If you’re reading this and you’re a UK citizen, I’m sure you know what you have to do tomorrow, and I’m sure you’ve already been bombarded with this ‘advice’ from a hundred different sources, but what the hell, y’know?

Tactical voting is clearly the only way a decent and humane agenda is going to get anywhere near the finishing line on this one. So, if you’re registered in a seat where one of the main opposition parties is in a position to challenge the Tories, please vote for that party. If you’re unlucky enough to reside in a Tory stronghold, please vote for whoever’s coming second. And if you live in a safe Labour / SNP seat, please vote for them anyway, because some wise-ass will doubtless be on TV crunching the nationwide voting totals within 48 hours of this message, and the bigger that total is, the better. Clear? Good. Many thanks.

If you live in the UK but you’re not a UK citizen meanwhile, please be assured that I share your frustration – granting suffrage to the people who actually live in the place being governed would be top of my own personal agenda, but whatcha gonna do, eh?

And, if you don’t live in the UK, have never been to the UK and don’t give a hoot about the UK – I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Normal service will be resumed imminently.

Labels: announcements, blather, political shit, politics

Holiday.


I'll be back in a few weeks.

In the mean time, please enjoy these golden hits from the land of the rising sun.

Labels: announcements, holidays, Japan, Les Rallizes Denudes, Meiko Kaji, Melt Banana, Morita Doji, Nagisa Ni Te, Shonen Knife, Teengenerate, The Comes, The Jacks, The Stalin

THE FORTY BEST RECORDS OF 2011:
Introduction.

I know, who the hell starts doing their ‘best of year’ round-ups in November? Some kind of freak, clearly. DECEMBER 1st is the start date. Everybody knows that.

Over the past few years though, it’s become increasingly clear that – sadly - I probably do more actual music writing in December than I do in total over the preceding 11 months, usually tripping over myself trying to get it all done in time, and bringing the whole thing into harbour* in garbled, first draft form around January 15th when nobody cares anymore, cos it’s next year already.

So to spread things out, ease my (ha) workload, hopefully encourage some better, more sensibly spaced content, I’m gonna start a bit early. I’d planned to start even earlier, but I got distracted. Inevitably I’ll hear some great stuff during the next few weeks that I’ll wish I’d been able to include, but… maybe I’ll do another post about those later, or something.

Some general notes before we get started:

If one thing has refined my new release record listening during 2011, it’s been the curse of the Disappointing Second Album. Seems that throughout this year, my flat has been echoing with the dread sound some of the brightest stars of the‘08/’09 Awesome Glut crashing against the rocks.** We all know that sinking feeling I’m sure – getting to side # 2 of a much-anticipated record, thinking “y’know, I don’t think I really even like this”.

I’ll name no names, but you get what I mean – if you notice any bands that I’ve championed over the past few years who are notable by their absence from the forthcoming list, well, there ya go. I’m sure you’d agree it would be dishonest of me to keep on delivering forced praise out of some misguided sense of loyalty when the music is just isn’t doing it for me, so I won’t.

It’s ok of course, it’s not a final judgement – second album can happen to anyone. Some bands turning in a lacklustre ‘ten-songs-we-had-to-write-quick’ effort, others just developing their music into a more elaborate, fully-realised style that I just don’t like as much as their scruffier early stuff because.. y’know, I’m fickle like that. In the case of the former, hopefully they can have a good think and really pull things together for the third go ‘round – we’ll still be listening. As to the latter, well, no hard feelings – it’s been good to know ya. I’ll still cherish your early stuff, and hope you have fun out there in the big wide world being Suede or Simple Minds or whatever.

Subsequent to that, you’ll probably notice that some of the reviews within my forthcoming top # 40 kinda read like bad reviews. This is a little odd, I’ll grant you, but the sad fact is that some of my favourite artists have brought out records this year which, whilst not without their qualities and points of interest, are somewhat underwhelming or confounding within said artist’s overall canon. So I still like ‘em enough for them to make the list, but a slip from, say, consistently being in my top # 5 to being placed about 30-something is something we need to examine, if ya see what I mean.

That sounds a bit cold, doesn’t it? It’s not a competition after all. “MUST TRY HARDER, Indie-Rock Band # 348234!” Maybe I’m getting too carried away with this numbered listing business? The numbers don’t really mean anything, after all – I only started it as a convenient framework within which to convey my relative enthusiasm for stuff, because listing things in alphabetical order seemed kinda lame.

Just because I’m not feelin’ something or other quite as much as I did two years ago, or don’t like the production on so-and-so’s record, that shouldn’t be taken as any objective critical judgement, lest you need reminding.

Anyway, negativity aside, the good news is that there’s been no shortage of records I’ve really liked this year – unexpected hits, new groups, old favourites making good – all the usual fab gear. Starting… soon? Next few days, honest.

*Gotta watch those seafaring metaphors, I just can’t let them be.
**SEE WHAT I MEAN?

Labels: announcements, best of 2011, the difficult second album

Soup Studio / The Duke of Uke.

I heard some bad news yesterday concerning the uncertain future of what is almost certainly the best place in record music in London, Soup Studio.

In a textbook example of that horrible process whereby useful and creative ventures raise an area’s ‘appeal’ to the extent that those very ventures find themselves kicked out on their arse to make space for the same identikit commercial crap that people initially went there to avoid, the studio and it’s upstairs neighbour The Duke of Uke are being evicted from their E1 address by the landlord, who seemingly reckons he can now use the space to harvest more cash than mere rent can provide; exactly the same fate that befell The Spitz venue & restaurant down the road a few years back, and what apparently used to be a far more worthwhile incarnation of Spitalfields Market a few years before that.

Anyway, as mentioned, Soup is a brilliant place with a great, no-nonsense set up, and Simon Trought is both a skilled engineer and a lovely chap. To have a space in the middle of London where bands at any level of ability and notoriety can go to get quality recordings of their tunes done efficiently on a variety of nice equipment for reasonable rates, in a welcoming, relaxed environment in which no one is ever sneered at or made to feel dumb, is an absolute godsend.

The fact that I, an avowed hater of ukuleles, should essentially be campaigning to save a ukulele shop hopefully tells you something about the overall goodness of this place (and in fairness, it must be said that the staff and customers of the ukulele shop have always proved very friendly too, helping to dispel the unholy terror and rage that inevitably overwhelms me at the thought of having to traverse a room containing about five hundred ukuleles).

So yeah – I’m not quite sure what the likely future of Soup is at the moment, or how entwined it is liable to be with the future of the Duke of Uke, but… let’s just say that if in recent years you’ve enjoyed recordings by the likes of Comet Gain, Herman Dune, The Loves, The Wave Pictures, Darren Hayman, Veronica Falls or Let’s Wrestle, you could do worse than expressing your appreciation by donating some cash to help The Duke secure a new home. That is all.

Labels: announcements, appeals, bad news

THE FORTY BEST RECORDS OF 2010:
Introduction

Ok, it’s December, and you know what that means. Interminable best-albums-of-the-year run downs! Yes! Don’t pretend you don’t love ‘em. More than just a pathetic excuse for me to to assign numbers to works of human self-expression and obsessively put things in order, this is of course a good way to force myself to sit down and actually write something about that dozens of records I’ve not had time to communicate my liking for this year.

2009’s Top # 50 was probably a bit much, so this year I’ve decided to go for the more classic Top # 40. This serves to make getting a place on it into slightly more of an, ahem, achievement, as there are still records I really liked clamouring for a place just below the bottom of the list, rather than it just being an all-in compendium of everything I thought was at least quite good.

That aside, same rules as last year apply;

1. Included for consideration will be any release featuring music released for the first time in 2010 that features more than four songs, OR is bigger than a 7”.

2. I reserve the right to apologise at a later date for the non-inclusion of anything amazing that I missed or failed to appreciate the value of this year.

3. This year’s one specific exception: Joanna Newsom’s “Have One On Me”. I’ve borrowed my flatmate’s copy, and I’m sure it’s a tremendous and worthy piece of work, and I *love* the cover art, but I just haven’t had the time or inclination to really process three discs worth of dense, wistful 6 minute+ folk songs recently. Maybe on the off chance I ever get to spend a month alone in a rural cabin with nothing but a record player, I’ll get back to you with a full write-up, but at the moment it seems absurd to pass judgement on such a mammoth work based on what amounts to about two thirds of one listen.

4. Kickin’ up a stink just outside the big 4-0: Grass Widow, Mater Suspiria Vision, One Happy Island and Trash Kit. Well done to ya, good records all.

The image you see above, by the way, was drawn by Guido Crepex in 1967, and the speech bubble roughly translates as "I can't even hear my records with these all jerks around!" - so there's at least some reasoning behind my posting it here. Not that I need any, I mean just look at the damn thing!.

Labels: announcements, best of 2010

I Like… Week: Introduction.

Well, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve not had as much time as I’d like to get any decent (ha) writing done thus far in 2010, but still, great new bands/records/songs/live shows keep pilin’ up week by week at unprecedented speed as the big ol’ “hey, slapdash punk rock is back and it’s GREAT” roll of ’09 continues into the new year, adding further credence to my highly subjective belief that those of us who inexplicably pursue an eternal ideal of smart kids banging out stupid racket in 4/4 are living through a truly golden age for the appreciation of such things.

Clearly I’d love to put time aside to fight the anti-word count cause and get characteristically verbose about all of these brilliant little sherbert-bomb bursts of song that people are throwin’ around the internet with only an oblique sentence or something by way of commentary, but… but… y’know, it’s not gonna happen man. Far better if I just take a deep breath and blast through as many as I can for you this week, before it all gets forgotten and blows away into digital fairy-dust and saddos like my circa-2025 self reminiscing on whatever fora circa-2025 saddos use to talk to themselves in thinly-veiled self-deprecating monologue – “gawd, remember that whole Male Bonding/Pens thing – what a laugh – I’ve still got all the 7” filed away in one of my shoeboxes somewhere – I’ll row out to the shed some time in my radiation-proof canoe and have a look”.

And so forth. None of us want that, so let’s get it out of the way now. GOOD STUFF, no particular order, spread across the next week or so, starting tomorrow.

Labels: announcements, I like

The 50 Best Records of 2009? : Introduction.

A couple of years ago, I could barely be bothered to right a “favourite albums of the year” list – with a couple of notable exceptions, it just seemed like a drag, distracting me from dredging up yet more old punk and psyche stuff to get into. Last year was a pretty great year for finding new stuff I liked though. I wrote a top 30, with numbers, for the first time ever, and it seemed to go down well. And 2009 – well, wow, 2009 has been a monster. It seems like there’s a whole new universe out there plugging into all the obscure variations of guitar/racket/trash/song music I love, and I’ve been sitting right here in the big city, with a broadband connection and money in my pocket, trying to keep track of it all.

So putting a list together this year, I’ve come up with a top 50, and even then it’s been hard work trying to figure out which records stay and which get kicked off the bottom. Ok, so the ‘music industry’ has continued its grim descent this year, some of our big indie heroes have turned out total snoozers, and sadly some my chosen stars from last year’s list have produced disappointingly dreary follow-ups (no names mentioned). But that aside, it’s been one HELL of a year for music, just like it always is if you’ve got the energy to go out and find it.

So, just like last year, we’ll be covering this in batches of five, spread over the next month or so. Included for consideration will be any release featuring music released for the first time in 2009 that features more than four songs OR is bigger than a 7”.

Apologies as ever for all the great stuff I inevitably will have missed, and will discover halfway through next year, or in twenty years. As always, numbers are pretty much arbitrary and I don’t think that the girl group pop album I deem to be no.37 is objectively better than the industrial noise opus I put in at no.39 or whatever, but it’s easier and more fun to do it this way than if I just listed them all in alphabetical order.

One more note before we commence: I’ve left two albums – The Flaming Lips “Embryonic” and Oneida’s “Rated O” – off the list, not because I don’t like them, but just because they’re such startling, unwieldy monster records that I just don’t know WHAT to make of them yet. Perhaps they’ll be future classics, perhaps I’ll just keep cringing until they go away, but either way – too soon dudes. Gimme time.

Clear? Ok, so my internet connection is pretty intermittent at present (thanks Virgin), but once it’s sorted out we’ll get this show on the road!

Labels: announcements, best of 2009

Five Years!

No, not a tribute to the best song David Bowie ever wrote, unfortunately. Just a lame ‘happy birthday to me’ post to acknowledge the fact that, unlikely as it my seem, I’ve been doing this shit for five years.

Yes, it was on May 6th 2004 that I sat down before my old PC in my palatial rented room in Swansea’s Uplands district, mucked about a bit with the blogger template you still see before you and wrote:

So I’ve decided to do a music blog. Well why not?

REASONING:

1. It seems like every other fucker’s got one, and some of them actually have ones that other people bother to read, thus making the whole enterprise seem slightly less masturbatory.

2. Whether I like it or not I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to, and collating opinions upon, music, and opportunities to get a copy of my print zine together or post decent reviews elsewhere are few and far between, so what better form than a weblog in which to chronicle my day to day adventures in the world of popular music?

3. Maybe if I prove to be good at it, people might eventually start sending me free stuff (seriously – anybody out there who has the power to send me free records, please, go ahead, I’ll be sycophantic as hell, I promise..)

MY UNIQUE SELLING POINT: whereas most other music bloggers are fairly hip and down with all the latest tunes and able to brush aside huge swathes of MP3s ‘twas if they were matchsticks on a daily basis, my music consumption is far more eccentric and random; basically, I don’t have much spending money, I don’t have a fast internet connection, I don’t live in a cool, hipster-saturated community and I don’t listen to daytime radio. Hence the music I end up digging is almost entirely down to chance most of the time, so prepare for many wild tangents about stuff I recorded off John Peel, stuff I just borrowed from the library, stuff I bought in a clearout sale because I thought it looked cool, pointless mix CD tracklistings etc., as well as the occasional standard drivelling about new releases from my favourite currently active bands and so on..

Hmm, yes, well. I’m not too sure about that.

To refer back to my original three point justification for this weblog's existence: 1. fair enough I suppose, 2. dude, do you think maybe there's a reason for that?, and 3. thus far, this weblog has earned me about five free records that I actually liked, zero guestlist places, and a lot of publicists in my inbox trying to convince me to listen to 'americana' bands. Result! Of course, with availability of music not being such an issue these days, and with the increasing impossibility of anyone making a profit out of independent music, free stuff is scarcely the point, and I'm happy to pay decent bands/labels for their labour, so that's cool.

It should probably be pointed out that at the time I was unemployed and living in Swansea, so the idea of writing a militant no mp3s/no pictures blog about stupid shit I randomly stumbled upon seemed reasonable enough. Swearing a lot and throwing about phrases like “cool hipster-saturated community” also appeared to come naturally.

Despite having no social life, no money and nothing to do all day, I actually have extremely fond memories of that period of my life – denied the opportunity to obtain more than about one newly released album every couple of months, aimlessly wondering around town, across beaches and carparks and dilapidated terraced streets for days on end with my £20 discman, expanding my horizons to soak in the brilliance of Crazy Horse, of Soft Machine, of Black Sabbath, Miles Davis, Fairport and Pentangle, Can, The ‘Dead, Mingus, Fahey, Robert Wyatt, Love, The Byrds etc. I might have been logging onto ebay every day desperately trying to find a copy of the new Sonic Youth or Liars albums for under £6, but I sure wasn’t going hungry music-wise – where there’s a will there’s a way.

And, in such a culturally deadened climate, every single thing that happened that was even slightly noteworthy – going to a see a local punk band, chatting to somebody who seemed interesting, scoring some old metal albums or a Lucio Fulci movie from the depths of some crappy junk shop – became a towering incidence of excitement that I remember to this very day. I swear, sometimes I even find myself fondly remembering some occasion on which I had a particularly satisfactory cup of coffee, or one time when the weather was quite good.

It seems that during my first month on-air, I chose to write of my admiration for Wendy Case & The Paybacks, The Mummies, Ian Svenonious, The Shins second album and PJ Harvey, to rejoice in the fact that Arthur Lee was playing a show at a Victorian pavilion down the road from my house, and to critically evaluate a few Terrorizer cover CDs, stating my clear preference for satan/apocalypse themed black metal over ugly man-tantrum themed metalcore. Man, that kid was alright.

Cut to the present, which finds me still writing from a slightly dilapidated front bedroom in a student district, still having trouble with my internet connection, but otherwise I am gainfully employed, perhaps a bit more grown up, and able to go and see great bands every night of the week should I so wish, to play in bands of my own and to buy as many records as I like. I can listen to stuff online and download on a whim, raid other people’s iTunes for swag, dragging it back to my 140Gb and counting stash of digital sound, all whilst enjoying the, uh, myriad cosmopolitan delights of our capital city. So naturally it stands to reason that I can scarcely even remember what I was listening to/doing/thinking this morning, as awesome stuff and stimulus of one kind or another bombards me day in and day out.

Which is BETTER, obviously. End of discussion. What was my point again? – oh yeah, the weblog.

I guess it had a pretty slow start, and it’s always been a pretty inconsistent. Sorry about that. A huge thanks to anyone out there in reader-land who bothered to stick with us over those first few years. I seemed to have picked up the slack a bit recently though, bar the odd extended absence, and I’m enjoying writing for Stereo Sanctity more than ever.

Actually, I was initially going to use this anniversary as an excuse to do a self-indulgent post linking back to various notable posts and high water marks in Stereo Sanctity history, but the truth is, everything I wrote more than about, say, eighteen months ago, I find pretty cringe-worthy. Even pieces of writing I was really proud of at the time now seem pretty florid and hyperbolic and pointless and dumb, and I’d probably rather not draw any extra attention to them. So it goes though. I’m sure most bloggers feel this way when looking back over their old stuff – I’m sure I’ll feel the same way looking back over my current posts before long.

So, what I’m going to do instead to mark this dubious landmark is quite different:

For ONE WEEK ONLY, I’m going to pretend that this is like some proper weblog, like Fluxblog or something, and will be putting up a new post dedicated to an individual song EVERY DAY. (Well, maybe not over the weekend, because I probably still won’t have internet access, but every weekday at least).

Yep, new “content” every day this week, beginning tomorrow! Start your engines!

Labels: announcements, birthday, lameness, rambling

Spreading Myself Even Thinner

A couple of quick announcements…

1.

Foolish as it may seem given the trouble I’ve often had updating this weblog on a regular basis, I’ve branched out and started a second weblog - Breakfast In The Ruins - to sit alongside this one.

The idea is that Stereo Sanctity will be a purely music-based blog (which it pretty much is anyway, let’s face it), and I’ll use the new blog as an outlet for stuff relating to movies, books, comic books, general weirdness, history, wider culture and so forth. Which is not to say I won’t be posting music-related content over there from time to time (scans of unusual record covers, movie soundtracks, that sort of thing), or that I won’t reserve the right to post non-music stuff over here should I feel like it.

My plan is to make Breakfast.. more focused on pictorial/aesthetic posts – scans of interesting old book and record covers, comics, fanzines, posters etc. from my, er, ‘collection’, with only sporadic pieces of original writing, which should make it easier to update regularly without diminishing the effort I put into this site.

‘Breakfast In The Ruins’ has of course been my email address and sometime internet alias for quite a while now, but I thought it would suit the intentions of my new venture a lot better than any of the other contenders that were floating around my brain, so decided well go with it. The name is taken of course from a Michael Moorcock book, in which Karl Glogaeur (protagonist of Moorcock’s earlier crucifixion time travel caper, ‘Behold The Man’) is picked up by a muscular African man in Derry & Tom’s Roof Garden in London, and they proceed to spend the rest of the novel having rough sex, interspersed with disturbing visions of assorted alternate world apocalyptic scenarios. Truth be told, I didn’t enjoy the book all that much, but it was certainly a characteristically daring bit of experimental fiction from Moorcock, and I did enjoy imagining the reaction of all the straight-laced Elric fans who must have picked it up by accident, and hopefully a similar sort of vibe will be in evidence on the new weblog (well, minus all the rough man-sex at least).

And that, my friends, is perhaps the last time you’ll be subjected to a pointless digression about old Michael Moorcock books getting in the way of my indie-rock type musings here on Stereo Sanctity, as my plan for establishing my own cultural schizophrenia is put into full effect! I’ve already put a few posts up on the new blog before announcing it to the world, in order to avoid that ‘first guest at the party’ type feeling, so if you’re remotely interested, then by all means, visit regularly, tell your friends, put up links, etc!

2.

Also, I got given a hand-me-down digital camera over Christmas, and have started taking pictures of stuff for the first time since my old analogue camera died a few years back. And so, years behind everyone else as per usual, I’ve reactivated my Flickr account and started regularly uploading stuff to it.

Of course, there’s no reason why this should be of much interest to people who don’t know me in real life (and frankly it’s of precious little interest to those who do), but the same thing could be said of about 85% of the internet, so hell, I’m not going to let that stop me now. It’s there anyway, so look at it if you like. I’ll be trying to keep a visual record of all the bands I see play, amongst other things.

Normnal service to be resumed here within a day or two hopefully, so stay tuned.

Labels: announcements, self promotion

Putting My Self-Promotion Hat On...

^ Unlike my self-promotion hat, this hat is signed by Stevie Nicks!

So I've got a pretty busy couple of weeks coming up. Largely this busy-ness will consist of merely going to more gigs, or shows, or whatever you want to call musical happenings, than usual, but I'll also actually be DOING a few things, so thought I'd take time out from posting stuff you might actually want to read to inform you of these.

1.

Saturday November 29th: Myself and some other good Plan B foruming folks are going to be playing records at the Mucky Pup pub in Islington, on behalf of The Olde Peculiar. Tunes played will hopefully laugh in the face of puny genre-based remits, but will be united in the fact that they will all be GOOD. And there will be ale and wine and friendliness, perhaps bordering on outright joviality, so, uh, y'know, if you're knocking about in London somewhere, come along and say hello. I'll buy you a drink. The Mucky Pup is on Queen's Head St., N1 8NQ: Map here.

2.

Monday December 1st: The Give It Ups, featuring myself, will be playing at The Windmill in Brixton, opening a bill also featuring the completely awesome Cars Can Be Blue, the also completely awesome Hotpants Romance, and The Keith John Adams, who I can't speak for, but anyone who starts a band by taking his name and putting "the" on front is alright by me. It's a killer line-up: I'd be really excited about going to this one even if I wasn't playing at it, so come along for the other bands if not for our own fuzz-pop tomfoolery. Tickets, further details etc: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/38682

Thanks for your time. Proper posts returning soon.

Labels: announcements, DJ action, hats, self promotion, Stevie Nicks

8 TRACKS

So Muxtape in it's prior form is officially deceased, although the site's founder has some pretty smart and even-handed things to say on the matter, and is planning to relaunch the whole business as something that sounds as if it MIGHT be a functional, non-corporate alternative to band myspaces - so that's something to look forward to.

In the meantime, behold: Stereo Sanctity 8-Track!

You know the score, I'm sure. Only eight songs allowed, but I can embed these on the blog too, like so:



Enjoy!

Labels: 8 Tracks, announcements, mixtapes, Muxtape

HECK.

So, no updates for a month, not even any apologies for not posting. That’s terrible, isn’t it? And I haven’t even been that busy… just moderately busy. Nothing all that dramatic or interesting has happened to stop me rattling on about rock bands anyway.

I recall that back when I started this weblog – best part of five years ago, wow – I was penniless, and living in a remote locale, with no social life, and not receiving a great deal of cultural stimulus – so the idea was that rather than being a hype-chasing New Stuff blog, I’d just post free-form, text only observations on whichever scratched CDs I’d got out of the library that week, or whatever rightfully forgotten bit of weirdness I dug up from the depths of More Music for 99p to try to keep me entertained in between going for long walks and pretending to look for a job. Ah, good times.

Nowadays though of course, I’ve got cultural stimulus coming outta my fucking ears – brilliant albums old and new piling up, waiting to be appreciated (this week the number of albums on my iTunes caught up with the year of my birth - I can’t help it officer, they just download themselves), an endless backlog of Great Books (with capital letters), the qualities of which help enhance my experience of life no end, and I’d love to tell you all about it too, but I mean, what are the chances of the likes of me ever finding the time and inspiration to compose any original thoughts on the work of Joseph Conrad or James Baldwin or whoever? Then I’ve got my own music-making and social type duties - some at least, as opposed to the more conventional none - and, being in London, it’s only exhaustion and grumpiness that stops me from stepping out to go and watch bands three, four, six nights a week. And then there’s the internet. I don’t even seem to find time to watch movies or read comic books these days, let alone write about them.

And that’s good – I’m certainly not complaining – but it can be tough on my work rate for this weblog, especially since I want to make sure every post represents a worthwhile, nay coherent, piece of writing of some kind, rather than lapsing into more functional one paragraph “hey I saw this band last night, they were great, check em out”, “hey I heard this great song – it’s soo good – check it out” type posts, of which I could probably do one a day.

So:

We ain’t dead. For the time being, this is never going to be a regular posting-every-day weblog, and I’ll refrain from trying to outlay grand schemes and trail forthcoming atrtractions, but everything half-decent I find myself writing will be up here straightaway.

2008 has thus far been a record-breaking year for great records that have found their way into my orbit, and I’m damned if I’m not going to get around to telling you about some of them. In fact I’ve got some stuff written and various other posts ready to go over the next few weeks, but don’t sweat it if there’s an occasional gap in posting is all I’m saying, I guess – thanks for making the effort to stick around.

Labels: announcements

Holiday

Dear readers,

I will be leaving tomorrow to spend a week in Barcelona, some of which will be spent watching some rock bands and stuff. So, y'know, best cut me even more slack than usual when awaiting the next update, comical as that may seem given my recent weblogging performance.

Rest assured, I have as ever got tons of stuff I would like to write about, but it's just a case of finding the time. Finishing that review of the Howlin Rain album, writing an emotive overview of the Silver Jews career, plugging some singles and DIY labels, some kind of ramble about the best music to listen to on London nightbuses, thoughts on the utter greatness of Tinariwen, maybe even some 'what I did on my holidays' type stuff.... all, some, or indeed none of that to look forward to upon my return.

Labels: announcements

Ok, let’s get this show back on the road.

I’ve seen some great, great live shows recently, from Neil Young at Hammersmith Apollo (pretty life-defining stuff, from a weekend that’ll go down as a heavy-hitter in my own personal history) to Andre Herm… I mean, er, Stanley Brinks, playing beautiful, melancholy guitar jams alongside Dave Wave Picture and a lady who records under the name Freschard at The Windmill.

Somehow though, I can’t get it together to assemble any chunks of writing decent or genuine enough to really do this stuff justice, so instead of sending some half-arsed descriptive ramble to (virtual) print, I’ll just condemn them to my failing memory and move on.

So when all else fails writing-wise… I think I’m just going to have to tell you about some records I’ve been listening to. And I can’t pretend I’ve been listening to anything terribly new or exciting or revelatory recently; I can’t be fucking bothered to be honest – right now I just want music that WORKS. So for better or worse, that’s what I’m going to tell you about.

To make up for lost time, I’m going to try and do several quick posts over the next week or so, that will, if nothing else, hopefully help introduce some of you to some really good music, assuming you’re not already familiar with it all.

Stay tuned.

Labels: announcements

SORRY...

...for by far the longest posting gap in this weblog's recent history.



I've had a really, really busy/eventful few weeks and haven't had a chance to write anything. And now I suddenly have plenty of time on my hands, but don't feel very inclined to set finger to keyboard.

Maybe just count this as one of my semi-regular "freak out times", and hopefully I'll be back before you know it with something new.

Oh well - onwards and upwards. It's for times like these that the Gods (or alternatively, punk rock, SST etc.) gave us Husker Du.

Take it Grant;

Husker Du - Sorry Somehow

Labels: announcements, apologies, Husker Du, punk rock

I know, I know.... no new posts for well over a week. Apologies.

You'll have to take my word for it that I'm currently toiling over by far the longest record review I've ever written. Coming soon.

Can you guess which album it's about? - suggestions in the comments box please. Any correct answers will be rewarded with a farcicle prize of some description, maybe.

(Hint: it's not "Grasshopper" by J.J. Cale.)

In the meantime...

Rock N' Roll Video Of The Month: February

It's The Shadows of Knight! They're lip-syncing to 'Gloria'! On a boat! Jerry McGeorge is singing into a fire extinguisher! There are dancing sailors! And I don't know WHAT the guitarist is getting up to halfway through...

God bless the internet.

Labels: 1960s, announcements, rock n' roll, The Shadows of Knight, videos

THE WIND HARP: CORRECTIONS AND FURTHER INFORMATION

Some of you may recall my post from November about the Wind Harp album "Songs From The Hill".

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have subsequently been contacted by Thomas Ward McCain, who single-handedly designed and built the harp recorded for the album.

I am somewhat emarrassed about the gross inaccuracies featured in my original post about the album, and can only say in my defense that the misleading information is repeated on both Wikipedia and All Music Guide.

I asked Mr. McCain if he would mind if I reproduced parts of his email on this weblog, by way of both setting the record straight and providing some fascinating new information on what has previously been a pretty mysterious recording, and am grateful to him for providing the following statement.

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


My name is Thomas Ward McCain.

I built the big wind harp in Chelsea, Vermont, age 19/20 and completed it late June, 1971.

United Artists Records made a double album of its music titled "Songs From the Hill"
in 1972. I was not associated in any way with that project.

I am now 57 and live in Japan and have made good headway toward constructing another big wind harp, new design completely, more Oriental, in Nikko, Japan, a mountainous area north of Tokyo.

I recently came across a review of "Songs From the Hill" UA album that included a few errors about who made the harp, and its location. These errors were 100% innocent. The reviewer simply included information from other sources he assumed correct.

I penned him an email correcting the information in a friendly spirit, complimenting his sincere, in-depth review, and fine writing craftsmanship... I added some additional personal remarks about my experience building the "Chelsea Wind Harp" as the villagers of Chelsea, Vermont called the harp. I never wrote anything about this before now.

FIRST: Regarding the erroneous idea that "it was built by a Northern California Hippy commune, on a Mountain out west."

No, I worked totally alone, nearly two years on the wind harp built atop a high hill above the small village of Chelsea, Vermont. The property was owned by a wonderful man and farmer, Mr. Matoon, who gave me permission to built it on his land.

I lived high on the hill, near the harp site in a small cabin, and all the work was mine. I am orignally from the Adirondacks, northern New York State, not California, was never a hippie, nor commune resident.

I built the harp out of inspiration over years to combine my love of stringed instruments, art/sculpture and hiking and the outdoors/nature as well as a dislike for museums as the sad verdict/venue for most art. These factors meshed and manifested as this big wind harp.

I lived alone the entire time, a year and a half, never socialized except to be respectful to the villagers in the valley below, post office personnel, etc. who seemed to let me be, perhaps as I kept short hair, and seemed decent, hardworking and polite, though clearly aloof.

The day I completed it and it was fully strung with various guages of stainless steel wire gifted to me by Boeing Aircraft, my mother organized a small picnic for the villagers to hike up and listen as I released the dampers and let the wind play "music" it for the first time. There was a gentle wind/breeze and the sound was beautiful. The villagers were happy.

I disappeared after that, trying to be anonymous, an attempt to observe an Oriental
art tradition not to claim exclusively human authorship of song, writing, or art work. "Unsigned" allowed it be be authored/inspired by more than human hands.

A year later I entered a remote Asian monastery and meditated and lived there for 27 years, and left there in 2000 when I heard the United Artists Record album for the first time.

To be honest, I agree a bit with the reviewer that the album recording can sound "eerie!"...

So different than the feeling when you are on the hilltop next tothe wind harp with panoramic vistas of surrounding forested hills, vales and mountains. That experience for myself and apparently the thousands who somehow found it, was quite the opposite of scary...but rather lofty, uplifting, the wind playing a man-made harp....

When I complete the Nikko Wind Harp, I will think twice before permitting a recording as I still feel hiking a small mountain and viewing the harp is really part of my wind harp idea, not simply hearing its "sound."

Sincerely,
Thomas McCain
Mejiro, Tokyo, Japan

WEBSITE: wardmccain.com

PS: I did have the album (saved by my family for nearly 30 years) put on CD, which I have myself and made no effort to market it. However, I have sporadically received requests from persons in the last few years who have been unable to find the original double album UA recording and asked for a CD from me. As the harp itself has long since been disassembled and moved from the hilltop in Vermont to other East Coast locations, and rebuilt at least twice but, according to those who heard the Chelsea wind harp, reconstructions paled in comparison.

SO, I thought I would make some extra copies of my CD and make available should someone write me.
nipponforest@aol.com

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

Needless to say, much respect is due to Mr. McCain for both his creative work and his approach to life, and many thanks to him for getting in touch. For those of you interested in the wind harp concept, his website feautures some fascinating photographs and technical details of the Vermont harp.

Labels: announcements, The Wind Harp

MINOR SELF-PROMOTION

Don't worry folks, I won't keep you long, but just wanted to draw your attention to a couple of things.

Firstly, there's a tiny little review of the EOTR festival written by me in the new Plan B. Which you should read anyway cos it's full of interesting stuff.

Secondly, in a last minute fit of madness, it appears my band will be making their debut public appearence this Saturday, opening for the great Milky Wimpshake.

I've never played music or sung songs in front of people in my life before, so wish us luck, we're gonna need it.

See the fourth act on the bill? - that's us that is.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** THE 'SHAKE ARE BACK!! ***

Fortuna POP! & Spiral Scratch present

Saturday, 10th November, Doors 7:30pm
Milky Wimpshake + Horowitz + Electrophonvintage + The Give It Ups
The Windmill, 22 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, SW2 5BZ
Tel: 020 8671 0700
£4 Advance / £5 Door
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/22799

plus Spiral Scratch DJs till late

MILKY WIMPSHAKE
If you like your punk rock thrills laced with fuzzy pop melodies and
intelligent, funny lyrics then Newcastle's Milky Wimpshake are the
band for you. The spiritual godfathers of the North-East scene that
spawned The Futureheads, frontman Pete Dale was formerly überlord of
the now defunct indie label Slampt, responsible for launching a
thousand fanzines and nearly as many bands, Kenickie and The Yummy Fur
included. The 'Shake themselves are most often compared to the
Buzzcocks and The Undertones, with a dash of Billy Bragg's lyrical
gift for combining the personal and the political with a light-handed
wit.
www.microsofa.net/mw

HOROWITZ
Horowitz are a lo-fi indiepop band from Stoke whose interests include
drinking nice cups of tea, eating lots of Haribo, and listening to
twee pop music. Yay! In 2006 they put out a home recorded collection
called 'Frosty Cat Songs' with Kitchen Records (LP) and Glo-fi Records
(CD.) It is important to make pop music in your bedroom. To have fun
and create something you can share. It really is better to eat
twinkies with your friends. DON'T STOP INDIEPOP!
www.myspace.com/horowitzband

ELECTROPHONVINTAGE
Established since 1999, Electrophonvintage play short wooden pop
songs influenced by The Go Betweens, The Hidden Cameras, French 60's
pop songs, Sarah Records and Felt. Two releases so far: I don't want
to stay 7" on Plastic Pancake in 2000 and We sang a yeye song on
Unique Records in 2005. A new album is recorded and waiting to be
mixed. It's called Play harp in your hair: coming soon... Welcome to
Jean-Louis (bass, keyboards), Christos (guitar, keyboards) and Alexis
(drums).
http://www.myspace.com/electrophonvintage
http://electrophonvintage.free.fr/

THE GIVE IT UPS
The Give It Ups are one girl and three boys who play short, noisy pop
songs. They sing about cats and dinosaurs and are in favour of a four-
day working week. Sometimes they think they sound a bit like Beat
Happening. Doesn't everyone?

Labels: announcements

“THAT’S NOT WRITING, THAT'S TYPING”

Hi folks –

Rest assured I’m still doing my utmost to get one decent weblog post up here a week, and if you bear with me a few days, I’m currently working my way through a mammoth round-up of last weekend’s End Of The Road festival, ETA next Monday.

So much stuff I want to write about, so little time; I want to write a bit about Ian Svenonius’ “The Psychic Soviet”, and about Keiron Gillen’s “Phonogram” comic book, I want to finally get around the next couple of entries in my 1998 series, I want to do bits on The Mekons and The Germs, and it’s totally about time I recorded a new radio show…

It’s been bloody frustrating in work the last couple of days; I’ve mainly been on grunt work, stuffing envelopes and such, whilst desperately searching the net for interesting pages with lots of text on them to fend off boredom (being in work, music, videos and other multimedia stuff are off-limits, so it’s words all the way). As my brain is largely free to roam, I’ve been itching to get writing, but have sadly had to utilise both hands doing work.

So to keep you occupied whilst I get my act together, here are a few recent webzine/blog discoveries that have been getting me through the day;

Black To Comm ; A weblog off-shoot from the renowned rock n’ roll fundamentalist fanzine – much smart, free-flowing write on all manner of good random stuff to be found within.

Final Girl ; Now, as you know, I’m mostly into my weirdo ‘60s/’70s horror movies, and have some issues with ‘80s slasher flicks, but regardless, WHAT A GREAT BLOG.

Bleeding Skull ; Again, I have no ethical/artistic justification for a fascination with ultra-trashy video nasty era exploitation obscurities, but when a website like this offers a pathway straight to the belly of the beast, I…just…can’t… help myself…. And they feature a lot of really far-out older movies too, so drink deep weirdos.

Destination: Out ; First stop for anyone seeking an appreciation of free jazz and associated avenues of music and thought; peerless wordage, peerless music.

Jamie’s Runout Groove ; Frequently updated, no-nonsense music blog often featuring some real good stuff. His Neil Young discography strand makes great comfort reading for Neilophiles such as myself.

The Movie Binge ; My sole source of info on popular contemporary cinema, and I feel in good hands. I think they might have finished for this year though…? Oh well.

Stevie Chick ; Definitely one of the longstanding good guys in current music journalism, and he republishes a lot of his stuff on here, so.. good!

And finally, it’s a joy to discover that the inestimable Kid Millions has started blogging again on the Oneida website.

So – I’ll be back with you shortly, and in the meantime… surely you wouldn’t hit a guy who just shared one of the best pop records ever with you…?

The Ronettes – Do I Love You?

I guess Spector almost certainly done it and is going down, but man, 20 seconds into this and I’m hoping they take it easy on him…

Labels: announcements, The Ronettes, weblog round-ups

BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1.

If the anonymous Peter who left a comment on my Chicks post is reading, I've uploaded the two EPs as a .zip file for you: link. And hey, drop me some info about your club night if you like, it sounds good!

(More 1998 girl-band goodies coming up shortly by the way, in case you thought I'd forgotten..)

2.

Anyone who enjoys almost unbearably sweet, female-voiced lo-fi guitar-pop half as much as I do is encouraged to hurry, hurry, hurry over to this post on Jamie's Runout Groove and download some songs by the great, underrated and much missed Mary Lou Lord. Truly wonderful stuff.

I know I've always had a thing for song lyrics stuffed with gratuitous pop culture cross-referencing, but "His Indie World" is just..... too much, man! Perfection, pretty much.

Labels: announcements, Chicks, Mary Lou Lord