Everything's Swirling

Songs with SFX # 1 (slight return): Black Sabbath

Posted on September 22nd, 2009 by Andy

Black_Sabbath_debut_album

An excerpt from Ozzy Osbourne’s upcoming autobiography “I am Ozzy” was published in The Times Online this week and as well as the stories of drink, drugs and small animal decapitaions he also describes playing the first Black Sabbath album to his dad…

I can picture him now, fiddling with his reading specs and holding the cover in front of his face. Then he opened the sleeve, went, “Hmm” and said: “Are you sure they didn’t make a mistake, son?”

“What d’you mean?”

“This cross is upside down.”

“It’s supposed to be like that.”

“Oh. Well, don’t just stand there. Put it on. Let’s have a bit of a singalong, eh?”

With the first clap of thunder, my dad flinched.

I grinned nervously at him.

Then: Bong! Bong! Bong!

“Son, when does . . .”

BLAM! Dow! Dowwwwwww!!!

Dooooowwwwww!!!!!

My poor old man turned white. I think he’d been expecting something along the lines of Knees up Mother Brown.

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Songs with SFX #3: Teenage Fanclub – I Don’t Want Control of You

Posted on September 21st, 2009 by Andy

Having a Teenage Fanclub day today. Not sure where the urge came from but it’s always a nice urge to get. I suspect this series of posts is going to fill up with bird sounds opening or closing songs. On I Don’t Want Control of You (from the wonderful Songs From Northern Britain) there’s some nice bird song before The Fannies kick off.

Teenage Fanclub - I Don't Want Control of You

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You like the shoes I wear #23 – Saya from Tenniscoats

Posted on September 7th, 2009 by Andy

Pastels/Tenniscoats
originally uploaded by grange85

…or more correctly “You like the shoes I don’t wear #2″

Saya from lovely Tokyo pop band Tenniscoats performing bare-footed with The Pastels at the Bush Hall last night.

#23 – Saya of Tenniscoats in her birthday shoes.

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Pastels/Tenniscoats @ The Bush Hall

Posted on September 7th, 2009 by Andy

Veronica Falls

I arrived at the Bush Hall just after eight hoping to catch support act Veronica Falls whose single track on their MySpace page convinced me to make the effort. In the olden days you’d arrive and hand over your ticket or a fiver and you’d be in but in this new ticketless age each person has to convince the door staff who they are, which makes entry a slower process. A queue had formed outside the venue and when I finally made my way in Veronica Falls were already half-way through a very enjoyable set of noisy and loose guitar pop. I saw enough to want to hear more but as far as I can tell I’ll have to make do with that one track on MySpace.

I positioned myself at the front of the stage – possibly a little too far forward for the best sound but by the time I realised this, the crowd behind made it difficult to move back. At least I got a good view if not the best sound.

The Pastels & Tenniscoats

The Pastels had the two members of lovely Japanese pop act Tenniscoats playing with them (as well as Gerry Love from Teenage Fanclub on bass). The two bands have a released a very beautiful album, Two Sunsets, and the set was made up predominantly of tracks from that album.

Main set closer was The Pastels own Baby Honey which was great to hear and rocked beautifully hard. The encore started with Tenniscoats doing a track on their own before The Pastels returned for a couple more… and it was over.

All together a stunning evening and well worth dragging my tired, old bones along to.

More photos on Flickr.

Gerry Love and Saya Tenniscoat

The last couple of minutes of Baby Honey

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You like the shoes I wear #22 – Naomi Yang… again

Posted on September 5th, 2009 by Andy

Damon & Naomi @ Cafe OTO
originally uploaded by grange85

I’m beginning to think that this series could be saved for Naomi and her footwear – this is her 3rd or 4th appearance (although sadly the pic of her in her wellies has gone astray from flickr).

#22 Naomi Yang – Another lovely pair of boots.

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Just dug this one out #31: Out of the Blue by Electric Light Orchestra

Posted on September 2nd, 2009 by Andy

Picture nicked from The Lost Planet

Of all the albums I owned in the days before Motorhead, Out of the Blue was certainly the one that had the longest lasting affect on me. If you asked me to name any albums from before my heavy metal Damascus (In late 1979) I’m sure I could name very few. And I suspect that the only one that was a real album, as opposed to compilations, was the Electric Light Orchestra’s finest hour.

I spent too much of last night lying awake with Mr Blue Sky swimming around my head and so decided that today was the day I should reacquaint myself with Out of the Blue, I wanted to hold the album with its colourful gatefold sleeve and its gorgeous blue vinyl (and the space station cut-out I’d forgotten about). Sadly holding it was out of the question, I’d guess it’s getting tatty and dusty in my dad’s shed with too much of my past.

So the next best thing to holding and stroking and smelling was to give it a listen. So I headed over to we7 and settled in for a morning wallowing in the lush and layerd (and over-lush and over-layered) album of my past. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. With metal came a dismissal of all that went before, and ELO where probably the most thoroughly shut out. I would suggest that I haven’t heard the whole of OotB since I first heard Overkill.

I’ll not leave it so long again.

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Songs with SFX #2: XTC – Senses Working Overtime

Posted on August 27th, 2009 by Andy

While the first entry in this series was brutally unsubtle in it’s raiding of the sound effects library, XTC’s Senses Working Overtime is beautifully subtle… and you have to wait right until the end. I love crows…

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My top 6… punk tracks

Posted on August 26th, 2009 by Andy

This list was inspired by my finding the “Best Punk Album In The World… Ever” in my collection. Given that only two of these six songs are on that compilation I think we have to assume that the title is misleading (and given that The Motors and the fucking Tubes are on it!!). Punk, for the sake of this list, is going by a fairly narrow definition – music made in the late 70s and early 80s by young scruffy people with guitars.

I was never a punk, I liked punk music and owned Clash and Damned albums and a fair few punk singles, but I was a headbanger (which is probably why the punk bands I generally liked were very much on the rock side of punk rock – see my previous ascii illustration).

But for all my denim and leather and loud music and lusciously thick and greasy hair (swoon) I still loved pop music. Top of The Pops was still regularly viewed right into the mid 80s and I still bought singles in Boots and Smiths which is where a couple of these tracks stem from.

There is no Clash or Damned or Buzzcocks because none of them made songs that I love as much as these (except maybe The Buzzcocks who came very close to being on this list and would definitely be here if it was a Top 7).

The Members – The Sound of the Suburbs
I have enduring memories of The Members performing Sound of the Suburbs on Top of The Pops (although it wasn’t this performance so they must have been on twice – or it was on a different TV show). They looked so ordinary. Sound of the Suburbs is like a punk version of one of my other favourite songs, Pleasant Valley Sunday.
The Rezillos – Top of the Pops
I love Faye’s voice, I love the anti-corporate lyrics and the gorgeous irony of their ToTP appearance (and the major label that it was released on), and I love just how it makes me feel.
Fatal Microbes – Violence Grows
I suspect there’s a whole swathe of people who have John Peel to thank for their love of Violence Grows, I’m one of them. Honey Bane’s delivery is perfect. I also remember Peel playing it years later as a comparison with Wipe it Away by Bleach. Didn’t Boy George write about his love of this song in Take it Like a Man?
The Slits – Typical Girls
I’m pretty certain that I came late to Typical Girls (and The Slits), I do own a 7″ somewhere but bought it at a record fair years afterwards. I di remember a school friend lending me Cut (I guess I probably had to smuggle it into the house) and I had a tape of it around but probably never listened as much as I should have.
The Newtown Neurotics – Blitzkrieg Bop
I saw The Newtown Neurotics a couple of times in the mid 80s. This is obviously a cover of The Ramones track but has a wonderful anti-war lyric and one of my favourite song endings ever… “and we’ve gone”
Television Personalities – Part Time Punks
Part Time Punks was all I knew of the Television Personalities until quite recently. I can’t remember how or when I became aware of this song and it wasn’t until the TVPs back-catalogue arrived on eMusic that I discovered that they were much more than just this one track.

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The Eagle has landed

Posted on July 20th, 2009 by Andy

Adam and I have been fascinated by the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. I have vague memories of watching it first time around – although those memories could easily have been of later missions. We’ve spent a lot of time listening to the “as live” broadcasts played on the We Choose the Moon website (although some “as live” telly would have been nicer). An hour or so (+40 years) back the Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility… I was thrilled!

Over the last few days I’ve been randomly using Blip.fm (and The Hype Machine) to post vaguely related songs to Twitter… for no one’s enjoyment of my own and for the same reason I’ll repost here. I was going to create a Spotify playlist but it failed at the first hurdle (ballboy) so I shan’t bother…

1:39 PM Jul 16th: Getting ready for the moon launch by listening to the few space related songs I have – Essential Wear for Future Trips to Space by ballboy ♫ http://blip.fm/~a11ub
4:12 PM Jul 16th: Two hours to launch ~ psycho helmets on ~ Silver Rocket by Sonic Youth ♫ http://blip.fm/~a15of
4:47 PM Jul 16th: Just over an hour to launch – time to load up the Spacemen 3 (sorry!) #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a16tp
5:31 PM Jul 16th: 30 minutes to launch ~ Space is Deep by Hawkwind #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a18fv
6:08 PM Jul 16th: Off into outer-space you go my friends, we wish you bon voyage. #apollo11 ~ Galaxie 500 – Moonshot ♫ http://blip.fm/~a1a6k
6:33 PM Jul 16th: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a1bik
about 10 hours ago from Blip.fm: “Just to be in space would be the important thing” ~ ballboy – A Day in Space #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a9r38
about 9 hours ago: “It’s time to fly… into life’s mystery” Jonathan Richman http://hypem.com/track/577181 #apollo11 #hypem
about 7 hours ago: The colours of the moon #1 – Pink – Nick Drake – #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a9xl1
about 7 hours ago: The colours of the moon #[2] – Blue – Big Star – #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a9xoj
about 7 hours ago: The colours of the moon #3 – Red (and Low) – Belly – #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~a9xuv
about 7 hours ago: “It’s time to go somewhere we’ve never seen” - Luna’s cover of Jojo’s Fly Into the Mystery http://bit.ly/RX7TB #apollo11
about 6 hours ago: The colours of the moon #4 – White (and Trash) - Kristin Hersh – #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~aa3ct
about 6 hours ago: The colours of the moon #5 – Blue (revisited) – Cowboy Junkies – #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~aa3im
about 1 hour ago: Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed (REM) #apollo11 ♫ http://blip.fm/~aaslv