Adventures of a University Finalist

Oh! Philly Cheddah Is Rich

2006-03-29T12:32:00.000+01:00

Hall & Oates - Alone Too Long
Hall & Oates - Had I Known You Better Then
Hall & Oates - Johnny Gore and the C Eaters

The Todd Rundgren Competition is now closed with two clear winners who are Maxwell Murdoc with his answer of Todd Rundgren -> Prana (collaborated together) -> Philip Glass (Prana opened for Glass recently) & Kevin Holm Hudson who said TR -> David Bowie (TR produced Shawn Cassidy's cover of 'Rebel Rebel') -> Philip Glass (made two symphonies based on Bowie's Berlin period; 'Heroes' and 'Low'). Two holes in one! Lots of you went for the Bowie connection but didn't manage quite as succinctly. Guys if you could just send me your addresses to the same e-mail address as before stating which of the two prizes on offer you'd prefer and I'll see about getting them sent out to you.
Personally, thought Philip Glass was too leftfield for this to be an easy task but was proved really rather wrong. It just goes to show how easy it is to link Todd is music’s answer to Kevin Bacon. Yet another string to the bow of the Zen Archer.
For what’s it’s worth, my personal attempt was Todd Rundgren -> Joe Jackson (co-headlined on a recent UK tour) -> Suzanne Vega (collaborated on Jackson’s ‘Heaven & Hell’) -> Philip Glass (Glass arranged the strings on Vega's '50/50 Chance').
Recently, Adventures… has been filled with moratoriums for various sacred cows: the mix tape theorist, the list maker, and the independent musician. Today, I will be continuing this little series by examining a classic case of public favoritism for certain musicians over others: 70s legends Hall & Oates. The question to be asked is why Daryl Hall was seen as the driving force behind the band whilst John Oates existed merely as an embarrassment.
This was recently dealt with Jefito in his definitive study of the duo’s work in his regular Idiot’s Guide series when he admitted to harbouring the above prejudice until ‘Marigold Sky’, their 199… album proved to be a bit of a stinker without him. That’s not to say that Oates hadn’t been creatively marginalised before that point. As early as 1973s ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’, Hall was performing solo piano ballads in ‘Laughing Boy’ and Oates did none of the lead guitar work on the album preferring to leave it to producer Chris Bond. ‘War Babies’ is so dominated by the guitar work of Todd Rundgren (if you hear the solos then it’s unmistakably the producer’s work – compare it Something/Anything’s ‘Black Maria’) that you have to wonder what Oates actually did on the album other than sing the bland opener.
Yet, Oates wrote some fantastic songs during their early pre-Voices period. ‘Camellia’ and ‘Alone Too Long’ are definite highlights on the Silver Album with the former a firm contender for my personal favourite by them. ‘If I Had Known You Better Then’ also holds its own on the incredibly strong first side of ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’ alongside the classics ‘When the Morning Comes’ and ‘She’s Gone’. Also, having seen their live concert for the Old Grey Whistle Test I can safely say that he was a consummate live performer acting with his blue collar energy working as the perfect foil to Hall’s effete Pan.
So why the hatred? Firstly, there is the omnipresent handlebar moustache which makes him look like your stereotypical 70s porn star accompanied by his studied ability to (a) not wear a shirt at all (b) wear a shirt that wasn’t patently ludicrous and showing his rogue animal chest hair or (c) match electric pink in most of his colour schemes. There’s also the basic assumption that Hall was the main creative force in the group who wrote the songs whilst Oates made saucy movies with drugged out groupies and injected cocaine into his nethers. Now, I have no idea whether either were drug users but the rock n’ roll culture of the Seventies, their acquaintance with known addicts such as Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin, and some of their output (the psychedelic rock of ‘Johnny Gore & the C Eaters’ to the bloated excesses of their late 80s records) points toward some form of abuse. Nevertheless, that speculation deserves neither to be taken as evidence of John Oates being some form of talentless deviant compared to Hall’s Aryan Soft Rock Messiah.
There is no doubt that Hall has one of the best white voices in pop. Anyone, who has sessioned for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles deserves some credit. It’s well known that he was a classically trained musician too and there’s no real doubt in my mind that he had a far greater individual talent than Oates. What my objection to is that this gap is often over exaggerated in order to attack them both individually and as a group. This had led to slow erosion of their status in the music world where trend setters have now become guilty pleasures. As a result, loving the music of Hall & Oates has become a phyrric victory with the love of the music being overpowered by this newly cultivated stigma against "soft rock". They have become synonymous with mainstream pop confections completely lacking in guile or ingenuity. Maybe it’s a tag that they deserve post ‘Big Bam Boom’ but one can’t help feeling that it’s more due to the critical of them as possessing such a one sided dynamic that they don’t deserve the acclaim.
Bands all have a tendency to suffer from this phenomenon in one way or the other. The most famous example is a certain Richard Starkey better known as Ringo Starr who is often better known for his simplistic technique and penchant for the comic rather than his solid early solo career and that apocalyptic break on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Lennon’s solo career was largely risible but that doesn’t stop saccharine atrocities such as ‘Imagine’ and half baked albums such as ‘Somewhere in New York City’ flourishing in the public psyche. When Brian Eno, the oddball, cross dresser went off to perform his art pop riot, the critics followed with some staying behind to bang on Roxy Music's door and call Brian Ferry silly names such as Brain Fart (although from what I hear the miner’s son rather deserved it). T-Rex was seen as just a vehicle for Marc Bolan’s space imp boogie until it reached the stage where it became a self-fulfilling parody in which Steve Took could no longer play Bottom. Little Feat – everyone remembers Lowell George but what about Bill Payne, Paul Barrette and the walkin’ talkin’ impregnatin' metronome that was Richie Hayward. George has become a martyr for artistic integrity whilst the others are now perceived as journeymen; shadows without his presence. Personal prejudices beget by popular misconceptions.
By the way, Adventures… celebrated its status as a music blog on March 7. Thanks to everyone who’s visited for all your support especially DVD, Jefito, SVC, Jack, Hype, FastHosts, Caz, Sully, and all my Latin American compadres.

Buy - Hall & Oates - Hall & Oates
Buy - Hall & Oates - Abandoned Luncheonette
Buy - Hall & Oates - War Babies

Schadenfreude

2006-03-17T19:17:00.000Z

The Yearning - Afterthought EP (Download, 2006)

The Yearning - Afterthought
The Yearning - The Fall

Old school review today. A small disclaimer first: this band features two of my best friends at University. They are not signed nor is the production as polished as you would expect from one that was. Nor is the music what you would necessarily expect to find here however that's not to say that I don't enjoy it.
The name is pretty horrible, I know. They rejected my brilliant suggestion of 'Bandcastle', a pun that slides over the tongue like a loose mint imperial, in favour of something that is a little too angsty and adolescent. More carving your favourite band's name in your arm with a compass than anything else. Of course, the band's name has nothing to do with the quality of their music but I just thought that particular personal grievance should be aired in case it poisoned the rest of this review.
If one were asked to attempt to pigeonhole the band's sound in general terms then mainstream indie rock would have to be the buzz word of that particularly boring conversation. The Afterthought EP veers between rather frantic anthemic rock ('Afterthought') through to inoffensive uptempo quanitly jingoistic pop ('The Fall') and ending up at Christian Rock ('Invisible Solace'). Yes, you read that last particular genre categorization correctly. So I feel that particular nugger may be the best place to start.
'Invisible Solace' is the last track on the six track strong EP. Sadly, it is also a sad victim of what I term the 'Some Girls Are Bigger than Others' syndrome. This particular syndrome involves a rather gorgeous, pastoral musical arrangement being disrupted by the lyrical constructs placed its surface. Now, this is not due to a reactionary anti-religious sentiment. I have always seen myself as a person who is pro-faith unless it reached a point where it impinges on basic moral rights and personal values. I find the conservative religious right in the US so repugnant due to its corruption of what is essentially a humanistic and altruistic doctrine into a self serving monolith bordering on fundamentalist dogma. People who can retain their strong beliefs in a benevolent higher being despite their doubts, a sentiment recently voiced by the hirsute Archbishop of Canterbury, is something to be highly praised. That is unless they're a sacred underpants wearing, wife swapping Mormon, of course. I am not Richard Dawkins; evolution, to me, is not the final answer. It is pointless to create an aggressive false dichotomy between "intelligent evolutionists" and "ignorant creationists". The lyrics are simply too downright basic and pious. The allusion to the soldier giving the old push of the spear into Jesus's side whilst he was on the Calvary cross appears to be a crude signpost that exists only to slap the listener rudely across the face as to its subject matter. It's slightly unfair to single the track out but I feel that having heard some of his solo material that he can write material so strong that it borders on the life affirming.
'The Fall', on the other hand, is probably the strongest of the six constituting of a chunky slice of a blues riff (think Freddie King with mono) collapsed in with a mix that allows the rhythm section to take a decent breath much needed after the opener, 'Afterthought', which is bogged down by trying to be a little too clever with its changes in tempo. The lyric is breezy detailing the realization that a relationship isn't working with someone whilst having the time of your life with them. It's an arch contradiction in terms which plays well with the buoyant vibe given off by the music. The song doesn't have any rough edges except when the singer attempts to go down the register during one of the pre choruses masquerading as a bridge. It shows maturity through its slickness at the same time as a youthful naivete and joie de vivre. There's also the fact that its as infectious as syphilis causing strange looks whilst you air guitar down a busy high street.
I'd put this down to the fact that the band actually seem relaxed for the only time on the record. 'Afterthought' is marred by the fact that the drums are static. There is no propulsive back beat to drive the song to the heights that it could so easily achieve. This is down either to the fact that there is no communication or basic kinship shown by the rhythm section and that the song is a little too daring, a little too early. Anthemic rock feeds on arrogance. The basic components of the song carry this off but not the performance. It's just such a shame as Ed, the male vocalist, ex-friend (or at least I think he is now since I likened what is obviously a highly personal song to sixth form poetry) and overall fantastic chap, has a great rock voice. This leads to invariable chemistry in the harmonies which are further boosted by the fact that they have such a sympathetic guitarist who is also not afraid to be an auteur. Power chords lead into Spanish flourishes that remind one of the versatility of a Beck, a Page or a Cooder. The fingerpicking on 'Invite Me Again' is just so exhilarating that it takes the song to a completely new level; a trait that I always felt applied to the Sundays. Without Gavurin's mastery of the jangle pop zeitgeist, Wheeler's pop confections would never have had the tangy bite that endeared them to so many of the floppy fringe and soft heart. Dan Hoyes, that guitarist, is the band's ace in the pack. This not due to any self-indulgent ambition but rather a sharp musical intellect married to such a self-effacing nature that he is not only able to embrace the band's basic musical ideas but to push them so far that they are completely transformed. One can imagine that not a question is asked of what he must do other than how to improve upon it. He is a perfectionist of Spector/Rundgren proportions and has the ability to see such a position through with ease. That is something really rather powerful.
This is an imperfect first release with some very welcome omens buried in the chicken bones. There is a clear sense that they know a melody when they hear one and that they are willing to push personal boundaries. However, I don't think that they push them anywhere near far enough. The constant thought that ran through my head whilst listening to the record was that this was an musical oligarchy disguised as a democracy. The bassist is clearly not valued enough either as a contributor or as a good enough musician than to be handed bum assignments. His patterns are far too basic when the guitars are allowed the wind together into textures that are fascinatingly rich in their density. Despite this, it still sounds too constrained. You expect a rasping guitar solo and then it's suddenly pulled back so that we can have an extended coda which merely constitutes of the chorus being repeated again. Maybe this is just because I've been listening to 'War Babies' by Hall & Oates which throws in so many wonderfully incongruous elements at will that it almost becomes a collage approaching the avant garde and self-destructive. Too much favour is given to the vocalists and their words when their lyrical style is still in a relatively minor stage of "I woke up this morning...." There has to some form of ambiguity; a sacrifice to archetypal symbols. If something stands in your way, you can't simply accept it. You have to change it; gouge its eyes out with your pen. 'Suzanne', 'If Ships Could Sail', 'Tangled Up in Blue': all behemoths, all aggressive and obtuse.
Of course this is a case of my forcing what are essentially highly personal values upon these poor people who just want to make their own music. I'm a hypocrite, a heathen and a liar. I think the band's songs need to be more daring and complex but also feel that they should strive toward cutting away the chaff to create tightly packed three minute pop songs. I revel in the blissful naivete whilst yearning for some narrative grit. I show admiration for their incorporation of faith values into their music but also feel that the religious aspect needs to be pegged back. I think that The Yearning are a good band that could be so much greater. It's up to them.

Post-script: It has been pointed out to me that the strong point about worship songs is often their simplicity. This is based on the logic that a worship songs entire purpose rests upon its message being communicated to the audience. This is fully understandable.

Visit - The Yearning (and download the whole EP when you join the mailing list)

Todd Is God

2006-03-14T13:08:00.000Z

XTC – The Meeting Place
Richard Hell - Time
Nazz – Open My Eyes
Little Willie John - Need Your Love So Bad

Yes, it’s competition time once again. This time we’re going to play a game that I like to call Degrees of Todd Rundgren… which is basically The Kevin Bacon Game but with Todd instead of the Velvet Oink.
For those who have been living in the gaseous swamps of Venus for the past few years testing the latest range of Curtis Armstrong ear protectors, here’s the rules. You must link the pop genius who gives the game its name to another artist of my choosing through such instances as production, live appearances, cover songs, fights and good hard shags.
For example, if I were to say Bill Withers, then you could reply Todd Rundgren -> Isley Brothers (the brothers Isley covered his torch song ‘Hello It’s Me’) -> Bill Withers (Bill appeared on their album ‘Givin’ It Back’). It’s simple when you know how.
The prize for this particular competition will be a copy of Dead! The Grim Reaper's Greatest Hits from those wonderful people at Ace Records and I also have a copy of Frank Miller’s That Yellow Bastard if anyone would prefer that instead. Pretty ace, no? The winner is the person who links Todd to the minimalist composer Phillip Glass in the least number of steps. If there’s a tie then I may just have to think of someone else to act as a tiebreaker.
It should be noted that attempts with links that I deem too tenuous (e.g. same genre, both like a frothy latte, have strange googly eyes) will be disqualified. Leave your attempts on the comments page or send them to me at t_d_williamson@yahoo.co.uk if you want to keep them secret.

Visit - Todd Rundgren
Buy - Richard Hell - Time
Buy - The Nazz - Open Our Eyes
Buy - XTC - Skylarking
Buy - Wonder Boys OST

Anatomy of a Mix Pt. 2

2006-03-09T13:03:00.000Z

The Byrds - Dolphin's Smile
Belle & Sebastien - Sukie in the Graveyard
Ron Sexsmith - Tell Me Again
Daniel Wylie - Snow Pony

Tomorrow, next Thursday… there’s not that much difference between the two is there really?
This particular post is going to be another attempt to if not kill a sacred cow then to give it a least a little bruising or maybe even a poorly hoof. This is where the fabled art of the mix tape is to be ripped out of its renaissance and forced screaming into a stuckist nightmare. Well, perhaps it doesn’t quite embrace the naivety of stuckism but rather revels in an optimistic form of nihilism (if such a construct can exist).
For a mix tape to truly succeed it must pay heed to two central principles: 1) each song must appear only on a scale of personal merit, and 2) the ideas of flow, pace, and stylistic rigour must be abandoned in favour of a chaotic model. This is a highly unpopular concept in the post-Hornby generation where the onus is largely placed on controlled dynamics, deliberate pacing, and the ultimate goal to encompass moods, themes or circumstance i.e. "Songs for a Wet Saturday Afternoon in June driving counter clockwise around the M25". Not only is it unpopular but it is also surprisingly difficult to adhere to as last week’s attempt by myself shows.
‘Sexual Funk’ was included merely due to its title adding an aesthetic danger not normally attributed to the Black Country. ‘The Wizard and the Lizard’ is not my favourite title by Gorky’s – however, it is fey and hallucinogenic in approach. There was a tendency on my part to separate genres and both the opening and closing tracks were chosen in the name of dynamics. One and a half minutes of feedback would be an incredibly brave move if placed at track 4 or 15 but not as the first track. Songs were removed, or simply forgotten, (apologies to Notorious Byrd Brothers who would have liked a bit of ‘Dolphin’s Smile’ – I’ve uploaded it in penance) due to the fatal flaw of mix makers, attempting to fit the mix to the recipient’s established tastes. So pretty much every trap that I knew about, I fell in to regardless. The mix was random only in a suitably contrived fashion.
The paragon of a mix tape based on this model would be your twenty favourite songs in the world being placed in a random generator. This leaves the burning question: where’s the romance in such a cold clinical process? Such a paragon would undesirable in the long term but if one establishes a more progressive outlook then it is clearly the most effective. Why? Preferences fluctuate. Loves are lost in order for others to take their place as circumstances change. The tape that you made two months ago has become irrelevant as ‘Sukie in the Graveyard’s Nintendo organ riff loses its lustre and Tom Waits is suddenly too "cabaret night-club" for your tastes. So you sit down and make another. Some songs will stay and others will discarded. Which sounds better: a tape that encapsulates your current state perfectly or a variety of detritus that set to looks to extensive pluralism – a tape for every conceivable eventuality.
The mistake that most people make is that when they are facing a break-up, for example, they undergo a forced and rather clunky paradigm shift whereby everything must be focused on the central event. Every song that they listen to must become about broken bodies and empty bottles. There is no desire to retain any form of optimism as songs that still hold true and dear are replaced by inferior efforts that are shaped to fit a rigid template. Rational values are diminished as emotive reaction takes hold. This is not contradictory to the tenet that preferences fluctuate. This is a case of a single event enforcing radical change rather than a steady flux. An objective approach should be pursued instead of an unfulfilling form of reactionary negativism.
To move away from atavism toward style, I’ll be brief. Just because an external set of factors has occurred, e.g. going on holiday, does not mean that every song on a mix should have the word "sun", "holiday" or "conga" in it. It’s just silly.
An interesting side note to the randomly generated mix, or at least the forms that it has taken whilst I’ve made them, is that a form that is essentially chaotic will invariably establish an ordered dynamic. Songs that on paper seems distinct will blend against expectations as they share the same key, instrumentation or style. The splash of organ found throughout one song may continue in another as a more rhythmic pulse. Arpeggios and glissandos will ebb and fade. The feather-light brushwork of an artisan builds toward a labourer’s pounding. To find order in chaos when the music you are confronted with refuses to conform or to be pinned down is one of its greatest joys. Unpredictable and aggressive shifts in approach are a supremely important commodity in an assault upon the senses and surely that’s what is the achievable goal of a mix; to affect others and to inform.
Long live the iPod shuffle you may be thinking. It is the best vessel for a random generation of songs that you enjoy. However, to come to that conclusion is to denounce form. I hate mix CDs although I must now rely upon them for comfort as I have no reliable tape decks since the arrival of my vinyl player. A mix tape is a constant sign of thoughtfulness and hard work. To make a CD one has to merely set it up for ten minutes and then go have your tea. To make a mix tape, you must sit in a highly uncomfortable position waiting for the point for an hour and half waiting for each song to reach its inevitable conclusion with fingers constantly raised like the Sword of Damacles over the pause button’s nub of a head. It is time consuming and satisfying for both parties when all is said and done.
There’s also the fact that the bugger you give it to will have to listen to the whole thing enabling the holistic vision that you have created to grab hold rather than reaching for his remote if a certain song doesn’t immediately snag their heartstrings. A mix tape is pure atavism in its desire for the complete picture whereas a mix CD is just a glorified sampler that disregards the entire basis behind the form.

Buy - Belle & Sebastien - The Life Pursuit
Buy - Ron Sexsmith - Blue Boy
Buy - The Byrds - The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Buy - Daniel Wylie - Ramshackle Beauty

Anatomy of a Mix Pt 1

2006-02-28T19:33:00.000Z

1. Gang of Four - Anthrax
2. The Durutti Column - An Act Committed
3. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - The Wizard and The Lizard
4. The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction
5. Eric Matthews - Faith in Clay
6. Elvis Costello - From A Whisper To A Scream
7. Bobby 'Blue' Bland - Ain't Nothing You Can Do
8. Prince - She Always In My Hair
9. Little Feat - Oh Atlanta
10. The Rolling Stones - Stupid Girl
11. Scritti Politti - Lover to Fall
12. Family - My Friend The Sun
13. Stereolab - Captain Easychord
14. Electric Soft Parade - Bruxellisation
15. Common - Faithful
16. Bobby Womack - So Many Sides to You
17. Tindersticks - Sexual Funk
18. The Lucksmiths - Fiction

It all begins with a full minute of screeching feedback before the 'Making Plans for Nigel' drumbeat and elastic bass. Two voices speak in alternating metres. One inhabits a nihilistic fantasy; the other the mundane. It ends with a bluegrass tinted banjo, a boy who is even more coloured by fate, and a beer left on a kitchen counter. What goes on in between these two contrasting points is a matter for discussion that will be explored further tomorrow.

The Pyrrhic Victory of Listendom

2006-02-22T18:46:00.000Z

Clem Snide - African Friend
Elvis Costello - Episode of Blonde
Roots Manuva - Sinny Sin Sins

It appears that this impromptu pseudo intellectual revolution of this PBB (petit bourgeois blog) continues. Today, it is the turn of that most evil form of music snobbery to do battle with my poison keyboard: the list.
Now "most evil form" may seem a rather strong term for a pastime that I myself have practiced in the past; see the aborted Top 10 Songs in Heaven (a poorly veiled excuse to place Tom Wait's as the piano player in Heaven's dive) and my praise for John Allison's Top 50 singles list. I believe that the most pertinent analogy to the music list is a loaded weapon; it is capable of both good and evil ends through the same simplistic means. Too much power has been placed in a general instrument of preference masquerading as an elite in an individualist's paradise. Music has long been a form in anti-conformity since Elvis wiggled his pelvis at the wrong group of Methodists.
Lists are a constant perpetuator of the media's cruellest myths. The same names are constantly recycled reflecting old prejudices and embedding new favourites. Not a month has gone past the Arctic Monkey's releasing their debut album and they are already featuring in "definitive" compendiums. The opinion of the majority is forced upon the rest of us so that it soon becomes easier to accept than innovate. This counters any argument that such exercises are productive due to their acting as a platform for discussion and debate as they can't be said to go beyond the infantile and trivial. Take for example the Guardian's current poll for their Film & Music supplement on Friday: The Top 10 Advice Songs". What in the name of Richard Gere is an "advice song"? Aren't all songs some form of advice: moral tales establishing personal values; constructive fables; protest songs that advice us against centralised forms of authority; and ultimately love songs. the ultimate purveyors of symptoms and consequences. As the area that these lists pertain to cover slowly increase from 10 to 50 to 100 and finally to 1001 they creep even further toward insignificance as scope slowly replaces expertise and logical expression.
The medium could be deemed worthwhile as a catalyst of curiosity but only when used sparingly and intelligently; something that is simply not possible within the consumerist realm that they have come to inhabit. They have even become represented in a purely market driven form (rather than critical) by the slew of sub standard compilations based around a loose theme flooding the music shops.
In regard to magazine polls, what is preferable? 25 pages of musicians embracing their childhood fantasies that they had long regressed in the form of the 100 Greatest Bruce Springsteen songs (surely a subject that needs any outright instruction) or nothing at all. Of course, we'd all have preferred something slightly more oblique and altogether more challenging: a treatise upon the correlation between the comparative rises of West Coast psychedelica and dub reggae called "Lee Perry's Strawberry Alarm Clock" but that's never going to happen when one considers the budget and time restrictions within which such publications must operate. Such page filling exercises can be tolerated but as the readers of Mojo have discovered there is a saturation point where it seems that the respective editors are operating on cruise control at the readership's expense. Surely in such cases a more personalised imprint such as that espoused by Word's "Word of Mouth" would be more appropriate as they encompass a far more varied and expressive set of tastes.
I'm certain that most would advocate 10 pages of solid journalism over an overstretched puff piece double the length. Perhaps this recent fascination with the linear design attempting to represent a glorious definity will fade to black. Hopefully, it won't come to complete negation and will instead opt for a technicolour transformation toward a multifaceted instrument that is legitimately pluralistic rather than the tyrannical rule of a self-appointed elite.
I reiterate that I myself have been prone to lapses in my stance with my mental creation of Top 5s and personal favourites but one must recognise the distinct dividing line between lists that wish to carry the tag of representative of the views of a wider demographic (where the world is black and white) and those that are just personal opinion.
In regard to the omnipresent annual music polls, as I've stated before, the criteria are just far too strict. More often than not, choices are decided by external pressures: Q must always represent the populist rock mainstream whereas Pitchfork cannot find the will to appreciate such acts veering toward the snobbish pretence of lo-fi/industrial chic. Such polls are merely mirrors of easily identifiable trends constantly signposted by all forms of the media juggernaut so why the need to wrap it all up in a pretty liitle box other than to satisfy the music buyer's customary character flaw: oneupmanship. Long was the time in my house when a cry would erupt proclaiming "I have 34 albums in the Mojo Top 100 Greatest Stratocaster albums. How many do you have?". This is a sport that has not cruel and unusual punishment upon me for some time but it still exists as your basic gauge to a person's musical cool index.
Then again all of this hyperbole may just be because I'm crap at writing the bastard things. Opinions changes. New music is created every minute. Why chain yourself to the ghosts of passion?

Buy - Clem Snide - Your Favourite Music
Buy - Elvis Costello - When I Was Cruel
Buy - Roots Manuva - Run Come Save Me

Crisis Talks in the Middle Classes

2006-02-20T19:25:00.000Z

A Girl Called Eddy - Girls Can Really Tear You Up Inside

Change of tack again. I'm now looking to move away from a platform that focuses on individual songs toward more general theses. I have found myself recently missing the opportunity to speak at length on music as a social phenomena and I think that this can be seen by my rather lacklustre prose over the last month since my return. So to begin this new revival in the fortune of Adventures... I thought I'd begin with my thoughts on what I like to term aural medicine; those songs that one reaches out for in times of hurt and crisis. This is mainly due to such a crisis moment striking me only yesterday after a particularly harsh reminder of this life's bitter truths. So there I was - a sullen silhouette stretched across the minimalist background framed by my bed sheets crying out to oligarchs, spectres and tyrants to save me from such pain and then it happened. Initially, there was a insubstantial thrum that one could have possibly mistaken for an inefficent radiator. This was soon replaced by a piano simplistically sketching an equivalent to rain drawing an elliptical pattern on the canvas of a bedroom window. Then came the recognition and words upon my lips. 'Heartache' by A Girl Called Eddy, the beautific Richard Hawley produced miserabilist. Why this particular song would appear I have no particualr idea. Maybe it was the ghost of Freud whispering in my ear. Perhaps it was a particular need for self-immolation especially when one considers that listening to her admittedly fine album leads to unwarranted stigmata travelling up your forearm. It really is the boy meets girl dynamic taken to the zero end of the Love Is.. continuum.
This of course led to dust being blown off a long neglected digipak and revelatory repetition of the opening track, 'Tears All Over Town' before a wet shave and a quick effort at progressing further through the new Ian McEwan paperback. There was also the advantage of feeling a lot less drained at the end of the exercise than I had been at the start. Now could such a rapidfire recovery have been achieved by some comfort television ('Angel' preferably pre-Fred), a good book (some Loeb/Sale Batman collaboration or some of Busiek's Astro City), or even a different song? It's an interesting question. Why did those fraternal twins representing that most flawed of democracies, the brain, decide upon a song from an album that had to be switched off whilst driving through the Peak District as it brought about images of tyres colliding with low stone walls? Why not that eternal pick-me-up of solid Kraftwerk funk, 'Love Machine'? Why not Todd Rundgren's whimsical 'Marlene'? Why not the frankly idiotic 'Smackwater Jack' by evergreen popstress Carole King? Does such an unconscious derive from personal circumstances, the form in which the crisis unfolds, or perhaps even a completely random generation. Could an extra degree of personal grief have resulted in Neko Case's 'Guided By Wire' tickling the speakers' output? I think that's what makes this particular brand of remedies: the inevitable moment of shock and awe.
Then again, I may not be the best case for this kind of activity. Songs do not stick to me like pollen as they do to other members of this species that has a penchant for savouring the hermetically sealed moment. Probably one of the most significant factors in a person's listening pleasure is past experience. For instance, the Pearl and Dean theme tune just sends synapses a poppin' for me without any movie connotations required whereas for others it no doubt brings about memories of back seat fumbles, the smell of stale popcorn and battles for arm rests. As a result, I'm sure that other people have had experiences so powerful that the external stimuli surrounding the event has sent them into never ending listening feedback loops of the same three songs playing on the jukebox in the dive where their first love broke their heart. Frankly, my rampant and unabated mission for eclecticism naturally prohibits me from becoming too attached to one single three minute assemblage of chromatic structures and chords.
So, I guess that means that I've now become a little interested in what my readership makes of the subject. Do you have a single song for rejuvenation (and if so did it come from a less than expected source)? Or is it a more haphazard process? Could it even be deemed by as precise a term as "process" at all? Emotions have long defied easy categorisation otherwise literature as an effective medium would long ago have ceased and we would have a world without such pretencious art voyeurism as 'Me and Everyone Else I Know'. Can music ultimately harness them? After last night, I'm not so sure.

Buy - A Girl Called Eddy

A Panegyric to Soothe A Troubled Soul

2006-02-10T23:12:00.000Z

Richard Thompson - Sibella
The Dons - Only Guy
The Acorn - Sent (Awake the Kraken)
Ken Stringfellow - Any Love (Cassandra et Lune)
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Honey Child What Can I Do?

Cor blimey. Another three week hiatus. Bugger. Never mind - it was all in the cause of those two central pillars of this primitive society - love and idleness. Speaking of idleness (and its lesser cousin tiredness) I'm going to keep this unfortunately brief. So I have set myself the challenge of trying to describe these wonderful songs that have deeply affected my life over the last few weeks in a dozen words or less each. Here goes:

Sibella - My throat is raw from hollering this raucous pop to my mirror.
Only Guy - Fantastic straightlaced that power pops my Candy-O cherry
Sent (Awake the Kraken) - Kelp's finest playing children's rhymes backwards listening for Satan's hidden melancholic message
Any Love (Catherine et Lune) - Already in my Top Five all time favourites and climbing
Honey Child What Can I Do? - Fuck Sinatra & Hazlewood; listen to this sugary Irish coffee instead

Well that didn't go too terribly. I raise my glass to you all and drink to the proclivities of my University days returning bringing my long forgotten muse with them. To cheap bitter and broken hearts. May the Buddah and his great prophet, Richard Gere, bless you all.

Buy - Ken Stringfellow - Soft Commands
Buy - Richard Thompson - Mock Tudor
Buy - The Acorn - Blankets EP
Buy - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Seas
Buy - The Dons - Dawn of the Dons

The Gates of Troy

2006-01-22T11:44:00.000Z

The Monkees - Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears
Squeeze - Piccadilly
The Undertones - Valentine's Treatment
The Jam - Billy Hunt (Alt. Version)
Jellyfish - Russian Hill

So finally we reach the climax of the Uni Finalist 1st Anniversary competition. Dick has been grooving to his specially formulated compilation for a couple of months now but I had until now failed on my promise to pay tribute to the bands that he cited as the greatest to appear on these fable pages on interwebness.
As usual, the obvious song choices have been summarily dismissed replaced by a forgotten pop classic, a light hearted tableau of city life, a gritty soul stomper, a critique on the emergence of self congratulatory yob culture, and a tidy Fab Four pastiche. Not exactly as snappy as the Seven Dwarves' names but I believe that those descriptions will suffice for now.
The Monkees, of course, are often regarded as a joke; an unfortunate sidenote to the advent of pop culture in the 60s with their ultra-popular television show seeking to build upon, and ultimately exploit, the formula created by Richard Lester in 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!' Such accusations are often married with idle reminders of the prescence of session muscicans on all of their pre-Headquarters albums (the fact that such logic somehow doesn't apply to 'Aja' or 'Pet Sounds' is beyond me). To give in to such useless drivel is to forget that The Monkees not only wrote and performed many songs in the pantheon of pop but could also to afford to have off cuts as infectious as 'Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears'. They had so many string to their bow that they could match Glen Campbell, The Left Banke and Love in their respective genres.
Squeeze too are often forgotten as the musical shape shifters they were in favour of the general tag of 'kitchen sink drama'. The fact that the label hasn't been bandied around since shows how unique Squeeze were but that's forgetting the point. 'Piccadilly' taken off their classic Elvis Costello produced album 'East Side Story' begins with Paul 'Don't Shoot Me, I'm Not the Worst Thing About Mike & Mechanics' Carrack's exultant piano playing pinning down its playfully up tempo melody. Glen Tillbrook's lyric has to be one of his best mixing rapid fire social observations with a sense of humour as dark as high street caff espresso. "A man behind me talks to his young lady/He's happy that she is expecting his baby/His wife won't be pleased but she's not been round lately"
The Undertones and The Jam were both misfits of the punk scene. The 'Tones subverted negatism and situationist doctrine for songs about choclate and girls whilst Paul Weller's heavy political rhetoric was disrupted by accusations of being a revivalist and a Tory Boy. The Ulster quintet are captured here at the end of their fertile creative relationship with 'Valentine's Treatment' taken from the Stax flavoured ''The Sin of Pride' album. However, having mentioned the great soul label, this particular track has more in common with the art rock soundscapes of The Associates and Scritti Politti. The guitar line shimmers, the synths build, the backing vocals evoke the synonymous 'Lexicon of Love', and Feargal flexes and trills his vocal chops. The chorus change with the O'Neills attempting to hijack the song forcing it into something altogether tighter is really quite exhilirating. The version of 'Billy Hunt' is altogether muddier with the guitar part more studied, the bass more prominent (for me Foxton's basslines are the keystone to all of the Jam's more hardline musical arrangements) but that non-existent rhyming couplet still hangs there elliptically grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
I refer to Jellyfish's 'Russian Hill' as a Beatles pastiche but, as all Jellyfish fans know, the band only had one real hero and Macca bleeds through here as strong as always. The driving element of a regular acoustic strum, gorgeously understated slide guitar, organ washes that sound like angelic air brakes - it's all 'Fool on the Hill' until 'Spilt Milk's experimental nous takes hold of the reins and the Ron Burgundy jazz flute looks to flesh out the arrangement. A populist construction turned on its head by an abstract vision: something that all of these bands have shown from the bridge of 'Smithers Jones' to the entirety of 'Head'. Good choices.

Buy - Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
Buy - The Monkees - Missing Links Vol.1
Buy - Squeeze - East Side Story
Buy - The Jam - Direction Reaction Creation
Buy - The Undertones - The Sin of Pride

The Night Owl is the Right Owl

2006-01-18T19:00:00.000Z

Owsley - Owsley (Giant Records, 1999)

Owsley - Oh No the Radio
Owsley - Zavelow House
Owsley - The Sky is Falling
Owsley - Uncle John's Farm

Here is a simple equation: a Grammy winner + lascivious pop hooks + silibant sunshine choruses + crunching power chords + crunching 4/4 drums = a fascination with the fairer sex = Owsley. So why have you never heard of him before? I can't answer that question other than to state that I got very lucky one day when flicking through AMG recommendations.
Before I went AWOL for a month, some form of discourse was developing on this site as to the quality of music broadcast through this raggy old fish n' chip newspaper of a messenger. This seems to has dried up other than some nice welcome back messages so to kick in all back into gear I propose that people enter an ad hoc competition based around these songs.
So all you have to do is state is which of the chosen selection is your favourite and why without any citation of potential influences. I want some fluent prose please, people. The winner gets a one of a kind, double CD Power Pop compilation.

Next time: A post on all 5 of Dick's Picks from the last competition. Might as well catch up finally whilst I still have the mental faculties.

Buy - Owsley - Owsley

Brand New White Mustang

2006-01-13T20:13:00.000Z

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love (Columbia, 1987)

Bruce Springsteen - Walk Like A Man
Bruce Springsteen - Brilliant Disguise

If one were to break down the Boss's 80s output it is disparate to say the least: 'The River' represents his over expansive flirtation with gritty rock n' roll; 'Nebraska' established his credentials as the godfather of lo fi; 'Born in the USA' was the multi platinum monster; and 'Tunnel of Love'... it's his best. "His best?!", you holler. The first since his debut without the legendary E Street Band? The downbeat paean to the perils of domestic strife? The one that flits between accapella and synth overkill?
Well, firstly, the album's only weakpoint is the title track that tries to incorporate a fairground atmosphere into the production when a sparser arrangement would have suited as a perfect counterbalance to the cynical lyrical undertow. That's a fantastic strike rate considering the collective strength of the eleven other tracks present especially the likes of 'Tougher Than the Rest', 'Valentine's Day', 'Cautious Man' and, arguably his finest single, 'Brilliant Disguise' which perfectly incorporates all of the album's aesthetic charms and strength. The snare snaps in a syncopated pattern, an acoustic is buried under calypso cicada clicks and whistles, country guitar licks reinforce the anthemic chorus, and an electric piano ties down the high end. Meanwhile, the lyric borrows beautifully from influences ranging from Fitzgerald's 'Tender is the Night' to Lou Christie's 'The Gypsy Cried' as accusations of a partner's underlying motives become questions of one's own values and commitment. . "God have mercy on the man/Who doubts what he's sure of"
' The River' is often found wanting due to its inability to establish a satisfactory rhythm. Moods ebb and flow with brainless filler often undercutting a more profound reach. 'Nebraska' despite its critical acclaim, wide reaching influence, and its status as my first purchase by New Jersey's finest still has a tendency to leave me cold. I'd love to be able to explain why but I myself am unsure as to the reasons behind this particular opinion. Perhaps it is a feeling that the work is richly veined by a disappointing pessimism that never pushes beyond self-pity resulting in a cookie cutter mix of imagery and frugal instrumental ambition. 'Highway Patrolman' is still my favourite Springsteen song though with its tale of conflict between two brothers on either side of the Crime and Punishment dialectic. 'Born in the USA' too often is tarred by the Brian De Palma technicolour brush with 'Glory Days' representing Springsteen at his most cloying with its stereotypical blue collarisms becoming slowly irrelevant. The title track is the most famous example of the album's inconsistencies with its perfectly honed anti-Vietnam diatribe becoming drowned by its overproduced stadium shout (the Boss's solo slide guitar version of the song is phenomenal). 'Tunnel of Love' could perhaps be said to be dated by its distinctive production that features synths and a frequent insistence on echo but that doesn't smother what is a truly brilliant meditation on the nature of man and that ultimate enigma: love.

Buy - Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love

Spiral Stairs' Bluegrass Boogie

2006-01-10T19:14:00.000Z

Pavement - Spit on a Stranger
Nickel Creek - Spit on a Stranger

It begins with a bang. A half second snippet of stoner rock - perhaps the long forgotten hybrid of 'Silver Machine' and 'Immigrant Song' for which Don Quixote and his faithful steed Rochinate searched so long. This, however, quickly dissipates replaced by a small baby gurgling 'Selling England By the Pound' and clean unobtrusive arpeggios. It is the sound of the Big Bang. It is the sound of stars collapsing into blissful entropy. It is the sound of space curling up the folds of her summer dress and dancing over the universe's edge. It is Pavement's bugle call before stepping on a rainbow to the heavens above.
Of course, due to it being Pavement who are writing their eulogy before the HMS Wowee sinks beneath the liquorice waves, 'Terror Twilight', their final album (from which 'Spit on a Stranger' is the opening track) was everything that the band had never been before: clean, precise, docile, populist. In other words, it was a sound of a group reaching a plateau and bailing out before they had a case of the Sugarloaf Mountains on their hands. 'Spit on a Stranger' is a rare entity in the lexicon of Malkmus & Co in that it's a simple unadulterated pop song. The band had created such a beast on their previous efforts in the shape of 'Shady Lanes'. Other tracks off the album such as the beautiful 'Major Leagues' and whimsical nonsense of 'Carrot Rope' amount to efforts as to the same objective. However, "Honey, I'm a prize/You're a catch/We're a perfect match/We're a perfect match/Like two bitter strangers" creates such a perfect brew of apples n' pears joy and blatant romantic nihilism accompanied by the rhythm section's laconic anti-harmonies that this song has always been a favourite.
This particular reputation is greatly enhanced by bluegrass trio Nickel Creek's take on the song from their 2002 cut 'This Side'. The threesome of Chris Thile, Sara and Sean Watkins drop the Steppenwolf feint and kick straight into the first verse with a soulful chicken fried snake of a lead vocal and a staccato mandolin chord burst. A steel acoustic fleshes out the mandolin as it flits across the song's chord progression and by the song's end this is joined by what can only be a heavily distorted fiddle which almost pushes the song into flux. The harmonies too are no longer fuelled by cheap Belgian lager but rather sour mash; from a slur to an outrageous purr. By the time everything's coloured acapella the breath is well and truly stolen from you and fed to the birds. I'd just love to see what they would do with the willfully heretical 'Folk Jam'.

Buy - Nickel Creek - This Side
Buy - Pavement - Terror Twilight

Satan Is My Master (Sunrise)

2006-01-07T22:18:00.000Z

AM/FM - When I Died In Sebastopol
Jose Gonzalez - Lovestain
Cee-Lo - All Day Love Affair
Chris Bell - Country Mom (Demo)

Oh dear. As soon as I promise a new period of creative expediency and I get struck down by a reoccurence of glandular fever - a plague that has affected me since an ill advised pursuit of leisure with a Christian at a First Year University Discotheque. By some freak of nature, I became the vessel for her multitude of sins (with the coveting and all) and since then this particular pox never seems to leave for long - placing razorblades in my throat, aches in my limbs and a strange desire to read trashy novels. Thus, my so-called comeback has been delayed by a few days. My apologies for this.
However, this small selection should go someway to sating prospective appetites with its usual shape of obscure album tracks, mixed genres, and unpopular acts all tied up by extraneous categorisation. In this Northern Hemisphere winter chill I thought that I'd be antipodean in my weather concerns and frame my selection around the god Helios and his pet Sun. The Chris Bell number is a clear prototype to Big Star's mercurial 'Watch the Sunrise', Cee-Lo is so happy that you can hear the starlings chirping around his earlobes, JGs is the only track on his brilliant new album to have the 'Finalist' No. 1 song ingredient of handclaps, and AM/FM have to be heard to be believed. Their non-instrumental tracks can often be marred by weak vocals; not a real plus when you're an acoustic folk duo dependent on the success of your harmonies. The Gonzalez AKA Bravia Boy track may seem a little too dark for the purposes of this exercise with its acoustic thrum reverberating with tinny bass tones. However, with 'Country Mom' covering the sunrise one feels that it would be unfair to not give sunset a shout in the beauty stakes; the shadow resting on the sun's golden throne.

PS: De-Fish - Sorry to upset you. Will you send you a complimetary set of travel tissues to dry your man sized tears. Oh so salty.

Buy - Jose Gonzales - Veneer
Buy - Cee-Lo Green - ...is a Soul Machine
Buy - AM/FM - Mutilate Us

Recommencement of Normal Broadcasting Hours Will Resume Soon

2006-01-01T20:16:00.000Z

Three posts in two months - what a load of old bollocks, eh? My irregular hours brought about by the Christmas period, working a plebs life in a book shop, family visits and ill health. However, my sister is now sadly leaving to return to Australia, the book shop has been replaced by a regular 9-5 slot at a law firm, my wireless connection has been repaired (by the aforementioned sibling), and £75s worth of HMV vouchers should enable a steady supply of new music. The comeback post should come on the 3rd and hopefully steady service will resume. I do realise that such nonsense has been promised before so we'll have to see. Merry Christmas to you all and Happy New Year too.

PS I sure as hell ain't getting off this crazy music blog ride just yet.

What A Muppet!

2005-11-29T12:39:00.000Z

The Joel Plaskett Emergency - Blinding Light
DB Cooper - Ram On
We Are Scientists - This Means War

3 weeks away! Who would have thought that it such a long period of torpor and blind negation would exist between this post and the epic that came before. Well, I'm sure that you're all used to it by now so I won't dwell.
It's good to be back in the arms of Adventures... again but sadly I cannot stay for this period has suddenly become very busy after a long barren spell of inactivity. However, I will briefly explain the treats that are on offer today. Joel Plaskett, the Canadian singer-songwriter, is a favourite of *sixeyes and I was lucky enough to chance upon his debut album in a Durham record store's bargain bin so I thought that I'd share the rather lovely 'Blinding Light' with you all. DB Cooper is high adrenalin power pop dredged from the Not Lame obsurities promo CD that I received in the mail this very morn. It's admittedly low quality (no doubt due to its origin on old vinyl) but iy's probably the best exponent of the genre that I've heard in some time. You should know who We Are Scientists are and if you don't then you have been taking your daily dose of YANP like you should be! 'This Means War' is the superior b-side on the UK single release of ' The Great Escape'.
DVD, don't fret, I have not forgotten my promise of five essays on your favourite artists. I just have to find an angle of approach to the group and after that it will be smooth sailing. Hopefully, I will return quicker than the last time but sadly my irratic nature is what currently masquerades for guile and charm nowadays. Toodle pip!

Visit - Not Lame Recordings
Visit - Joel Plaskett
Visit - We Are Scientists
Buy - The Joel Plaskett Emergency - Down the Khyber
Buy - We Are Scientists - With Love & Squalor

Turned Down By Sammy Davis Jr For the Last Time

2005-11-08T16:59:00.000Z

Jimmy Webb - Archive + Live (Reprise, 2005)

Jimmy Webb - Galveston
Jimmy Webb - Feet in the Sunshine
Jimmy Webb - If Ships Were Made to Sail
Jimmy Webb - My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (Live)

How quickly we humans seek change in our soggy milque toast existences. Bored by the throbbing technicality of machines and buoyed by a new found glory in letter writing I have switched to handwriting my essays. Not only will this save my poor eyes from the disease of the cathode (inasmuch transcription takes far less time than the creative process of writing) but will enable me to write in a comfy lounge chair whilst Jimmy Webb's 'PF Sloan' envelops me in magnificent surround sound. The accordion is all that more discordant and the bass sunburnt into a lazy stupour so as to enhance the listening experience.
Well I guess that having unsubtley and unfairly ridiculed the man's 'MacArthur Park' in my last post, I had to put things right in my musical feng shui by praising his songwriting genius. I, along with many other people, was originally introduced to Webb's work through Glen Campbell's glorious treatment of summer heartbreak perennials such as 'Wichita Lineman', 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix', 'Galveston' and 'Where's the Playground, Susie?' Without any sense of irony or embarrassment, I must declare that, due in no small part to Webb, Campbell's 'Capitol Years' retrospective would surely be my favourite of all time if didn't fall within that dreaded exclusory group of "Compilations". As a result, Rundgren's 'Something/Anything?' and Costello's 'This Year's Model' tag team it into submission with a few well placed rabbit punches to the kidneys and a flying elbow finisher from the top turnbuckle.
But I digress from the subject yet again. The album of Mr Webb's which is the focus of this post is the recent double CD release of 'Archive + Live', Webb's superb 1993 best-of coupled with a live recording of Webb's first concert in the UK at the Royal Albert Hall in '72. Both CDs are fantastic, not only due to Webb's being able to keep a firm grasp on his own material despite his legendary weak vocals, but also as a showcase for Webb's mainstay guitarist, Fred Tackett, who would eventually go on to become Lowell George's replacement in Little Feat. Webb himself brands Tackett's performance on the studio version of 'Galveston' as one of the finest moments in music; an opinion with which I am inclined to agree. Tackett manages to ride out the wailing storm of Zappa's 'My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama' with Stetson and handlebar moustache fully intact whilst Webb demonstrates his ability to cook up a Fats Domino white ivory jambalaya out on the bayou when he's not pleasantly plucking ballads from the sky.
It's always been a surprise to me that ebb never attempted a ludicrously ambitious concept album - perhaps on his favoured allusion of space travel (present of 'If Ships Were Made to Sail', 'The Moon's A Harsh Mistress', 'Where the Universes Are', 'Highwayman'). Note to Ben Elton: sod Rod Stewart and Queen. I want to see a West End "musical extravaganza" based on Jimmy Webb songs surrounding the adventures in space of Xang, the Alpha Centaurii electrician, before the next year is out! I, for one, would laugh and point when I saw the gaudy posters decorating the walls as I descended the Underground escalators.
At this juncture, I realise that I have yet to make a case for why, along with Diamond, Goffin & King, Newman, and Boyce & Hart, Webb is such a vital songwriter of the 60s and 70s. Well here goes: Webb is a romantic fantasist, the antithesis to solipsism, who is articulate on the subjects of both the unwelcome reality which he inhabits and the fantastic solution for which he strives, be it leaving an ungrateful lover, altering one's perception on child rearing, or departing the untamed earth for the green pastures of the nearest star. This often results in some wonderfully abstract lyrical tangents in regard to the analogous situations he concocts, with the most famous example being 'MacArthur Park's patently irregular equation of the end of an affair being the same as a cake left out in the rain. Even the simply enough named "Love Song" constructs the raw, sentimental image of love's ability to etch a vast indelible image in one's soul and "Highwayman" tracks a 19th century outlaw and his continued reincarnations before delivering the Jungian punchline that the traps of futurism will result in its replacement by the primal.
Webb's work output is contradictory in many senses - perfectly judged 2 minute ballads sit comfortably alongside overambitious 9 minute suites. West coast rock, soul, deep country, and Canuck simplicity all battle for his undivided attention resulting in his musical identity being afflicted by a benign schizophrenia. His lyrics can hinge on a single powerful image - a landscape occupied only by a continuous stretch of powerlines or Freud's prescription of cocaine for mental health problems - or several conflicting ideas such as 'PF Sloan's encompassing of the personal and political; the fictitious and the overbearing truth (something that could also be said of the anti-war 'Galveston' bridging the gap between the Civil War and Vietnam). The man can make you shimmy, sway, sag or swagger.
As an endnote, can anyone think of any other great paeans to feet other than Webb's 'Feet in the Sunshine' (pop par excellence featuring a Ms Joni Mitchell) or The Beach Boys' 'Take Good Care of Your Feet'. Suggestions of Family Guy's cruel Randy Newman pastiche 'Left Foot, Right Foot (The Apple Song)' will result in a good slapping. You've been warned. Actually speaking of warnings, it is my sad duty to state that the only lowpoint on this set is Webb's nervous attempt to reinvent the meter and phrasing of 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' resulting in a damp squib.

Buy - Jimmy Webb - Archive + Live

Bed and Breakfast Men

2005-11-04T20:47:00.000Z

Field Music - If Only the Moon Were Up
Field Music - Breakfast Song
Field Music - Got To Write A Letter
Field Music - You're So Pretty...

I have no idea how to introduce this group so I'll throw facts at you until some of them stick. 1) There are 1, 2, 3 boys in the band, two of whom are siblings; 2) They're Mackems; 3) As a result of this geographical disturbance in the force, they're pretty chummy with Maximo Park and The Futureheads; 4) The group's favourite animal is a guinea pig; 5) Peter's favourite colour is mauve; 6) They enjoy spending their Sundays in E-Z loungers, sipping Special Brew and listening to 'Walk Away Renee' on repeat; 7) Andrew once playfully ruffled Danny Baker's hair and was then promptly knocked out by Danny's unfortunately pungent vindaloo breath; 8) Dave thinks that 'Sailor Moon' is "goddamn sexy"; 9) Their new single "If Only the Moon Were Up" is out on the 21st of this month and I can't wait!; 10) Field Music rock my self-centred universe. Disclaimer: some of these facts are fiction. Ooooooooh, it's paradox time!
So now that the history is out of the way, I'd like to point out that I'm so good to you guys that I've provided a fantastic B-side. 'Breakfast Song' from the band's debut 7" "Shorter Shorter". The rest can be found on the band's debut self-titled LP which should be purchased by all and sundry. It really is nothing short of a revelation. Oh god, how I wish that I had the ability to kick my synapses into gear and fully concentrate on the task in hand but it just doesn't seem to be happening today. The only word that swirls round my head to describe the band's sound is "Wire" but that only exists within my creative mind due to the omnipresent recommendation provided by Uncut in all of the band's advertising. What I do know is that such a comparison is a fallacy at heart existing only through the existence of clean shards of guitar noise functioning together in pursuit of the melody; the ridiculous in search of the sublime if you will. Wire pursued an aesthetic that was more abstract and willingly oblique than Field Music - their agenda was centred around rebirth whereas Field Music prefer to play by the current zeitgeist's rules. For now, anyway.
Of the selection that I have chosen, 'Breakfast Song' is a personal highlight - not due to it's relative obscurity but the distillation of a story of great emotional weight into a minute and a half pop song with no relative loss in its subject's narrative strength. The intro ripples with resrticted arpeggio movements on the acoustic guitar before the narrator pleads his unheard partner to come to bed following a row so that they can exchange their problems for fleeting dreams. The pay-off line of "I'll wait until the morning, get up early and make you breakfast" comes before the gentle wave of violin, piano and snapping snare. Everything pops and crackles like bacon spitting in fat next to wide eyed yolks. If I were to have to boil it down into a one line witticism I'd have to call it "Jimmy Webb's tears falling onto a English Breakfast with all the trimmings". The aforementioned single, 'If Only the Moon Were Up', is all bends through dusty country lanes wrapped up in a Jonathan Donahue ethos. There's even an attempt at Stax brass as played on toy trumpets and percussive horse hooves cracking floorboards. Despite this, it's so catchy and undeniably melodic that if God were Kenny Rogers then it should break the Top Forty. 'Gonna Write a Letter' boasts atypical handclapping rhythms that would cause The Meters to blush, accompanied by minor piano chords (to my limited theoretical knowledge), hammered on acoustic strumming, and falsetto harmonies that leave your throat sore from bellowing along. There's some impressive Here Comes the Warm Eno tape fiddling too that would leave Tiger Mountain lying on its back, legs akimbo, hollering "Take me now!" The album's closer, 'You're So Pretty', bouncing off a similar instrumental framework but with the addition of electric guitar carefully channeling Jeff Beck's jazz fusion years, words that should be in pop songs a lot more often such as "demeanour", and an erant pixie with a triangle who's not afraid to use it. It's so pretty I could listen to it all night... and I will.

Buy - Field Music - Field Music
Visit - Field Music

The King of the Gypsies

2005-10-31T11:21:00.000Z

Edwyn Collins - Doctor Syntax (Instinct Records, 2003)

Edwyn Collins - Mine Is At
Edwyn Collins - The Beatles

Hello people. It is the day of reckoning for I have decided who will win the wonderful prize which I offered last Monday. Honourable mentions go out to all of you who actually entered. Billy Budapest: I appreciated your candour as to your hatred of Steely Dan, The Raspberries, and 10cc. Of course, I don't necessarily agree but I can understand why you see them as musically defunct in a modernising musical sphere. Big Bad Bit: Bonus points for the Loudon love! I'd also like to take this juncture to voice my appreciation for your own site - I'm particularly enamoured with your "Chin Stroker" and "Painful" tracks. These blogs should be an outlet to forewarn consumers against complete crap. KFAV: Contemporaneous choices which were refreshing (yes, I can see Dando as a childlike figure albeit one with a barely contained animus). Greg: You just couldn't contain yourself could you? This pleases me greatly. Bill P: Why must you torment me with your exploits! It's not my fault that I was not even a twinkle in the milkman's eye when Nils was bouncing on his trampoline... Fantastic choices although I'm sure you could think of a better reason to include The (English) Beat than 'Stand Down Margaret'? Marc: You got the ball rolling which was very kind of you. I noticed your inclusion of the Big O and must yet again point people toward my painfully researched Otis feature at Jefitoblog. Finally, our winner, DVD: This may seem a cop-out to you other boys but DVD's earned this award through his continuous support of this blog, the fact that he decided to write far too much on each of his choices, and his call to arms for all Monkee lovers to unite under the same Adventures... banner. The fact that none of his choices doesn't matter a jot because only two of you actually scored a single hit. For the record, I chose:

Todd Rundgren
The Isley Brothers
The Beach Boys (none of you chose them! for shame...)
Otis Redding
Loudon Wainwright III

So DVD - send me your address to t_d_williamson@yahoo.co.uk and we'll sort out the posting of your CDs. The rest of you can look forward to exhaustive posts on The Undertones, The Jam, The Monkees, Jellyfish and Squeeze. Enjoy the frothy electropop poured into a Collins glass. Same time, Same Bat-channel.

Buy - Edwyn Collins - Doctor Syntax
Visit - Edwyn Collins

107 Ain't No Lottery Number

2005-10-24T12:30:00.000+01:00

The Allman Brothers - Little Martha
The Monkees - Circle Sky (Alt. Version)

Will skip the track commentary today if you don't mind and will head straight to the nitty gritty. I had a brainwave today as to how to galvanise reader participation. Below are listed all the artists that have featured on Adventures... since it clawed itself from the primordial ooze. All you have to do is leave a comment stating your top 5 faves and, most importantly, why. For your troubles, I'll pick my favourite response and the winner's picks will get a thorough essay each with lots of lovely mp3s to accompany them. The winner will also receive an 'Adventures... Best Of' double CD with crudely drawn artwork to accompany it. Yes, I'll even pay postage to you lot overseas and will hopefully be able to include some rare bonus tracks on the CDs too.

Gene Vincent
The Lucksmiths
Glen Campbell
The Raspberries
The Knack
The (English) Beat
Steely Dan
The Lightning Seeds
Tex Perkins
Evan Dando
Crowded House
10cc
Family
Bobby Conn and the Glass Gypsies
Violent Femmes
Maximillian Hecker
All Night Radio
The Equals
The Frames
The Isley Brothers
Even
Greenfield Main
Chris Page
Detective Kalita
Andrew Vincent and the Pirates
Havana Guns
Alba Nova
Steve Poltz
The Luxury Liners
The Acorn
All Girl Summer Fun Band
Art of Fighting
Wheat
The Faces
The Small Faces
The Pearlfishers
The Paperbacks
The Autumn Defense
Richard Davies
Graham Parker and the Rumour
Showroom
The MC5
The Monkees
Todd Rundgren
Bobby "Blue" Bland
The Beach Boys
The Foxymorons
Tim Rogers and the Twin Set
Fountains of Wayne
Chris Stills
Jason Falkner
The Skatalites
G Love and the Special Sauce
The Secret Machines
Joni Mitchell
Beck
Tears For Fears
Descendents
The Flamin' Groovies
Grin
Loudon Wainwright III
Kid Creole and the Coconuts
The Miracles
Regina Spektor
Paul Westerberg
Nicolai Dunger
Sloan
Culture
Hamell On Trial
Squeeze
The Records
Jellyfish
Hal
Nick Lowe
The Triffids
Tom Waits
Mr Bungle
Lowell George
Otis Redding
The Mutton Birds
Mew
Mercury Rev
Prefab Sprout
Nick Cave
Curtis Stigers
The Jam
Guided By Voices
16 Horsepower
J Mascis and the Fog
Neu!
The Sundays
Ryan Adams
Grand Drive
The Undertones
The Seeds
Witness Uk
and... The Allman Brothers

That's 107 bands to choose from so you lot had better get crackin'. Meanwhile, I'll sit back with an English Breakfast Tea and laugh at the destruction that I have wrought or alternatively weep when no-one answers my challenge. Either way, I'll keep on plugging away at your resolve to resist my special kind of voodoo hoodoo.

Buy - The Allman Brothers - Eat A Peach
Buy - The Monkees - Missing Links Vol. 2

On the Banks of the Muddy River Douglas

2005-10-21T22:38:00.000+01:00

Grand Drive - Santa Rita
The Undertones - Here Comes The Summer (Peel Session 5.2.1979)
The Seeds - Two Fingers Pointing On You
Witness UK - Avalanche

Never in my life have I read liner notes that have quite a vitriolic hatred for the recordings that they are supposedly promoting than on the Edsel release of The Seeds' 'Future/A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues'. 'Future' is seen as the product of "ludicrously pretencious meanderings from [Sky] Saxon's psyche" and 'A Full Spoon...' is simply termed as "an aberration". Of course, knowing me, I find a significant amount of charm to The Seeds' output despite such claims. 'Two Fingers Pointing On You' is amateurish in its kitchen sink approach with parping tubas, sitars, and a merry go round middle eight. However, there's always an alluring Strychnine undercurrent to the Seeds' "flower music" dredged from the depths of their garage past. Guitars intermittently wail in the background against the enigmatic Spitalfields marching band rumblings. Someone shakes a tambourine haphazardly in its simplistic attempts to add depth to the arrangement. In concocting this strange musical formula for an organic music closer to the earth's own metronome, the Seeds would embark on a paradoxical journey. Paradoxical in the way that it encapsulated an important cultural movement without reflecting anything of import itself. It's lyrical content are weak in their literal reliance upon pointing the finger and the music comes off as rather slight. A few years later, The Rascals would tackle similar subjects with more accomplished playing, tight R n' B arrangements and, in Felix Cavaliere, would possess a vocalist who surpassed Saxon technically by a country mile. On reflection, the song may be no 'Mr Farmer' or 'Pushin' Too Hard' but its an interesting curio nonetheless and would end up appearing in Jack Nicholson's 1968 movie Psych-Out. The rippling organ riff is something to savour too.
The Undertones, like the Seeds, were a band who recorded four albums and whom, over that period of time, would end up altering their musical output significantly from Casbah Rock to mellifluous Motown soul. Of course, this meant that the band would be seen to have succumbed to over production; the "curse of the Nepalese nose flutes". 'Here Comes the Summer' came long before that period though and this particular version of the song should be of interest to all of those who've heard the original due to the smart arse Shangri-Las spoken word intro. The boys, now significantly matured, now refer to the old intro as guff but it's still very amusing with the comical attempts to replicate waves crashing on a sun dappled beach. The performance of the tune itself could be referred to as stock with no significant deviations except that little extra bit of bite provided by the live session setting. The backing vocals are bang on and once again we're left to marvel at what a great frontman Feargal was with his duffel coat and bar room vibrato. "Hey Mickey, what does 'incoherently' mean?"
Witness (or Witness UK as they're known in the States) were direct descendants of The Verve with their specialising in miserabilist anthem rock that encompassed both their Wigan roots and a smooth Midwest sound. The album from which 'Avalanche' is taken, 'Under A Sun', is a real corker barring one absolute stinker, a tacked on reference to Little Feat's 'Willin' on 'Mines', and the B-side tagged on the end. It can be picked up in record shop bargain bins and on Amazon for the price of a small latte at Starbucks. In 'Avalanche', I've cherrypicked the real highlight of the piece with its deft piano movement, the heavy delay, the constant high hat movement, the emotive chips of slide guitar, and Gerard Starkie's flawless delivery. Thankfully, the piano takes on the driving role often assigned to large scale orchestras giving the song a more personal feel to it whilst the chorus really hits home lyrically. It's a slight shame about the pompous religious overtones brought into the song's bridge for it shifts the song on to an unwelcome tangent. Sometimes, a more general lyrical construct can be sustained throughout effectively without a reliance on cumbersome additions added in a vain attempt to build a crescendo in the middle eight. It's a minor quibble but one that I feel is important to raise. Sometimes an instrumental break compromised of repeated verse chord progressions is perfectly satisfactory; otherwise a song's shape can be sacrificed in the name of filling in the gaps.
Grand Drive are pure Americana. It's a shame that they come from Camden. 'Santa Rita' is a clean cut Burrito Brothers epic drawn from their last album, 'The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count'. It's acoustic fingerpicking with the bastard son of Lanois and Eno on the decks. In other words, it sounds quite similar to something that U2 may come up with if they believed in the power of pathos. You can hear bubbles underneath the clear surface and an occasional snap of snare rippling outwards into the ether. It's ever so calm and carries on its shoulders an adulterous beauty that leaves one enraptured. Imagine the song that wafts through the bar in Paris, Texas as strangers sup from their surrogate teats and regulars brush off the dust from their regular seat encapsulating the raw landscape through which it sifts. That's 'Santa Rita'.
Final note, I've just checked my server and noticed that one of the Jam songs I uploaded, 'I Got By In Time', and The Mutton Birds tune were 0 bytes in size. Did any of you find difficulties listening to those two songs? If so, I'll upload them for the next post. As an addendum, if any of you suffer problems with any of the songs, just leave a comment and I'll deal with it pronto. Otherwise I'll never learn and you won't be able to experience first rate New Zealand pop as I intended.

Buy - Grand Drive - The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count
Buy - The Undertones - Listening In
Buy - The Seeds - Future/A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues
Buy - Witness UK - Under A Sun

Last Exit To Jacksonville

2005-10-18T10:43:00.000+01:00

Ryan Adams - The Heartbreaker Sessions (Bootleg)

Ryan Adams - Win
Ryan Adams - Caroline
Ryan Adams - Talkin' In My Sleep
Ryan Adams - West NY Serenade

To apologise for my infrequent missives of late and to continue the celebrations of last week, I thought that today I'd offer up a private treat. Around two years ago, I was severely addicted to CD bargains on eBay from the first Orange Peels LP to Sparks in their 90s intellectual techno . Amongst the purchases made during this affluent period in my life were a small collection of Ryan Adams/Whiskeytown bootlegs. Some were terrible (the inaudible quality of his 'Rock n' Roll' Tour performance in Manchester) but, more often or not, most were brilliant with the intimacy of 'Live At Foley's Cellar' and the rawness of these recordings during the sessions for his first solo album, 'Heartbreaker'. These particular sessions were stretched across 2 CDs (with only one song repeated under different names) and include measured takes on Pneumonia era Whiskeytown classics such as 'Sit and Listen to the Rain', 'Don't Wanna Know Why', and 'Bar Lights' along with unreleased gems. Whereas a lot of his material recorded with the Pinkhearts would resurface on 'Demolition' that's not the case with these beauties which is a shame for they're gathered from a particularly purple patch for Adams creatively.
'Win' is an anomaly to say the least due to its sounding more in line with his 'Rock n' Roll' era material than the more rootsy trappings of Whiskeytown. It really wouldn't sound out of place next to the likes of 'Luminol' and 'Is This It' which is probably the main reason behind it's being left on the cutting room floor. However, as a closet fan of 'Rock n' Roll', I'm a big fan of the tune as Adams clearly possesses a heart made up of melody and driving rhythm entwined in feedback capable of overriding his head. 'West NY Serenade', on the other hand, steps backward toward a Pneumonia vibe with its plaintive guitar line echoing off walls as the drums snap along the train track beat. It's the E Street Shuffle without the ostentatious wordplay or the flirtation with disaster. It's warm, comforting and safe; a space that Adams used to show a marked ability to occupy successfully.
'Talkin' In My Sleep' is a little more daring with a fuller arrangement including the bass being elevated in the mix, acoustic melding with electric, and an organ introduced to fill out the gaps left so obvious before. Adams' vocal performance is more commanding pushing toward a Dylanesque rant without becoming a mewling bore. Caitlin Cary (or someone doing an excellent substitute role) makes an appearance on backing vocals too which is a delight as you can surely guess. 'Caroline' begins almost identically to 'Ballad of Carol Lynn', the opening track on Pneumonia, but don't let that fool you. They are completely different songs except the fact that both are burdened with similar overall aesthetics. The sustained presence of a violin is found in both as is the same meandering rhythm. However, 'Ballad of Carol Lynn' never even attempted the beautiful harmonies displayed during 'Caroline's intro and chorus. The lyric is kept to a rather minimal structure and the acoustic solo is outstanding only in the sense of its ramshackle nature but this simply adds to its mantric charm. By the end, Adams has reached a Van Morrison ability to stretch monosyllabic words until they take on a new meaning and, ultimately, take on a religious reverence. Two different roads converging at the same point of non-verbal eloquence. In other words, it's a shimmering beauty almost akin to a simplified, downbeat ' Madame George'.
Sadly, the seller who offered up these has since left eBay's roster so all that there is left to do is to point you in the direction of the masterpiece that is 'Pneumonia' for more of the eclectic Mr Adams (I never liked 'Heartbreaker' as much).

Buy - Whiskeytown - Pneumonia
Buy - Ryan's latest effort 'Jacksonville City Nights'

Celebrating the Songs That Got Me Here In the First Place

2005-10-13T20:38:00.000+01:00

Guided By Voices - Much Better Mr Buckles
16 Horsepower - Clogger
J Mascis and the Fog - Does The Kiss Fit?
The Sundays - Wild Horses
Neu! - Super

Hello everybody! Went off back to Durham for a couple of days hence the lack of music. However, I have come back in the mood to celebrate my one year anniversary as a blog entity! Woo. Admittedly, the music didn't turn up until Gene Vincent shook his gimp leg in March but I'm still very proud that I've been able to stick it out. Thanks go to anyone who feels a warm feeling in their belly upon reading this sentence. You deserve the praise... or you have heartburn. You decide.
The platitudes will cease there though as I wish to get straight back to the music at hand. All of the above heavily effected my early musical development in that comforting womb which is the teenager's bedroom. Both GBV and The Sundays were very early favourites of mine back from the days of Buffy and Audiogalaxy's reign. 'Do the Collapse' was bought for a bargain price attached in a twofer with the import only 'Isolation Drills', and I spent at least six months not realising that 'Wild Horses' was originally by the Stones. Ah, youthful naivete, where art thou now in this time where knowledge is often ghastly and unwelcome? The German synth bastards that were Neu became a brief fascination of mine following a well chosen perusal of the Rough Guide of Rock and a quick dip into Audiogalaxy's deeper than indigo vaults. It never mattered that three of the songs on the album were the same one at slightly different speeds (have always wondered what Super 78 would sound like at 78 speed: short is the first word that springs to mind). 16 Horsepower first entered my life after a bargain basement trawl at the CD store near where my virgin job was situated. Following the opening of 'Clogger', I would never look back except with a shake of the head and a hand outstretched to the lyric sheet. My thoughts of J Mascis as a hero have since been relatively dashed by a viewing of the new Dinosaur Jnr and his excellent impersonation of a bloated corpse that's just been fished out of the Hudson but this song, probably the only great love song he's ever written, goes some way to redeeming such apprehensive thoughts. Feedback as a melodic enterprise was something that I would never ever understand until I first listened to 'More Light' with its title track once desribed as "armagedddon in a wind tunnel".
The beginnings of Kraftwerk, Bob Pollard twice (he's a member of The Fog), Harriet Wheeler singin' the Stones, and a Preacher who went the wrong way at Bob Johnston's crossroads; I was pretty lucky in my infancy wasn't I? Bon appetit.

Buy - Guided By Voices - Do the Collapse
Buy - 16 Horsepower - Secret South
Buy - J Mascis and the Fog - More Light
Buy - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album
Buy - Neu! - Neu! 2

The Kids Know Where It's At

2005-10-03T10:04:00.000+01:00

The Jam - In the City (Polydor, 1977)

The Jam - I Got By In Time
The Jam - Non-Stop Dancing

This is all Dickie VD's fault. Recently, whilst commenting on the Fall and Rise of the Arctic Monkeys, he compared their live show to that of those epochal "revivalist" R n' B masters, The Jam. Of course, this sent me on a huge trip back to my own musical youth of 1999 when 'Direction, Reaction, Creation' was on constant rotation to the extent where I almost began to think 'This is the Modern World' was a decent album (that naivete has since been replaced with a constant desire to box Bruce Foxton's ears for inflicting 'Don't Tell Them You're Sane' on unsuspecting publicans) and decided that 'Down In A Tube Station at Midnight' was the best pop single of the 1970s; an opinion which I stand by today. Hence, this brief sampling of hidden delights from the band's debut LP, 'In The City'. This was preferred to a run through their only live LP, 'Dig The New Breed', due to the fact that I neither possess nor have even heard a single note of that particular album. The fact that it would have engendered a cumbersome discussion attempting to compare the two bands when I possess close to zero knowledge of those pesky Yorkshire simians or their rambunctious stage routines was also a factor.
Just before I provide a quick rundown of the brace on display today, I wish to provide a small rant on a subject that always niggles at me whenever The Jam pop up in conversation. This is fair warning to you all so if you don't wish to be dragged into my own personal greivances toward musical journalism then push forward my friends to the Gates of Valhalla of the next paragraph! There will be gore, gravy and gamecock for all who wish to sample their various delights. This little niggle to which I have previously referred is the tendency of journalists to pigeonhole the band, certainly in its embryonic stages before the facelift of 'All Mod Cons', as Punk. Not that the labelling of an artist as such somehow demeans them or their music in any way but often it misses the point. Yes, Weller did attempt to convey an image of England as occupying a culture of self-imposed decay accompanied by an entrenched class divide that bordered on Marxist dialectic materialism. As a result of this, his intial lyricism was overshadowed by his love affair with London: the centre of this perceived class struggle. Both of these traits would be shared by other bands in that year of '77 with the Pistols' anthems of anti-monarchism and insurrection, The Clash's portrait of the Notting Hill Riots, The Ruts' 'Babylon's Burning' was framed by the sounds of urban chaos and Siouxsie Sioux would, like the Jam, immerse herself in historic imagery (albeit totalitarian in her case). What people tend to forget though is that punk was a faltering step toward post-modernism bordering on deconstructionism which would flourish later as post-punk. Sioux wasn't a Nazi - she once responded to a gang of skinheads appearing at her gig by walking onstage wrapped in the Star of David, called them all an extremely naughty word, and began to belt out 'Israel' - but she courted this imagery which itself had been perverted by National Socialism and turned it on its head. The Pistols' were a product of McLaren's intellectualism which sought to respark the Paris Riots' ideological war. The bands often flaunted the de rigeur inability to play their instruments, take for example Vini Reilly (who we all know can play the guitar wonderfully well) playing with The Nosebleeds in 'Ain't Bin To No Music School'. It was John Cage anti-music brought to a cruder, universal level. Whereas, Punk was post-modern, The Jam were blatantly a product of Modernism with their pure adrenaline double quick Northern Soul and appropriation of 60s Mod culture. Not to say that they were over on the other side of the spectrum in the camp of "revivalism" (a finger you can point squarely at the Lambrettas, The Merton Parkas, and even Secret Affair) with Weller himself answering such claims with a sing round his neck stating "How can I be a revivalist when I'm only eighteen?". Quite right too. As well as all this, you had Weller's constant political posturing as he sought to weave and bob through the debris kicked up by Punk's Size 12 Doc Marten boots with his statement that the band would vote Tory in the next election and the subsequent, unfortunate association with the National Front.
Well that's that done with. 'In the City' is labelled one of the greatest punk singles of all time and that I can live with. It's triumphant shout of 'Youth explosion!!!" with grindstone Rickenbacker chords and simplistic rhythm earn it such an honour but, to be honest, it has more of the early Who to it than anything else. 'I Got By In Time' is certainly not anything resembling punk with the guitar hauled back to allow the rhythm to push the song along. If you substituted Weller's Surrey snarl for Little Johnnie Taylor, Dobie Gray or Brenton Woods and kicked the tempo down two dozen beats or so and you would have something that could have proudly graced the floorboards of Wigan discos. Having said that, I love Weller's vocal on this track as he opts for a smoother delivery without losing the underlying distaste. 'Non-Stop Dancing' is pure R n' B with a choppy blues progression and Bruce Foxton raiding in with his trademark backing vocals. It's nice to include something that trades off between a pastiche of the band's musical influences and a subtle yet positive comment upon the modern culture where dancing becomes a tonic for the other ills of society. Weller's mellowed with age into what some self-aggrandising tart termed "dad rock". Check this out and hear what it was like when he was doing it for the kids.

NB: Bugger. Sorry about the lack of Non-Stop Dancing for 24 hours. Neglected to check if it had uploaded. Apologies to you all for my absent mindedness.

Buy - The Jam - In the City

Cut Your Hair

2005-09-29T12:36:00.000+01:00

Curtis Stigers - Secret Heart (Concord, 2002)

Curtis Stigers - It's So Hard Living Without You (Randy Newman)
Curtis Stigers - Hometown Blues (Steve Earle)

No, don't run away! Curtis Stigers is no longer your MOR, sub-Michael Bolton, enemy but rather your swingin' hip daddy friend. Like Top Cat but without the love of purple waistcoats. I've been trying to explain as much to my good companion in blogdom, Jefito, but he just wouldn't believe me so I've had to resort to this.
For a start, I would like to reiterate the claims of our ominpresent friend, the AMG guide, when I say that Stigers' records for Concord are not an unholy trinity of jazz, pop, and blue-eyed soul but rather a straight jazz record although more in the Harry Connick Jnr vein than Thelonious Monk. The band is balanced toward the intimate rather than any foolhardy big band gestures with a simple setup of drums, bass and piano with Stigers flexing his chops on the tenor sax for the two originals on the album, 'How Could A Man Take Such A Fall' and 'Swingin' Down at 10th and Main'. Yes, those with any trace of inductive logic will have realised that this is mainly a covers album or what people prefer to term "an album of jazz standards". However, when you find that Stigers has tackled Randy Newman (as he has done on all four of his Concord releases), Steve Earle, Ron Sexsmith and Dave Frishberg then you come to realise that this is a more exacting trawl through "The Great American Songbook" than you'd normally expect.
Take for example 'Hometown Blues' which was originally a bluesy jug band stomp that bordered on skiffle and has been reinterpretated as a swing number, keeping the high tempo and deprecating sense of humour refreshingly intact. It also highlights the strengths of Stigers who is neither an oppressive technocrat in his delivery (Michael Buble is a prime culpirt of this syndrome with his cultured, charisma free style) nor one to oversing his part and tread all over the band's toes as it were. One could never label his vocal stylings bland either for, although they may not include the vocal tics of some of the greats, Stigers seems to be occupying the same space as O.V. Wright and Sam Cooke. He clearly has a smile on his face throughout the song and it shows in a clean, nuanced, and enigmatic performance.
The delicate and respectful treatment of Randy Newman's beautiful 'Livin' Without You' (retitled on Stigers' album for some reason) is just aching with restrained passion and guile. You can see the smoke masquerading as fog in the air causing the eyes to water in pain and grief from the Guaraldi piano intro. By the time, you've reached the third line of "The subway shakes my floor", you've stopped whatever earthly distraction you were engaged in and begun to listen intently which is something that Newman with his dryness and rasping lisp of a voice has never always been able to achieve in my personal opinion. What makes me so enthusiastic about this as a record is the refusal to drag these fantastic lyrics into a melodramatic tupour but rather allow them to breathe and speak for themselves; a bold move which a lot of vocalists just don't have the guts to do. It's the equivalent to skimming stones across a lake, on a dew stained early morning, leaving behind soft ripples across the water's surface. Something has been changed but without destroying the fabric from which the artist is working. I hope that you all enjoy Stigers' lovingly constructed change of pace as much as I do.

Buy - Curtis Stigers - Secret Heart
Visit - Curtis Stigers

The Final Four: A Little Bit of Faith

2005-09-27T18:49:00.000+01:00

4. Mercury Rev - Everlasting Arm
3. Prefab Sprout - Jesse James Symphony
2. Todd Rundgren - Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel
1. Nick Cave - Into My Arms

Blimey. Here we are at the end of the series in one final spurt (ooh, you are awful but I like you)! To be honest, it's a relief since my brain was aching from agonizing over these final choices and the rash choice of the Bungle boys; I love 'em but sometimes chronological bias can be a hindrance to any such list. Sadly, I am completely and utterly wiped from my 9-6 shift at the book shop (yes, I got a job and isn't it ever so glamorous) so none of these remarkable songs are going to get the writeup that they deserve. All I'll say is that (a) 'A Wizard, A True Star' must be purchased by all of you after which you must lay down in your psychedelic pads with oversized headphones, a drug or soft drink of your choice, and an open mind; you will touch something resembling Jesus (I'm sure that it has a beard and doesn't mind the aforementioned beard being stroked whatever it is), (b) 'See You On the Other Side' is the best album that Mercury Rev have ever done , (c) 'Jordan: The Comeback' means that memories of Paddy McAloon dancing with giant hot dogs and GM vegetables should be banished forever in favour of daily worship, and (d) Nick Cave: Toto, I don't think we're in Caulfield anymore.
Finally, go to Jefitoblog to find part two of my Otis Redding Idiot's Guide. Free mp3s and ice cream for the first twenty to get there via this link!

Buy - Mercury Rev - See You On the Other Side
Buy - Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback
Buy - Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star
Buy - Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call