It's Jonathan Time Again

Make the most of it as I'm sure it's not going to last.

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - That Summer Feeling

Why Weren't You There

Here is a lovely piece of soul to start the week off with. Don't know very much  about this track other than it was a double a side with Prepared To Love and came out on the Magic City Record Corporation label in 1967.

Thelma Lindsey - Why Weren't You There.

Everything Grooves Pt 2

It's lovely and sunny up here today. Played this earlier today and it fit my mood and the ambience perfectly.

Stereo MCs - Everything Grooves pt2

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

No words that I could write could adequately convey the sheer brilliance of today's track, so I'm not going to bother.

Released in 1993 on the Boys Own label, I don't think that anything else released by Underworld ever came close to Rez.

Have a good weekend people.

Underworld - Rez

Huh?

Off to see Spiritualized tonight, directly after Max's Parents Evening. Must admit, that I have been looking forward to this since October when I saw the band preview the new album, nearly in it's entirety at the Queens Hall. That tour got quite a bit of negative comments but the Edinburgh gig was splendid, although a little on the cramped side for the Spiritualized sound which I think will sound even better in the ABC.

The new album Huh? is released on the 16th April. The week prior to this the single Hey Jane will be released on vinyl but if you can't wait, it is a belter of a track, it is available now as a download from the usual places.

Here is a version of the single which the band performed during the second half of the gig that night. The version posted is from the Other Voices Festival from the start of this year which was streamed live on the Guardian's website.

Spiritualized - Hey Jane (Live)

Gosh, Thanks George!

Well it's budget day in the UK and if Newsnight is to be believed we should all rejoice, well the 1% of us who earn more than one hundred and fifty grand a year, as we will no longer be paying 50p in the pound on our earnings over that amount.

Do you fall into this category? No, me neither but let's not get involved in the politics of envy.

 As has been stated many times, the tax was only bringing in a billion a year,  as those fine,  upstanding citizens were finding ways to avoid paying it. But do they get hunted down like the "dole scroungers" or benefit cheats"? No they get a fucking tax break to incentivise them into paying their share.

My question is, if these fuckers don't like paying their fair share,  what makes the heir to a wallpaper fortune and future baronet think that they will pay his more progressive taxes and not find perfectly legal ways or not so of avoiding them?

I'm sure the 23 millionaires in the cabinet will be happy with the tax break.

The Flying Lizards - Money 

I'm A Man

Dug out my copy of the Blow Up compilation yesterday and ripped it, so this will probably not be the last slice of groovy late 60s tunage you will hear over the next wee while.

The Spencer Davis Group - I'm A Man 

Cool, huh?

Why Girl

It's becoming a bit of a habit starting the week with some soul and like all habits it is becoming increasingly difficult to break. But when the tunes are as good as this, then why should I?

This is a belter of a track from 1967 and probably one of the very few northern tracks to use a melodica. Also check out the label that this tune first came out on.

The Precisions - Why Girl

Release The Dubs

Here are the other mixes included on the Release The Dubs ep, if you are as interested as Helen was  in hearing them.

Release The Dubs 1

Release The Dubs 2

Release The Dubs4

My Mom

Probably not the most uplifting songs to post on Mothering Sunday but My Mom by Chocolate Genius is one of the most emotional songs I own. Written by Marc Anthony Thompson after visiting his parents after a prolonged absence, it deals with his mothers decline due to Alzheimers. Cheery, eh?

 It's a toss up between this and Training Wheels by Cloud Cult as to which tune makes me get "something in my eye" more.

Chocolate Genius - My Mom

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Bloody iTunes, once again it lost it's way to the bloody external drive and I've had to import the whole of my library again. On the website it's easy,  just follow the steps and voila your whole library appears as before. Not for me, well,  once it did but not on the last two occassions. It's going to take me weeks again to get all my playlists back.

But enough of my tribulations, it's Friday which means one thing.  Yes.  Another in the series that refuses to just give up the ghost and fuck off. Due mainly I must admit to my lack of imagination and effort to come up with something to replace it with.

So, it's back to 1992 and a speaker shaking, structural damage creating if played too loud dub mix from a duo who were consistently on top of their game and probably along with Underworld the biggest names in Progressive House.

Release The Pressure was released in 1992 and was Leftfield's third release. The track posted is from the white label Release The Dubs ep, which helpfully has no track listing on it, side two, track one is my favourite and apologies for all of the crackling at the start, I don't think that the vinyl that it was pressed upon was of particularly good quality, fortunately  it only lasts for the first 20 secs.

Have a good weekend people.

Leftfield - Release The Dubs 3

Just Because . . .

We haven't had any for a while.

The Fall - Nate Will Not Return

Good, isn't it?

An Inward Revolution

In the early 80s after disbanding The Jam and forming The Style Council, Weller also set up a record label, Respond Records. Tony Burke  and Julie Hadwen wrote to Weller asking him to sign their band, Big Sound Authority after seeing an advert seeking artists for the label. The band went on tour with other groups rostered to the label and were offered a contract, the band, however decided to sign to MCA Records offshoot Source.

The band scored a hit with their single, This House and went on to release another 3 singles and an album for the label before they split up in 1986.

I always liked Big Sound Authority and owned This House, the follow-up, A Bad Town and a live tape recorded from Radio 1 In Concert but for some reason never bought the album. So when I saw An Inward Revolution for two quid in Oxfam Music for two quid I bought it.

Although the album sounds very much of it's time, especially the brass it still sounds good to me especially Hadwen's vocal. The track posted is the one that was the highlight of the live recording for me.

Big Sound Authority - My Hell Shaped Room

Council House, Anyone?

Weller has been popping up all over the ship recently and also Gareth at How Does That One Go Again posted a blissed out hippyfied version of today's tune last week.

I remember when I first heard that the Style Council had covered on of my favourite House records. I was a bit incredulous that Weller who for me had been peddling retro blue eyed soul for the previous six years was covering one of my favourite House records. However when I thought about it a bit more the content of the lyric, the themes of solidarity and freedom did chime with the sentiments and content of a lot of the Style Council output.

I still had a kind of forboding about where Weller would take this anthem but was pleasantly surprised with the outcome which is not radically different from the original albeit some what shorter in it's 7 inch form which is the only version that I used to listen to. A couple of years ago I picked up a copy of the 12" for 50p or something in a charity shop and was surprised to find that the extended version wasn't as bad as I remembered  and which I have played a few times since them.

Apparently Weller and Co had recorded a whole album of house music, entitled Modernism: A New Decade which was rejected by Polydor.

The Style Council - Promised Land

The Style Council - Promised Land (extended mix)

You're Gonna Cry, Cry, Cry

A few weeks ago I featured Ella Washington's version of He Called Me Baby. Here's the flip side, a more up tempo tune where Ella tells her no good,  cheatin' man that he better shape up or ship out and the subsequent tears would no longer be hers, go on girl.

Music doesn;'t get much better than this, well apart from the new Burial ep which sounds ten times better on vinyl than it does on mp3. My copy arrived on Saturday and I don't think that a twelve inch has been played as many times during the one weekend since the release of Loaded. If you own a turntable you need to purchase this record.

Ella Washington - You're Gonna Cry, Cry, Cry

Mine's Is The Last Voice You Will Ever Hear!

A couple of weeks ago JC and I were talking about nothing in particular between bands at the Spector gig at the Wah Wah hut, when he mentioned the Dorian Linksey book, 33 Revolutions Per Minute and in particular the Frankie Goes To Hollywood chapter and we were both in agreement that it was a very unsettling time with a lot of scary shit going on.

I really don't want to sound like some old codger with the "you had to be there at the time" kind of shit but I'm not sure that anybody under the age of thirty can really grasp how close we came. Not as close as in October 1962 when it really can down to the wire. But a couple of times during the 70s/80s  not least when the USSR invaded Afghanistan it looked as though we could be heading for a nuclear showdown.

I remember asking my uncle Jimmy if he remembered where he was when Kennedy was killed to which he replied, " Aye and I also remember where I was when he nearly bloody killed us all!" referring to the Cuban missile crisis. I can't say that I could pin point a time in the 80s that was just as serious as that.

I 'm not sure if I became obsessed with nuclear annihilation but I spent a lot of my youth with a  pessimistic outlook which made me think that the world didn't have a  a cat in hell's chance of reaching the year 2000. That may sound over dramatic but you watch The War Game and Threads and see if you can keep up your sunny disposition.

At the time we had an American President that thought of the USSR as the "evil empire" and himself as the good guy in some Western who was going to save the world. Over here a Prime Minister that would bend over backwards to do Ronnie's bidding and in Russia, christ we didn't even know if the President we saw on the news footage was even alive. These factors did not lead to a rosy world overview.

Being involved in the Youth CND movement didn't help either all those figures about how many times over we could blow up the planet, facts about nuclear winters and EMPs. Finding out that just outside Lanark there was a Royal Observer Corps Bunker, that the race course which had fallen into disrepair was the location of the mass burial ground after an attack and also reading the Government's Protect and Survive pamphlet didn't give much hope for the future.

Living in Lanark, at the time we had a part time fire service and also the State Mental Hospital seven miles away from town. What the hell has that got to do with any of this, I here you asking? Well it's simple, any time there was a fire within the jurisdiction of the local fire station or every second Thursday at one o'clock the siren would go off, the same siren that would go off in the case of a nuclear strike. Not many, if any of my peer group realised this fact and if in the same class as me first thing after lunch on every second Thursday looked at me rather strangely as I would stiffen in my seat as soon as I heard that horrible sound. I used to try and rationalise it to myself, saying that it was just the test for the Penni siren but there was always that, "what if it isn't, what if it's just a coincidence that it's going off at 1 o'clock on a Thursday?"

I spent the early to mid eighties going to demos in Barrow In Furness, Coulport, Greenham Common and RAF Mildenhall amongst many other lovely locations surrounded by razor wire and patrolled by men with guns with live ammunition and nothing I had seen at any of these places gave me a great hope for the future. It seemed to be inevitable that we were going to come to a sticky end before we even got a chance to get into the nineties.

Which brings me to the main point of this ramble, at this time we had loads of bringing the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction to the masses. Who can forget Duran Duran with their hard hitting protest diatribe Rio. or Spandau Ballet with their critique of the sheer stupidity of the arms race "True".  Bands as diverse as Gillan with M.A.D and Timezone's frightening World Destruction took up the cause but it took Paul Morley, Trevor Horn and the demo from a band from Liverpool to produce the ultimate anti war track of the 80's which in equal measures scared the shit out of you but also made you want to dance.

With it's myriad of remixes and formats it is also responsible for the rise in bands having the sole intent of bankrupting their fans by releasing their singles and albums in multiple formats and mixes. Which in turn would lead to the chart authorities putting limitations on the amount of different formats which would be counted  when calculating your chart position.

Here are a couple of the mixes

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes (Annihilation)

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes (Hibakusha)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I will be driving up the road from Nottingham when you are reading this, wasn't going to chance a delayed flight home on a Friday night.

Following on from last week, here is another Warp classic from 1992. Kid Unknown, or Paul Fitzpatrick was a dj at the Hacienda. He produced a couple of singles for Warp, the track posted and the equally as good Devastating Beat Creator, a more in your face Rave track before moving on and setting up LCD records and recording under the moniker of DJ Nipper.

Have a good weekend people.

Kid Unknown - Nightmare

People Get Real

Here's a track from back in the day when Saint Etienne seemed to effortlessly pen quality dance/pop crossover tracks. Unlike their latest single, Tonight,  the first in seven years which, to me feels like they are trying too hard. I'm really not sure what I mean, the track is okay but there is something about the production that irritates me which makes the track seem a little insincere.

Doesn't change the fact that this track is brilliant and deserved to be a single in it's own right and not a double a side with Join Our Club.

Saint Etienne - People Get Real

Unravelling After The Lottery

Last year my favourite track of the year was a lovely piece of down tempo house from Birmingham. Free School released their follow-up single back in January and although I didn't instantly fall in love with it, it has grown on me over the weeks.

Here is the Mark E remix, not that Mark E. I am still none the wiser as to what the title means.

Free School - Unravelling After The Lottery (Mark E mix)

Send For Me, I'll Be There

"Not more soul" I hear you say.

In a word, yes.

Never knew why this was included on a northern compilation,  as for me the tempo is way too slow but it is such a good song. The b-side of the 1965 release Ooh Honey Baby on Mira Records.

Earl Cosby - Send For Me I'll Be There.

Couldn't find a scan of the label, so here is a nice picture of a 1978 Lambretta GP, lovely.

I'm The One Who Loves You

I can't think of a better way of starting the week than hearing some sweet soul music. Darrell Banks is best known in northern circles for Open the Door To Your Heart, one of my favourite northern tracks ever.This track is  a bit different and became a bit of an anthem in 1983.

My copy of I'm The One Who Loves You is a repress from 2010 on the Outta Sight label and has an until then, criminally unreleased track by Banks on the flip which is as good as anything previously released, however the a-side is still the one for me.

Darrell Banks - I'm The One Who Loves You

It Takes Two

There has not been enough hip-hop on this blog.

Here's a great track from 1988 produced by Teddy Riley which contains a myriad of samples including Lyn Collins 1972 song Think (About It).

I remember buying this 12" single from the Woollies bargain bin for something like 50p.

Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock - It Takes Two

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Let's have some early Warp in the form of Coco, Steel and Love Bomb.

Initially released on Instant Records in 1991 and subsequently picked up by Warp the following year. This is a sparse, minimal, House classic which does not sound dated even now. There were so many bloody good records coming out at this time not least on Warp by the likes of Nightmares on Wax, Kid Unknown and the like.

Have a good weekend people.

Coco, Steel and Lovebomb - Feel It

Take Me For A Little While

Evie Sands has featured here before with her sublime version of Anyway That You Want It. Today's track features her first collaboration with Chip Taylor and first single for New York label, Blue Cat.

It was a recurring feature of Sands' career that she released great versions of songs which would be subsequently recorded by others who would be far more successful with what are in, not only my opinion inferior versions of the song. In this instance it was Jackie Ross who had the hit with the track, after an employee at the Chess label got their hands on a test pressing rushed Ross into the studio to record the track. The version which is good has nothing on Sands sublime rendition.

Enjoy

Evie Sands - Take Me For A Little While

Mobile Phones

What is it about some people that they cannot seem to function unless they've got their mobile phone switched on. I'm so sick of being on planes watching people who think that the instructions regarding when to switch on or off your phones does not apply to them. Who the fuck do they think they are? They can't be that important or they wouldn't be flying sleazyjet with the likes of me. Their phones have been switched off for an hour what the fuck is another two to three minutes going to fucking matter? But no.  No sooner has the fifteen year old pilot to be successfully knackered another undercarriage and before the stewardess has even uttered those depression inducing words " Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to Luton", half the passengers have their phones out and are frantically pressing the on button. I believe that these people are the very same gits who have the fucking shiny new cars and park in parent and child designated parking areas without having any offspring on board or deliberately across two parking spaces so that there precious fucking vehicles don't get scratched! None of us want our cars scratched with trolleys or battered by other car doors but when we see an instruction we adhere to it because we don't believe that we are fucking special and above such inconveniences as waiting another couple of minutes before telling our partners that we have landed and are on our way home or taking the risk along with everybody else whose car might not be as nice but means no less to them, of coming back to find a dent or scratch in the door or along the side of their vehicle.

And don't get me started on the clowns trying to get suitcases bigger than your average wardrobe into the overhead lockers and then blaming the cabin crew when they are not successful!

Nothing to do with the nonsense above just a single that I'm rather fond of.

Sara Lowes and the Earlies - I'm Still Waiting

Ellipsis

Here is a rather funky piece of cross over soul from 1976 to start off the week. The track was saved from obscurity by Fryer and Ian Wright and released as a 12" single on their Soul Spectrum label, a spin off of their Edinburgh club nights, in 2008. My copy is from the limited 7" inch pressing released on the SoulSeven label a few weeks ago.

I'm off to that cultural capital, Luton for a couple of days, so nothing to see here until Wednesday.


Ellipsis - People

Allo Darlin' @ The Captain's Rest

L and I went to see Allo Darlin' last Monday, a gig that we were looking forward to as the last time we saw them in the same venue, The Captain's Rest, they were thoroughly entertaining and a good night was had by all, even the two gentlemen in their sixties who were standing next to us and who randomly pick a band every month  to go and see.

So, expectations were high, even though Monday night is not what I would call an ideal night for gig going. We got to the Captain's Rest about 8 pm thinking we would be just in time to see the support. We were informed that the support weren't coming on until nine and Allo Darlin' would be taking the stage around 10 pm. My heart sank straight away realising that it was going to be a later night than I had banked for and also that the friend who was watching the boys was going to be get home a lot later then they expected.

Not many of you will by familiar with the Captain's Rest, so I will try to describe it for you. The pub upstairs is   like a lot of boozers in the West End of Glasgow, quite studenty but with the added bonus of the kind of Seafarers vibe going on. You have to go downstairs for the performance space, to call it a basement would be to place delusions of grandeur on the place, it is a windowless, dark, low ceilinged cellar which holds about one hundred or so people, so quite an intimate venue, which is great when the bands are on but between acts it is just a dim lit cramped space that tends to enhance the smell of BO. So not the kind of place that you would want to stand about aimlessly, however if you wish to get a decent view of the band that is exactly what you have to do.

So from about quarter to nine we stood about, me getting very bored, by the time that the support act, Maple Leaves,  came on they would have had to have been brilliant to have even raised a smile, needless to say they weren't and I didn't. L  liked them though and so it would seem did Elizabeth Morris who came out from back stage and stood next to me and and listened.  My teeth however started to ache due to the sheer tweeness of the music, flutes have no place in popular music! I am of course being overly harsh on the band, who seemed to be competent musicians and nice people but for me not worth standing in a cellar on a Monday night inhaling other peoples body odour for.

From the off when Allo Darlin took to the stage something wasn't quite right with Elizabeth Morris' vocals, on a few occasions she failed to reach the notes and was also out of key more than once or twice, not sure if she had a cold or not. The band sounded good and the new songs played makes the purchase of the new album essential for me. The set was quite short at around forty five minutes and with a glaring omission, she didn't sing Tallulah which was a huge disappointment..  If she had done so I would probably have left reasonably happy as it is I drove home trying to decide if it had been worth the trek on a Monday night.  A decision that I have still not made.

Here is a favourite cover by Elizabeth Morris when she was known as the Darlings.

The Darlings - You Shook Me All Night Long.

I'm off to see The Jezabels at Oran Mor tonight and I am hoping that this will turn out to be the first really good gig of the year for me.

Today's track is another one of those "what the fuck is that?" moments that happened quite often in the early 90s. Unfortunately I can't remember the last time I had one of those, either I'm getting old or nothing is that good anymore. I tell a lie the other week there when I downloaded the new Burial ep I got  goosebumps and shivers down the spine but it didn't really count as a wtfit moment as I knew what it was beforehand as I had just paid for it, but I digress.

Richard D James was responsible for quite a few wtfit?s, whether it be the tune posted, Quoth, or the disturbing video for Come To Daddy to name but three. Digeridoo was released on R&S in 1992 and for me it still sounded as mad and brilliant yesterday as it did back in the day.

Have a good weekend people.

Aphex Twin - Digeridoo

For a more soothing example of Aphex Twin's work go over to Acid Ted, where Ctel has posted a couple of classic ambient tracks by the Cornish tank driver.

When I Woke Up This Morning

Keeping with the retro vibe. Here is a frantic paced piece of Hammond driven Garage Rock from the first album from The Come Ons.

The Come Ons - When I Woke Up This Morning

Proper R&B

I've been sitting on this for a few weeks. Not sure why just never really felt like the right time

The first time I heard this I thought that it was an old R&B number that I had never heard before from around the mid to late 60's. I was half right, turned out it was a cover of an old Them number but was recorded last year.

I Can Only Give You Everything is the flip-side of Nick Waterhouse' s second single and is the sort of thing that you can imagine mods grooving in smokey clubs many moons ago. The a -side is none too shabby either. Neither track sounds like it is the product of the fresh-faced 24 year old, San Francisco Bay Area resident you will find here. The single is available from Innovate Leisure and there is an ep on iTunes containing both tracks on the single, however I think that it is only available to those in the States for some reason. Not sure if it is getting a release this side of the pond.

Nick Waterhouse - I Can Only Give You Everything

I'm sure it will be the same for most of the people who read this blog that certain songs transport you back to another time as soon as you hear them and others remind you of places , your bedroom in your parents house, an old girlfriend's place or a favourite holiday destination.

Today's track along with a few others most notably Another Girl, Another Planet takes me back to Stiff' s bedroom which he shared with one of his older brothers. I can see the old record player, the cabinet that housed the records and the invisible but fully understood demarcation line which separated the room.

Many an hour was spent there rifling through W's records when he wasn't there. Then ensuring that the vinyl was put back in the inner sleeve the correct way and that sleeve correctly inserted into the outer sleeve, other wise we would be sussed out straight away. It was also where we heard all of the new releases by the likes of Elvis Costello for the first time and also Stuart Adamson's first single as Big Country after the Skids split.

But as I said above this record more than most remind me of there, which is strange as I'm not sure it was one that was played all that often.

Happy days.

The Jags - Back Of My Hand

No Deposit No Return

After yesterday's slip into the now, it's back to safer ground, or is it? I bet that there will be a few purists who will look at today's choice with disdain.

Debbie Taylor has featured here before with a more "conventional" northern track, Don't Nobody Mess With My Baby" released on the NYC label GWP.

No Deposit No Return is a different beast entirely, recorded in 1972 it was played at the Mecca in Blackpool as a new release and is another illustration of how it is almost impossible to pin down just what constitutes a northern soul track.

Debbie Taylor - No Deposit No Return

I Think I May Be Losing It

I don't know where I heard this first but I am slightly disturbed that I love it. It also has Max's seal of approval. I fear I may be regressing to an eight year old.

Hopefully po-faced music snobbery will resume shortly!

Nicki Minaj- Super Bass

Secret Circuit

Here's something which I have no idea how to categorise, synth wave?, possibly.  It comes courtesy Tim Sweeney's  New York label Beats In Space and is the work of Eddie Rushca. The A- side is all analogue synths and sounds reminiscent of the early acid house tracks. The flip side is even further out there.

The 12" single comes with original artwork from Christopher Forgues and a completely pointless removable sticker which will no doubt get lost.

Secret Circuit - Nebula Sphynx

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Way back in the day before dance music fractured into a thousand genres and sub genres when you used to go clubbing you didn't go to a specific Drum & Bass, Techno, Progressive House etc, etc night. You just went clubbing and hoped that you had a decent DJ who knew his tunes. I tended to avoid anything that was described as "Balearic"as for me that description meant that the DJ didn't have enough good tunes and you were likely to hear any old pish justified by "it gets played in ebeefa, alright". No amount of considered argument will ever convince me that I Can't Wait by Mandy Smith is anything else than pish, no matter the context it was played in or how many doves you had necked.

But I digress. The track posted today has been described as proto drum and bass, contender for the first breakbeat/techno record. To me it is just a brilliant, ahead of it's time dance tune. From the immense bass sound to the breakbeat lifted from Bobby Bird's Hot Pants it is just about perfect, okay the Woo Alright sample started to get on my nerves but that was because it was dropped into everything after this. But twenty two years on this record still sounds the business.

Have a good weekend people.

Meat Beat Manifesto - Radio Babylon

So Here We Are

I loved this single when it came out but I found that, for me at least nothing else on the album was anywhere near as good as So We Are Here and I quickly lost interest in the band.

I think that in a couple of years I will be saying the same for Spector, whom I saw last night. I really got into  Never Fade Away at the end of last year but on the evidence of last nights performance that's the best they've got and for me it's not enough to be the future of UK indie. For a more in depth review check out The Vinyl Villain who I suspect will have a bit more of an in depth review.

Bloc Party - So Here We Are

She Wants To Play Hearts

This came on the mp3 player the other day and as usual when Ryan Adams comes on I asked myself why don't I listen to this man more often?

I have come to the conclusion that I have to be in a very specific kind of mood or be taken by surprise, as when he pops up on shuffle. It's not the kind of music, for me anyway, that I could just stick on and listen to off the cuff. But when I do listen it is always a pleasure.

Ryan Adams  - She Want's To Play Hearts

Valentine

Not my favourite day of the year if the truth be known.

Richard Hawley - Valentine

Plagiarism or Downright Theft?

I must have played this song dozens of times but it wasn't until Saturday Night and the aid of a couple of Tanquerays that I realised just what a debt Eddie Wilson owed to Burt Bacharach and Bob Hillard's Any Day Now. It's an absolute rip-off.

Still a brilliant song though.

Eddie Wilson - Toast To The Lady

Whitney Houston

Sad, sad news

Ok, most of her stuff to me was terrible soul-lite pop which must have appealed to some, well many actually,  given the six Grammys and 170 million records sold. Every so often, however,  she would do something like the song posted below which I really did like and I would wish for more in the same vein. In fact the whole album My Love Is Your Love is pretty good.  And who can forget when she was brave enough to collabrate with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty.

Rest easy Whitney.

Whitney Houston - My Love Is Your Love

My Favourite Girl

Scott over at Spools Paradise on Monday posted a review of the King Creosote and Jon Hopkins gig at the Celtic Connections the first of a few that I will inevitably regret not getting off my arse and getting tickets in time for.

From Scott's review it sounds that the gig was a belter . The duo finished with My Favourite Girl one of Kenny Anderson' s and also my favourite songs of his. I have this on a rather lovely packaged 10" ep released in August 2005.

Watch out for when the accordion comes in at just before the three minute mark, it is quite, quite beautiful which is something I'm not in a habit of saying.

King Creosote - My Favourite Girl

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I fucking hate February. What a bloody depressing time of year. It's bloody miserable up here about the best thing that can be said for it is that we don't have any snow. Mind you I would rather be looking out the window at snow than the awful greyness that confronts my eyes at the moment.

Also,  I'm about the skintest I've been since, well last year around this time and still two weeks to go before pay day with a couple of gigs and feckin Valentine's Day before then, so I will be starting next month brassic, double joy.

Nothing else for it but to put on a prime slab of influential Techno from one of the originators of the form and jump about like an eejit and kid on your on pills.

Energy Flash was first released in 1990 on the Transmat label in the States. It was picked up the following year by R&S and released in the UK.

Have a good weekend people

Beltram - Energy Flash

Love Slipped Through My Fingers

There are two versions of this track out there, there is the version by Sam Williams which is very, very good and then there is the Ohio Players version which is amazing and what makes this the one for me is the vocal. When you hear Towanda Barnes sing she sounds as if she is at the point of breakdown. I love everything about it from the slightly wonky piano intro onwards, it's one of those songs that just lodges itself in your head.

It has long been on my wants list, in either form but like If That's What You Wanted it has continued to be rather elusive.

The Ohio Playes - Love Slipped Through My Fingers

Vinyl Time

Picture the scene, it's Saturday just before noon, the breakfast dishes are done and the kitchen cleared up. Number one son is away with the better half fucking up packing some poor unfortunate's shopping in the aid of school funds. Leo is sitting at the "pooter" watching Remembrance Of The Daleks which will keep him engrossed for as long as I let him sit in front of the thing.

So,  I find myself at a loose end with nothing to do. Well there is the washing machine to load, the hoovering to be done and a few other things that I could be doing but nothing urgent.

During these rare occasions I retreat to the dinning room and put on something that I have not got round to listening to or something that I haven't listened to in ages.  It will always be on vinyl, as well,  it just feels right that when I've got the time I sit down and give an album the attention it deserves moving only the once to flip over the vinyl. After which I will go back to whatever mundane tasks need to be done happy in the knowledge that I have just listened to something the way it was intended to be listened to,  no skipping, shuffling or repeating.

On Saturday I found myself in a quandry. I had the urge to hear Pissing On Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues but that would mean playing a cd and this was 'Vinyl Time'. I decided that as I could not think of anything else I wanted to hear more, I would break the rules this once. I did toy with the idea of playing All Creatures Will Make Merry as this was re-released on lovely red vinyl last year but no, Pissing On Bonfires it had to be.

And for the next thirty eight and a bit minutes I sat on my chair and immersed myself in what is still  an amazing listen even after being heard by these ears tons of times. It feels as fresh now as it did when I first purchased it on a whim and waited ages for it to come.

If there are any of you out there that don't own a copy of this absolute gem get yourself over to Song By Toad pronto and purchase it and as much of the label's back catalogue as you can afford. Then mibbe one day they will be able to afford to do for Meursault's debut what they did for the follow up and release it on vinyl which would spare me the dilema of breaking the rules of 'Vinyl Time'.

Meursault - a small stretch of land

Monday !

It's not all about songs of love's lost and yearning or the most upfront beats. Sometimes to set you up for the week ahead what ya need is some brash, bonkers bad music for bad people.

The Cramps - Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

OJe Suis Seul

A piss poor amount of the white stuff fell here overnight. Big freeze my arse, although I'm sure down south it may well be a diifferent matter and civilisation will be on the brink.

Anyhow, here is a track that I've posted before in it's Weatherall remix form. The other side however never seems to get any attention , so in the interest of balance here is The Orb and Andrew Weatherall's mix of O Je Suis seul and very good it is too.

West India Company -  O Je Suis Seul (Orient Express mix)

Stuck In A Mid 80s Manufactured Pop Nightmare

Last night I had some very weird dreams but the weirdest thing of all was that they were sound tracked by terrible SAW produced pap from the mid 80s and primarily the music of the tea boy Rick Astley. I was not aware that I knew any Rick Astley tracks except the obvious one. I had a very troubled sleep and now am wondering what is going on in my subconscious that such rubbish is getting into my dreams.

The one good thing about the whole event is that it gives me an excuse to post a single that I picked up in my favourite charity shop before Christmas and the only SAW production that I can consciously say I liked.

The first time I heard You Think You're A Man was also my first sight of Divine on the Tube in 1984 I think. I thought that the song was rather good and the performance absolutely transfixing but never bought the record at the time. I did get a recording of it, in it's 12" form as Stiff's eldest brother had bought it and by doing so had endorsed that it was okay to like this SAW product.

The Vaselines have covered the song, some would say well but in my opinion it lacks not only the humour of the original but also and I hate to say this the production.

Divine - You Think You're A Man

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

By the end of 1993 dark forces were congregation and starting to take over the dance floors of clubs all round the UK.  Previous men of good character started to find themselves drawn into this vile phenemnon.  Many a night around this time would be ruined by some protagonist of these dark arts, introducing into the middle of a perfectly good evening . . .  the Breakdown,  you could hear it coming all the way but were powerless to stop it  bang, bang, bang and then maybe some strings knicked off of a Hooked on Classics album or just a crappy little melody. You would then find yourself in a haze of BO due to almost the whole crowd standing there arms aloft worshipping one of the minor deities of TRANCE being either oh so clever or up his own arse depending on your point of view.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

The stuff would become extremely popular and make superstar DJs out of the likes of Oakenfold, Sasha & Digweed and Warren. If I had my way I would have them up in court on charges of Crimes Against Music with the likes of Knopfler and Cowell but that's just me and my blinkered views on music.

Here is a track that I dug out a few weeks ago intending to post as I remembered it as a throbbing Progressive House track, however when I ripped it and listened to it a few times I think that it closer to Trance than is comfortable to these ears, although still not without merit.

Have a good weekend people.

Opal - The Snake

Six Figures ep

Here is a wonderful piece of Techno that brings elements of the early Chicago sounds and brings them bang up to date with the dub Techno sounds coming out of Berlin. The ep was first released in 2009 and released a couple of weeks back on a hand stamped, white vinyl white label, Rising Sun edition but still sounds as fresh today as it did nearly three years ago.

The other two tracks on the ep are equally as good.

I really love this kind of stuff.

Levon Vincent - Early Reflections

Jasmine Kara

Stonking piece of Scandanavian Soul, released on Acid Jazz. This deserves to be huge but alas it will do nothing and the charts will still be full of cack.

Days Of Fire

Here is another thing that I found when sorting out the vinyl on Sunday, although this track was on CD single.

Behind the rather upbeat backing singer Natty describes his experiences when he was caught up in the aftermath of the murder of Jean Charles deMenezes. The Brazilian electrician was shot dead on the 22nd July 2005 after mistakenly being  identified as one of the previous day's failed suicide bombers.

Nitin Sawhney feat. Natty - Days Of Fire