This show ranks right near the very top of my best shows ever.

MP3: Robert Forster with Grant McLennan – Clouds (via box.net)
MP3: Robert Forster – 2541 (Grant Hart cover) (via box.net)

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MP3: Kristin Hersh @ The Borderline 3rd July 1992 (via mediafire)

Obviously Kristin is still making awesome music – I'm off to see her on Monday night. Her new album, Crooked, is great… and available as a book!

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I love that people post videos of them playing their records to YouTube and I never get tired of watching them – here are a few favourites, most of which I found in a 30 minute trawl of YouTube – there is so much vinyl joy out there!

The Champs  – Tequila

The Monkees – Porpoise Song

The Shangri-Las – Give Him a Great Big Kiss

The Special A.K.A. – Gangsters

Luna – Dear Paulina (of course!)

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Photo by Denim

Last Thursday Dean & Britta performed a set for radio station KCRW‘s show Morning Becomes Eclectic. The set mostly featured tracks from 13 Most Beautiful, but slipped in near the end was a cover of Galaxie 500′s Snowstorm. Now Snowstorm is my favourite song, no question. It entered my life at a very important time and did, to a certain extent, play its part in changing that life. I’d possibly suggest that a week hasn’t gone past since I first heard it that I haven’t listened to it, and all that listening hasn’t diminished its effect on me one drop. No other music comes even close to making me feel the way it does.

So, you’d think that hearing Dean Wareham singing Snowstorm would be something that I’d appreciate, and to be honest so would I. But listening to that performance (and an earlier live performance that appeared on YouTube a few weeks previously) made me feel uncomfortable.

It’s always been hard for me to look at Dean’s work with any sort of objectivity, but that’s never been a problem because, well… it has all been great, there’s frankly nothing there which has cause to question my objectivity! I’m pretty certain I’ve never thought, let alone written down, a single jot of criticism of any of his work. Which is going to make the next couple of paragraphs pretty hard going.

I’ve seen Dean & Britta, and Luna before them (and even Damon & Naomi), perform many Galaxie 500 songs and I’ve never been bothered. In fact mostly I have been overjoyed and have swayed blissfully, happy that I can hear these songs again. But for some reason with Snowstorm all the things that have never bothered me in the past really did bother me, and actually they bothered me quite a lot.

Dean’s voice was good, and I think that might be a crucial point in what made it all sound so wrong. Hearing that familiar voice over that unfamiliar backing. The harsher drum sound, the fuzzier guitar, the more intricate bass line, the keyboards… MOSTLY the keyboards. It never had the other worldly, it never took me to that special place that Snowstorm has always taken me. It wasn’t a song capable of changing a life.

I love Dean & Britta and I love that they’re doing Galaxie 500 numbers, and I even appreciate that my attachment to Snowstorm might be quite unique and therefore I am the only one who finds it bothersome. But I do. I hope to get to see Dean & Britta play (a non 13 Most Beautiful show) in the near future, maybe even one of the Galaxie 500 shows they’ve been doing… but I wonder if they’ll take requests?

You can see Dean & Britta playing Snowstorm on KCRW over at A Head Full of Wishes – it’s quite near the end. But I’d suggest you stay here and watch this instead…

Patti Smith @ Meltdown photo by GanMed64

Recently in one of those Facebook memes when asked to name my top seven albums I put Patti Smith‘s Horses on that list. Obviously lists like that change like the weather but it is a great album and fully deserving of a place on the rotating list of great albums that appear in my top n lists whenever I do them. Until last night I had never seen Patti Smith live, it was just one of those things I knew I needed to do but never actually got around to.

Last night she played at the Royal Festival Hall as part of Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown and provided me with a rollercoaster ride that left me in turns frustrated and breathless… and if pushed to rank it on a scale of greatness it would fall comfortably in the ‘pretty damn’ section.

She opened by reading Piss Factory, maybe she opens every show with it… if she doesn’t, she should, Patti’s delivery just sucked the audience in. She then went on to perform a mix of songs and poetry with various guest musicians including Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Adrian Utley from Portishead, her daughter Jesse and The Master Musicians of JouJouka (who the rest of the crowd adored but who set my teeth on edge with their horrid screechy pipes).

However it was when Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra provided backing that the evening pushed relentlessy on into that ‘pretty damn great’ slot. Before the encore Ornette Coleman walked slowly to center stage, muttered some generic platitudes and walked slowly offstage – a bit more involvement from him would have been nice. Patti is a phenomenal woman with more charisma and energy than I could ever dream of having. I’m relieved to have ticked off another great in my gigography. And, even though she didn’t play any of Horses, I’d go again.

• My 2008 New Year post
• My 2007 New Year post

Adam and I, filled with xmas spirit, get down and groove to the Spector xmas album…you also get to see Penny mauling the xmas tree in the background.

Tagged a while back by maurinsky (via Hazel)

This is tricky, mostly tricky because of all I’ve had to leave out (two Galaxie 500 albums for starters).

On Fire – Galaxie 500 (1989)
Best album ever. Nothing more to say (except that its appearance in this list also represents the band’s entire output and that of Luna, Damon & Naomi and Dean & Britta

Ys – Joanna Newsom (2006)
Stunningly ambitious and beautifully realised and one day you all will realise just how perfect a piece of art this is.

Secret Name – Low (1999)
I normally pick “I Could Live in Hope” as my fave Low album, but Secret Name is beautiful and is (according to last.fm) the Low album I listen to more than any other.

The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground (1969)
The third VU album is awesome and the contrast between this and White Light/White Heat just makes it better (that doesn’t mean that I don’t love White Light/White Heat).

Hounds of Love – Kate Bush (1985)
Hounds of Love was my by-myself album of choice for a long time. Listening now it’s remarkable as well in that it manages to not suffer from the time it was made. Previously on Everything’s Swirling.

If You’re Feeling Sinister – Belle & Sebastian (1996)
Just really sweet pop. Previously on Everything’s Swirling.

Horses – Patti Smith (1975)
Whenever I listen to this album I’m stunned I don’t listen to it more.

All the places on this list with the exception of the first two are vulnerable from attack from Motorhead, Brian, Nina Nastasia, Throwing Muses, Stereolab, Yo La Tengo or any one of hundreds of others.

THE RULES:

1. Post your list of the seven best albums, the seven bloggers you will tag, a copy of these rules, and a link back to this page.
2. Each person tagged will put a URL to their Blogger Album Project post along with a list of the seven best albums in the comment section HERE at Hill’s Country. Enough already!
3. Feel free to post the “I Contributed to the Blogger Album Project” Award Graphic on your sidebar, along with a link back to this page.
4. Post a link back to the blogger who tagged you.

As before…if you read this consider yourself tagged.

As if the wait hasn’t been unbearable enough Touch and Go have been putting out occasional “teaser trailers” which just make clear that 30 seconds of The New Year just isn’t enough. Here’s the proof…

09/09/08 still seems too far away…

…and they’ll be over here in November – that’ll get me off my lazy arse…

…and at the Luminaire…it just keeps getting sweeter…

Mayo Thompson of Red Krayola is a funny guy – he wandered on stage dressed like an undertaker and spent a couple of minutes trying to attach his set list to the mic stand, he eventually gave up and placed it on the floor and then reached into his pocket to get out his specs – I felt empathy given the state of my eyesight recently and it made me laugh – as did most of the set. The band was a Mayo, a drummer, a (British) singer who (mis-)read her lyrics from sheets of paper and a saxophonist who used his leg as a mute. Baffling and bizarrely brilliant.

Joanna came on stage in a(nother) silly billowing dress (I really wish she’d dress in jeans and a t-shirt because a dress like that would flatter no one). She played alone opening with Bridges & Balloons and then playing Emily, Sadie, Colleen at which point she moved from the harp to a piano where she played a few new songs (and an old one – Inflammatory Writ) before heading back to the harp for the finale Peach, Plum, Pear, Cosmia and a beautiful finish of Clab, Cram, Cockle Cowrie. No encore – probably too cold and maybe a bit too close to curfew but the crowd were yearning so it was a disappointment when the courtyard lights came up.

While the venue was interesting I’d have preferred to have been indoors, without the smokers, the bells, the seagulls and the cold. There was no Sawdust & Diamonds – which had been so astounding solo at the RAH – and that was a disappointment but all told it was a good show and will tide me over until she’s hopefully over with a new album soon.