Father in law to former vocalist of Ugly Rumours but known by an alternate title
https://youtu.be/ejw_LOi-nhk
Noel Gallagher on reliably excellent form with an anecdote about Bono’s drinking habits
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I love this Noel Gallagher story about Bono. I need to make the normal pedantic disclaimer that I’m not really a fan of Noel’s music, but by Jove he has a way of telling a story.
It’s the little details that make this special – the Irish Prime Minister, Bono in a dressing gown, Noel trying to work the telly in a hotel room….
http://www.nme.com/news/music/noel-gallagher-bono-got-drunk-together-tour-2144472
New Crosby – Sky Trails
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I’m not going to write a review because I haven’t listened enough yet and haven’t time to today. I have a beach to get to. But initial listen to the new Crosby album sounds very promising indeed. Very, very Steely Dan sounding first track. Gorgeous second track.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/551072317/first-listen-david-crosby-sky-trails
Phoebe Bridgers – Stranger In The Alps
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What does it sound like?:
Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?
Phoebe Bridgers is a disgustingly young LA artist. She’d previously put out a 7″ on Ryan Adams’ label, and this debut is produced by Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis, and features a duet with Conor Oberst, all of which gives you a pretty good idea where she’s coming from. It’s not a million miles from the Julie Byrne album that got some traction here earlier in the year – the sound is basically folk, with a bit of invention and studio trickery. The songs are built on foundations of acoustic guitar and piano, with support from electric guitars, synths and strings, and then some wilder sounds thrown in. A plane passes overhead above the Twin Peaks twang of opener ‘Smoke Signals’, and there’s a moment in the gorgeous crescendo of album highlight ‘Scott Street’ where among the wordless vocals and building strings you hear the bell of a child’s bicycle, then the choo-choo of a steam train. Okay, it sounds daft, like the Mad Professor dubbing Joni Mitchell, but it works beautifully. It strikes me » Continue Reading.
Everybody Likes The Eagles
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Er, no they don’t. But why? Why are the Eagles despised, or at best dismissed? By the beard of Zeus they have some great songs – so can anyone help me understand why they are so poorly regarded, or maybe you, like me, think they’re just super! Share your bile, or your love for one of rock’s great Marmite bands – Eagles!
Help me spend my Fopp vouchers
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I had a big birthday the other week, and my colleagues very kindly got me some Fopp vouchers. I haven’t bought much new this year, so this my chance to catch up. Are there any recent releases I should be checking out? For context, my last couple of purchases were The National, LCD Soundsystem, Mogwai and Feist.
There is no such thing as new music, just old music that you haven’t heard before
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That’s the title of an interesting post on David Hepworth’s blog (link below):
http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/theres-no-such-thing-as-new-music.html
One of the points that he makes is that when living in an era where everything is available, then it doesn’t make sense to give priority to music that is new. I think this makes sense, after all, we don’t do that with books do we? If you read, say, 20 books a year, and only 3 or 4 were from that year, would you be bothered?
So what do you think? Does showing a lack of interest in new releases indicate a lack of curiosity? Or should we accept that, with everything available we should just go where our nose takes us, whether it be LCS Soundsystem, Charles Mingus, Paco De Lucia or Maurice Ravel?
R.E.M. Out Of Time 3 disc vinyl 25th Anniversary edition
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Waxahatchee – Out In The Storm
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What does it sound like?:
The most frequently heard words on this album are ‘I’ and ‘You’ followed by ‘We’. Out In The Storm is a relationship/breakup/staying together/oh god what do I really want? album that’s lyrically straight out of singer-songwriter central. If you’re not up for some Me Time then this is not for you. The album opens with a confident blast of power guitar and the words ‘Everyone will hear me complain/Everyone will feel my pain’ . It ends in a downbeat acoustic number in which she fears she is fading away. In between we hear a lot about whether she should drive to Brooklyn, go to Berlin or just stay in bed.
It feels very twenty-something. There’s nothing about mortgages, children or jobs – just the emotional manipulations, arguments, drunken nights and regrets of a decaying relationship. It’s about the fighting that takes place in words, intentions and misunderstandings.
Lyrically the album never lets up from this theme. Musically it has a number of modes: the confident fuzzy power-pop that characterises the opener and standout track Hear You where she locates a killer chorus that several other songs could benefit from. Then there’s the slower » Continue Reading.
Anagrams
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Listening to the final of Counterpoint the music quiz on Radio 4, one of the questions was something on the lines of Svengali is the anagram of a musician ( before the question continued I thought Vangelis). However the rest of the question went on that this musician had collaborated with Miles Davis. The answer was of course Gil Evans, who recorded an album Svengali. I was impressed that two musicians could share an anagram. Any other anagrams?
China Crisis
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Any fans out there fancy reviewing the expanded reissues? (these are via stream, not cds)
Classic album cafe ideas
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I’ve been asked by my local community cafe to curate regular vinyl playback events. I have been promised the loan of a turntable by a local hifi shop, which is nice – my Linn deck is not the portable kind. I can use the more mobile elements of my PA system for the rest of the playback system.
The idea is for people to experience listening to records without the distractions of telly/phones/etc, with a glass of something nice in their hands.
I thought I’d go for two albums (or one double) per evening, a headline platter plus an outsider; for instance, Parallel Lines + Marquee Moon.
I’m no expert when it comes to ‘classics’ – I made it to 47 before I listened to Dark Side of the Moon.
Headline of event #1 will be Sgt Pepper.
What pairings do you suggest?
Big Big Train: ticket going cheap
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Big Big Train? Big big bargain more like!
Due to insurmountable financial and logistical challenges, I’m no longer able to attend this Friday’s Big Big Train show at Cadogan Hall this Friday that I bought a ticket for this time last year. It’s a very fine seat, H16, so somewhere in the middle of the stalls, eight rows back – and it will be empty unless someone steps forward and takes it off my hands.
The price on the ticket is £42 but it’s all yours for just £20 plus postage.
Anyone?
Thread view counts showing zero
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I’ve noticed that for the last few days the view counts for new threads are all showing zero. Not a big deal, but perhaps a gremlin that the Admins could look at when they’re back from the pub?
Vinyl Diary, part 1: K-Scope
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Raymond on buying vinyl
I recently bought my son a turntable for his birthday and, since he owned no vinyl, I spent a couple of weekends scouring various second hand and charity shops in the hope of assembling an interesting little ‘starter’ collection for him.
(continued in comments below)
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
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Venue:
Bournemouth International Centre
Date: 24/09/2017
The first night of Nick Cave’s European tour. This is the first time he’s done the arenas in the UK, but any worries about stepping up to bigger venues were misplaced. It was bloody fantastic. The setlist looked very similar to this show that @junior-wells went to, but what you don’t get from a list of songs is any idea of the sheer power of the full Bad Seeds unit. One of the great bands, restrained when they need to be, and kicking off like a hurricane on the likes of ‘From Her To Eternity’ or the revamped monster that is ‘Jubilee Street’. Cave is a superb frontman, prowling from end of the stage to the other, reaching out and grabbing hands. It sounds crazy to say it about the Berlin junkie doom merchant I grew up listening to, but these days his crowd rapport and total control of the audience are more reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen than anybody else (and he’s up there on stamina as well – this was a two and a half hour show). The Skeleton Tree stuff sounds huge, and translates to » Continue Reading.
The Tree Of Light
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There is a tree in the local park that my girlfriend photographs all year round. She has dozens of pictures all from the same spot, taken during the different seasons. She’s a bit arty farty and wanted to make a collage, one from each season, and get it framed and hung on her living room wall.
I suggested giving the work to our local Picasso, and giving it to her as a Christmas present.
It’s ready now, so she’ll be getting it soon. On Christmas morning, she’ll get a stocking with an apple, an orange and thruppence.
Picture in comments if I can get imgur to work.
Klaxon – box set deals via the tax dodgers
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Beatles Sgt. Pepper big box at £79.99, Fresh Cream 4 disc set at £29.99 and the George Harrison vinly box about £100 cheaper, amongst other deals..! I’ve ordered the Cream, although currently out of stock they say they will be getting more….
http://bit.ly/2jUaBzN
Pop Quiz
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The first part should be relatively easy….
Name all the Beatles songs where no Beatle plays any instruments ? (I believe there are four – but I could be wrong)
Which leads into the second question – any other songs where the group does not play any instruments?
And I better add the condition that we don’t include any manufactured groups (e.g Monkees) or Stock / Aitken / Waterman type productions……
Cover versions that walk all over the original
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Not for the first time Grace Jones reinvents an original for the better. Who else?
The Horrors – V
What does it sound like?:
Apparently they’re a bunch of middle class tossers in skinny jeans but I bloody love The Horrors. They had me from album number 2 having ‘released the bats’ and got their Birthday Party/Cramps/Lord Sutch thing out of their systems with ‘Strange House’. That early phase maybe was a smart move as they crashed into the music scene of 2005 with some impact, which only added to the astonishment when they came back with ‘Primary Colours’ – a Geoff (Portishead) Barrow production which mixed their gothic shlock with thunderous My Bloody Valentine guitars and Joe Meek style echo-chamber oddness. It established their M.O. of doing a bit of a swerve with each album, so rather than follow it up with more of the same they came up with ‘Skying’ which was a great lost Simple Minds album that could have slotted between Sparkle in the Rain and Once Upon a Time. ‘Luminous’ felt like a bit of a let down – a good record but felt like a companion to the previous album and not the transformation I’d come to expect (or maybe it was ‘Sister Feelings Call’ to their ‘Sons & Fascination’).
This » Continue Reading.
V&A Exhibition Space for rent: Who’s Next?*
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After attending the Floyd exhibition this weekend we retired to a pub in Notting Hill and among the matters discussed was who else could sustain a similarly successful event.
The obvious one would be The bloody Beatles but would that be too vast a subject to cover despite the short life span. The Stones have had theirs,
Are there any museums for bands out there worth visiting for good and comedy reasons. Why don’t Dublin make much out of U2 being from the city and will we see a Radiohead show at the V&A in 20 years as @DrJ suggests.
*yes they are (one for Abbot & Costello fans)
The gender wars of household chores – do you find this comic strip patronising?
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Someone I know “liked” this on Facebook. Hmmmmmmm.
I’m kind of wary about posting it here, as gender arguments can be fractious. But… I don’t know, I just find it really patronising. For those who can’t be bothered reading it all, a feminist artist called Emma has written a comic strip about how men in general unfairly expect women to bear the brunt of household chores and organisation. Not only this, but men make it worse by taking the “well you should have asked me to do that if you wanted it done!” stance, because it forces women into bearing the “mental load” for either doing things themselves or telling their men to do them.
I kind of get what she is saying. Imbalance in hygiene/cleanliness/organisational standards in a relationship can be an issue, sure. But a concept like the “mental load” sounds to me like the worst kind of passive aggressive twaddle – at worst, an excuse for a control freak personality. And then to turn this into a gender issue??
The worst bit is near the end, when she pre-empts men (like me) who are reading the strip and thinking, “I’m not like these men she describes”… apparently, » Continue Reading.
Unappreciated Star Wars charaters
Just watching Return Of The Jedi – how fantastic do the Emperor’s Guards look? The least acknowledged of the Star Wars characters…
Mojo dont do Women
by 32 Comments
but they sometimes do good compilations. This months Krautrock compilation is fabulous.
