Chiltonism II:
Tennis Bum.

Last thing I remember coach, I was down at break-point…

Listening to this hugely enjoyable piss-around from the essential “Dusted In Memphis” bootleg, a whole movie entitled “Tennis Bum” jumped fully-formed into my head. I think it has a lot of potential.

It would be, like, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” meets “The Big Lebowski”, via Luke Wilson’s character from “The Royal Tenenbaums”, or something.

It would centre on the life and travails of this skinny, unkempt, slobbish, drug dependent but infallibly charismatic kinda guy who makes his living as a ‘tennis hustler’, cruising around the tennis courts and gyms of Memphis or New Orleans and making seemingly inopportune bets with the yuppies and jocks he finds there, then whipping them with his sneaky tennis skills and collecting his winnings.

And the rest writes itself basically. There would be mix ups, and shenanigans, and gangsters demanding money, and amusing secondary characters. The disparity between our hero’s dishevelled appearance and the preppiness of tennis as a sport could be milked for a great deal of humour.

Given the prevailing trends in the realm of current alterna-Hollywood comedies, I think it could be very successful. Personally I can’t really be bothered with it, but if you want to write a script or pitch it to the networks or whatever people do these days, just send me a cheque when it hits the cinemas, ok? Oh, and keep this song on the soundtrack.

Labels: Alex Chilton, movie ideas, tennis

Chiltonism I


Hey everybody - let's all pretend we’re watching a real video in the box above, and this post will go real swell.

An item of “for madmen only” interest here possibly, but I found it pretty enlightening, so thought I’d post it.

Basically this is forty minutes of unedited footage of Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson and collaborators, goofing around in Ardent studios back in, ooh, I dunno, the late ‘70s or something (timeframe scarcely matters with this shit), recording tracks that ended up on “Lost Decade”, “Like Flies On Sherbert”, or, in some cases, nowhere.

Since the great man passed on earlier this year, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by Chilton’s recordings from this period, and the mysterious, unknowable context they seem to emerge from – all the clanging, shamble-ass mistakes, supremely weird sonic decisions and seemingly random instrumentation, with a leering, wicked humour and calculated, elegant half-assedness underlying the whole thing. It’s total genius – classic rock n’ roll, as unnervingly wrong-yet-right as the most twisted, out of nowhere ‘50s rockabilly recordings, but with a more modern sense of sardonic, self-aware cynicism visible at all times too - the cracked grin of a guy who's experienced both the best and worst of the music industry and eventually just told it to fuck off.

As such, watching this sorta makes me feel like a moody London psychogeographer who’s just been handed an authentic video of Jack The Ripper running around. Yep, that’s our man right there, doing his thing. That would seem to answer my questions.

In particular, I’ve long been obsessed by the recording of the song “My Rival” from “..Sherbert”, ever since I heard it for the first time on the peerless Rough Trade Shops: Rock n’ Roll compilation all those years ago.

How is it possible that a bunch of competent, experienced musicians could get together to play a tune, and emerge with something so… so brilliantly fucked up?

That’s what I’ve asked myself each of the hundreds of times I’ve listened to this song, so you’d best believe my jaw hit the floor at about the 25 min mark here, when we see the band casually laying down that very take from start to finish.

Circumstances seem pretty chilled, and all the musicians seem to be in command of what they’re doing, which in a sense makes the resulting cathartic fucked-ness even more of a cosmic mystery.

I never before pictured that seated, bearded man crouching over that weird mini-synthesizer, or the profound strangeness of Chilton’s spidery junkie guitar-playing on some cheapo ‘60s garage band lookin’ guitar, but now I will see them every time.

Things take on a certain ‘Blue Velvet’ atmosphere towards the end, as a rather scary lady appears, first heard adding orgasmic moans to an unreleased(?) take of “Bangkok”, and then seen dancing lewdly on a piano as one of the bearded guys plays it, head down. Who is she anyway? Alex’s main squeeze at that particular moment? Some random wildcard they met in a bar? The mystery deepens, and I bet there’ll be nothing but a sad story, a slurred song and an ominous cackle at the end of it.

Labels: Alex Chilton, No Videos, videos

Quote of the Week.

“One role of popular music in socializing the young may be to create … a picture of childhood and adolescence in America as a happy-go-lucky time of haphazard clothes and haphazard behavior… Thus the very real problems of being young are evaded. …A small minority is … not only aware in some fashion of the adult, manipulative pressure but is also resentful of it.

The rebelliousness of this minority group might be indicated in some of the following attitudes toward popular music: an insistence on rigorous standards of judgment and taste in a relativist culture; a preference for the uncommercialized, unadvertised small bands rather than name bands; the development of a private language and then a flight from it when the private language (the same is true of other aspects of private style) is taken over by the majority group; a profound resentment of the commercialization of radio and musicians…; an appreciation for idiosyncrasy of performance goes along with a dislike of “star” performers and an insistence that the improvisation be a group-generated phenomenon.”

- Sociologist David Reisman, writing in 1950 in an essay entitled “Listening to Popular Music”, certainly had an eerily concise line on “why we’re all here”, circa 2010 or at any point in between for that matter.

I’ve appropriated this quote straight from Kevan Harris’s piece on the new Touch & Go collected fanzine book over at Dusted - worthwhile reading for anyone with a passing interest in ‘80s punk/hardcore and the offensive chauvinism boiling-over-into closet conservatism it so frequently used as a crutch.

Labels: punk, quotes

Cheap Time / Bad Sports – split 7” (Scion A/V)

The last Cheap Time single I picked up was sounding a little ropey, and Jeffrey Novak’s solo album was a flat out nightmare, so it’s reassuring to hear CT returning here to the straight up blast of their self-titled record with “Proper Introductions (Running Nowhere)”, two minutes and forty four delightful seconds of sneering, ribald Chilton-esque pop about how unexpectedly running into old acquaintances at the supermarket really sucks. It’s great. A post on Raven Sings The Blues today informs me that a press release for Cheap Time’s second LP promises it “..will surely surprise, divide and leave fans scratching their heads as to where Cheap Time will go next!" Hmm, we’ll see how that works out.

Bad Sports of Denton, TX are a new one on me, but they too really do the business with a thoroughly swell bit of lean, muscular power-pop. Production is loud and rough, as it should be, but both song-writing and playing suggest so much hard graft it’s almost uncool. I mean, they even break the three minute barrier. RIYL The Nerves EP, The Last, Buzzcocks, Zeros. Also recommended if you’ve never heard of any of that crap, and just want a really cool rock song to blast when you’re cruising around with the car windows down. Which I suppose would mean you’d have to install a turntable in your car, but I THINK YOU SHOULD DO THAT. Or just buy the mp3s like I did and burn them on a CD. Cos face it, that Blue Oyster Cult tape in the glove compartment is getting you no action whatsoever – give it to me, and get this.

Oddly, talk of vinyl in the above paragraph is probably slightly off the mark, because although it does exist, this single is put out principally via digital means by some weird internet company whose website plays wanky car advert electronica at you incessantly. “Scion continues to promote the finest in emerging music talent by partnering with today's most progressive artists and labels on its Garage 7-inch series to produce exclusive music”, they say. “Pick up a copy on vinyl at your local Scion event or listen now right here!!”

They’ve done stuff with The Oblivians, Jacuzzi Boys, Dirtbombs, Pierced Arrows et al and they even do an annual festival in Lawrence, Kansas, but I mean, HUH? Vague, corporate-voiced online media companies? Garage-punk? It all makes me rather apprehensive.

http://www.myspace.com/cheaptime
http://www.myspace.com/badsportsband
http://www.scionav.com/index.html

Labels: Bad Sports, Cheap Time, singles reviews

Mazes – Cenetaph / Go Betweens 7” (Suffering Jukebox)

New-ish single from Mazes, and the first release from new Manchester-based label Suffering Jukebox, whose name and release schedule thus far seems specifically designed to please me. You’ll recall that I loved Mazes’ first 45 to pieces, so when I say I don’t like this one quite so much, that’s not to say that there isn’t much here for the discerning consumer of indie rock to enjoy.

Thing is though, ya see: the home-recorded songs on the first record had a wonderful, rich, desperate blare to them, a spark that seemed really special. The tracks here were done in a studio, and well, I dunno – it kinda sounds like they had a really chilled out time doing them, and really out the work in to make everything sound perfect; maybe they had some really nice guy who usually does alt-country bands behind the board? Whatever, the result is that Mazes here sound like a competent indie-rock band, playing some good songs with quite nice melodies. Less “Shocker In Gloomtown”, more “Date w/ Ikea”.

I know which end of that spectrum excites me more these days, but hey, maybe you think differently. 90s revival partisans should by all means give it a shot. I don’t know which song is which, cos the sides aren’t labelled and neither of them have obvious title-repeating choruses, but at least one of ‘em has crisp drumming, a cool lively tune and a winning solo. Good enough for me. Now get back to the flat and start trying to record ten songs through the hi-fi speakers every time your neighbours go out, for such is apparently the only way a jaded freak like me can appreciate your rock majesty.

http://www.myspace.com/mazesmazesmazes
http://sufferingjukeboxrecords.blogspot.com/

Labels: Mazes, singles reviews

Rockin’ Chairs.

So I was going to put up a new post this weekend based on my observations re: a forty minute video of sessions from Alex Chilton’s “Like Flies On Sherbert” period that someone put online a couple of months back.

Unfortunately though, the video has now disappeared, and posting my stuff without reference to it wouldn’t make much sense. Oh well. Maybe I’ll rework it into something else at a later date.

I’ve got a bunch more singles reviews to post, so I’ll get through them this week – thought I’d start posting ‘em one at a time from now on rather than in big batches, now that I’ve got a pretty constant pile awaiting review.

In the meantime, it has come to my attention that Stereo Sanctity has been presented with some kind of award by a company who sell theatre seating.

There is nothing I can possibly add to that.

For the record, I like ‘70s style cinema seating, with very low seats, leather seat covers and big moulded plastic and metal frames with chunky drinks holders that give the impression that each seat is sort of armoured and separated from it's neighbours. Downstairs at the Prince Charles cinema in central London is a good example.

Labels: awards, lameness, spacefiller, theatre seating

Singles Apocalypse:
HoZac F-ing Special.

Apologies for the lapse in posting – just got back from my holidays a few days ago. Unreviewed singles have become a mountain. Why do I keep buying them? Because they’re there. Here’s a few to get us started…


Fey Gods – United b/w Bury Me Standing (HoZac)

The first of a whole trio of new Hozac releases I’ve picked up by bands starting with ‘f’, this one is my least favourite, and also has the worst cover design of any of the discs in my ‘new arrivals’ heap. Which is not to say it’s not at least quite good, mind you, assuming severely distressed gothic synth-punk is your thing.

If it isn’t, prepare to look on in growing horror as a farting, distortion pedalled low end keyboard and cymballess drumkit churn out a lumbering, maddenly repetitive riff that sounds like either a) a drunken Martin Rev sountracking a military funeral, or b) a twelve year old nihilist having a temper tantrum (choose your own record review adventure). Over this, we meet a man whose unhappy outbursts position him somewhere between a stroppy goth-rock vocalist of yore and Rocket From The Tombs-era David Thomas. Bracing!

CORRECTION: I’ll let that review stand, but will make clear that I’ve just realised I was playing the record at the wrong speed. At god’s own 45, things have much the same sense of gloom, only now the vocalist is female, and it kinda sounds a bit like 45 Grave, and kinda kicks ass. Mascara!

Disappointingly, the b-side here mainly consists of a guitarist picking over some minor chords Mogwai left behind, whilst an uncertain male vocalist tries to squeeze some goth-grandeur out of incessantly repeating the word “inside”. I don’t think I’ll play it again.

http://www.myspace.com/feygods

The Flips – I Just Don’t Know Where I Stand EP (HoZac)

Well I probably don’t need to tell you I love this by default. Six girls making delightful, Cave Weddings-esque rock n’ roll jangle-pop, in the tradition of The Bobby Fuller Four, Buddy Holly, The She Trinity, Pleasure Seekers etc? Let’s face facts, they could be illiterate Nazis and I’d still give this the thumbs up. It’s as sweet as whiskery kisses from Jesus himself.

“1 and 1 is 3” on the b-side is by far the best tune here – in fact it’s a total killer. It would definitely get an airing were I DJing anywhere any time soon. The other two numbers are good as well though.

The Flips are big on handclaps and tambourine, so it’s just as well I am too. I don’t really know why they have six people in the line-up; there’s no organ and only one singer, so whichever way you cut it that’s at least one too many. Maybe some of them are just in it for the handclaps? Sweet! Their publicity shots suggest a serious dedication to the “Girls In The Garage” aesthetic. If you like this sort of thing, chances are you’re on board already, and if you don’t, your loss.

My copy is on translucent orange vinyl! A winning disc. Sadly, my unsuccessful search for a myspace page reveals that The Flips have already broken up. DRAGSVILLE. What is it with bands that sound this happy? Does the weight of the world just crush them or something? I dunno. Get this while ya can anyway.

http://hozacrecords.com/2010/08/the-flips/

Fungi Girls – Turquoise Hotel b/w Doldrums (HoZac)

Fungi Girls are not girls. Ha, not seen that one done much recently. Fungi Girls are instead a bunch of smart kids who I guess figured they had what it takes to grab a slice of the lo-fi garage-pop action whilst there’s still some going around. Good decision, as it turns out - they’re bloody great at it.

Nothing ‘new’ here for you thrillseekers, but for those of us who remain happy with a good bit of well-executed rock music, let it be known that guitar/bass/drums dynamics are lively and inventive and well… rocking… throughout, the recording is JUST distant and reverbed enough to put me in mind of an early REM or Feelies album, and the vocalist’s droll, sleepy monotone is extremely pleasing. “Doldrums” in particular is terrific, rattling along like the best song The Clean never got around to recording in their ‘80s heyday.

This is nice music, high on fun, low on ego; the kind of thing that happens when quiet, good natured boys who are secretly the coolest kids in school get together and quietly form the coolest band in town. Louder and less able young music-makers from Cleburne, Texas must hate these guys’ debonair guts.

http://www.myspace.com/fungigirls


Did I mention that I really like HoZac records at the moment?
http://hozacrecords.com/

Labels: Fey Gods, Fungi Girls, singles reviews, The Flips