Somfay

I have been listening to a lot of electronic music over the past couple of months as most of the indie/guitar stuff with the exception of the Wave Pictures new album and the Meursault ep I have heard recently at best can be described as boring. Somebody prove me wrong.

I keep coming back to a track by Somfay called Fricative White (From A Whisper To A Scream). The track is quite a curiosity as there are no discernible instruments and really no tune. It is basically made up from layers of noise building upon layers of noise to produce a hypnotic track which echoes around your head long after the track has finished.

At 27 : 47 mins long, it does ask for a bit of commitment, however once you get into it, it is really hard to believe that it is that long, as the sounds totally suck you in and you are soon lost in the music/noise.

I usually have it on just as soon as I can after take of on a plane, as it calms me right down, which is no mean feat as anybody who has ever flown with me will testify; flying scares the shit out of me.

I hope that the length and mention of noise hasn't put you off, give it a try. It is a strangely haunting and beautiful collage of sound (how fucking pretentious does that sound?)

Go on give it a listen!

Somefay - Fricative White (From A Whisper To A Scream)

While The Sun Shines.

Get yourself an ice cold can of Irn Bru, roll a fat one and listen to this in the garden in the glorious sunshine.

Smith & Mighty - Walk On (Long version)

How Good Are ?

Absolutely bloody brilliant.

The Wave Pictures - If You Leave It Alone

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I don't know why but I've been listening to a lot of stuff from 1987 recently, probably nostalgia. I have came to the conclusion that it was a very good year for House and Hip Hop.

Today's posting is by Eric B and Rakim, the duo who released my favorite hip-hop album Paid In Full.

I Know You Got Soul was the second single from the album and was originally released in 1987. The track features so many couplets which would be sampled or repeated in future hip-hop and dance tracks from the opening line "it's bin a long time/I shouldna left you" to the final words "Rakim a say Peace" but possibly the best known and most sampled is "pump up the volume". The orignal tune is an updating of Bobby Byrd's 'I Know You Got Soul' with Rakim's unmistakable rapping over Eric B's beats.

The version posted is the 1988 remix, which I think was released on the back of the success of the seminal Coldcut remix of Paid in Full. Instead of Coldcut, the remixers here were Double Trouble alias Danny D and one Norman Cook on his first foray into dance music after the Housemartins split up. The remix was done without the knowledge of Eric B and Rakim and was basically put together by Cook using the a capella from the b-side of the original single over the top of a rather famous break and piling on the samples, as he didn't have access to the masters of the original. I don't think that they would get away with that these days, definitely not on a dance off shoot of a major as a bootleg white label maybe.

Eric B & Rakim - I Know You Got Soul (Six Minutes of Soul, Double Trouble remix)

Imelda May

I'm off to see Imelda May again tonight. Last time it was like going back in time to the late 50's, more quiffs than a Smiths convention.

Imelda May - Wild About My Lovin'

Blue Harlem - Drown In My Own Tears

The Blue Harlem track is from when Imelda May was the singer with them, their sound is more jazz and blues than the more rockabilly feel of her solo stuff.

Sister Sneaker Sister Soul

This was the first thing that I heard from My Latest Novel, a 5 piece band from Greenock. As befits a band from the dreich Clyde coast their music is quite melancholic at times but not depressingly so. Sister Sneaker Sister Soul was their first single and can be found on the excellent debut Wolves.

They have just released their second album Deaths and Entrances last week, which I haven't got round to listening to yet.

My Latest Novel - Sister Sneaker Sister Soul

What the fuck was that?

Those were the exact words I uttered on my introduction to Upside Down by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

A lot of people go on about the first time that they heard the Smiths and the effect that ultimate indie band had on them but I didn't really get it. I am not here to slag off the Smiths, I really like some of the band's output, however I never really got into that sensitive, Oscar Wilde quoting, 60's kitchen sink drama side of them that some of the fanboys I knew did and as for the celibacy thing that was incongruous to a hormonally charged 15 year old.

What I'm trying to get at here is that I hadn't had that Damascean moment that a lot of my friends had and I was beginning to wonder why not? I liked a lot of different music from Hendrix to The Clash and SLF but there was nothing that I was fanatical about, nothing that was mine.

Until that dark grey day at the beginning of 1985, a couple of months after the single's release, when a friend gave me a compilation tape that his elder brother had made. I rewound the tape and played Upside Down over and over again which was quite painfully through the earphones of my red Sony Walkman. I just couldn't get enough of the track. I had found my band, I thought. The track had everything, primal drumming, vicious feedback an underlying feeling of malevolence but beneath it all was a really catchy song.

I eagerly awaited the next single Never Understand, which didn't disappoint and the glorious debut that was Psychocandy the merits of which I could bang on about all day.

My love affair with the Mary Chain dissolved with the third album Automatic which to this day I have trouble playing. I did, however continue to buy everything they released and the odd glimmer of genius is apparent on all of their subsequent releases just not in abundance as on the first 2 albums.

From the Jesus and Mary Chain I found the Velvet Underground and Can who, eventually, with the help of a certain Radio 1 DJ led me to The Fall .

Jesus And Mary Chain - Upside Down

Just what is needed on a Sunday morning to blow the cobwebs away.

I remember watching the band's first appearance on the Whistle Test and looking on in awe until my mate, S broke the spell, saying "if that was John Lydon, the mic stand would have went over on the first attempt, they're playing at it" which sparked a highly charged discussion.

Everybody Loves A Cover . . . Right?

A couple of mellow, relaxing covers for you today.

First up is Mechanical Bride with a cover of Rihanna's Umbrella. The song has been covered a ton of times to varying degrees of success from The manic Street Preachers to Tegan and Sara. This version by Lauren Doss is by far the best, excluding the original, she turns it into a melancholic thing of beauty. Umbrella in it's original form was my song of 2007, I can't think of a single tune from that year that I enjoyed more than it, it would have been perfect if it was not for Jay - Z pointless piss poor rap at the start.

Mechanical Bride - Umbrella

Next is a cover of Pressure Drop originally by Toots & The Maytals, covered here by Irish singer/songwriter David Kitt. Pressure Drop is another track which has been covered a fair few times, most notably by the Clash but also by Robert Palmer and The Specials.

David Kitt - Pressure Drop

Just Because

Not your usual, angsty, twee indie sound from Trembling Blue Stars. But a beguiling piece of ambience to watch the sun set while having a G&T.

Have a good weekend

This is also for Simon over at The Songs That People Sing whose wife gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, Alfie yesterday.

Trembling Blue Stars - One Wish Granted

Its Friday . . . Let's Dance

Today it's the turn of 2 big hitters in the world of soul. One each from 2 of the most influential labels of the 60's, Stax and Motown.

First up is a track from my all time favorite soul album Otis Blue. This album was released in 1965 and was Otis' third album most of the tracks on the album are down tempo tunes, however with Shake, Otis turns an already good dance tune by Sam Cooke into an absolute stormer that you just can't help but move to.

Otis Redding - Shake

The next track is an unreleased track from Motown by Gladys Knight & The Pips - If You Ever Get Your Hands On Love. Like a lot of stuff from the Motown archives, when this came to light it became an in demand track on the Northern Soul Scene, even though the pressings were crackly copies from poor master tapes. It never ceases to amaze me the quality of the stuff that Gordy either never got around to releasing or deemed not good enough.

Glady Knight & The Pips - If You Ever Get Your Hands On Love

A Fucking Duck House!

Now they're just taking the piss.

There are no words that could possibly convey my contempt.

Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living?

Go Now

Does anybody remember a short series of films on BBC 2 in 1995 called Love Bites, I think?

I think there were three of them. They were all either music related or had great soundtracks, at least the two I remember did.

One was called Loved Up and concerned the lives of 2 pilled up ravers. I bought the double album soundtrack of this , for what reason I don't know as I already had all of the tracks bar a couple on 12".

The better film by far, Go Now, starred Robert Carlyle, Juliet Aubrey and Jimmy Nesbitt before he became famous. The story revolved round a couple and their attempts to come to terms with one of them being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The story was both touching and extremely funny at times, especially the banter between Carlyle and his Sunday League football team mates. The film was set in Bristol and Tricky had a cameo in it.

I taped all of these films and had an urge to watch Go Now last night, until I remembered that a few months ago in a moment of stupidity I decided to clear out the glory hole where all the junk is stored and take the contents to the cowp (refuse yard in English). This included all of the videos we owned, reasoning that as we no longer had a video recorder, there was no need to keep the videos. Bugger! Thank god I didn't use this reasoning with the boxes of tapes.

Anyway, here is the theme tune to Go Now in it's original form belted out by Bessie Banks. No matter how many times I hear this the hairs still stand up on the back of my neck and my heart skips a beat, an absolutely beautiful record.

Bessie Banks - Go Now

Snooker Loopy

Who else but the genuis that is Mark E Smith would write a song about snooker?

Chas n who?

Not very interesting fact - Eminem sampled Chas n Dave on My Name Is. It's amazing what you can learn from Radio 4.

Von Sudenfed - Slow Down Ronnie

Monday , . . then it's the Mudd Club!

We're back in student disco land, 22 years ago (christ almighty, is it really that long ago) with this post.

As I've mentioned before my time of penury and starvation, better known as student life started in Aberdeen in 1987 where I spent my first year, running up a debt that the bosses of HBOS or RBS would have been proud of, dancing and drinking the week away and attending the odd lecture or even more infrequently a tutorial or two.

Monday night was one of the best nights out in the city, well for students at least. The Mudd club held in the local Ritzy was where you went to hear all the latest indie stuff, have a good dance, meet and try to cop off and drink increadibly cheap Furstenberg, which for some reason was always on promotion. As a result the Tuesday was more often than not written off as a bad idea, happy days.

Here are two tracks I remember hearing a lot at the Mudd Club and subsequently purchasing from One Up records in it's original location on Diamond Street.

That Petrol Emotion - Big Decision

Pop Will Eat Itself - Beaver Patrol

Is Nothing Sacred?

I don't know how I missed this up until now. While perusing the Sundays this morning my attention was drawn to a quite tacky advert for Quadrophenia. Not another dvd release I thought to myself but on closer inspection no, a stage adaptation . . . a fucking stage adaptation!

Growing up during the mod revival, having mates who to this day are still mods at heart, and with the invention of the VCR, I must have seen Quadrophenia at least once a month for about 6 years. So even as a non mod (I was always a bit too scruffy, too much of a punk and couldn't get my head around the modernist tag when effectively they were following the fashions from 2 decades previously) I have a soft spot for Jimmy, Chalky, Ferdy and the others.

Just how the hell do they intend to translate this cult film of my youth to stage? Take the opening scene for example Jimmy travelling along the streets of the big smoke at night on his LI. Just how are they going to convey the buzz that he is on in a theatre? Simple, they aren't. I know that stage adaptations happen all the time and are mostly successful but I just can't for the life of me see how this is going to work. What about the music are they just going to play the cd over the PA, or are they going to get some second rate Who tribute band to perform the soundtrack?

The stage production is sponsored by Lambretta for fuck's sake!

If anybody is seriously thinking of going to see this, do yourself a favour log on to Amazon, Ebay or similar buy the double cd, the original not the soundtrack and the DVD and watch Quadrophenia the way Townshend intended.

What will be next Easy Rider the musical?

The Who - I've Had Enough

Make Me Sad

While scouring the internet a couple of months ago for something a bit different, as is my want and much to L's consternation I came across a review for a split 7" single by 2 Scottish bands Wake The President and The Kingfishers neither of whom I had heard before.

On streaming the Wake The President track it became apparent that the band had been listening to a lot of post punk and Postcard in particular, not a bad thing.

The real find for me was the track on the other side, Make Me Sad. On listening to this I was transported back to the mid 80's, it reminded me of Friends Again, especially Honey At The Core for some reason, although it sounds absolutely nothing like it. On further investigation it turns out that the song is a cover of a Vic Goddard song. Goddard's band Subway Sect being a major influence on the Postcard bands. I played the track about 5 or 6 times and decided that the single had to be purchased.

This is when things start to get interesting. The single is on Aufgeladen und Bereit a German label out of Hamburg which seems to specialise in Scottish Indiepop with bands such as Found, Future Pilot AKA amongst others and is also Vic Goddard's label. If Scottish indiepop is your bag then you should check the label out. There is a particularly good compilation album called Get While The Getting's Good (another reference to Scottish pop as the title has been borrowed from the title of a track on The Orange Juice album) 19 tracks which cover everything from the afore mentioned indiepop to modern folk. I can vouch for the service as I got my 7" within 4 days of ordering it, quicker than orders from down south at times.

This single was actually released in April last year and unfortunately is now sold out.

The Kingfishers - Make Me Sad

Dogs

I had, to my shame, sort of forgotten all about this band until a mate asked me to play End Of An Era from the band's debut double a-side, which if you hadn't been lucky enough to get a copy when it first came out, would've set you back 40 to 50 quid on e-bay but now can be purchased for a fiver, ah the fickle minds of music fans.

My first experience of the band was when they supported The Raveonettes at the Wah Wah Hut. It was all loud, thrashy guitars and shouty, hoarse vocals. Absolutely magic.

The band have released 2 albums, the debut Turn Against This Land in 2005 and the follow-up Tall Stories From Under The Table in 2007 but nothing since. There is nothing revolutionary about their sound, however if you like loud guitars, shouty vocals, lyrics full of disdain for cokeheads and the odd Orwell reference then you should like this bunch. The name, however remains a terrible choice.

Dogs - Red

Dogs - Winston Smith

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance.

A bit of acidy, progressive house today.

The track is by The Paingang an alias for Phil Perry who ran the Full Circle club and remixed loads of tracks in the early 90's, including nearly everything on Cowboy and was also responsible for a not too shabby mix of DeNiro by the Disco Evangelists. This single came out in 1993 on Skunk records and that's about all I know about it. The version posted is the b-side which has addded squelchy 303s.

Not the most illuminating of posts but the track is a good un.

The Paingang - Slider (Tweeky 303 mix)

Lazy Line Painter Jane

The sun has been shining here for 3 whole days. It is amazing the difference a little sunshine has on people. Everybody seems a little less tense, a little more relaxed. Long may it continue.

I haven't been able to get this song out of my head all day. It's my favorite Belle and Sebastian tune. It was the 2nd ep by the band, was released in 1997 and got to number 41 in the charts. The female vocal is by Monica Queen once of the band Thrum and now a solo artist.

Belle & Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane

The video below is from the day when the band and others including Camera Obscura and V Twin took over the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow during the West End festival. It was a gorgeous sunny Saturday in June 2004 and it just happened to be M's first concert, aged 8 months.

Sponging Bastards

I was not going to comment on this latest debacle from the Palace of Westminster, however the constant stream of gits who are neither ashamed nor apologetic about what they have done has got my blood boiling.

These are the same people who are forever deriding people for benefit fraud and calling for harsher penalties for those who are caught abusing the welfare system. Should not the same rules apply to these chancers, apparently not. Now that they have been caught, they have the affront to say that they have done nothing illegal and everything is above board but they will give the money back. If it was not wrong then why the fuck are they giving the money back?

The argument that the MPs benefits are there to supplement their salaries which haven't kept up with similar positions in the private sector holds no water with me. I always believed that people went into politics due to conviction left, right or centre, not to make money, apart from the fact that £64 766 is quite a substantial figure that most people would probably be very happy with. Seemingly not if you want to be a politician, it seems that they truely believe that they are worth more than 3 times the national average salary. If their financial remuneration is the main reason for them entering politics or higher on their list of priorities than the welfare of their potential constituents then maybe they should mention this fact at selection interviews and if still successful on their campaign literature.

The thing that really angers me is that this lot have done more to harm democracy in this country than any right wing or extremist organisation could every dream of achieving. Just wait
and see if the BNP and UKIP don't see there share of the vote swell in the up coming European and Local Elections. Which will only mean that the you and me, the ordinary citizens of the UK will suffer as a result.

The Fall - Foldin' Money

The Arrogants - People Love Money More Than People.

Jamie T - If You've Got The Money