The Soundr Hour - Spring Breaks

 

As the clocks go forward, Soundr steps into the new season with a fruity bouquet of blossoming breaks, blooming tunes and mellow beats -from trip hop to sunny lectro pop to breezy nu jazz..

 Dig in and bliss out...

Soundr DJ · the Soundr Hour: Spring Breaks -blossoming, blooming beats for spring

David, Essex.....

For three years now - (first posted here) at PM and over at Podrophenia HQ, we've been saluting and supporting the sprawling songbook of Southend maestro and multi-instrumentalist David Woodcock. Today boys. girls, bloggers and rollers - Dave's debut release is officially unveiled and brought to you by Blow Up Records

Order a pint, pull up a bar stool and settle in as Southend's hardest-working export entertains you for the next fourty-odd minutes, thundering through a set of uptempo tear-ups, misty-eyed memories and home-brewed belters. Updating the Thames Delta traditions of hi-octane rock and salty sing-alongs with a nippy contemporary twist.

Dave Woodcock's Lennon-esque time changes and fidget-hipped tunes are like a late-hours lock in (with pint mugs on the piano) - while Ronnie Lane, Mickey Jupp and Suggs go heads together on boozy, crowd rousing choruses of high times, heartbreak and hometowns. All captured with a Ray Davies-style snipers-eye for the everyday details  - and topped off with a boisterous production polish that gives the album the full-bodied bounce of a new wave knees up.

So, raise a glass to the debut album from the spectacularly talented David Woodock.

To collect your copy (early orders come with a free signed postcard) wing your way to David Woodcock.com

For a preview, tune into the third single Open Secret below, catch Dave on Steve Lamacq this Wednesday - or live on Podrophenia this Thursday...or for the album launch at The Bussey Building on Saturday

60 Minute Man: Jukebox Jimmy's postcard from Pellicci's.....

Artwork by Eleanor Crow  first found at the always excellent Spitalfields Life site

With the theme for our June edition of Radio Podrophenia being summer/holidays/seaside - Piley and I are having ourselves a staycation. As in, we're still banging about with the usual natter and chat this Thursday from 9, but are having a beano to Southend's newest radio station Shipful of Bombs, and asking our Podrophonic listening pals to choose the tracks and tunes.

Pitched into the playlist is a new to me treat, and hit in August 68 from Robert John - hand picked by Pellicci legend Jukebox Jimmy.



In fact, Jim has kindly recorded a 60 minute podcast pulling into play a stunning run of summer sounds from The Mamas and the papas to the Goffin and King songbook, and dropping in sixties soul and perfect seventies. pop

Fill your boots below. And then backtrack to the JBJ's exclusive musical overview here

Jukebox Jimmy - a Podrophonic Postcard from Pellicci's



And behold as Our Man in The North - John Medd, nips in for a nibble at London's most classic cafe..

For more recommend reading - try and earn yourself a spotter's badge. seeing who you can spy in this set of Pellicci portraits....

So, if you're free this Thursday at nine come and pipe yourselves aboard at Radio Podrophenia anchored up for one month only at Shipful of Bombs

Wold Gold

View from the New England Coffee House, Digbeth Street

So where have I been for the last couple o' weeks then? Rolling around the Cotswolds and marching around The Marches mostly.

Parked up in Stow-on-the-Wold for the first week - (our 11th visit since 2003) and red-ringing a list of trips and visits that gathered together: the Wychwood Brewery, Gloucester Cathedral, Sudeley Castle, a ramble-around the footpaths passing Quarwood - a country bundle that was home to John Entwistle until his death in 2002. Evenings were generally spent scanning the Olympics - (the women's shotput turned out to be our new fave spectator sport - mostly because of those blood-bubbling yells) or a soothing wander to our favourite Stow local the Queen's Head - and one of finest pints you'll ever taste, Donnington's BB.

When the light was good - what appeared to be a mirage in the distance, turned out to be Birmingham - ho hum!

Then away to Church Stretton for a few days hoofing up, up and away around the Shropshire Hills: Hazler, Three Fingers Rock and  Caradoc. Squeezing in an Ironbridge run and a one day dip into Wales (Newtown and it's W H Smith museum. Knighton and the Offa's Dyke centre)..

Finally, topping off the break with a couple of days at home, cycling to see the Olympic Mountain Bike circuit fitted around my old stomping ground of Hadleigh Castle. And to wrap up - on Sunday, a run to the Leigh Fishing Festival and a chance to step a leg onto one of Leigh's Dunkirk little ships - The Endeavour..

Of all the albums repeat played on our outings - Fay Hallam and The Bongolian, The Pierces - it was the Duckworth Lewis Method that turned out to be the songbook lodging itself in our noggins. Particularly...

 Duckworth Lewis Method - Mason On The Boundary



 Fay Hallam and The Bongolian - expect a review due soon..

 

Podrophenia: Will Patrons Kindly Refrain From...

Really, who was ever such a hardcore smoker that they couldn't take a trip to the local lido or swimming baths without having to spark up a sneaky gasper or two? It must have happened.

Out today - and keeping with the tradition of our annual Summer edition, the latest Podrophenia from Piley and myself is fitted around this old pool poster that was - with tracks based on bombs, petting, running, ducks etc.. As well as a natter-about on Speedos, 21st Century song titles and song titles for elderly folk

In for live tunes and chat we've Dave Woodcock, with a song freshly created and baked just the day before...

Dive in at the deep end hereabouts. Track lists and photos can be found over at the Podrophenia FB page

Podrophenia - Will Patrons Kindly

A week on the world's most expensive sand dune..

Being parked up in Sandbanks for seven days.... what was meant to be a week of Purbeck bumbles, stumbles and strolls, turned out to be mostly a run of beach-bumming: crabbing (blennies and Crabzilla vs Mega-shrimp), boat trips or just splashing about a bit.

Although it's all gone super swanky since the last time we were down that way. Sandbanks and it's surrounding suburbs seem to have been rebuilt with Jetsons-go-Graceland mansions - swank-pad second homes for the multi-minted set apparently. Average price - four mill'! New builds badged and branded with futurist titles: Bowie, Moonraker and Thunderbird (below).. 

Then there's your eye-boggling Sunseeker yachts for the ultra-loaded (think Bond villain chic) pulling out of Poole harbour. Handily we were pitched up just literally 2 mins from the beach, ye olde chain ferry and the site of Mimi Lennons former house. Perhaps why Liam Gallagher was spotted there in May then..

In keeping with the Tracy Island scenery, while we were buzzing or bumming about the 'Monte Carlo of the UK'  the Album of the outing turned out to be Devo's Something For Everybody - the infectious rising intro riff of Don't Shoot hooking its way into all our heads (see also March On)

Devo - Don't Shoot (I'm a Man)

 
 
And worra contrast! One evening - chips on Bournemouth prom and the most sky-blazing sunset ever seen, followed by driving through door-high flash floods the next morning...
 
   

Podrophenia 16 - Holidays

Have you ever stayed at the the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel? I'm semi-obsessed with a hotel that boasts it's been 'proudly disappointing travellers  for forty years' with 'levels of comfort comparable to a minimum-security prison'

Following on from the recent run of extended weekends, and in the spirit of bank holiday Monday - Piley and I set up camp with a podcast that's a bumper holiday special featuring look-a-likes (Reg Varney, Catweazle, Luton Airport), sound-a-likes (Midge Mouse, Hartley/Manuel waiter).

Taking a break from the usual suspects we cue up ten never-appeared-before acts and artists - who touch on: shining on, sunglasses, cruises, seasiders and angry aeroplanes. And two tunes that include this rock and roll call of heavy hitters. Steve Marriot, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, John Paul Jones, Chas Hodges, Klaus Voorman.

Natter wise it's an international buffet of holiday horror stories, dodgy menus and Asbo Grannies., with perhaps the finest ad' ever featured in the history of Podrophenia.

So, book early and grab your boarding pass below..

Pssst - keep 'em peeled for the breaking news section midway in as exciting new developments are unfolding in the world of Podrophonics.

Oh and you can grab the out-takes and extras here

Podrophenia 16 - Holidays



Or via iTunes if you prefer

Jamie Reid Holidays panel - lifted from this...

Three years of blogging and Norfolk 'n' good

Barton Turf: whistling distance from our holiday digs...

We're off for a few days much needed breather and break next week. To Walmington-on-Sea in fact, well not yer actual Kent/Sussex village, but nipping about some parts of Norfolk occasionally spottable in Dad's Army location scenes - it's the flint walls that give it away. Cromer crab, Roys of Wroxham a trip to Narge and boating on the broads are all possibilities at the mo'.

In other news: I only realised a few days after last Sunday had passed, this place had clocked up three years on the blog-o-meter. I had been planning a third anniversary jamboree of sorts - but it's all slipped sideways over the summer. Luckily, those jolly ol' rockers The Wolfmen have allowed me to give an exclusive debut airing to their flute-tootin remix of the latest single July 20. It's the sort of Hanna-Barbera bouncer perfect for lolloping off on your hol's.

So I'll see you in a week or there abouts my booties. And perhaps we'll catch up on the missing Dear Diary posts when I'm back.

The Wolfmen - July 20 (CC's Canned Heat Summer Flute Mix)


The original version of July 20 can be bagged right here along with a variant remix from The Dandy Warhol's Courtney Taylor-Taylor

Perhaps by year four I'll have remembered hyperlink code without having to look it up.

Do you ever feel like peeling off and running through the streets naked and free?

No me neither, but this lot do. I can't tell you much about The Streakers as I don't know much about The Streakers. Except ...

The A-side is an absolute glam-stamping anthem.

The Streakers - Turn Me Down



The B-side is a sunny day delight a'popping and a'fizzing with zip, zing and swing.

The Streakers - Wake Up To Sunshine



Now get your kecks on you filthy beasts

Latin Quarter

As an antidote to the shoulder-slumping parade of puppets, poppets and gumps that is the Eurovision Song Contest, May is World Music Month on the PM blog. We start off on the road to Brazil with probably one of the finest tunes ever logged in my cyberspace scrapbook - Não Aguento Você

It may sound like a song reformed from Set Me Free and Sha-na-na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye - but bounces and breezes with the sort of tropical waft that the Brazilians do so well.
See also Menino

Trio Esperança - Não Aguento Você

Funky Friday - Podrophenia 2 - Phew What A Scorcher

This chap has appeared in Podrophenia 1 and 2 - but who is he?

Summer's here and the time is right for podding in the streets..

I'm away for a couple of weeks, so I'll leave you with Podrophenia 2, a summertime special from Piley and myself (plus a few offstage heckles from his cat) which sees us navigating our musical charabanc through literal, lateral and loose interpretations of summer. By way of songs written around haystacks, hayfever, beach buggies, caravans and rain. Along with random gabble about buses, bacon, 'would patrons kindly refrain' pool signs and Piley's discovery of the Deliverance Olympics.

You can download below

Podrophenia 2

stream here (whoops the Divshare link is broken)



Or try via iTunes

One of these two lung-busters belts out a scorching version of 'Sunny' in the poddy.


Back soonish

Soundhogging

DJ, producer and the Bruce Lee of bootleg remixing Ben Soundhog has collected some of his most recent reworks and cross-pollinated pop-ups into a glowing collection Music From The Pig Fink.

Blossoming with summer thumpers Fink is a selection box of unlikely bed fellows buddying up and sharing the same personal song-space. A place where the Super Furry Animals, Dave Clarke and Cymande jam side by side

The Smokin' Message



And those rocking robots Daft Punk, and audiophile space-jazzers Steely Dan become conjoined, recoded and rewired to lively up your legs..

Daft Dan



Music From The Pig Fink is free and available for download here

Ben SH's sleevenotes on the tunes

You Are The Season

It may have only reached number eight in the UK charts, but, over thirty years on the polite-pop, soft-jazz-shuffle and Chet Baker vocal tone of Alessi's Oh Lori still sounds daisy fresh today. Mellow as a summer meadow, light as a seaside breeze and easy like Sunday morning, it's a swisheroony tune that bounces like a beachball on a bed of brushed acoustics, vibe solos and flutey toots

The cap sleeve revival starts here


Alessi - Oh Lori

The Alessi Brothers are still in service and big in The Netherlands apparently. Why not stop by their online shop where you can buy all-year accoutrements like T-shirts and scarves!?!

Here you go strummers and crooners, get your noggins round these mellow minor sevenths and suspended whatnots

Get Out Of The City And Into The Sunshine

Sing Belle and Sebastian. Sound advice on a day like today - wouldn'tja just love to down tools, bail out and bolt off for a leisurely stretch in some green and spacy acres, or perhaps pop to the coast for paddle and a scoop or two?


Belle and Sebastian - Legal Man



Photo's by Bleech and Chocolate Girl 64

Hello and Good Morning

Hurrah, back at last - after a week spent sampling several nuggets of 'Northerness'

Chips and Gravy (eaten by the Huddersfield canal, and in sight of a Victorian factory chimney - while drinking Dandelion and Burdock)
Yorkshire curd and Yorkshire pud' with sausages and onion gravy
(curd and pud not eaten not at the same time)
A canal boat trip into the Stanedge Tunnel
A bacon butty at Sid's Cafe
The Bronte Museum
Getting to the summit of West Nabb
A windy drive across a blindingly misty Saddlworth Moor
Real Bakewell pudding

Two tunes that turned out to be all-round family favourites, amongst the noshing, sipping and bumbling about were...

Sonic Executive Sessions - Hello



And

Sparks - Good Morning


PS - the ticklist for another Great North Run may include...

Trying a Spam Fritter
Having a portion of Pie and Peas
A revisit to the Riverhead Brewery Tap - with it's luscious beer brewed at the pub

Standing In The English Rain

I'm on something of a Beatles buzz at the mo' - The White Album, Love and a self compiled CD being the most played albums on our recent Cotswolds run. The Fab's catalogue is something I occasionally drift away from distracted by other old stuff, odd stuff and new stuff but will always loop back to The Beatles at some point.

So what a result then, while bumbling around Broadway last week swerving the squall, to find that sixties scene snapper Tom Murray was in town to talk and chat about his set of previously unseen photos from the Beatles 1968 'Mad Day Out' (now being sold as limited run of signed prints), well we had to hoof along and lend an ear didn't we? You can see all 23 shots here - which look stunning blown up and framed (I bought 'Coming Apart' shown below) - but why just 23? Tom only got a last minute invite from Don McCullin (the centrefold photo on the Red and Blue greatest hits albums is one of Don's 'Mad Day Out' shots) to join a 'pop group' photo shoot, but wasn't told which 'pop group' - so only grabbed one camera and two rolls of film.

So, how about a barometric anthem for this summer - which ironically never popped into play on last week's roll around the Cotswolds. 'Rain' seems to be the tipping point as the Fabs go from loveable moptops to furry freak beaters. Points to check out are..

Maccas chipped tooth and puffy lip (the result of Scooter accident while on his hol's - and a reason for his 'Pepper' period 'tache).

John's pre sanded down sunburst Epiphone.

The absolute dead sync drum and bass particularly after the two minute mark

'Rain' promo video


The Beatles 'Rain'



There's also an alt.promo recorded for the Ed Sullivan show here

'Coming Apart' - taken at Old Street Station - July 27th 1968

Summer Sounds - Limited Edition Mix

Phew what a blooming scorcher.
I'm sneaking my 'Summer Sounds Like This' Mix up for a limited run. It's a bit more Balearic than the usual Mondomania - but never mind the Balearics, it just seems simpatico in this crazy heat.

*offline*'Summer Sounds Like This'*offine*

Variety Lab - London In The Rain
Big Muff – My Funny Valentine
Physics – Leaving Monte Carlo
Scubba (featuring Moana) - Fool To Cry
Rouge Rouge – L'amour
Ohm G & Bruno – One
Grandadbob - Hide Me (Al Usher Dance Mix)
The Streamers – Zwing Ting
311 Porter - Surround Me With Your Love (Mental Overdrive Mix)
Stigmato Inc. - Reality Check
Nouvelle Vague – Ever Fallen In Love
Patricia Marx and 4 Hero – Menino
Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band – L.I.P.S.T.I.C.K
Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band - Think Twice
Parov Stelar - Kiss Me Twice
Nouvelle Vague – Dancing With Myself
Pink Martini - Sympathique

Sunflower photo by Chocolate Girl 64

Twinned With......

Here's a twinset of sunny delights and summer smashers that never were.

Jimmy Webb's boys (Christiaan, Justin and James) clearly inherited their ol' dad's fine ear for a melody and his talent for tunesmithery.

The Webb Brothers - Summer People


Summer People




Ding Dong! Avon calling (to the faraway towns). All the way from Devizes The Davey Brothers pollinated big beaty rock with sweet tooth pop to make this high energy hybrid - now if only I could find that pesky vid' for 'She's So Fine'.

The Davey Brothers - Sunshine Day


Sunshine Day



Our town of sunny Southend is twinned with Sopot, a very dandy riviera affair, offering several accommodation options 'hotels, motels and campings' and a sprinkling of swinging 'Disco Clubs' for leg shakings, including the temptingly named 'Galaxy', 'Viva' and 'Derby' (eh?)

Pop Goes The Summer

The Good News
My Indiana Jones 'Raiders of the Lost Archives' quest to gather up golden nuggets, summer sweeties and snap crackle and pop tunes, has led me to possibly the hookiest band heard since Jellyfish - The Sonic Executive Sessions "Just 3 mates using some studio downtime to share their love for all things easy on the ear" is how they describe themselves - peddling peachy treats and marshmallow melters drizzled with hypnotic harmonies is how I'd describe them

The Bad News
There's no record deal, Sonic Exec's CDs or downloads available ( except for a cover of 'Hello' on the Jellyfish tribute album 'Sensory Lullabies')

The Happy Ending
But, being the thoroughly pleasant bunch of chaps they are, TSES have made one their tunes available for streaming right here - '17 (over you)', which spins and whips a pick 'n' mix blend of Beach Boys, Jellyfish, Ben Folds and late 70s singer songwriters like Andrew Gould and Gerard Kenny into a candyfloss confection of all things pop shaped and bubblegum coloured. Even good ol' Willy Wonka couldn't create treats as sweet as these.

The Sonic Executive Sessions '17 (over you)'



I'd also recommend taste testing 'Make Do' featuring Alessi over at The Sonic Executive Sessions MySpace site.

The Sonic Executive Sessions 'Hello'
TSES's cover of unreleased an Jellyfish tune, recorded for 'Sensory Lullabies'



The Quinn Martin Style Epilogue
I've been lending an ear to the Beach Boys 'Holland' and 'Sunflower' as suggested - 'Sunflower' is nosing ahead at the moment - mainly because of the ol' blab and jabber on 'Mount Vernon and Fairway'!

Hello Sailor

I've developed a something of sweet tooth for sugar puff summer pop over the last couple of weeks (I'm not alone though, Claire Woo' and Five Centres have both had similar cravings) , I can trace mine back to the source when a cosy local BBC radio station played 'Sail On Sailor' as part of a 1973 chart rundown ('S.O.S' got to number 37) - and that was it - the tune was anchored in my head, repeat played several times on the bounce and has left me high, dry and buzzing for candy floss pop ever since.

Now, I've got a complete blind spot for the Beach Boys, I know 'Pet Sounds' is regularly pegged as a classic (not that I've heard it), but otherwise I couldn't tell you the blue flag beauty spots from the red flag danger zones in their back catalogue.

Wherever this tune sits in the ready reckoner of rock - guilty pleasure or buried treasure - 'Sail On Sailor' is a drifty dreamy honey coloured mellow belter, perfect for a summer soundtrack..

Beach Boys - 'Sail On Sailor'



Ray Charles and the Beach Boys - 'Sail On Sailor'