Steve Williamson - A Waltz For Grace

I managed to fire up my intermittently-functioning CD player this afternoon and stuck this on.

Amongst the, often rather lightweight, Acid Jazz (Flaccid Jazz?) acts of the late 80s-early 90s, Williamson stood out. I'd seen him play at Dingwalls in 1990 - skip to 23:47 on this clip to see some of that actual performance - and he blew my socks off.

I bought this, his debut - on Verve, no less - as soon as it came out, and was a bit disappointed. Apart from the title track and the Stevie Wonder cover, it didn't grab me in the way that he had live.

Listening to it today, it sounds fucking great. I wish I'd played this more.

Williamson seems destined to be underappreciated. He deserves better.

#NowPlaying #Music #CD #Jazz #Verve #SteveWilliamson #AWaltzForGrace #Dingwalls

Roni Size & Reprazent - New Forms

This came out just four months before our son was born. He had terrible cholic and screamed the house down for at least the first three months of his life. One of the only ways to get him to settle was to play him this. Loud.

As such, it’s an album that comes with such a high emotional load for me, it's now hard to be objective about it.

I haven’t actually sat and listened to it for decades until now. Man, it’s good. So good.
Easily in my top ten albums of all time.

The sticker on the front says it's a Mercury Music Prize nominee - it went on to win it. I can remember the Radio 4 morning news people trying to explain to listeners what Jungle was. One of them described it as the sound of cutlery in a tumble drier. I like that.

For me, this album also marks the transition from Jungle to DrumNBass.

#NowPlaying #Music #CD #RoniSize #Reprezent #NewForms #Jungle #DrumNBass

Ojos de Brujo - Techarí

Probably my favourite band of the early 2000s. Loved 'em.

This was their (difficult) third album. It is a CD/CD-Rom digipack with pages and pages of art and lyrics. In hindsight, they were struggling to live up to the utter brilliance of Barí. There are, however, some really great moments to be had here.

#Music #NowPlaying #OjosdeBrujo #CD #Techarí

Chumbawamba - Anarchy

My favourite Chumbas album. It barely seems real to think that Enough Is Enough (a song about killing fash) used to get played on daytime Radio 1.

Oh, and fuck you, Ed Sheeran.

#NowPlaying #Chumbawamba #Anarchy #EnoughIsEnough #CD #AnarchoPunkPop #EdSheeran

Weather Report - I Sing The Body Electric

I opened up the lid of my CD player this week and gave the laser a little clean with some rubbing alcohol on a cotton bud. (You wouldn't believe the shite that gets inside a CD player over 30-odd years. It's pretty amazing.) It plays again now. So it's back to the CDs.

It was my birthday in 2009, if I remember correctly. We'd recently moved into this house, a short walk from Mr V's record shop (still mainly CDs in those days), and I thought I'd treat myself (22 fucking dollars!!). I vividly remember playing this in my car on the drive to work and thinking,"Ooh, this is going to take some getting into."

This is (largely) Zawinul and Shorter going boonta. If that's your thing, then this is for you.

My nearly 3 year old granddaughter said it was "Noise".

#Music #CD #NowPlaying #WeatherReport #Jazz #JazzFusion

Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow

I recently watched clipping.’s Tiny Desk Concert. Excellent stuff.

Reminded me of this album.

Chemical Calisthenics really is something.

Across the whole album, though, it's not just the complexity of the delivery that stuns me, but the quality of the lyrics.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#Blackalicious
#BlazingArrow
#clipping.
#TinyDeskConcert
#Music

Stephan Bodzin - Liebe Ist

I have no recollection of how I came to be buying this album in 2007, or where I’d heard it. My best guess is Radio 3’s Late Junction, where I heard a lot of new music around that time.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#StephanBodzin
#LiebeIst
#Techno
#Music

Weather Report - Black Market

This was the album that cast the die for jazz fusion. If this was released today, it would still sound modern.

Jaco Pastorius joins the band...oof!

Portishead!

I picked this CD up in an op shop in Berri. I will often have a cursory glance over the CDs in chazzas but rarely find anything I want.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#WeatherReport
#BlackMarket
#JazzFusion
#Music

Various Artists - Swingbillies CD Box Set

I’d been meaning to dig this out of the shed for a spin since reading the early chapters of Andrew Hickey’s A History Of Rock Music In 500 Songs (great book, by the way – and one of the best podcasts!)

The music here is so full of energy and excitement; both raw and containing excellent musicianship. Many of the musical and lyrical tropes used in rock music since were established in western swing. It’s a shame that it is a genre that has been largely forgotten as it was subsumed into the greater Country monolith.

This four CD set was released in Germany in 2005, and I picked it up on eBay a couple of years later, if I remember correctly. It has extensive sleeve notes in both German and English.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#VariousArtists
#Swingbillies
#WesternSwing
#BoxSet
#AndrewHickey
#500SongsPodcast
#Music

Donald Fagen - The Nightfly

Bear in mind, I heard this long before I’d ever been more than peripherally aware of Steely Dan – I didn’t start investigating them until a bloke I worked with put Peg on a tape for me and I recognised it from De La Soul’s sample.

It’s an odd record this: a concept album based in a 1950s American world of late-night radio and nuclear threat, played out in very highly-produced eighties jazz-rock-pop.

Listening to this is like putting on my house slippers for me. If someone had filled them with warm treacle. I’ve noticed over the years, however, that for many other people it’s like nails down a blackboard.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#DonaldFagen
#TheNightfly
#JazzRock
#Music

George Jones - The Essential George Jones. The Spirit Of Country

Over the weekend I listened to one of the George Jones episodes of Tyler Mahan Coe’s excellent country music podcast, Cocaine & Rhinestones.

Whilst Jones' reputation for liking a drink is well known, I hadn’t really realised how much his alcohol use pervaded his life and work.

It made me go down the shed and dig through the boxes of CDs to find this.

Fuck, George Jones’ voice was something else.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#GeorgeJones
#TheEssentialGeorgeJones
#CocaineandRhinestonesPodcast
#Country
#Music

Los De Abajo - LDA V The Lunatics

It's 2005, in the early hours of the morning, I'm fast asleep, The World Service is playing on the radio next to the bed. Charlie Gillett's world music show is on. Gillett plays Los Lunáticos (El Manicomio Está En Manos De Los Locos) and it cuts right though my sleep and wakes me up. Boom! What a tune. I bought this CD the next day, unfortunately, I reckon, from Am***n, which didn't seem so evil in those days (honest.)

The track in question is a cover of The Fun Boy Three's The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum) and features Specials and FB3 member Neville Staple. It's done in a very Cumbia-Ska crossover style and is very, very good. Unfortunately, on the sleeve, they mis-spell Neville's name, adding an 's' to make his name the verb, 'Staples'.

The rest of the album is a Mexican melting pot of cumbia, reggaeton, mariachi, ska, punk, reggae, and other Latin American genres which are well beyond my naming abilities.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#LosDeAbajo
#NevilleStaple
#FunBoyThree

The Dead Maggies - Well Hanged

In 2015, we took ourselves off to Hobart for a few days.

Some friends took us to The Brisbane Hotel where The Dead Maggies happened to be playing. They were great. Proper folk-punk, with a suitably raucous live act, songs with lots of Tasmanian references.

I picked up this CD, which had just been released.

It looks like their website has not been updated since COVID. It’s a shame because I always feel that folk-punk bands should just go on forever.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#TheDeadMaggies
#WellHanged
#FolkPunk

Subhumans - From The Cradle To The Grave

Turns out I have this on both CD and vinyl.

When I read the recent book on Subhumans, I was delighted to find out they had been massive Rush fans. Once you know that, you can't not hear the influence. Musically, rather than lyrically - no Ayn Rand tributes here, thankfully.

This is a great album. The title track is one of my favourite 17 minute-long pieces of music.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#Subhumans
#FromTheCradleToTheGrave
#Punk
#Rush

Bjork - Debut

A CD I must've listened to a thousand times. When we were young it was always there when we were chilling out after a night of pills or whatever. Also nice to listen to if you were feeling a bit erm, stressed.

The jewel case of this CD is the shabbiest I've ever seen, showing evidence of use for purposes other than storage.

This is such a massive 10 of an album. Every note, word, beat is absolutely perfect. The bit recorded in the bogs of The Milk Bar is so good - so evocative and so clever.

After I had ripped all my CDs to WAV files, I mostly stopped listening to albums as complete works. This is one of those albums that , much as I like the individual songs, is even better listened to as a whole.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#Bjork
#Debut

Tom Waits - Small Change

This is my first post on my new/old lappy with Linux Mint. Very nice it is too.

My mate Dave (RIP) was wise. Amongst other things he was the first to spot that Morrissey was becoming a wrong-un and would have this discussion with Smiths loyalists over the football, and there were a lot of them in the mid-80's over the Orient. He also liked Tom Waits and would tell me I was underestimating his music by dismissing it. Interestingly, the song that had put me off him was off this album ( [i]The Piano Has Been Drinking[ (Not Me)/i]. They used to show a video of it on the telly a lot, and it just got on my tits.

Waits had popped up in a little cameo on a Richie Cole album I'd bought, and I really liked that, and I suppose my taste for him grew from there. i must say though, I think I got into his later, noisier stuff before I got into this earlier, sing-y stuff.

I like it now, though. I haven't played this for years. It's really good.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#TomWaits
#SmallChange

John Shuttleworth - The Yamaha Years

I had How To Be Happy In A Sad Sad World as an earworm this week. I went down the shed to pull out a random selection of CDs and there was this album.

I've been trying to install Linux Mint on an old lappy, which is a task that has its frustrations, but I've found myself singing along with Shuttleworth whilst I do it, rather than throwing the fucking thing in the bin and going off to JB HiFi to buy a new one.

Graham Fellows is a comedy genius and John Shuttleworth is just such a believable, likeable and funny character.

We saw 'John Shuttleworth's Guide To Stardom' show in, I reckon 1992, at the MAC in Brum and he told Charlotte that she could be a bubbly barmaid in Emmerdale. That's a claim to fame if ever I heard one.

His films are now on YouTube and well worth watching.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#JohnShuttleworth
#TheYamahaYears
#LinuxMint
#MidlandsArtsCentre
#Birmingham
#GrahamFellows

Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklight

One of my favourite bands of the 00's. Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett were on creative fire for a few years and they never really got the appreciation they deserved, I don't think, probably because they drifted between genres a bit, and people like to like what they like, you know?

This album was their swansong, released just before the split. I remember HATING The Moneymaker at the time, but it doesn't sound so bad now.

We saw them live in Birmingham when they were promoting this album, and they were really good.

I see they've recently reunited and are touring again.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#RiloKiley
#UnderTheBlacklight

Eastfield Derailed - Songs From The Scrapyard

I love Eastfield.

Every time I see one of South Australia's big trains, I think, "Ooh, Jessi'd like that."

This was their slightly more acoustic side-project, CD. Although it's really not very acoustic at all.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#EastfieldDerailed

Culture Shock - Go Wild + All The Time

In between Subhumans and Citizen Fish was Culture Shock.

Two mid-eighties UK ska-punk classics on one CD - some of Dick Lucas' best lyrical work. I know every word and note of Go Wild; All The Time less-so.

I listened to this whilst eating a Linda McCartney sausage sandwich this morning. Which is a bit of synchronicity for ya.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#CultureShock
#GoWild
#AllTheTime

Goldfrapp -Supernature

It's amazing how often Ooh La La pops up as incidental music on television programmes or adverts or whatever. It must've generated a fair few quid for them over the years. I think that speaks to the fact that this album still sounds pretty un-ravaged by time. Or has its sound just come back into fashion? Or was it super way ahead of its time? I dunno.

There's tunes on here that I'd forgotten that I really love, like Fly Me Away for example.

#NowPlaying
#CD
#Goldfrapp
#Supernature