Broadcasting from near the Thames Delta, featuring hot wax and moods from the Planet Of Sound, the only common theme being random. Let's stick together, consider our child....
Here's a nearly end of the year slightly pre-xmas TDWS. There's a Fleetwood Mac thread throughout featuring Dutch Uncles, Lindsey Buckingham, The Crystal Ark and Radical Face. Some nice'n'early Simple Minds, Squarepusher, Villagers, Atoms for Peace, Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser, The Jam singing Kylie Minogue, John Legend singing Bruce Springsteen, Pickering Pick singing The Smiths, Dewey Via and The Arctic Monkeys both singing The Beatles, a Smashing Pumpkins demo, Chicago, Fiona Apple, Jake Bugg, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Scott Walker and The Rolling Stones. Some you'll know, some you won't.
You'll know 'em all if you give it a listen.
Listen here
Download here http://www.divshare.com/download/21375447-ca0
End of year best of on it's way.....
'Be kind to me, or treat me mean I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine'
Hugely enjoyable album launch from Phil Burdett and Senor Al & The JJ's tonight. A great set by each band, Phil's CD is looking and sounding great, a shame that Senor Al's wasn't ready in time, I hope I'm able to get one from somewhere as I'd love to feature a track on a podcast in the future.
In the meantime here's a track from Phil's CD 'Mercenary Thoughts Of A Lush' and a Senor Al track I've managed to get on-line somewhere, not sure if it's on the new album but they played it tonight and it sounded great. Investigate/buy both. That's an order.
Been in the States for a week now. Not picked up any music yet and blew out the Furs at Orlando House of Blues (to knackered from Roller-coastin' etc). Still I've been promised a music store in Kissimmee Old Town tomorrow and I have been to a pretty decent comic store. Onwards and upwards..... 07/11/2012 The CD store in the Old Town was unfortunately closed. Did get a couple of Fiona Apple CD's that I'd not previously got on the cheap. Also David Lee Roth's immense 'Crazy from the Heat' and the Civil Wars CD on the cheap. Plus a CD from Dewey Via who we saw singing on Sunday at the Mi Casa Cafe in St. Augustine. Bit dissapointed we didn't come across a decent independent CD/music store, but had a great time anyway. Just wish I'd gone to see the Psychedelic Furs at the House Of Blues, Downtown Disney....
Though when I first caught them on ‘Later’ I thought they
were a bit fey, I have been well into Villagers since receiving first LP ‘Becoming
A Jackal’, pre-ordered on the strength of reviews a couple of years back. 2nd
album {Awayland} has just been announced, coming out on Jan 14th
2013 & lead single ‘Waves’ gets a physical release on October 22nd.
In the last week they’ve been on both Annie Mac and Cerys Matthews BBC radio shows.
Here are the performances from those broadcasts with an earlier Dermot O’Leary
broadcast Janelle Monáe cover
version and a couple of tracks from some low key compilation albums. Also a
self shot video of 1st LP title track ‘Becoming a Jackal’ from Colchester
Arts Centre last summer.
If
you’ve never really listened to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, then you should.
This 3CD set, recently reissued is as good a place as any to start. It might be
b-sides and rarities but the quality never abates, in fact discs two and three
are about as good as anything ever released by Cave. Buy it.
As a taster here’s
a BBC radio session of ‘O’Malley’s Bar’, originally found on ‘Murder Ballads’.
A 17 minute song about a bloody murder spree as a crazed regular loses the plot
and murders a dozen or so of his fellow drinkers/neighbours. Quality stuff.
They may have been active for 15 years but they only
released 6 albums during their lifetime. All of Aztec Camera’s albums
have now been re-issued by current re-issue kings Edsel
and main man Roddy Frame has only had a handful of (quality) releases in the 17
years that have followed since, but nowhere have I been able to find the bands
two early singles on the legendary Glasgow indie label Postcard Records
collected in one place and given the polish up they deserve. So here,
unpolished, direct from YouTube, are the four sides of those singles with a
couple of bonus tracks, ‘Hot Club of Christ’ from 1982’s Belgian label Le Disques Du Crepuscule Xmas release, “Ghosts of
Christmas Past” and a 1984 live version of Postcard track ‘Mattress Of Wire’.
Also from you tube, the NME C81 version of we could send letters.
‘The Greatest Album Ever Made’. So ran the PR for Echo and The
Bunnymen’s fourth album, ‘Ocean Rain’ (1984), which peaked at no.4 in the UK
charts. The statement should have run on with the words ‘by Echo and The
Bunnymen’ because it is surely the bands best album, but certainly not the best
album ever. Despite lacking a lot of the visceral edginess of earlier Bunnymen
albums, it is their best, most consistent album of songs, but they couldn’t
follow it up. In fact only one more album by the full original line up followed,
three years later, ‘Echo and the Bunnymen (The Grey Album)’ which had some
decent tracks and also reached no.4. The
reformed band had a few more hits a decade or so later and are still active
today, but former glories have not been reached.
And now, deluxe re-issue kings Edsel have re-released the first
three solo McCulloch albums, of which ‘Candleland’ is the only one that could
be considered anything like essential. I’ve probably not listened to this album
since the year of its release in 1990 (though single b-side, ‘The Circle Game’
has found its way to my speakers numerous times over the years).
Thankfully it
stands up to the test of time some 22 years later very well, even the occasional
eighties style drum machine beats raising a smile more than a wince. There was
no recapturing the energy of the Bunnymen’s formative years (that would be left
to Electrafixion, McCulloch’s and Sergeant’s pre reformed Bunnymen project,
though they did forget to include any tunes), however the mellow mood was
informed by the deaths of Pete DeFreitas (the Bunnymen’s drummer) and Mac’s
father, lending it greater warmth and feeling than ‘The Grey Album’ whilst not
departing massively from the Bunnymen sound. In ‘Proud To Fall’ the album had a track to be
proud of (well a chorus anyway) and the title track tempted the Cocteau Twins
Elizabeth Fraser in to provide backing vocals, as good a commendation of
quality as you could get at the time.
Another telling pointer was the quality
of the single releases associated b-sides, though remixes were beginning to
rear their ugly heads. The aforementioned ‘The Circle Game’, a Joni Mitchell
cover being for me an era highlight.
The re-issue also includes 1984’s debut
solo single release, ‘September Song/Cockles & Mussels’, with Mac toying
with idea of entering the crooner market, and it still sounds great today. I
may not have returned to this album much back in the day, but I think this
re-issue will find its way to my hi-fi occasionally in the coming months. I don’t
want to sound to dismissive of subsequent Mac/Bunnymen releases either, they
have included some high points over the years, and Mac still has the gift of
the gab, massively over praising the decent in places 2012 solo album ‘Pro
Patria Mori’ in the build up to its release, referring to tracks ‘Different Trees’, ‘Pro Patria Mori’ and ‘Raindrops On
The Sun’ as the ‘equi-greatest Holy Trinity of songs ever written’! For me the
re-issue of ‘Candleland’ establishes it as the last essential Mac featuring
release, though I do remain of course an Ian McCulloch fan.
Here's TDWS #10. The usual mix, featuring ... Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Alexi Murdoch, Pure Love, Radical Face, crying at INXS, John Fogerty, Kristeen Young with David Bowie, REM, Villagers, Beck, [Strangers], Oasis, Martha Wainwright, Small Faces, Mylo, Ryan Adams, Yngve & The Innocent and John Fogerty.
After an implausibly long absence (David Bowie apart) TDWS
is back. Featuring, three from 21 and The Puritan, The Style Council,
[STRANGERS], My Brightest Diamond, Grandaddy, The President Of The Anti-Madonna
League vs. Aussie DJ’s, The Correspondents, Frank Ocean, PiL, Fiona Apple,
Music Teaches You History, Phil Burdett, Plan B, Bill Fay, Kylie, The Stone
Roses 2012 and Bruce Springsteen.
Everyone’s Talking About Bowie…..or at least it’s felt like
it recently, probably because of the Ziggy 40th anniversary but also
because of the general greatness of the man and his music. A word of warning,
this podcast is about a century long (1hr 45m anyway) and I talk far too much
in it, but it's about David Bowie, what’d you expect? These are (possibly) my
favourite Bowie songs, I’m not saying they are ‘the’ best, everyone should make
up their own mind, but these are the ones that keep dragging me back or keep me
up late when I could really do with going to bed. I’d love to know what you
think of them.
Whilst making the podcast I made a CD of the songs, and here
is the first ever TDWS competition. If you'd like the CD pictured below (though I
won’t be giving away the mag) send me your e-mail address either via Facebook,
this site or my own e-mail,redyri@yahoo.com
and I’ll pull a winner out at random and send it anywhere in the world. I might
even make a cover for it.
In the podcast I mention a latter day Bowie compilation I
keep in my car which I entitled ‘Angels Of The Aftermath’. This is the tracklisting
and my iTunes artwork for it.
I’ll be back soon with a more bite sized podcast with far
less talking and I promise, no Bowie.
tHE pLAYLIST BasII The Post Coital Comedown
The great love-in that was BasII is over, and after the love-in comes the post coital comedown. If you were there or were part of it in anyway you'll know what I mean. To help with the comedown blues, here's a podcast featuring all 13 acts over 16 tracks, this includes 2 live tracks from the weekend as a bonus, and 2 from Modovar for winning the 'being the most Bas' performance of the weekend. Enjoy, see the pic below the widget for the tracklist.
Ok, so a lot of you will know 'Babylon's Burning', but the Ruts, despite their brief blossoming were much more than that, and that's what these 15 minutes are hopefully about to prove. 'Jah War/I Ain't Sofisticated' was their third single for Virgin, released in November 1979. 'Jah War', a spiky pop punk/reggae song about the police's involvement in the Southall disturbances of April 1979 was always a favourite of mine, suiting my ears more than most of the Clash's reggae excursions. It's b-side, 'I Ain't Sofisticated' by contrast is a numb nuts punk thrash that helped make this slab of 7" vinyl one of the most played from my youth. Fifth Virgin single, August 1980's 'West One (Shine On Me)' was released just over a month after singer Malcolm Owen had been found dead in his parents bathroom following a heroin overdose. The band were clearly moving on from the punk treadmill, I've always wondered what they could've become.
(My missus also made a single with two of the Ruts whilst in Basildon punksters the Vandals, the only recording they ever made supplying backing vocals on a Pete Zear solo single (Lew Lewis Reformer) 'Tomorrows World/Fast Food').
Any way, the Ruts, listen to this. Babylon's Burning was great, but to me these three songs are greater (also listen to 'Staring At The Rude Boys').
