In a perfect world with Leon and June

Perfect World by Kodaline.
Gogglebox characters.
Leon & June.
Watching TV.
Laughing.

Lost in the Trans-la-tion

Bruce Springsteen talking about his forthcoming album High Hopes in The Guardian.

[...] the ill prepared roomies on Frankie Fell In Love (shades of Steve and I bumming together in our Asbury Park apartment,) [...]

Puerile again, but something here is definitely lost in translation when crossing the atlantic.

JFK. Blown Away. (5 songs about 1963 from the 1980s).

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, here's some songs that reference the event or the Kennedy era in general. Some in detail, some in passing.

I don't know if New Order's 1963 has anything to do with JFK but I've associated the two ever since repeated listens on the local village pub 7" single jukebox (as the B-side to True Faith). Later when they upgraded to a CD jukebox I was still able to subject everyone to the song, from the Substance collection.

Before that special occasion 1963, there's too many ways that you could kill someone. 

Now of course, just listening to it takes me straight back to that pub in 1987.

One song is that definitely about Kennedy, or more specifically, about Lee Harvey Oswald, is Seconds from the Human League's Dare album.

It took seconds of your time to take his life, it took seconds. 

That one takes me back to middle school days.

There is a passing but very evocative reference  in Dream Academy's Life In A Northern Town.

He said "In winter 1963, it felt like the world would freeze, with John F Kennedy, and The Beatles". 

That one was on my own jukebox in the lads house I shared after moving out from my parents.

From Paul Simon's The Late Great Johnny Ace from the Hearts And Bones album, which links the deaths of blues singer Johnny Ace,  JFK, and John Lennon.

It was the year of The Beatles, it was the year of The Stones, it was 1964,
I was living in London, with the girl from the summer before.
It was the year of The Beatles, it was the year of The Stones, a year after JFK,
We were staying up all night, and giving the days away. 

And to finish, as Billy Joel puts it in his lyrical tour-de-farce history-of-the-world opus We Didn't Start The Fire:

"JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?" 

I imagine the question is rhetorical, because Billy sure knows the answer. He certainly does have a lot more to say.

After writing this blog I realise all these songs are from the 1980s. Perhaps this blog post is more about nostalgia than JFK - most of these songs are looking back to 1963, and here I am in 2013 looking back to songs I knew well in the 80s, from 1981 to 1989.

(Links to these songs and a playlist including others below this break).

Lou Reed 1942-2013

New York is the only Lou Reed solo album that I know well in its entirety. And I mean lyrics off by heart singalong well.

It's an amazing sounding album, the guitars in particular benefit from the meaty production. It's also an album with great lyrics providing plenty of anger, some weary sadness, but also a lot of humour - which people don't always associate with Lou Reed.

Just To Read My Diaries

You had to sneak into my room just to read my diaries. It was just to see, just to see all the things you knew I'd written about you. Oh so many illustrations oh but I'm so very sickened, oh I am so sickened now.

Bright Phoebus Covers

Bright Phoebus is a "lost" (ie unavailable) 1972 album from Lal and Mike Waterson, also featuring such folk luminaries as Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson, Maddy Prior, and Norma Waterson.

Long out of print due to legal wranglings, there's a Bright Phoebus Revisited mini-tour this month, featuring assorted extended Waterson, Carthy and Thompson family members, plus admirers like Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley.

I won't say much more about the original album here, which is available on the internet in the usual brown-bag under-the-counter type places, but there's an excellent half-hour Radio 4 documentary by Pete Paphides (part of a series about lost albums) available here on soundcloud. There's also a tracklisting and musicians credits here on the Mainly Norfolk site, including links to all the lyrics. Finally, there's a detailed and interesting story of the album at The Sound Project, which links to the originals as a YouTube series of songs.

I'm going to the Barbican gig so I wanted to listen to some of the songs in advance. What I have done is rounded up the covers available on Spotify and made a Bright Phoebus Covered playlist.

Unfortunately there are no cover versions of Magical Man or Shady Lady. There are the most cover versions by far of Fine Horseman, perhaps because it's one of the most striking vocals and immediate melodies.

Finding the cover versions involved listening to all songs on Spotify with the same name, and there's a lot of songs called The Scarecrow or Scarecrow, quite a lot of them are folk tunes which makes sense given the pastoral theme, but a surprising amount of heavy metal/hard rock as well.

Equally there's plenty of songs called Shady Lady, from big bands to Gene Pitney, from Status Quo to Uriah Heep (which isn't that far), mainly featuring fairly alluring shady ladies but none of these are versions of the Bright Phoebus song.

Some of the tracks on the playlist are newer versions featuring Lal Waterson and/or Mike Waterson, so maybe not strictly covers, but I've included these too, especially in the absence of the original album.

See below the fold for the full tracklisting.

Alpha Song For Going To Orange Ball Of Pure

The Mountain Goats revisit several themes lyrically, other songs are loosely connected, and some songtitle words are just re-used with no other immediate connection.

Amongst the most frequent of these are Alpha, Song For, Going To, Orange Ball Of, Pure.

Admirably, someone has listed the series and reasons as part of a subsite that contains a full index of everything mountaingoat-related.

The Mountain Goats Set 2013

I'm off to see the Mountain Goats again next Tuesday at the Union Chapel so I've done a playlist based on the songs that have been played in the last seven concerts (according to setlist.fm).

Similar to Yo La Tengo earlier this year I know a few albums but there's so many others around that I'd like a quick listen to some of the songs he/they might play.

The tracks are in most frequently played sequence. The first twelve tracks (down to Up The Wolves) seem to have been played at most of the recent gigs.

Alpha Chum Gatherer was also played at nearly every gig. It's an unreleased track from the Tallahassee sessions though, so I can't ruin that particular surprise for you here.

The last concerts were back in June and in the US so of course we might get a totally different set. . . which wouldn't matter, it's interesting to hear some of the stuff that's been played and across a wide selection of albums on this playlist.

Twogee Boogie Woogie

I like Jools Holland as a presenter and I make a point of skimming through recorded episodes of Later to see who's on, but I've just accidentally witnessed the horror of Jamie Cullum and Jools Holland performing a post-interview double boogie-woogie jam. At least it was mercifully brief.

Mr Bastard Jones

Is this a punk-style tribute band?

C(o)unting Crows at the Hammersmith Apollo CKWATT

Puerile, I know.

Thatcher In Song

Inspiration to many, here's a selection of songs that wouldn't have been written without Margaret Thatcher. Some more direct (The Exploited) than others (Julian Cope, The Housemartins) but all sharing similar sentiments.

Robert Wyatt – Shipbuilding
Roger Waters – Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert - Live
Roger Waters – Southampton Dock - Live
Julian Cope – Promised Land
Hefner – The Day That Thatcher Dies
Wild Billy Childish And The Musicians Of The British Empire – Thatcher's Children
Morrissey – Margaret On the Guillotine
Frank Turner – Thatcher Fucked The Kids
The Style Council – Life At A Top Peoples Health Farm
Elvis Costello – Tramp The Dirt Down
Carter USM – Evil
Linton Kwesi Johnson – It Dread Inna Inglan
The Beat – Stand Down Margaret (Dub)
The The – Heartland
UB40 – One in Ten
The Specials – Ghost Town
Billy Bragg – Between the Wars
Exploited – Let's Start A War...
A.R. Kane – Baby Milk Snatcher
The Blow Monkeys – Celebrate (The Day After You)
Terry Edwards And The Scapegoats – Margaret Thatcher, we still hate you
Deborah Holland – Pinochet And Margaret Thatcher
The Three Johns – Kick The Dog
The Forlorn Hope – Gonna Laugh When Margaret Thatcher Dies
Fine Young Cannibals – Blue
Angelic Upstarts – Women in Disguise
The Housemartins – Five Get Over Excited
The Specials – Maggie's Farm
The Style Council – Right To Go
Billy Bragg – Days Like These - Gb Version
Manic Street Preachers – Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart
The Divine Comedy – The Complete Banker
Mogwai – George Square Thatcher Death Party
Sinead O'Connor – Black Boys On Mopeds
Kitchens Of Distinction – Margaret's Injection
The Neurotics – Fighting Times
Martin Stephenson – Left Us To Burn
Renaud – Miss Maggie
Space – No-One Understands
Robb Johnson – More Tea, Margaret?
Newtown Neurotics – Kick Out The Tories
Kirsty MacColl – Free World
Madness – Blue Skinned Beast (Remastered)
New Model Army – Spirit of the Falklands - Vengeance Album
Martin Carthy – Company Policy
UB40 – Madam Medusa
Exploited – Maggie

April Fools

. . .

Lock The Taskbar

I don't suppose I'm the first person to mention this,  but whenever I see the 'Lock the taskbar' option in Windows, the chorus of the Clash song Rock The Casbah comes into my head. And then won't go away again. Worse still, I never really liked that song anyway.

Quarter-Decent Three-Chord Knobheads

In an amusing diatribe on his blog, Robbie Williams lists the 'quarter-decent three-chord knobheads' who got record deals at the height of Britpop. Amusing not least for his choice turns of phrase, it's bizarre to see some of the lesser-known names he included. Given the furore surrounding this rant in the national press, it's probably more publicity than some of these bands ever got at the time (outside of the pages of the NME). There are some good bands on there, or at least some bands who did a couple of era-defining songs, however he might have a point about a few of the names mentioned...

There's a spotify playlist below featuring most of these 'knobheads'.

Guitarslinger

A twitter conversation between Low (@lowtheband) and Woodpigeon (@woodpigeontweet).

Jason Molina 1973-2013

Long dark blues,
farewell transmission,
long dark blues,
listen,
long dark blues,
listen,
long dark blues,
listen,
long dark blues,
listen.

Magnolia Electric Co. on the Garden Stage at the End Of The Road festival in 2009.

Update: Most music Jason Molina did is available for a short while streaming and to buy on bandcamp.

Yo La Tengo Set 2013

Set list sites - to see or not to see, that is the question?

I'm off to see Yo La Tengo this week, and although I know several albums I can't claim to know their entire back catalogue. So I decided to check the set lists for recent gigs.

It's not something I normally do, and isn't always an option. Only bands of a certain level have a fanbase big enough to number amongst them the type of fan who not only notes down the set list (or grabs one from the stage at the end of the show) but also uploads it to one of the setlist-sharing sites. That's not a criticism, I've done it myself before. I guess Yo La Tengo are in that level, they're certainly one of those bands with a loyal and broad fan base.

Anyway I don't normally check the current tour setlist of bands I'm about to see but in cases like these I like to see what oldies they might be playing alongside the new album to see if I know the tracks.

Checking the last few European dates only, they have played a total of 55 different songs at the last 7 gigs! And that's not including the three or four differing covers played as the encore each night. And counting for the fact that 8 or 9 songs from the new album Fade always feature, that's a lot of extra variety.

This is good news for me, I'd rather watch a band playing a varied an unpredictable set than one rolling out the same old songs. (One time I saw them was the Freewheelin' tour when they played the first half according to audience requests.) The only downside of this approach is that your favourite song might be featured one night but not the night you go, but them's the breaks.

Here a spotify playlist of all 55 songs (and link), followed by a song list. If nothing else it gives a quick overview of popular songs (amongst the band themselves at least) from their oeuvre. [I had to use a fancy pretentious word like that in my first post]. The set lists are here, March 6th 2013 onwards for seven or so gigs.

Update: the playlist now contains 63 songs, up to and including the London show.