An album with some (still) superb tracks, a lot of skits and some little odds and sods. It's often very clever.
Before we met, I bought this on CD and my wife bought it on vinyl when it came out in 1989. This was her vinyl version. It's a terrible pressing, which has been through the wars a bit.
Johnny Cash plying his stock-in-trade in front a room full of delighted inmates. What's not to love?
This was recorded by Granada Television (Manchester's regional television company), and it's at this event where the ubiquitous Cash image of him giving the middle-finger was taken.
I picked this up for 50p in Redditch in the West Midlands in the mid-00s. Worth ten bob of anyone's money.
For some reason I can still remember that I was wearing Nike Legend trainers when I was walking out of the record shop in North Street, Romford, in 1983, aged 17, having just bought this LP. I might also have been wearing grey Farahs and an Ivan Lendl shirt, but I couldn't swear to that. Why I remember my footwear on that day is unclear; maybe they were new.
WAR had stripped down to a five-piece for this album, which - obviously - gives them a bit of a more sparse sound. Like most of their albums it has a couple of real bangers and a bit of filler (but...wall filler rather than...I dunno...land filler.) It's always Lee Oskar's harmonica playing that does it for me, and there's plenty on this album.
The very cowgum and scissors sleeve was done by Lou Beech, who has, it turns out, done heaps of album covers that I know. Check out his list of album art here: loubeach.com/album-art/
I remember being 15 and thinking how fucking cool Martin Fry was singing Tears Are Not Enough on the telly in his sparkly jacket.
ABC made a white pop version of the brit-funk of Beggar & Co, Hi-Tension and Light Of The World, which was popular at the time, and did a decent job.
Would never have bought it at the time, though. According to the sticker on the label I paid a very reasonable 99 pence for this from an Oxfam chazza, long after the jacket-sequins had dropped off and passed through the Hoover bag of time to the municipal tip of pop history.
Trevor Horn engineered this album, so it's right at the cutting edge of technology for the day. The only time it gets a bit dreary is when it's at its most Trevor Horn-y.
This album shows that when TM&TP were good, they were very good. Two of these songs would be in my top 100 songs, I reckon. California Dreamin' and Dream A Little Dream Of Me, in case you were wondering.
This LP comes from radio station library stock and has the taped seams and stickers and writing which is part of that. Can't find any information online about either Radio O.S.R. or Bill Flanagan, though.
Fun fact: California Dreamin' was recorded on the day I was born.
One Leg One Eye - .... And Take The Black Worm With Me
Front view of LP sleeve of One Leg One Eye's ....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.
LP sleeve of Aja by Steely Dan, propped up behind a turntable playing the album.
Despite me and my mate Tim having a shared (was it just us?) obsession with Donald Fagen's solo album, New Frontier in the early 80's I was only ever marginally aware of Steely Dan until a mate at work in 89/90 put Peg (and a few other bits) on a compilation tape for me, and I realised that it was the sample from Eye Know from De La Soul's 3 Feet High And Rising which I had been rinsing.
I spent a couple of days in bed with a bit of a virus this week, and spent a febrile night playing this album in my head, convinced that I had to write a meaningful critique of it. Next day I re-watched the 'making of' docco on YouTube. Fucking hell, it's good. You don't come out of it thinking Becker or Fagen are particularly blessed in the people-skills department, but, oh my, the craft!
This is the perfect album. Special mentions, though, go out to Michael McDonald's BVs on Peg and Wayne Shorter's solo on Aja.
Tinselwig
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