Journal

Said it before, the Oxfam book and Music charity shops are top quality and the one on Strutton Ground, between Victoria and Westminster can be a fucking treasure trove of good music.

Today I popped in at lunch and walked away with a pile of CDs - no vinyl today though - which I will present for your delectation;


The Beatles - Revolver - I like this lot but I've never bought anything by them until now. Possibly the best album ever? Meh. maybe, maybe not - but it does have Tomorrow Never Knows and For No One on it - both 10 out of 10 tracks them are.

Tripping Daisy - My Umbrella - Tim's old band before he formed The Polyphonic Spree - I know not much about them but I did used to love Piranha.

The Heavy - How You Like Me Now? - never heard of them but there's a Joker remix on it so that should be good...

Einstellung - wings of desire - no idea but nice sleeve so bought it for that and the fact that there are shouts out to Rough Trade and Shifty Disco (I think - this is from memory) on the inlay slip.

3Ds - Hey Seuss - no idea - on the Flying Nun label so how bad can it be?

& Finally; the Best of Dance 92 - Yay! Early House and other 1992 club classics - sweeeeeeet...


So a tenner to charity is a tenner that the music industry won't get their hands on. Not to worry, they'll get theirs later in the week I'm sure... Charity shops are go!

Fri 7 Aug – The Big Chill 2009

Oh man, we had some good weather for The Big Chill this year. As ever the festival starts with wet conditions - from all accounts those hardy stall holders who had to set up on Tuesday could tell you some stories - but those of us travelling on Thursday drove through the last of the rain and into dry conditions. There was a bit of mud to be found on site; most of it around the main beer tent which can make carrying a few pints back from the bar, well, interesting.
After Thursday it was a case of slapping on the sun block and hitting the shade every once in a while. And Monday morning it's back to grey clouds and a welcome chill to the air - no one wants to get a couch back home for several hours when the sun light is slow baking you.

Apart from the weather then... oh, there were some bands and stuff... and an afternoon/evening of zombie mayhem. Few thousand people dressed up as zombies to shoot some scenes of the film 'I spit on your rave' which basically means dancing to a Toddla T DJ set and then cheering the demise of delicious humans. The zombie hordes have a new hero, risen from amongst them, and his name is Geoff (or Jeff). King of the zombies, Noel Fielding, is on hand with some stuff that was funnier then last years Boosh-meh-ness and the director or someone was on hand to get frustrated and worked up when a field full of unpaid extras might not be the easily controllable bunch that he had hoped.
First time for me dressing up as zombie - found it most excellent. More blood? Please!


I Spit On Your Rave trailer

After zombie shenanigans it's off to watch some of British Sea Power score an old film; 'Man of Aran' - which is cool but not captivating enough to stop us wandering off for more drinks and to check out some of the action of the Crap Stage - which was a rock-steady nattily suited young lad dancing to some old ska. Early morning wobbly strolls around the rest of the site and then hit the sack.

Note to self: ask tent neighbours if they are likely to turn into K-hole nightmare gibbering shit-talking shouting never sleeping bastards. The quiet camping area might beckon next year. Fuck it, I'm 30 now, 10 years back I might have been wasted enough to sleep through it. These were not the poster-boys for any legalise-ketamin for the non-equine campaign, hell no.

Mornings at the Big Chill mean one thing: Mr. Scruff's Tea Tent - quality place next to the lake where you can get a large pot of English breakfast to accompany a bacon roll and the hopes you aren't about to get some shitty hangover.
Next door to the Tea Tent is the Champagne bar, if your feeling flush then fuck it, yr on holiday, open a bottle.
Afternoon should be spent trying out a few/lot of some choice drinks; Monkey Shoulder cocktail: 'Show me the Monkey' is a bit of a winner as is the Big Chill Frisky Bison peach flavour one - pitcher = good thing.

Some Bands:

Grasscut
First on the main stage and impressive glitchy, folky, sometimes urban, electronica from these lads. Not overly loving the singing but digging the vibe. Nice.

Modeste Hughes
Madagassi Modeste is an awesome guitarist with a sweet sounding voice - one of the best things about the festival is that 'world music' - whatever that is - is represented on the main stages not stuck somewhere else on it's own. Same for unknown electronica stuff.

Ramadanman & Brackles
Dubstep players playing stuff that was reaching out to the club rather than just to the bass heads. Lots of vocal tracks that were new to me and not many scene classics - things are moving on and dubstep is spreading virus like into other styles but from what I heard of this set (by no means much more than 30 minutes of it) I'm not fussed with this direction all that much...

Wildbirds & Peacedrums
Holy crap! Awesome stuff indeed! That's a good bluesy noise from a drummer and singer/sometime tin-drum player. Lots of dancing and plenty bewitched by Mariam is looks and sounds stunning. Proper.

Shackleton
Shit - where'd everyone go? Fucking Shackleton's on man. Shackleton. He's fucking awesome. Come back! Honestly the castle stage has been deserted by the time the bass kicks off but after a short time they return. If you play bass; they will come.
Billed as 'Live' this is Sam S basically remixing and mashing his way through his back catalogue while we get some quality visuals. The bass is rattling my cage - in good ways - and all is loud and heavy. Good sound system!
Oh, the little pocket guides to who is on had him listed later that day - maybe people didn't know he was starting when he did...

Chris Cunningham
Fun for all the family with uncle Chris doing his VJ thing. All the hits from Sheena is a Parasite and Windowlicker through to the scottish bird from the PS2 adverts and naked couples repeatedly and repetitively beating several shades of shit out of each other. Is it morally cool to dance to this stuff? Answers on a postcard to the Daily Mail please marked: 'Where the cunting hell was most of Come to Daddy?'
Harsh and very welcome.

Suns of Arqa
Full props to these lot for been around for fucking ever but while I appreciate and clap and everything - it's just not my thing right now. Maybe I've not enough cider...

Helios
I would love to tell you about this lot because I remember that I loved them - it's just that I can not remember a thing about the set. Therefore I guess they were chilled and relaxing and didn't have naked dancers spontaneously combusting or slaughter a beluga whale on stage. Probably guys with laptops.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra or Music from the Penguin Café Orchestra
Advert music. Watch and listen and play guess-the-advert with yr mates. The ones in adverts sound ok. The ones that aren't in adverts sound a bit like them but not as good. Is there a correlation I wonder?

Spiritualized
Jason Pierce brings the garage gospel druggy droney noise. It's all good but not heart stoppingly wonderful like I know that they can be. Come Together sounds good but I would have liked them to take things down a few levels to Broken Heart.

Orbital
What. A. Fucking. Awesome. Set.
Completely different style since I watched them play their 'last ever show' a few years back. Tunes are reworked and mixed whereas they used to stand alone and it's a great way of delivering them to old ears in a fresh way. How much love is there for Orbital in the crowd? A whole lot.
The Box is a highlight as is Chime but - even though it's a bit naff - it's Halcyon which gets me grinning widest with it's mix up of Belinda Carlisle Heaven is a place on earth and Bon Jovi You give love a bad name.

Legends.



...Sunday stuff up here laters...

Well now, I am boxing up records in anticip...



...ation of moving house in three weeks (even though I have, as late, nowhere to go) - and I find an EP by Appliance which I stick on and it's pretty cool. A bit stereolab, a bit krautrock. It has groove, in a white boys from Devon kinda groove.

But but but but but - it's from waaaaaay back in 98 - and there's a website address on the sleeve;

http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/appliance/index.html

and you know that's old old old. And of course, it's dead. But there's a certain fascination that these dead band web pages hold for me - there's a charming naivety to the complicated address and a nostalgia for the days when only a handful of people you knew could get on-line anyway. 98 was after those times I suppose, but only by a few years.

In 98 Most bands were probably setting up some website somewhere as an afterthought to the whole marketing thing - they were still reliant upon postcards in CD's and vinyl sleeves which were prepaid if you were on a major - attach a stamp if the label was an indie. Postcards isn't maybe the best description... they were about 3" square white cards to fill yr address and age on and send back to the label or band who would then send you postcards and paper catalogues a few times a year.

I loved those band send-outs. Still have a few kept in boxes. I wonder when that stopped? Sometimes you would get a free flexidisk too - cheers to Cast for one of those! - A live version of one of their first songs which is in a box somewhere now awaiting the move...

Anyway - let me know any weird old websites for bands - the more complicated a name the better!

Oh, and R.I.P. geocities

First off - each year I try to record which tracks I fell in love with each year. I was meant to limit it to singles only but gave up on that sometime during 2008...

I've not done so well this year, the complete list is a lot less than the previous years, even though there's been some great stuff maybe I haven't heard it - I'm out of the indie scene & loops which was a good source of fine 7"s - less 7"s are 99p nowadays so it's less likely that I'll buy something I haven't heard before. Shame!

Anyway, in no particular order here's my top 10 so far;

Bon Iver - Woods
Joker - Digidesign
Animal Collective - My Girls
Dan Deacon - Build Voice
LD - Traumatic Times
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
soy un caballo - robin
Burial & Four Tet - Wolf Cub
Skream - Trapped In A Dark Bubble
Guido - Orchestral Lab

The complete list is here; http://www.last.fm/tag/welove2009 - so please add to that if you want! What have I missed?


Edit:

+ Mount Kimbie - Maybes - which is hella good

Hooray for record stores!
Hooray for racks of unknown vinyl
and boxes of second hand 7 inches
walls plastered in promo posters
and postcard size gig adverts

Hooray for the grumpy looking bloke
who needs coffee and has been working
for 21 days straight
11am to 11pm
8 cigarette breaks a day

Hooray for the DIY Scottish lo-fi single
playing loud on the store stereo
they will soon become
your
new favourite band
and this was the first time you heard them.

Hooray for the physicality of it all
This is sex vs. online cyber-sex
Vinyl vs. the download
The wild eyed store clerk thrusting
a white label under your nose
proclaiming the second coming
"you HAVE to hear this"
vs. Amazon.com telling you
You may also like xyzzzzzzz....


The last week I've bought online and offline; boomkat, amazon, HMV, sister ray, & sounds of the universe.
Walking past sister ray I knew I had to get Black Dice - Repo and at the same time pick up the new Camera Obscura 7" and an old Joker 12" - which leads the store clerks bloke to tell me they have copies of the new 12" by him in, fresh that day. I pop back the next day to pick up the Thrill Jockey compilation LP - released to celebrate Independent Record Store Day - and a cassette tape from Rough Trade which looks ACE!
Sounds of the Universe deals Dubstep to me and Boomkat does so too. Amazon supplies cheap CDs of stuff I missed from the last few years. But Amazon is boring.

How long will record shops be with us? Cherish these years people! They may not last forever. Go shopping! Pick up something from the wall of 'recommended new releases' - ask the people who work there to recommend you some obnoxious loud punk, bass heavy dub techno, or weird anti-folk. Pick up a 50p fanzine. Hang out! Explore! Go on, its sunny outside, go shopping, go find something, go fall in love.

I must admit, like a lot of you I'm sure that I think of myself as someone who loves all types of music, or at least a large majority.
A lot of people who say to me 'oh well, I'm fairly open minded, I like different stuff' end up revealing that they love black-metal, thrash-metal and some other non-metal stuff that they have on a soundtrack album. But anyway...
...I must draw the line somewhere. That somewhere is directly around Blackmore's Night and their medieval balladry of Crowning of the King. It takes a lot to push me to hit the 'Ban this track' button but this one hits the spot.
This song came up on my neighbourhood radio and so, which one of you was it? Come on -hands up. We're not leaving until whoever it was admits it. I can wait here as long as you.
But seriously, it's laughable wank.

I'm really sorry if you like this sort of thing - there's a lot of listeners so I guess that there's a big demand for this sort of thing, but is this band even a good example of the genre of medieval? I will happily listen to Espers - that's fine, but this, no, just... no... no.

Nothing much against Richie Blackmore but any band that he's in that mentions his name is a big no.
Rainbow? Maybe.
Richie Blackmore's Rainbow? No.

Any way, to stress a point, if you like this then good for you.

Oh, and Candice is still a babe.

We’re over the cold snap, after work I’m more than comfy walking round in shirt and scruffy jacket. Where as I used to walk at lunchtimes I have of late taken to staying in, sat at my desk where its warm, so a bit of a walk is long overdue. There’s no great need to be home either; the whole weekend is ahead of me and, as ever, I suspect the majority of it will be spent inside, so I can happily set off without paying much mind to where it is that I am going.

Through Westminster underground station to avoid the traffic lights and main roads above and then out next to the Thames, passed a new busker on the officially assigned street-performers marked pitch - the usual bloke only plays Bob Marley, and only one of Bob’s songs at that, I think it must be redemption song but small doubts nag me to say maybe its not.

I take it that liking Bob Marley is a universal constant, like the speed of light? Although of course the speed of light is not always constant - try light through liquid nitrogen at close to absolute zero and it travels about the speed of a traditional bicycle. But does anyone actually & actively dislike his music? Redemption song was covered by the late, great Joe Strummer and its his version that stays in my mind whenever I hear the song, his London, not-cockney, voice closer to mine than any Jamaican accent is and if I sing the song to myself, inside my head, then I do not try and adopt some cod-reggae accent. Strummer, I guess, adopted his London, punk(ish) voice, shedding his middle class well educated inflections which is one thing but at least he never went down Stings vocal route.

The Thames greets me with rows of wooden huts selling river cruises to tourists. I’ve never taken a boat down the river and its something I would very much like to do. I can happily fantasise that I helm some decent sailing boat both lazily and when its gusting, along the river from Rotherhide as far west as I can get. Strolling along the North bank listening to my mp3 player; Rancid - ‘...And Out Come the Wolves' - an album that still invigorates me with some long lost youth. I think to myself that ‘Journey to the End of the East Bay’ is one of the greatest songs ever written and tease over the possibility that its better than ‘In My Life’ by The Beatles. Both songs have comparable stories of travelling and expectations not matching reality but there’s love in both for a period of time. Only one has that righteous punk wonder though.

Across the river the London Eye looms large and magical and I wish that I carried my camera with me. I wonder if I could take some sort of slow release picture and what the lights would look like. This reminds me of Ben’s photo’s of street lights which showed the phosphorescence arcing out from the head of the light across the night sky. What’s he up to now I wonder? Maybe Phil knows…

I cut through Embankment station and walk up towards The Strand, I try and work my way through throngs of people drinking outside of a wine bar but there is maintenance work going on and the route is blocked. I thread my way up to Covent Garden, past multitudes of shops, pubs and cafes all seemingly catering solely for Kiwis, Aussies and Springboks.

I now have a destination in mind; Neal’s Yard Rough Trade. I quicken my pace, winding, side stepping, overtaking, squeezing through the throngs of shoppers that now seem to be planted in the ground outside shops, a dense forest of stationary, bag carrying, aimless obstacles to my record shop. Partly immaterial due to said record shop having relocated some 2 years previously, a fact that the skate shop owners who sit a floor above the old basement imparts with a half smile to suggest that he’s been saying this for 2 years and expects to be saying this to wondering vinyl junkies for years to come. Although they must cull skate shop employees when they reach a certain age, 26 maybe, so he might not have long to go.

Off through Soho next, where I end up outside Sounds Of The Universe, ogling the 12″s on display and reminding myself that I need to buy that Boxcutter/Kinnego Flux record. It’s a great record shop but I limit myself to whatever money is in my pocket and after flicking through the dubstep I get the above record (good stuff) and a Peverelist 12″ - Clunk Click Every Trip/Gather - the second of those is rather fine indeed.

Monthly Top Tracks - Link To Calculate Yr Own!

Well, as you may be able to tell, I don't often listen to the same tracks ad finitum, and so the lower number ones were probably tied - but you just can't get the data these days can you - Or can you?

Aug-2007 Wolf Parade : Fancy Claps (1 plays)
Sep-2007 The Futureheads : Meantime (2 plays)
Oct-2007 Nick Drake : River Man (3 plays)
Nov-2007 The Good, The Bad & The Queen : Green Fields (6 plays)
Dec-2007 Patrick Wolf : The Magic Position (3 plays)
Jan-2008 Simone White : The Beep Beep Song (1 plays)
Feb-2008 Crystal Castles : Air War (3 plays)
Mar-2008 Björk : Bachelorette (3 plays)
Apr-2008 Burial : Wounder (3 plays)
May-2008 The Shortwave Set : no social (6 plays)
Jun-2008 MGMT : Time to Pretend (3 plays)
Jul-2008 Portishead : The Rip (3 plays)
Aug-2008 Skream : Tortured Soul (3 plays)
Sep-2008 Camera Obscura : If Looks Could Kill (5 plays)
Oct-2008 Butthole Surfers : Pepper (5 plays)
Nov-2008 Ida Maria : Queen Of The World (5 plays)
Dec-2008 Fleet Foxes : Your Protector (5 plays)
Jan-2009 Sigur Rós : Gobbledigook (4 plays)
Feb-2009 Frank Black : I Don’t Want To Hurt You (Every Single Time) (3 plays)
Mar-2009 Joker : Digidesign (5 plays)
Apr-2009 Dan Deacon : Build Voice (5 plays)
May-2009 Guido : Orchestral Lab (5 plays)
Jun-2009 Gorky's Zygotic Mynci : Patio Song (5 plays)
Jul-2009 Ron Sexsmith : God Loves Everyone (3 plays)
Aug-2009 Gregor Samsa : Young and Old (3 plays)
Sep-2009 JOY OrBiSOn : Hyph Mngo (4 plays)
Oct-2009 The Raveonettes : Gone Forever (6 plays)