Dirty Beaches - Badlands

Dirty Beaches is the guise that that Taiwanese born Zhang Hungtai goes under. Earlier on this year the official debut album Badlands was released on Zoo Records. I’ve recently came across it and its been on heavy rotation. Its minimalist and lo-fi and dare I say that there is even a Goth feel to it.
This song Sweet 17 is what first grabbed my attention, it sounds like Nick Cave collaborating with Suicide that’s been recorded on Guided By Voices 4-track.



Follow link to download: Dirty Beaches - Sweet 17

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Cracking Up

The Jesus & Mary Chain just might well be one of my favourite bands (as in somewhere in the top twenty) without me ever noticing that they are. I won’t listen to them for months and months and then I can here one song and will have to dig through every album they made.
For me they didn’t do much wrong, whether it be the squawking feedback of Psychocandy, which still sounds as abrasive all these years later, or the clean sounding Stoned & Dethroned.
This time I’ve been giving some more attention to their final album Munki. Its not their but still has some cracking songs on it. Like Cracking up which was one of the best singles of 1998.



Click on link to download: The Jesus & Mary Chain - Cracking Up

Spoon - Crap Name Great Band

To name your band after a piece of cutlery is not the best idea. Has it got drug connotations what with cooking up on a spoon? No idea. But anyway, crap name but a great band.
I first become aware of the band some time around the beginning of the last decade when I heard bought the album Kill The Moonlight after hearing a song of theirs on some compilation CD. And nowadays I seem to take them for granted as they’re so consistently good.
No matter how many instruments are in the mix there’s always so much room in their songs, and a groove too. Like on this song from the album Gimme Fiction called I Turn My Camera On.

Click on here to download: Spoon - I Turn My Camera On.

Some Ways To Tell That A Band Is Crap Before Hearing A Note

What’s the music equivalent of the saying don’t judge a book by its cover? I guess it’s the same as its not exclusively meant for books. Stupid me.
Anyway, when I’ve been out at live music venues around London (the type of places where the bands have to get as many mates down as possible so they will be allowed to play at the venue again, and maybe make twenty quid between them) I’ve often made up my mind that the band is crap before they even play a note. And almost always they are.
You can also see a picture of a band or read an interview with them and make a judgement, for instance I new that The Darkness were a big pile of dog shit just by looking at a picture of the singer in a cat suit. And guess what, they were. Though for a while there were people who new this but still bought their records.
So here’s some ways to tell if a band is crap before even hearing a note:

The bass player straps on his bass just below his neck
Usually in funk rock, the bassist will throw in a bit of slap to show what an accomplished musician he is and will usually move his head back and fourth like a pigeon.

The Drummer has a gong
This is more likely to be seen in a prog rock documentary on BBC 4 than at the Hope & Anchor on a Tuesday night but the band in that documentary won’t be too good.

The keyboard player wears a cape
Same sort of band as the drummer with the gong.

The guitarist has an ugly pointy guitar
These guitars sometimes have a pointless handle built into the body. They were popular with hair metal bands in the mid 80s. If you see a guitar player strapping one on then he will no doubt play fiddle solos that don’t impress anyone but himself.

When asked in an interview what their new album is like they say “Its got something for everyone.”
It hasn’t, they are just widening their net and catching nothing.

Noel Gallagher says that they are his new favourite band

Don’t listen to him.

Tom Waits - Blood Money

What with the new Tom Waits album out I like many are in a in a Tom Waits world. The new album is of course very good indeed but I’ve also been going through his back catalogue (something that I do about once a year).
For the moment I can’t get enough of Blood Money. Its Waits at his ram shackled best. With song titles such as Misery Is the River of the World, Everything Goes to Hell, God's Away on Business, Knife Chase and Starving in the Belly of a Whale you get the picture.

Oasis - (It’s Good) To Be Free

So on the first week of release Noel Gallagher and his Flying Birds perched on the top of the album charts. I have no idea what the album is like as I have no interest in it whatsoever. Maybe he’s actually put some real effort into the album. If he has then its about time as he’s been cruising on autopilot for years. Oasis finished a couple of years ago but the foot was off the gas long before that.
They never came anywhere close to their debut Defiantly Maybe. What about the second album What’s The Story Morning Glory? Give over, it had a few good songs but it doesn’t compare.
The second best Oasis album is The Masterplan which is a collection of early b-sides. The b-sides are better than anything on the third album Be Here Now. Which is when they really went off the boil.
My favourite song has to be (It’s Good) To Be Free which just edges over the Liam and Noel duet Acquiesce.

Lou Reed With Metallica

So this blog is mainly about songs that I like, but after tuning into Later With Jools Holland the on Tuesday night I feel as if I just have to write about something that I really don’t like. And that’s Lou Reed playing with Mettalica.
For the record I really love a lot of Lou Reed’s solo albums as well as all four Velvet Underground albums. As for Metallica, well there was a period in my teenage tears when I thought they were a great band but that’s about it.
I’ve not heard all of the album but what I have heard is sounds pretty ropey, but I didn’t think that it would be as bad as what I heard the other night on Later With Jools Holland.
The first song sounded as if they were all playing a completely different song that they all started at different times. Fucking awful.
Then at the end the play The Velvet Underground song White Light/White Heat. Fucking awful don’t come close.

Come Dine With Me Menu

Four, maybe five years back I hardly had anything in the cupboard or fridge to eat. I wasn’t a poor student or on the dole at the time, I was just too lazy to go to the supermarket and supply’s were very low.
In this sort of situation you have to improvise. So I cooked up some pasta and added some dried herbs to it. It needed something more, so I grabbed a handful of Twiglets, crushed them up and added it to the pasta. You know, to give it that crunchy marmite taste that it was lacking. Yes I know that its not exactly authentic Italian as such but I had to make the best of what I had.
I thought nothing of it, then a mate of mine knocks on the door, so I let him in and go back to my food. He asks me what I’m eating so I tell him and he looks at me like I’ve committed the worst culinary sin know to man. “Pasta and Twiglets! Pasta and fucking Twiglets! What is wrong with you?”

So he ends up telling people and now if I say to a mate something like “I’ve got to go home and eat then I’ll be up the pub later,” the reply is usually “What are you having, pasta and Twiglits?”
So now I have a reputation as a crap cook. I’m actually alright, but sometimes I do like to fuse things together. Such as my a meal that mixes Italy and Mexican cuisine that I call pasta con carnie.
And my latest concoctions is a combination of breakfast and desert that can be eaten anytime of the day. Its basically just some desert like apple pie or chocolate cake mixed in with a bowl of cereal. I could eat it all day.
If I went on Come Dine With Me I have the main course and desert sorted. I’ve just got to work on a starter.

Richmond Fontaine - The High Country

Knowing that it would be a concept album I was a bit apprehensive about the latest album from Alt-country legends (in my eyes they are anyway) Richmond Fontaine. Singer songwriter Willy Vlautin is also a novelist and mixing that with the songs I wasn’t so sure about. Yes his songs are in themselves short story’s about drunks down on their luck but a whole album with a story continuation might just be a bit too straight on the nose.
And on first listen of The High Country it was, but only because of some spoken word pieces that have some of the worst acting that I’ve ever heard. The rest of the album has some good spoken word and quiet instrumental songs as well as some rocking ones where the band are in top form.
The album is growing on my with each listen. Especially now that I always skip the two bad spoken word songs.

Great Cover #10 M. Ward - Rave On

Rave on is a song that wasn’t written by Buddy Holly but his recording made it as good as his. With good reason.
M. Ward recorded the song on his brilliant 2009 album Hold Time. His version is more laid back and has a nice riff on the acoustic guitar but it’s the overall sound that he gets that makes it a great cover version. It sounds fresh but also retains some of that old time recording feel that M. Ward is an avid student of.

Download: M. Ward - Rave On