LW5 - Ripe For The Picking 12"
In April 1985, according to Raysgigs.com, I saw these at the Hammersmith Odeon supporting Maze. I remember really liking them. (Maze, on the other hand, I remember
finding a bit underwhelming.)
I always felt LW5 should have achieved more, really.
This is a nice slab of Brit-boogie, in the same ballpark as Loose Ends.
#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#Britfunk
#LW5
#RipeForThePicking
#HammersmithOdeon
#Maze
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Inner Life - Moment Of My Life Extended Version 12"
Another Salsoul banger. I think I first heard this on the [https://www.discogs.com/release/112290-Various-Street-Sounds-Edition-1/url]]1982 Street Sounds 1 album.
Jocelyn Brown on lead vocals.
Sneaky Gospel.
#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#Salsoul
#InnerLife
#JocelynBrown
#ShepPettibone
#Boogie
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Instant Funk - I Got My Mind Made Up 12"
Back in 1983 or thereabouts, I used to hang around with a bloke who would occasionally DJ parties and the like. I borrowed all his records and taped them on my parents’ new Akai stack system. This tune was one of the tunes I taped. Salsoul was such a good label, both in the quality of the tunes they released and in the design of the actual label.
This was remixed by Larry Levan, I believe. I put this on for my granddaughter to have a bit of a dance to. I'm sure Larry would have been happy with that.
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Sparks - No. 1 In Heaven
Sparks produced by Georgio Moroder at his absolute peak, leading to some of their most popular tunes and bringing them out of their late-70s slump.
Interesting (but not surprising) to see it was pretty much slagged in the music press at the time. They clearly just didn't get it.
Also, it seems that Joy Division took inspiration from No. 1 Song In Heaven for Love Will Tear Us Apart. Now there's a turn up.
A brilliant album.
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Pieces of a Dream - Pieces of a Dream
PoaD’s debut album, from 1981, is produced by Grover Washington Jr, and sounds it. Bearing in mind that some of his own output was challengingly smoooth and honestly pretty awful, they got off lightly, because this is a decent album.
Of course, the whole show is stolen by the Dexter Wansel co-produced (and synthesizer-playing) Warm Weather, the album’s big hit, which instantly transports me back to the Robbie Vincent show on Saturday lunchtimes on Radio London.
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Sparks - Kimono My House
I can still clearly recall the impact of seeing Sparks on Top Of The Pops for the first time in 1974, performing the lead single from this album, This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us, Ron’s Hitler moustache creating quite the stir, even in a pop world occupied by the frocked-up Bowie and Robbie from Mud, and Steve Priest from The Sweet dressed like a big gay fash on the Christmas Day TOTP episode.
This is the album in which Sparks set out their stall with the wares they will hawk, albeit in variations, until today. Wares that will be blatantly shoplifted by some of their contemporaries (looking at you, Queen.)
The front of the sleeve has to be one of the best album covers ever.
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Dead - House Of Lightning (Brave Aurora)/House Of Lightning - Fear Merchant
This split 7" was chucked in with my two Dead albums.
It's part 8 of a series of split 7" singles with Dead and other bands.
It's a bit on the rock-side of things for me, on first listen.
I'll give it another couple of goes before it goes on the shelf.
#Dead
#[url=https://friendica.world/search?tag=Vinyl]Vinyl
#NowPlaying
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Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
In Australia, it's election day. Because of my work, I don't have my name and address on the register of electors. I am what is known as a 'silent voter'. Whenever I attend a polling station, this always freaks them the fuck out, and they send me off into the darkest corner of the building, while they run around shouting, "Trevor, we've got a silent voter over here! Trevor...has anyone seen Trevor? We've got a SILENT VOTER....This chap, over here."
Oh, it makes me smile.
This was the last of yesterday's purchases. I'd not heard it before.
This was Davis' first 'electric' album. The supporting cast (Hancock, Corea, Shorter, Holland, Zawinul, McLaughlin and Williams) would lead you to expect a more raucous affair, but it's a superbly chilled album, although it contains all the fusion-y goodness you'd expect. I suppose it pre-dates jazz-fusion raucousness, as Weather Report didn't get together until the year after this was released.
On white vinyl, if that's your thing.
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Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
The third of yesterday's purchases. A record I know well from my digital copy, but that I haven't heard for ages, because I rarely listen to digital music files any more.
Just an amazing piece of music. Recorded in 1963. Nineteen. Sixty. Three!
Also, the photo on the cover is just wonderful.
#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#CharlesMingus
#TheBlackSaintAndTheSinnerLady
#Jazz
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Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal
I had the opportunity to go to two record shops today. I spent more than I should.
One of the things I hated when I was young was old cunts dismissing modern music as derivative and not as good as the old days, or whatever. I'd always promised myself that i would never do it. The problem is, you then get old yourself and all the young people's music starts to sound shit and derivative and not as good as the old days. Every now and then, though, something comes along which makes you wish you were able to hear it with the fresh ears of your sallow youth. This is one such thing.
Doechii's performance on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts is extraordinary and I've wanted this since seeing it, but was waiting for the re-press, due to the expensive cost of the original pressings.
I think this will be one of the defining recordings of the current epoch. It's really good. Doechii is quite something. But you probably knew that.
To be completely honest though, I prefer the NPR Tiny Desk Concert versions.
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Boney M - Night Flight To Venus
The same mixtapes that got me into Cardiacs also contained Night Flight To Venus/Rasputin nestled alongside The Fall, Zappa, Beefheart. It worked. Even though I was obviously very familiar with Rasputin, it made me hear it differently and enjoy it, rather than dismissing it as pop shite.
I was just thinking about those tapes today. I wish I still had them. The covers were hand drawn works of art, and the person who did them is now quite a collectible artist.
It meant I picked this up in a chazza for ten bob when I saw it.
Hard to fault the production on this, even though most of the album's not up my straße.
The gate-fold sleeve is a joy to behold.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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David Bowie - Space Oddity
I can recall seeing the video for Space Oddity on the TV as a child (four, I reckon) and being so viscerally affected by the plight of old mate Major Tom that I can still feel it in my gut today when I hear the title song from this album.
I bought this album early in my record buying career. I was 13, I reckon. It was the first or second proper record I’d bought (from Downtown Records, Romford).
You will never get to know a record so intimately as one you have owned through your teenage years and it still has all the feels for me, even though an objective listen shows it as really mostly a pretty unremarkable pop-rock-folk album.
Bowie looks so fucking cool on the sleeve (and on the enclosed poster, which was on my bedroom wall for years).
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eX-Girl - Endangered Species
J-Pronk? Is that a thing? (My online search leads me to a Dutch politician, so no.)
Elements of Zappa, Cardiacs, Melt Banana, Mr Bungle...on Alternative Tentacles.
It's fucking great.
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The Ex - If Your Mirror Breaks
It's been quite a wait for the new Ex album. It arrived in the post whilst I've been laid low with a(nother!) shitty virus, so I wasn't feeling 100% when it got its first listen.
I'm glad to say it sounds very much like The Ex. I like their unique sound and perspective very much and look forward to giving this more of a listen when I'm more in the mood.
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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.
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Shannon - Let The Music Play
Last night we watched the Milli Vanilli biopic. It wasn't too bad to be honest.
The Milli Vanillis were at a party and this was playing. Honestly, what a fucking tune.
For years I made do with the dub mix on a Street Sounds Electro album, but bought this Australasian issue of the 12" a few years ago, with its nasty sleeve artwork.
I've come to appreciate 'Freestyle' synth-dance more as I've got older than I remember doing at the time, being a bit more of a soul-boy then. Shannon's vocal walks the line between futuristic robot and disco diva perfectly.
#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#Shannon
#LetTheMusicPlay
#Freestyle
#MilliVanilli
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Frank Zappa - Broadway The Hard Way
I took a bit of a lucky dip into the record shelves and this came out. I think someone left this behind in a room in our house when they fucked off owing rent and leaving us with all their junk and a dog with a septic paw.
This album is made up of live recordings from the 1988 tour. A lot of the references and the humour have dated a bit.
There's some of Zappa's work that I really like. There's a lot that leaves me cold and makes me think I should like it more. I think it's the more theatrical-sounding stuff that I like the least, and that's what this album is, basically.
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Sean Khan presents The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble - Volume 1
I received this LP for my birthday last year from a mate who knows I like jazz and knows I like folk.
There's nothing wrong with this album. It just leaves me a little cold and I find it hard to articulate why. I mean, what's not to like? Lovely songs given a jazz glow-up.
Perhaps it all sounds a bit JazzFM? I like it most when Khan stretches out the most (like in the soprano sax solo of Who Knows Where The Time Goes.) Perhaps it's aimed at people who don't dig so deeply into the folk ditch? I dunno.
The fact it's called Volume 1 leads you to think there's going to be a Volume 2. What'll be on there, I wonder? Moondance? Come On Eileen? I've Got A Brand New Combine Harvester?
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Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
"Alright lads, I've got a new song."
"Great! What's the chords?"
"All of them...all the chords. Don't worry too much about learning them though."
"Oh, I've been meaning to ask, who's that bloke with the drum kit over there?
"Ah, don't worry yourself about him."
*
Another of yesterday's purchases.
Recorded in the middle of Becker and Fagen's hostile takeover of the band, just before they gave the rest of the band the elbow, it's a primarily soft-rock affair, but still with all the chords.
Rikki Don't Lose That Number is a genius piece of soft-rock-pop, which robs the intro riff from Horace Siliver's Song For My Father, and has a slightly gaslight-y lyric. I love it. If I was a jazz musician, I'd cover the fuck out of it.
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McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy
One of the things I like most about John Coltrane's music is McCoy Tyner's piano playing (Have a listen to My Favourite Things, as an example): he's got such a taught but unfettered style.
This album was his first after leaving the Coltrane fold, and his Blue Note debut. Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones and (of course) Ron Carter keep him company and match his intensity. This must've sounded fucking wild in 1967.
Alfred Lion, the bloke who started and ran Blue Note, said the album made "...absolutely no concession to commercialism..." - which initially seems like a complement, but - from the label boss - might have been the opposite.
I'd recently promised myself I was going to pick up a few more of those superb quality Blue Note reissues and this is one of them.
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Steely Dan - Countdown To Ecstasy
One of my favourite podcasts is We Buy Records. Each episode, some bloke comes on and reviews loads of new releases, including an in-depth critique of pressing quality etc. For a couple of years, I've listened to him go on about GZ pressings and how good they are. I bought this LP today, it's a GZ pressing, and bloody hell, it's good quality.
I've been on a bit of a Steely Dan tip lately, so had decided to fill a couple of holes in my collection. I'd had Bodhisattva (a spelling challenge) on a compilation tape years ago and liked it.
The jazzy influence is emerging on this album, even though it's still got its feet firmly in the rock-pop ballpark.
This album came out long before ecstasy the drug was widely available, and - in hindsight - the title would make you think it was a compilation of early rave classics.
Also, ecstasy is the hardest word in the world to spell. I get it wrong every time.
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One Leg One Eye - .... And Take The Black Worm With Me
This is Ian Lynch from Lankum's 2022 side-project, where he combines lo-fi drone (and being a piper, he gets drone better than most, I think) with more trad-folk elements. You'll either love the sound of that or you won't.
Full disclosure, I own the vinyl version of this, but I'm playing it on headphones from the Bandcamp app. Partly, this is because the telly's on, the washing machine's on and I'm cooking the tea. Partly, this is because it works well on headphones. Mainly, this is because the LP is pressed with recycled vinyl chips, all very eco-friendly of course, but absolute cat shit as far as pressing quality goes. If you've ever bought Jamaican pressings, it's a bit like that.
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