Everything's Swirling » Music

Just dug this one out #32: Wishing Like a Mountain… by Poi Dog Pondering

Andy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:02:11 +0000

There was a short period in time when I thought Poi Dog Pondering were great. I remember playing Wishing Like a Mountain and Thinking Like the Sea a lot… and awful lot. I bought the follow up album (Volo Volo) and am not sure I've ever even listened to it once. The time came and went. I remember seeing them at the Powerhaus around then as well… I enjoyed that to.

It's probably 15 years or more since I last listened to this and it was like listening to someone else's past. It is nothing like anything I like now and nothing like anything I was into back then either … I really can't figure it out at all. There are some nice tunes and some funny/thoughtful lyrics. But that's almost irrelevant.

I don't hate it… I just have no feelings at all for it. It's a stranger.

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I love living in the future #3 : Mogwai – Burning – A shared experience

Andy — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:57:02 +0000

I love living in the future – I've just watched the new Mogwai film streamed live over the Internet and watched it with 2000 other people… reading what they thought on Twitter and saying what I thought.

The stream struggled with the images and the sound will be better at some point – but the experience was lovely… and the film will be worth seeing properly with the sound turned up really really loud soon.

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Kristin Hersh @ ‘Round Midnight

Andy — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:26:56 +0000

I was very tempted not to go – I love Kristin Hersh to pieces and I've been seeing her live for twenty years now – and she's still right there at the very top of her game… but I'm old, and tired (really, really tired) so it was tempting to just stay at home… it's not like I'd have wasted any money on the free tickets for this surprise/secret show.

But it's been three years since I last saw her and, who knows how long I'd have to wait to see her again so I dragged my tired, tired carcass off to Islington and arrived just in time – I was pretty close to the last one they let in to the venue – which fortunately left me in a very sweet spot for the show… and what a show. Just under an hour of gems (off the top of my head) Hook in Her Head, Pearl, Gazebo Tree, Flooding, Quick, Mississippi Kite oh and many more… my tired head’s too fuzzy…

… and a stack more on flickr.

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MP3: Robert Forster (and Grant McLennan) in 1991

Andy — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:16:54 +0000

OK – I'll put the whole of this show on Mediafire tomorrow but until then here are a couple of tracks. The show was shortly after The Go-Betweens had split in early 1991. Robert came to town with a band he'd picked up in Berlin and played a stonking set – for the encore he was joined by Grant McLennan for two songs (Clouds and Danger in the Past) and then did a cover of Grant Hart's 2541.

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 at The Borderline in 1992

Andy — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:06:10 +0000

I just came across this recording I made of a solo Kristin Hersh show from 1992. I went with Jackie (not sure why Hazel didn't come) and we saw a celeb in the bar beforehand – although I can't remember who the celeb was! Anyway… the show was great and I think the recording turned out OK. Recorded using crappy passive SONY tie-clip mics to a Walkman Pro.

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 living in the future – #2 – vinyl on YouTube

Andy — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:42:10 +0000

I love living in the future – I love that I can get music instantly delivered to my ears without leaving my seat… but I also have a fondness for vinyl not for any reasons of quality or snobbishness but more because somehow putting a needle into a groove of plastic and getting music out of it is somehow more amazing to me than getting music out of a computer.

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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The saving of BBC 6 Music

Andy — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:28:31 +0000

When 6Music was under fire I wrote this…

Growing up there was very little for me on the radio. I didn't listen to chart music or "pop music" and the radio was just something that my parents had on, filling up silences. Music was discovered through friends, the music press and taking a punt on an interesting band-name or eye-catching sleeve in a record shop.

In my late 70s/early80s metal period I was gifted with two hours a week on a Friday night, and through my more eclectic 80s and 90s I had Peel for a couple of hours a night during the week. But there was no radio station I could just pop on for an hour or two while I worked or washed up.

I have such admiration for the BBC I adore that there is an institution that doesn't need to cater for lowest-common-denominator, that doesn't need to kowtow to advertisers. I adore that Radio 3 exists, not because I listen to it a great deal, but because I know that without it there would be a huge hole in British culture that wouldn't be filled anywhere else. But for all that admiration for many years BBC radio never catered for me.

BBC 6Music changed that. At last there was something that my license fee gave back to me. A station that exposed me to music I didn't know but might love, music that I already loved but never heard on the radio and wished more people would get to hear, and music that I would never have dreamed of trying out.

Whether it's with daytime shows like Lauren Laverne or Steve Lamacq or the specialist shows like The Freak Zone or The Friday Rock Show 6Music has become such an important part of my life and to even consider taking it away makes no sense at all.

The BBC should be proud of what it does not embarrassed that hasn't achieved some arbitrary version of 'success' – 6Music is not something I can get anywhere else.

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My Top 6… very silly songs…

Andy — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 22:47:43 +0000

Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
I'd say that Bohemian Rhapsody will pop into my head unannounced at least four or five times a week – if I scrobbled my mind this would be so far away at the top of my chart!
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – Paul & Linda McCartney
Lots to love about this but mostly the silly butter pie thing gets me going 'huh?' and reminding me how much I can't help loving Macca!
Fairies Wear Boots – Black Sabbath
What a title… I mean how can that not be the title of a great song!?
Mr Blue Sky – ELO
Mr Blue Sky is one of the few songs that has survived my HM -> punk -> indie thing pretty much unscathed… I maybe ignored it through snobbery for a while but it never really went away…
Mr Apollo – The Bonzo Dog Band
Obviously the Bonzos could own this list but this is one of my faves because it's not too silly (by Bonzo standards)
Kiss Me, Hold Me, Eat Me – Ballboy
Another band that could fill a top6 all on their own -mostly for their beautifully silly titles – but this one because it's about canniballs falling in love!

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Whatever happened to… National Park

Andy — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:08:31 +0000

I just came across a VCD that John of National Park must've sent me when I bought a single of theirs four or five years back. I couldn't get the damn thing to work but I guess that this is one of the videos I would've found if I had…

National Park made a lovely noise but sadly (almost) everything I have of theirs is on vinyl and I'm currently without an amp so I'll have to make do with what I can find out there…

They have…

* A Wikipedia entry
* A (neglected) web page
* A few other videos on YouTube

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Should Dean play Galaxie 500?

Andy — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:59:26 +0000

A discussion has struck up on the Galaxie 500 Mailing List about whether Dean should be doing these "…plays Galaxie 500 shows" or getting on with new material – here's my defence of the Galaxie 500 shows (as posted to the list)…

OK – here's a dissenting voice – although I'll qualify my defence by linking to my previous rant against Dean & Britta covering Galaxie 500.

This will be just a bunch of thoughts – a lot of which I won't explain the relevance of – partly because they may not have relevance…

Dean has on a number of occasions mentioned how hard he finds it coming up with new songs/song ideas – I think it was (and I don't have copy of Black Postcards to hand to double check) one of the contributing factors to Galaxie 500 breaking up – the two Dean & Britta albums and the 13 Most Beautiful soundtrack are all liberally sprinkled with covers – I think it's safe to assume that while he has consistently been producing great material it doesn't just fall out of him.

Galaxie 500 are back on the radar now – the Domino and 20|20|20 reissues have seen to that.

While reunions are de riguer we're all painfully aware (and in my case grateful) that a Galaxie 500 one is not on the cards

I've generally loved Luna covering Galaxie 500, and enjoyed Dean & Britta's forays into that part of Dean's past (with the exception linked above) – also one of my high-points of 2010 (high oints of any year prob) was Damon & Naomi covering Blue Thunder at The Luminaire – I don't mind, and actually genuinely love, that these songs can still work.

13 Most Beautiful – as a project – has eaten a chunk out of the "write the next album" time so clearly the next new album is not ready.

The music industry is a different animal now – without record companies proffering huge advances to make albums the money is having to be made elsewhere… actually I wonder if this is the key point. Smaller bands/artists need to find new ways to make if they want music to be a career rather than a side project – and whether its advertising, soundtracks, reunions, or rehashing your back catalogue (or any/all of the above) – then that is what needs to be done.

Galaxie 500 shows are going to make money – for some of the reasons mentioned above.

I know that there will be new material from Dean (& Britta) at some point in the future – and I can wait – it's not like there isn't stacks of other great music to listen to – and in the meantime I'm happy to enjoy hearing (of) Galaxie 500 reunion shows knowing that they're not Galaxie 500 and it's not breaking anything by happening.

I'm a fan.

Come ride the fiery breeze…

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