No, it is, of course, grown up work and responsibilities which have kept me away. I would dearly have loved to have been able to spend 2021 casually ruminating in (virtual) print on the oddities and virtues of the many, many dusty old LPs I have acquired, and spinning off ill-thought-out treatises from the assorted books on music and pop culture I’ve read whilst sitting on the bog. But guess what? I’m a grown up now, so I don’t have time. Moving thoughts from my head onto an MS Word doc is permanently next thing on the list; the thing which is never reached.

Charlie Watts was so clearly, so obviously, the best Rolling Stone that anyone who has failed to recognise the fact by this point should give up and go home. The least arseholish of their number by a country mile, the near sixty years he spent excelling at a repetitious task for which he never even pretended to show any enthusiasm stands as a shining inspiration to all of us lower echelon wage slaves.

Seriously though - he was great. All of the golden era Stones stuff walks a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous, and nine times out of ten, I believe, it was Charlie’s measured/dispassionate presence which stopped the others from tumbling headfirst into the abyss of wankerdom. God bless him, and I hope that one day his drawings of hotel beds will be exhibited, assuming they haven’t been already.

And, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Fuck, man. “What a character” scarcely does that old boy justice. His entire life and work is just… off the scale. We’d need to call in the profs and invent a new scale to even get a glimpse of it. 

So many garbled anecdotes could be related pertaining to his nigh-on supernatural shamanic weirdness, but at the end of the day, it’s the records that count, and, though my interest in dub/reggae has never progressed much beyond the dabbler/dilettante stage (given the number of second hand discs in the genre clogging up this corner of the world, I’d need to invest in a reinforced floor should I begin to cultivate a taste for them), at least a few Perry productions remain close to my heart. His perfectly harmonised moo-cows on The Congos’ Children Crying; the disorientating left channel cut-offs on the harrowing, low-down funkery of Woman’s Dub; the fuzzy esoteric pronouncements of Baffling Smoke Signal, which used to fascinate and perplex me when I recorded it off Peel as a youngster; scattered talismans of high level genius. RIP my good man - even this clueless, herb-decrying winehead salutes you.  

Wolfen; Mountain Movers; Heavy Sentence; Brandee Younger (major label alert!); Dope Purple; Potion; The Paradox; Bobby Lee; Smote; Emma-Jean Thackray; this Wicked Lady cover by the otherwise fairly absurd Salem’s Pot; Haig Fras; The Heartwood Institute; Obey Cobra; Ruby Rushton; Birds of Maya; Mienakunaru; Yerba Mansa Trio.

You’re welcome.

Labels: apologies, deathblog, I like, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, The Rolling Stones

…to be honest, I had a bit of rethink / change of heart on the records I was going to place at # 1, and I don’t currently have the time to unpack my feeling about them in any meaningful fashion – so basically, I’m not going to bother.

I won’t retrospectively edit the preceding posts or anything, but perhaps let’s just consider all the numbers shifted up one – cos let’s face it, nothing deserves to beat that Nigerian rock comp.

Meanwhile, I’m about to start work on my usual “best new records” list, and there is lots and lots of fantastic stuff that I need to cover on it, almost all of which I have neglected to write any words about at an earlier point in the year. I’ve got to fit it all somehow betwixt freelance work deadlines and family/social engagements however, so please expect things to drag on way into January at best. Last time I checked, records by contemporary musical units don’t turn into pumpkins at midnight on New Year’s Eve, so hopefully it won’t be too late for me to try to sell you on some good stuff you may have overlooked.

(Boy, I’ll bet you don’t get this kind of crap on Pitchfork, do you – come what may, I’ll always have my amateurism!)

Prior to all that however, I should note that this Saturday will find me standing behind a table at this record fair hosted by my favourite new London record shop in my favourite new music-focused London community space.



I’ll be manning my wife’s stall, and also flogging some choice mix CDs and VHS movies on a “name yr price” basis for the benefit of charity (a fairly marginal benefit, I’ll be the first to admit, but what the hell – it’s something). If you still read these benighted pages and find yourself in the neighbourhood, pop in and say ‘hi’. It’ll be lovely.

Labels: apologies, blather, lameness, plugs, self promotion

Apologies/Updates/Blah…

Agh, wouldn’t you know it. Just when I finally got some time to work out some new blogposts, blogger went down for 24 hours. Anyway, that’s no excuse, I haven’t posted for bloody weeks.

Needless to say: life since Easter has been pretty manic. Some of that has been good (hanging out with The Sock Puppets at Trev’s Oddbox weekender, seeing great sets from One Fathom Down and The Wendy Darlings and Horowtiz and discovering The Choo Choo Trains, who are a lot better than their name suggests, and playing records and dancing ‘til the venue politely asked us to get going – that was all brilliant), and some less good (job is bugging me, accommodation situation after next few months is still pretty uncertain), but, uh, yeah – net result is no action here. I had some posts queued up for my other blog, but no such luck with the music stuff I’m afraid.

This is particularly annoying, because one of my priorities over Easter was to try to find time to write about some of the many, many fine albums I’ve heard this year that deserve to be written about, some of which their makers were even nice enough to send me copies of after I expressed an interest. No time; didn’t happen. Urgh.

So anyway, that leads us to a couple of announcements:

1. The flyer above should be pretty self-explanatory. COME ONE, COME ALL. It’s the aforementioned Trev, and Carys from The Give It Ups and myself, and we’ll all be playing some fucking brilliant shit, if I do say so myself. No requests, unless a)I like it anyway and b)it’s good for dancing. (Pet peeve: you wouldn’t believe the number of tunes people usually play at indie-discos that have NO BEAT, just so that fans of the band in question can cheer cos they recognise it and then sorta shuffle round dolefully for four minutes trying to find the rhythm section – none of that in my set thanks, although maybe the others will be more flexible…). Er.. well anyway, half-finished website with a probably incomplete round-up of what he played last Sunday can be found here. The venue has a high ceiling, so pogoing is mandatory. As much Ramones and derivations thereof as is necessary will be deployed in aid of this.

2. ALBUM CATCH-UP: As mentioned above, I’m really gonna blitz it this weekend to try to pay tribute in words to some of the LP-length things that have been pleasing me of recent. Watch this space.

Labels: apologies, lameness, self promotion

Hip Pocket Records.



Sorry for all that uncharacteristic ranting and dreary tech picture earlier on - here's a slightly more fun post by way of apology.

Wonder why this never caught on - I mean, who DOESN'T want their music portable, low-priced and groovy?

50 million kids. Imagine that.

Labels: apologies, goofery

An Apology to Spin Spin The Dogs.

Spin Spin The Dogs are a great band; I saw them on numerous occasions during the years I spent in the midlands, and they were always a hoot – chaotic, engaging, unique and good fun.

I’m not usually much of a fan of bands whose singers like to harangue the audience and get in peoples faces etc, but the Spin Spin The Dogs singer guy goes about it in such an imaginative, good natured and deeply strange manner, it’s impossible not to get drawn in and find yourself enjoying his antics and outbursts, especially as accompanied by the band’s excellent Beefheart/Homosexuals squall. Think of them as a benevolent, non-threatening Birthday Party, or something, maybe.

I’ve always thought that they’ve probably stayed off most folks radars simply because the improvisational crowd/response aspect of what they do is pretty difficult to capture on record. But, after a long period of not doing much, they’ve got a new album out soon, and this little video expresses their totality quite well I feel:



Meanwhile, The New Cross Inn just up the road from my current residence is… (what’s a good way of putting it without inviting angry correspondence?)… not the sort of venue that often hosts musical bills congenial to my own tastes.

On Monday last week though, I was delighted to note that Spin Spin The Dogs were playing there, supporting Lovvers.

Naturally on just about any other night of the year I’d have been there, welcoming back a fondly remembered band of yore who’ve been considerate enough to play within a ten minute walk of my house. But I had tickets for Nodzzz that night, and was really, really looking forward to seeing them. I also had a dinner invite from some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, so I popped along there for a while too. It was a very busy evening.

So I’m really sorry Spin Spin The Dogs – I hope it was a great night, and I hope to get the chance to see you again some time.

(Nodzzz were terrific, by the way – everything I’d hoped they would be; I just wish I could go and see them play every week, or just hang out in their garage and be their friends or something. A great band on every level. Wet Dog played a blinder as support too – I enjoyed them way more than the last time I saw them, for some reason, and Teen Sheiks were good fun too, and, oh man, time to cease this vague, reckless positivity and go write a proper blogpost about something!)

Labels: apologies, gig reviews, Nodzzz, Spin Spin The Dogs

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