rave scene really
was. Obviously, you can still buy drum n bass sets up here (ye gods, you can
even get the odd garage one in Manchester), and happy hardcore and hardcore
techno are just as popular here as down south, but you just don't get rave
crowds going wild to what is essentially house music in the south. The
difference between club music and rave music is often marked by the presence of
MCs, and this was the first time in years that I'd heard MCs really going at
that kind of music. One of the four tapes was an old skool set, and in amongst
Gat Décor and the other countrywide smashes were a surprising number of warm, synthy
tracks that I'd never heard in my life before. Lalene's "The Best",
JK's essential "Beat It". A whole new spin on the previous ten years
or so. The other tapes were full of new stuff, but the trance- and hard
house-derived tunes here weren't even the relatively serious, overwrought
examples of lengthy breakdowns or the 'plain biscuit' instrumentals I'd been
hearing (reluctantly) down south. The northern scene is like seeing Dave
Pearce's creed about only playing the biggest anthems being writ large. Trance?
Dump a lass with pidgin English vocals on top and call it Scouse House. Hard
House? That's a bit boring. Why not scratch in a load of rap vocals, make the
bassline a bit more bumpy, give it a few more catchy hoover sounds and call it
Bounce? Bored of that? Why not bring the beats down to just a
hammer-drill-style succession of four-to-the-floors, and just pitch them up and
down until the listeners can't hold a normal thought in their head anymore, so
brutally addled are thir brain cells. We'll call that Donk, because that's what
it sounds like! Donk, donk, donk, donk…

I'm not being rude here. I like all this stuff. I've always preferred music
that goes straight for the jugular instead of pussyfooting around. And my point
is that when you hear it all together, it works and the influence of the
Italians is obvious. I'd heard some of that Scouse House of course before I
migrated back to the north, but DJ Sammy just sounds like Clock all over again
until you put the songs in the right context. I like him a lot now. I even like
Ian Van Dahl a bit, despite finding "Castles In the Sky" to be one of
the most irritating records of the new millennium. The scene is shot through
with covers and reinterpretations of Italian tunes and other belters from the
same period. The way that the Bounce tunes use samples mirrors the way the
Italians did, American hip-hop providing the hooks because you couldn't
possibly entrust the job to the local MCs...

11:02 AM

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Fes Parker RIP

Fes Parker RIP

I have to report the incredibly sad news that Fes Parker died the night of 3rd February 2009 from complications after cancer surgery. The funeral date is not yet set. We send condolences to his friends & family.

Fes will live long in the memories of those he touched with his curious & strange art. I wish I had made the small effort to trek to Thornton to see Fes more in the last few years. He always made a point of staying in touch with me & his lovely Christmas cards to 'Leeds Phil' (featuring his own artwork) became a much-cherished feature of the festive season. Most of all, though, I will miss Fes in the flesh, equal parts broad smile, hazy satisfaction & cynical quip. After years thrown around by the brutalities of life, Fes swam for islands of calm assisted mainly by howling feedback & one of the huskiest rock voices the country has ever known, bemusing & enthralling people along the way in almost equal measure! A man of impeccable, considered taste & a master raconteur, Fes was an excellent friend for the last thirteen years or so.

Rest well, Grasshopper.

PS, 14th February 2009

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fes Parker was Blackpool's greatest songwriter, as acknowledged by the people who knew, who included local heroes & long-term Fes allies Section 25, Goldblade, The Fits & the Ceramic Hobs, as well as legendary BBC Radio Lancs new music programme "On the Wire". Section 25 & the Hobs recorded a number of his songs. He was arguably Blackpool's first real punk, recording on-the-edge music from the sixties onwards & embracing the punk years with joy & abandon. He recorded regularly with able assistant Speedy Dave, as well as the Goldblade brethren. He released only two pro CDs, but also a stack of tapes & CDRs. You can find details of his last (very recent) CD "Side Room" in this site's blog. He loved gigging, but sadly only got to do so rarely in recent times, due to ill health. The aforementioned cast of Blackpool characters were so upset about his recent further deterioration in health that they arranged a massively successful night in September 2008 to celebrate his work & play for his benefit. Fes was pleased, Fes was proud, Fes went home halfway through ;-)

Fes was also a highly-gifted artist, signing with the name Eddie Smith (some details from his work feature in the "Va Va" CD booklet & in the pictures section of this site). His evocative art focussed strikingly on subjects such as Blackpool's Golden Mile and the natural world.

6:47 PM

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Haddenham One news

Quick summing up of my sample-based music, originally posted on http://www.blackpoolbands.co.uk
----
Massively chuffed to have another new pro CD in my hands with some loops from myself buried deep in one of the tracks. Hence, I thought maybe it was time to justify a thread here.

I have been botching together bits of mangled sample-based music over the last few years, as The Haddenham One, named by & often aided by Stan from the Hobs/Heffalump Trap. Some of the tracks are on three of Stan's Godspunk comp CD series - I have copies of these to gift to anyone interested (especially as swaps for any other local stuff I haven't got). As well as some weird pop/grime crossover stuff, some very very fast techno & some eerie minimal etchno, one of them has me & Stan doing an electro remix & a dub remix of Hobs tracks, both of which worked pretty well, I reckon. In the process of coming up with these, I've put together a load of other stuff with & without Stan & with various other people, most of which will hopefully finally stagger into the light this year as a CDR on Pumf.

As well as these solo things & other stuff under the Haddenham One name, I've been doing some collaborations. I have virtually finished an album with Powergen, which again will hopefully appear soon, once I've put the finishing touches to the scuzzy mess that is the backing tracks. I've also done a lengthy remix for another Pumf Blackpool electronica act, Taurus Board, which may appear at some point on a Taurus Board remix collection alongside yet more collabs with Blackpool electronica types like Howl In the Typewriter (Stan), John Tree & RooHmania, once HeF from Taurus Board has finished his own bits!!

The CD that arrived today is the latest CD from Astral Social Club, aka my old friend Neil Campbell from West Yorkshire, known for his work alone, with Smell & Quim, Vibracathedral Orchestra & tons of improv folk. Its called "Octuplex" & is out on the long-running US freakoid label VHF. You can hear samples of the tracks at http://www.vhfrecords.com/news/ The one with me somewhere in there is "Caustic Roe" & I get to share shiny disk-space with Richard Youngs, John Clyde-Evans, Stewart Keith, & Spider Stacy from the Pogues (!), as well as others. I have one here for me, one for Powergen & one extra, so if yr genuinely interested, drop me a line & I'll hold onto it for you. The track with a bit of me was Neil's first ever rejection (too dancey!), from a full album of collabos with my loops for another Yank label, which is reputedly still gonna appear (with new material added in) at some point.

When I remember, I may add further bits of news here or on http://www.blackpoolbands.co.uk

I'm always collecting samples, btw - beats, tones, voices - if you've anything of interest or wanna collaborate, yr very welcome to PM me...

1:10 AM

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Life & Prague

Life & Prague

I'm sitting here feeling grumpy about not being able to sleep (due to a hacking cough). I am rereading my blogs from the last year or so (cos I want to check some fact or other) & am quite enjoying the experience. Even the atrocious grammar & keyboard fumble-spellings aren't upsetting me too much. I'm thinking I'd love to do my end of year thing right now, but its just too early, so heres a few thoughts on the last few weeks instead...

I feel bad that I don't do more of this, as I do enjoy it, but time is limited & I am always acutely aware that my audience largely consists of myself! As I've probably said here before, the main reason for pretending myself important enough to have a view is just to somewhere along the line get some (mainly music-related) info on the net that might not otherwise be up here...
---
Anyway, in the weeks since the Desalvo gig (last blog), all has been busy, & sometimes stressful, but largely productive. I am struggling to assimilate it all as I sit in my front room with Sky News grunting out its usual doomathon & with the floor covered in my typical slew of recently-brought-home flyers & newspapers & zines & records & medicine. In that time, work has been as busy as I can remember (but productive as a nerve-jangling result of that) & I've tried to fit in what I can around said work & the time required to pull myself together after it...

I seem to have involved myself in a bunch of courses & the like at the moment, so I've finished off a sign language taster (excellent but not for me); done a counselling one (useful to me in dishing out the careers advice I spend some time at work giving out but also not for me in its purest form); continued to delay starting the Level 4 of my careers advice one (too busy) & have continued to do a few driving lessons (shaky but getting there gradually & at great expense). I'm peeking from behind my fingers looking at the dread need to do a Union Reps course next year too. Yikes. All this is delaying again my much-put-off wish to do an Art History AS/A level. I thought Art History was my one last major academic desire in a life over-stuffed with fusty attempts to better myself, but I now find the possibility of a pHd starting to nag at me again. Its That Old Self-Improver Blues! Just as I was settling down to poke around doing short courses in this & that until I eventually tire of it, I keep meeting people half-way through their doctorates & the smell of that Dr. prefix is in my nostrils! The horror of it is that I think i could do it, but the only things I think I could get paid out to do it on are as dull as dishwater. Any recommendations gratefully accepted! The idea of doing it on something cultural whiffs of getting in through the back door, but I must admit that that would interest me more than most other possibilities. Distribution networks for experimental music comes to mind after that Wire cover story...bet someone's already done it! You can sure that you will never again be interested in whatever you study, so maybe I should stick to something drier for that reason alone...
---
Also in the last few weeks, I dropped in on yet another bumper sale at the local central library. Considering I'm a librarian myself, I probably do far too little borrowing from the public libraries & am threfore responsible for all this turfing out of perfectly good old volumes. As a major recipient of the sales, I'm not complaining. Like the BBC, our public libraries are one of those great British institutions that are much-maligned despite doing all things for all-comers to a surprisingly good standard. I was much tickled by Iain Sinclair's lambasting of Hackney's public libraries as having only a 'few pamphlets under the counter' as a local history section, but mine is still pretty well-stocked & yet their sale managed to furnish me with a vast array of material on topics ranging from heallth to social history to music to literary fiction to trash. As per usual, the most I've got through so far are a few chapters of the guilty pleasure: a book on sadistic killers! Why DO we all so much enjoying reading about people being treated so awfully?!
---
Clementine juice: why wasn't I told about this?!
---
Went to a good Goonies Never Say Die gig at the West Coast...which I'm mildly miffed to not be able to find my review of on Blackpoolbands...Goonies definitely one of my bands of the year...and newly Blackpool-based conscious ragga man King Taffari (on the same night) is one of my most joyous recent discoveries...
---
Czech Republic

Prague is well worth a visit, although much more tourist-savvy than I imagine it was when all the fuss started about it. Hence, be a bit careful not to fall into the hands of unscrupulous taxi drivers, souvenir shop owners who would feel at home on the Golden Mile, etc. Theres plenty of historical stuff to see & a music scene that seems more advanced than that of Hungary earlier in the year. Thats not to say I didn't enjoy Hungary or that it was backward - quite the opposite - but Czech folk seem to have engaged more with international cultural stuff (not always a good idea of course).

English-speaking is proficient enough to get by most of the time, but still limited enough to lead to a few expensive mistakes. Am I the only person without a Union Jack tattooed on my forehead who is honest enough to admit that I wish we all spoke the same language? I know languages are a big part of different cultures, but its not as if thats ALL that defines, say, Slavs as different from the French. Its still the bit that freaks me the most about going overseas - I get massively paranoid about not being able to 'do' it, but just don't have the skills to even really try. Someone start promoting Esperanto again!!

Travel-wise, avoid the aforementioned taxis & go straight for the public transport system. The widespread impression that it is easy to master is a little ingenuous, but once you've 'got' it, its certainly regular as clockwise & very frequent too. Its also remarkably easy to jump Prague trams (as in Budapest), although I should imagine you'd have to do a bit of bribing if you got caught (we only did it a few time when we couldn't find the machines that sell the tickets). As for the airport, suffice to say that its much more comortable than the one in Budapest.

Touristy stuff

Hotel Europa on Wenceslas Square: Art Nouveau cafe on the ground floor became our favourite in-between-stuff place for drinks...

Prague Castle: massive complex of buildings collected together inside the expansive walls over many hundreds of years. Dalibor Tower's arcane torture instrument collection was very entertaining, as was it all really. Slight swizz on the entrance tickets to the 'Golden Lane' of historic cottages, being as they are basically just little shops now.

Lennon Wall: a long wall covered in graffiti which kept cropping up again every time it was whitewashed by the Commies. Fittingly, on the evening we wandered down, there was a bunch of yoghurt-weaving Yanks filming one of their number doing some performance art wailing nonsense in front of it!

Charles Bridge: fairly essential visit, with statues including one of Su's arch-enemy St Augustine (boring degree module subject matter)

Kutna Hora: a reasonably long bus trip out of town, but very pleasant. A UNESCO World Heritage site, with several ossuaries (we only went in one, but it was staggering, with the bones of 40,000 plague victims arranged into macabre pyramids & proto-bling. What WERE they thinking?!). Theres also a gamut of cathedrals, churches etc and a coin museum! The Cathedral of Santa Barbara was probably the most stunning we saw in our time over there. I was bowled over by an absolutely enormous St Christopher fresco, which seems to be undocumented by postcard or on the Internet. Bah...

Museum of Communism: Well worth a visit. A bit dry display-wise, but lots of great info, as many busts of Lenin as you could shake a stick at & the best videos I've ever seen in a museum/gallery. Usually I can't bear to sit down & watch some old guff in that sort of setting - it strikes me that they should be doing more than just jamming in a tape & leaving the paying throng to it - but there was some quite affecting footage of people gearing up for revolution in 1989. Astonishing how recent that was. As in Hungary, I was struck by how put upon the Czechs have been over the years. And just as they get rid of the Communists after the Russians, the Germans, the Austrians & all the rest, they wake to find their capital taken over by lapdancing bars & tourists...the Museum of Communism enters into this spirit, of course, & misses a trick with us by having racks & racks of cheesy parodic Communist postcards instead of straight reprints of the original (much better) propoganda pictures. They had a display on the Plastic People of the Universe though, so I forgive them...

The Mirror Maze at the top of the funicular

The Strahov Monastery's two Philosophical & Theological libraries, which unfortunately you can only peek into rather than roam but which also feature some splendidly manky displays of ossified beasts!

Kampa Island: Expensive but idyllic tiny little islet below Charles Bridge, with some bars, a park & a modern art gallery

The Loreto: Yet more religious stuff. We particularly enjoyed hearing some crazy Yank woman, in the replica of the house where Gabriel supposedly appeared to Mary, asking her partner if he could see the "Bearded lady on a cross" mentioned in the guidebook?!

The Jewish Quarter: Theres not much you can say about a synagogue with the walls whitewashed & covered in the names of every one of the 80,000 Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust. The ancient cemetary (dating back to the 1400s) was pretty impressive though, as was the half of the historical exhibition we managed to whizz round before Prague attractions closed early for another day.

The Metronome: A kinda goofy monument (apparently not all that popular locally), used to replace the hated Stalin statue that used to laud it over the city from Letna Park. We kinda thought they ought not knock EVERYTHING down from the Commie era, but I can imagine that Stalin was rubbing their noses in it a bit! I LIKE the Metronome, either way. Lets have one here...

Architecture in general...I'm not a big authority on or fan of architecture, but it has to be said that Prague is a good-looking city, with loads of stuff from an array of periods, often these days having been lovingly restored, there having been no Second World War bombing, the Jewish stuff curiously having been kept by the Nazis & not too much having been cleared since. Aside from the noted castle etc etc, the stars of the show are a fairly sizeable amount of Art Nouveau facades (very pretty). There are also a few pseudo-Cubist buildings. The latter were a bit disappointing on the whole, although I grew to rather like the relatively recent Dancing House.

In terms of tourism, I must also mention the iMax cinema, which is at the back of some vast ultra-modern shopping centre a bit of a way out of town (behind the National Museum). I think I did go to the one in Bradford at the Museum once, but they are still rare enough in the UK for Su not to have got to see her beloved U2 in 3D yet. She was pretty made up that it was on in Prague & it was certainly quite a spectacle. I can recomend it as surely the best way to convince yourself on the band's talents, as you get to see the whites of their eyes more effectively than at any time in the last 25 years whilst benefitting from material from their entire career. 3D has improved so much that the experience was almost psychedelic in its vivacity.

Food

I wasn't knocked sideways by the Czechs' own cuisine (dumplings?! Cheap Coke substitute?!), but they've certainly embraced a whole cavalcade of international restaurants since the tourists arrived...

Cowboys is an attempt to make an upmarket Yank-style steakhouse. However, they somehow forgot to put a hold on the cowprint chairs & videos at the entrance of people supposedly inside having a 'good time'. Either way, the massive plate of ribs (not usually a favourite) went down a treat...

Seven Angels was possibly the highlight of the entire holiday for me, although they cleared my wallet out. This WAS good Czech food. After sampling the traditional Becherovka & plum brandy, there was vennison pate wrapped in bacon, & foie gras in pear sauce, with some fresh fruit. So I'm still not a vegetarian then...Not sure I could justify eating foie gras more than once, but I can see what all the fuss is about. I am told I lapsed into over-accentuated English gentleman's stock phrases like "Splendid!" to convey my pleasure to the bemused waiters!

Pivovarsky Dum microbrewery: recommended by Milovan from Smell & Quim (to whom thanks for all his help). Su really liked the beers & the food here & I can only concur. Not so sure about the nettle beer, but its definitely worth trying once (reminded me more of salty sea water than nettles!). Here it was meat again, with a massive plate of rabbit & spinach. This was the first meal of several after which I waddled onto the street almost ashamed about the extent of my holiday indulgences!

The Strahov monastery bar: Where you can get their own beer, St Norbert, which I think was probably the best I had in Prague. Excellent pickled sausage. Another Milovan tip.

El Centro: Tapas. Tapas is always good anywhere. Nuff said.

Klub Arkitektu: Strange restaurant downstairs in some architecture institute that we stumbled upon after we couldn't find another place. Finally got round to trying ostrich here, which was perfectly pleasant but not worth going on safari for. Liked the straightforward feel of this place.

Red Hot & Blues: This New Orleans-style restaurant was the final straw after a week of eating out. I made the tactical error of getting some spicy prawns first. After the main meal came round (some extravagant burger thing), I'm told I spent most of the time either gurning obviously pained expressions at Su or outside huffing & puffing & trying in vain to find room for the rest of my meal. What a greedy git!

Beer: Luckily I've just recently found my peace with the less gassy lagers (Stella & co are still hated enemies). The Prague beers are as nice as we're always led to believe but I must admit that I expected more variety. Theres only about three or four readily available everywhere. The best of these is Gambrinus, but Urquel (available in supermarkets over here) is very nice too & theres nowt wrong with the others. Beer in shops is as ridiculously cheap as I was told it was.

Music

I spent some time trying to work out what was happening in Czech before we left. Its one of those countries that you know you have heard some stuff from but which has never really reached any sort of vogue over here.

I enjoyed listening to Janacek, Dvorak & Smetana again. Prague is the only place I've been to where there still seems to be as much enthusiasm for classical as any other kind of music. Round every corner there is another hall with yet another classical recital on & scallies who would be selling you poppers over here shove handbills for Mozart and Vivaldi into your hands. The second-hand shop I'll mention below had the most classical vinyl I'd ever seen, in its own room separate from the pop & rock!

The Czech dance scene seems a little reliant on imported ideas (more so than Hungary, I felt, despite Hungary not being so on the ball in other areas). There are certainly plenty of clubs on, especially techno ones, but most of the music I could find that was definitely Czech was a bit behind-the-times, stuck in blind alleys. It wasn't until the end of the holiday (when we went in the souvenir shops!) that I started to hear some quite interesting music not unlike the Bounce and Donk popular up here in the North-West of the UK right now. I checked out some comps & it seems to be a mishmash of Czech mixes of Euro-giants like Cascada and Scooter and a bunch of homegrown stuff. Maybe I'll investigate further. I didn't see any sign of the very good extratone stuff I'd heard on the net after I got there!

I DID see a lot of posters for gigs from the likes of Dave Clarke as I sped through the countryside on my way to Kutna Hora. There seemed to be little halls advertising hip hop dances too. If only I'd lived in such a vibrant countryside when I was growing up! Prague is certainly on the map for international artistes, hip hop included. The week we were there, Mos Def was heading up a gig hip hop fans over here would lap up, also featuring De La Soul, EPMD AND The Phracyde. Czech hip hop remains a slight mystery to me. I listened to some before I went (Prago Union & Gipsy.Cz, the latter of whom was the Eurovision entry I think!). I quite liked it, but not as obviously as I do the Polish stuff, & the records are very expensive, so that'll get left for another day.

Most of my efforts went into seeking out guitar & exp music, which has a sturdier history in the country. Czech music for me is epitomised by the Plastic People of the Universe. More a group that I admired than enjoyed in the past, I am now becoming a fan & supporter. Without going over all the facts (you can find them online), they were a psych group who started back in the Zappa/Velvets time but ran into problems with the Commies, who considered them nihilist and depressing (!). They eventually fell foul of the law, got banged up for a bit in the seventies & then had to arrange their very rare concerts in much the same way as illegal raves were later on in the UK. They're certainly not upful, with a very Eastern European-sounding violin scrape & oodles of gloomy vocals bringing the seriously free & wonderfully tentative psychedelia down to some unexplored terrain entirely of their own place & time. The more common sounds of Communist Czech seem understandably to have been the cheesy pop songs of Karel Gott, who was on just about every oldies-related thing I saw in the city.

After the fall of Communism, the floodgates appear to have opened, & I picked up quite a few records made in a very short period afterwards. The Czechs had been waiting to rock! The key label is Globus International, which has issued both tons of wild Czech stuff & a whole slew of international reissues running from David Peel to Nirvana. Amongst many others, they issued the early stuff by Pulnoc, who were formed by one of Plastic People when he fell out with the others. I'm not quite sure what I make of Pulnoc so far. They seem best when scuzzy, elsewhere moving towards a sorta poppy, glitzy thang that does admittedly suit the female vocals.

In fact, most of the stuff I bought in Prague or found beforehand on Myspace still lies largely unattended to so far, its been so busy the last coupla weeks. From what I have heard though, I have high hopes for the following...

Krysa (another early Globus act, with goofy punk songs like "Stupid Brains"); MCH Band (wonderful from the blasts I put on so far - expansive improv set from the revolution era); Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (already on my radar due to Peel plays in the early nineties. The late nineties one I bought is a bit post-Portishead, but very pleasant); Guided Cradle, Alienation Mental, Choked By Own Vomits & Root (grind bands). I must thank Jan from noise-rock/etc Klang Und Krach Records for furnishing me with info on how to obtain some of this stuff. I never made it to his mates' gig in the end. I found him via Napalmed, the long-running noise project from Czech (who I did see one old poster for a gig by in the street whilst over there!). Inbetween the two, I also came across the ambient/industrial/exp sounds of Vladimir Hirsch, Aghiatrias, Do Shaska! & Schloss Tegal, amongst others. Czech experimentalism is healthy indeed...

Jan's tips included the Black Point and Poli Pet shops. Small but well-stocked, Black Point served me well. Poli Pet was the winner though, with loads of books (if you can read Czech), lots more vinyl ferreted away & a really knowledgeable owner happy to guide me through the bewildering array of underground Czech CDRs etc. They stock Jan's stuff too.

Towards the end of the holiday, I whizzed round & found most of the other shops I was interested in too. I had printed a list off the net & wasn't too surprised to find a number of these had closed down relatively recently. I couldn't find Gung-Ho. RPM: Tamizdat (which sounded really promising) was nowhere to be seen. Sunshine People had gone too. I saw signs for Happy Feet, but they didn't seem to lead me anywhere. I found Sirius Sounds but it wasn't open at that time of the day & looked like a pretty generic dance shop from a glimpse through the window. Disko Duck has a bit more of a rep, but I never went past at a time when that was open either. I also avoided all the hip-hop shops, as they seemed to be more focussed on clothes than music. Despite all this disappointment, I found a few more worth mentioning. Rocksters is very specifically for punk & hardcore kids. Again, theres a lot of space for clothes, but the music selection is impeccably specialist. I'm not a big enough fan to really get stuck into their stock, but I was impressed. Maximum Underground nearly bought a tear to my eye once I eventually found it (most of the record shops are in the clearly low-rent ye olde Commie shopping arcades, usually up some stairs which appear to be taking you up to the flats above). It was the first shop I had discovered for quite some time doing the old thing of having a good sweep of records from across the alt spectrum (punk, hip hop, a surprisingly large dubstep section, etc etc). Unfortunately, I was fairly spent up by then & most of it was fairly easily available in the UK, but I bet the locals like it. I also have to mention Bontonland. I should imagine the indie shops hate this being mentioned, as it seems to be some sorta HMV-esque shop, either a chain or a very big & well-managed one-off. I didn't really buy much there, but it had a massive Czech 'scene' section (CD racks down three sides of one of the sizeable rooms). If you can't be bothered seeking the other shops out, Bontonland is right there waiting to serve you on Wenceslas Square...

My top tip out of all the Prague record shops (alongside Poli Pet for new stuff) was Music Antiquariat. Another one hidden away up some stairs, its down the same street as the National Theatre & is the one mentioned above with a whole room of classical vinyl (its just popping into my head now that I should have looked for mint Cage & Xenakis Lps or summat!). They had a huge vinyl sale section, where I found heaps of Globus stuff sitting waiting to die alongside the woefully obscure Rema-Rema Ep from 1980 & a similarly forgotten George Lewis private press LP from 1964. The whole thing was capped off wonderfully by their displays of great close-up photos from seminal psych gigs in Prague in the late 60s/early 70s (Zappa, Floyd etc).

Finally, lets turn to the music venues. We didn't do so much of this stuff, so knackered were we after all this toing & froing, noshing & drinking. We did quite like Batalion Bar though (on a street near the bottom of Wenceslas Square). Cheap drinks, big screen with retro hair rockers on it & a Tardis-like space downstairs for dancing if you so fancied. Our only gig was one at the Rock Cafe. The bands shall remain nameless (they weren't that memorable), but I kinda LIKED that it was just like Jenx in Blackpool!
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Well, I AM pooped now...maybe will catch yall up some more in a day or two...

7:25 AM

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Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Week In Garage Rock - Desalvo, lots of Drop-Out Wives etc

Well, its been a busy week.

After a few weeks laying low working on this Desalvo gig (yesterday), I've been to four (five?) gigs this week, & it was all very good stuff...

Tuesday evening I happened to be in Manchester on business (man of mystery!), so I thought I may as well slip down to see a Blackpool band who aren't the Hobs out of town for a change...good to be back in the Tiger Lounge, for Drop-Out Wives...had a right good chin-wag with Vince too...
First on were some band I think called The Ska, which is a bit like the Drop-Out Wives calling themselves The Garage Rockers, cos they were basically a ska punk band. Wasn't convinced at first, cos of the usual Yankee accent etc, but the lead singer was a mean trumpet player - could have done with more of that.
Drop-Out Wives were just great, so it was a shame there were only really other band members there to see them...its not just Blackpool, then...legged it for the train with a Budvar in my pocket...

Wednesday was the nadir of my week as I had to remove all the Desalvo posters due to council mithering. At the end of all that, I slid down to the Oxford intending to see Darius Fontaine. Got in the door as he was being clapped off, so that didn't work out very well. Quite liked the room, although the bannister thingies at the front of the stage are a bit camp. Certainly plenty of people there, and pleased to not have to shell out on the door. I woz knacked though, so I went home in a sulk, STILL not having seen the local breakcore king in action...

Friday I went to the Punk night at the West Coast. If I hadn't been promoting the Desalvo thing, I would have helped Stuart out with this, as it was me suggested getting Gonzoid on. Sadly for them, it was a pretty damn quiet night (Stuart, do you think descriptions of the bands on flyers/web things would help at all? I guess no-one would know who they were without having encountered them before, but 'Lancaster punk pop shoegazers' or summat at least gives ya some grid refs). The music didn't suffer remotely though...
Only caught the last one by the Bug Chasers, which I personally thought sounded great (cool job on the sound). Good to see Lisa in action whacking hell out of the bin! Nigel Joseph was playing up a storm on gtr too. Seemed to get a muted response, but there y'go. I've got my taste & I'm happy...
The Drop-Out Wives were probably the best I've seen them, well polished & swaggering, warming themselves up for the night after. They must just really love playing. Its such a lottery doing that many gigs - great gig,no people/poor gig, loadsa people/great gig, loadsa people...admirable to say the least. Stormy shouted out just about everyone in the room (admittedly not hard) & claimed I was the Blackpool John Peel, which made me go tomato-coloured, especially as Higgins, Powergen & various other better candidates were there too. Finally spoke to Higgins properly after living here four and a half years & managed to quiz him on why he hasn't been playing so much recently etc - always had a very soft spot for Higgins++ & would value him joining a lot more of the current line-ups.
Gonzoid got help from Dave the Baron, who performed a special sexually-charged Nun show for them (I thought it was Desalvo who were into the kinky nuns?!). Dunno if this will link OK, but I'm sure Powergen would like to bask in the memory of THIS moment: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=656081277&ref=profile/photo.php?pid=1352651&id=598072610 I REALLY like Gonzoid & wish I could draw more people into their web. Its funny how you can pick up on these random bands through coincidence - I think they contacted Stan just cos they thought he might like em or summat, so Stan asked em to play with the Hobs in Lancaster, then they both got booked for that Beatherder debacle, then I asked Stuart if he would be up for putting em on over here....suddenly I've seen em three times this year & know half the songs. Finally got chatting to them too (jeez, I'm shy). Still no CDs from them though....Now if they just got a real drummer, that'd be one hell of a power trio.
Dave continued the show for us afterwards at Steve Nutmeg's home, where Caz showed me the wondrous inanities of Facebook's Pirate-Speak option & the new Wasted World comp got thoroughly rinsed.

So we finally got to the Desalvo show I've been organising with Kate Fear for about two months. Went through all the usual stresses, particularly focussing on a humming bass & fretting over whether anyone would turn up (its funny when everyone is mumbling about that hours before the gig is even due to start! "No-one's here yet" "We're not open though!"

. As it happened, a discreet bunch were there even before the official doortime & final paying guests totalled about 37, which will do nicely in that little room upstairs at Connollys on Topping Street (the ex-lap dancing place). The numbers included some friends of the barstaff, who seemed fairly happy with what they got on the whole (one woman was REALLY rocking out to Desalvo!). I saw most of it from the man-doing-the-door position, or whilst doing little jobs, but hey ho, its probably the last time for me after this council grief, so what the heck. Massive thanks to all sorts of people for turning out, especially Kate & Stan. Stan flew back from a very busy ten days working away that very afternoon & then came & did the PA with zero complaints. Top man. Powergen also gets love for sorting out some stoopid visuals & between-band music. I can't recall everyone in the seriously diverse crowd off the top of my head, but especially nice to see John Grice & Dr Steg out & gold stars to Andrew Truth for making it from Preston & Marky for making it from Manchester (& doing films, which I imagine he'll be posting soon), not tomention Desalvo's Japanese website honey, who came all the way up from London, I think!
The Bug Chasers are certainly beguiling. I'm not sure what they are on about, which is usually a good sign. Cover versions of extremely obscure art-garage-punk tunes, with wailing feedback guitar, dual Krautrock keyboards & a bin being whacked. Went down better than it seemed to the night before (despite an even nuttier sound due to Nutmeg joining in on theremin!).
Goonies Never Say Die are a tremendous band & went down a storm. I really hope they are now drawn well into the Hobsworld lair, as I think they fitted in on the bill real nice. I was talking to the Goonie I believe goes by the name of Kermit at the end & he was saying he was blown away by how much heavier Desalvo were than the Goonies, who he conceived of as being pretty damn heavy themselves. I had to reveal that I wanted the Goonies on cos I thought they were pretty mellow :-D I'm joking slightly, as they played pretty darn tense & muscular stuff & Mr Chopper was definitely feeling the vibe by the end, rolling around & rocking out. I think they're soothing though! I think Chopper's folks liked it too :-D
Finally we came to Desalvo, who stepped the whole thing up several gears. They threw the lights on & Mr P6 came out in his leather apron etc & gave out some gasmasks to audience members. It looked pretty insane from whatever angle you were stood at in the room. I kept telling people that it was the perfect reincarnation of a photo I always loved & longed to be at gigs in the mould of, showing Napalm Death destroying a tiny pub backroom in 1988. Ric, Nigel Joseph & Andrew Truth get the dancing prizes but the whole audience seemed totally transfixed, with P6 roaming the room interacting with everyone & meeting an ace spar in my girlf! The rest of the band threw themselves around like nobody's business in the background & it may have been politeness, but Alex was kind enough to say it was the best show of the tour at the end (& they've been playing at the Hope & Anchor, loads of home shows in Scotland etc etc). If you know a gig is gonna be relatively small & intense, what better way than in a tiny little room upstairs from an Irish drinker, with a Celtic band playing the other room! Thanks must go to Lee & Gav from the venue too, who I thought might be a little freaked out when the music started up but who seemed happy with their first rock show & seemed to think they would like to do it downstairs in the main bar in the future?! Other people should definitely get in touch with them about putting stuff on - P6 was shouting for more gigs there at the end & they were thoroughly straight with me & Kate throughout, if slightly weirded out by the whole thing.

After packing up, we jetted over to the West Coast to see the Drop-Out Wives yet again. The West Coast was pretty packed out, so it just goes to show that having more than one gig on on one night doesn't have to be a problem as long as the people putting them on co-ordiante & don't try to cannibalise audiences or whatever. The Wives were pretty triumphant & much enjoyed all round, but it was late & had been a pretty knackering day, so we slinked off before KPLG came on, doubtless to huge applause & a great reaction.

Not sure if I'll make it up to Fleetwoodstock tonight for Valvetronics after all that, but I'd like to think I might...

4:34 PM

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Sunday, July 06, 2008

RIP DJ Tron

I would be expecting to write about the Ceramic Hobs Beatherder debacle here (footage surely on Youtube soon), but find myself back in the real world reporting that US speedcore producer DJ Tron has died at an early age. I won't comment on circumstances, as there only seem to be rumours so far. All I will say is that I saw him about 11 years ago & he was excellent. Another one gone way too soon. RIP DJ Tron...

8:06 AM

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