The January Podrophenia is up for download with Piley, Popeapedia and Steve Carr of the always excellent Every Record Tells a Story website - and m'self wherein we cover R 'n' R tales, truths, myths and fibs with a playlist ranging from Harry Nilsson to Son House, The Kinks to Cass Elliott - and lesser known originals made famous by The Carpenters, Elvis, Madonna and Manfred Mann
And we've a bonus guest spot from Kelly Ann Buckley gathering together news of the Wild Almanac Collective
The October edition of Dogrophenia is now up for grabs. David Woodcock and Angel Melodyhorn are live with exclusive reveals of brand new tunes, While Piley and I pitch in with Bowie covers, Blow Up belters, 70s rockers and Howling Black Soul on the pooch-based playlist...
Plus all the news on two charity events Dogtober and the HARP sleep out...
Dig in and dig it..
Being a vintage-listening type, ex-Beta Bander Steve Mason's Boys Outside was one of the few 2010 releases to make my end of year round up. Twelve months on he's revisited and refitted the album.
Winging in Dennis Bovell to reggae up the setlist - Ghosts Outside is experiments in dub that are King Tubby style, rather than XTC.
The Remix Album is a phrase that you can have you cringing a shoulder or hovering a finger over the skip button. Worst case scenario it's both - usually on projects where some offstage bod is invited onboard to twiddle about a bit, re-sculpting the songs in their favour. Scooping out great chunks of tune and re-filling the spaces where the best bits once were with - soulless fru-fru and whizzery.
So hurrah for Dennis Bovell. All the original hooks and harmonies remain safely in place but the already loose grooves are bulked up with dub so deep you could fall in and never be seen again.
Boy's Outside's base-build of slow-drifting tempos and winterish whispers has been warmed up and reheated with looping reverb, ghostly echoes and chunky lumps of thud and thump insulating the newly installed walls of noise. It's not a record to be ignored or used for ambience, but engineered to be heard at high volume.
In other off-beat offerings:
Mick Jagger, Joss stone and Dave Stewart's new project - Superheavy release their debut single - Miracle Worker. My take on it here
Flexipop one of the greatest pop mag's ever - you can catch an interview with its inventor Barry Cain here..
Following on from Friday's guest blog-spot, I've picked a few tunes from Matt Rudd's Q the 80s playlist for scanning with a wily eye. The full rundown and reveal of Matt's Sunday evening show can be found by tuning in here.
The Ginger/Beard Theory: much like beards are now the musical shorthand for alt, edge and earthy honesty - ginger glints (or Caribbean Sunset as I believe it's currently called) were used as a similar indicator of non-production line pop during the 80s.. thumb through this selection and you'll see what I mean.
When someone invents Grange Hill - The Musical *copyrights idea* This Nutty Boys anthem would have to be the end of show spectacular - it's like a fun size Willy Russel's Our Day Out expressed through the medium of Blockheads influenced North London Ska..
Kajagoogoo - Ooh To Be Ah
Harmless but hopeless weren't they - a Happy Shopper Duran Duran you could say. Nick Beggs (bass) was like Orville the Duck meets Mark King. And don't get me started on the sacrilegous use of Lord Harold of Lloyd for this sleeve. Spot the ginge: a double whammy - ye olde perma-grinner on drums and ermm that other one
Bronski Beat - Tell Me why
It is the taste of snakebites and the smell of dry ice and poppers (what was the variety that didn't give you a raging micro-headache though), with horns that sound re-purposed from Heaven 17's Height of the Fighting. Although The liveliest version of Why is the 12" and can be found on the Hundreds and Thousands album. I spotted Mr Bronski snooping around Forbidden Planet 2 in the summer of 84 you know. Spot the ginge: wee Jimmy somerville
Duran Duran - Save A Prayer
Pre-dating the 90s Pan Pipe buzz - Prayer is the sound of a jacuzzi/infinity pool scored for glossy 80s fop-music. Has this been sampled by a rap or chill type remixer - it should be. Better yet, Le Bon has reigned in his signature honk for this bubbling tooty-fluter. Pop Quiz: do you know what the Sex Pistols/Duran link is ? Spot the ginge: vacuum packed cheeks and pouting like a champ - it's Nick Rhodes. Although several Duranies did strawberry blonde variations
Sputnik were the New York Dolls of the 80s: clockwork rockers in fright-wigs and high heels doing video game glam, double drums and Rollerball bass with rockabilly riffing - what's not to like? The most exciting thing since the Pistols - if you were there at the time (and liked the Pistols and Sputnik at the time). The explosivest Love Missile Remix can be found on the rare Video Edition 12" (see below). The $ci-Fi $ex $tars scarcity is also worth a squint. Did you know Bowie covered Love Missile - grab at the bottom of this post.. Spot the ginge: Degville's Clockwork Orange outsize syrups
Wham! - Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do)
Got this on 12" (Inner Vision label) - bought Sept 82, after a holiday in the south of France, camping with two mates..Dave Wright (you'll spot his name on the Dear Diary entries) and Kurt (now the headmaster of a local private school). Some joker had apparently nicked most of the campsite's record collection, meaning the DJ in residence was restricted to playing the exact same set every night - 'You set could your watch by it' I remember someone saying. For those who haven't heard - I experienced the most spectacular moment of hi concentrated-campness in the summer of 83, while meeting George Michael, Paul Gambacinni, Leee John and Limahl in the cocktail bar of the Camden Palace. Leee John and Limahl were furiously trying to out swish each other, George Michael sulked at the bar and Boy George and Marc Almond were downstairs. Rusty Egan DJ'd and Steve Strange MC'd - Now that's what I call the 80s
OMD - Messages
Much better than I remembered atually, but I can't forgive Andy McWhatnot for that dire dancing - it's woeful. Like a new born deer trying to steady it's creasing knees. Only out-skittered by the those two guitar twits from the fine young cannibals. Electricity for me remains their finest moment
Eurythmics - Love Is A Stranger
Is it me, or does she really sing 'so it's circumcision' - and why is Professor Wilf Lunn moonlighting as a chauffer? Spot the ginge: Annie Lennox reworking Bowie's Man Who Fell to Earth wardrobe
AC/DC - Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
R.O.C.K. The riffs have been lifted by bootleg remixers and hip-hoppers, the songs now soundtrack almost every action film - you literally can't argue with that. Surely they're due for a Bond theme soon (or perhaps Goldfrapp)? It's the sound of a Ray Harryhausen Dino-fight re-rendered as hi-volume wallop and flat capped throat shredding..
The SFW vid..
Lead off single from Undercover - the album that gets an unjust kicking in the catalogue (Dirty Work is the deepest the Stones ever dipped) - Undercover of the Night is all hoodlum guitar, voodoo rhythms, pulse pumping drums and a banned Julian Temple vid - still keeping naughty into their fourties. Good work Stoners..
One of my nearly ran bands for Piley and I's Sound-a-Like podcast were The Creation. An outfit of heavy legacy, but little credit or recognition (excepting revisionists and retro-ologists).
Primarily it's Creationist fret-fiddler Eddie Philips who's due for the retrospective nods and tips of the titfer. The first guitarist to experiment with violin style bow-ing techniques - a trick later nicked by Jimmy Page to scrape unearthly squeaks and squeals from his Les Paul. Factor in Eddie's invite to join The 'Orrible 'Oo as a second guitarist, that Ron Wood briefly served as a Creation member, the Sex Pistols covering the band's Through My Eyes and you've got something of a glowing CV by any standard.
So what in the name of Boney M has all this got to do with sound-a-likes they chorused? Well, to my old ears The Creation's How Does It Feel sounds entirely like the type of heavy-level stomper reformed and reformatted by Oasis as a template tune for their signature sound.
And in a mobius style movement of music trivia: who were Oasis spotted and signed by? Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records. A label named after - The Creation...
Bow Selector - Eddie can be caught having a fiddle on a tune covered by Boney M?!?
It's a playlist of perhaps rowdier sounds than we'd typically chow down on of a Friday. But, there is funkyness to be found amongst mix of heavy-level riffing and hi-amped attack. Killing Floor, Painter Man, Talkin' Woman, and Elephant Man are as hot-footed as any other number posted on previous FFs. So what's it all about Alfie?
Markus Reeves, has organised Harmonic Generation: a live music event for local bands, which, opens it's doors for the first time tonight
If you're in the Leicester area - why not get down there, and lend an ear and some support to this all electric session. You may even catch a glimpse of this grit, garage and guitar a go-go mix spinning between bands..
89 Oakley Street SW3- Bowie's house (73-74) where he and Jagger were .. well, according to Angie Bowie anyway
So the last bank holiday of the summer season rolls around this weekend, and a three day stretch of local lolloping about is on the menu, with perhaps a trip to St Lawrence Bay, if only for another peep at this place of hi-amazingness... The Salt House
On the tunes front, I've not been able to put down Muddy Waters retake of 'Let's Spend The Night Together' for several months now - seemingly sculpted from Cream's 'Sunshine of Your Love'. You'll find it on Muddy's walloping, psychedelic blues album Electric Mud
The Stones Ed Sullivan appearance features the lyrics rejigged and edited to a more acceptable "Let's spend some time together" It's here if you fancy a nosy - points to peep for include..
The non-stop screamathon Jagger camping like a champ Keef's booming backing vox
A rock apocalypse called punk has cracked Planet Pop like a peppercorn. While one half of the world's musical youth turns dayglo, the other burns in a disco inferno.
Leathery ol' rockers who've plodded through the seventies lolloping like walruses, or crashed like wasted scarecrows are running scared from bristly gangs of punky young things out for scraps, scalps and single sales. Where can these heavy-hitting has-beens find shelter in this teenage wasteland. Rejected by the new wave, how can the old wave reposition their pop appeal and cut it wiv ver kids?
How - by seeking asylum amongst the Saturday night fevered. Dolling up in disco drag and dipping into a dressing up box of highhats, handclaps and fidget-fingered bubbly basslines
The definitive disco 'oompah oompah' octave bassline that first appears at 00:59 and reriffs throughout the track is allegedly a Billy Preston keyboard trick adapted for bass by Bill Wyman
Written as a direct response to Miss You - I have absolutely no shame in loving Rod's guiltiest of pleasures as much now, as I did when asking for it as a 13th birthday prezzie.
IT'S A POP QUIZ - Paul Stanley plays his signature 'shattered mirror' guitar in this vid, a design inspired by someone fronting a group of Brit-stompers - BUT WHO???
In all fairness Bowie had beaten every other bugger to the dancefloor by a distance of four years, and was wrapping up his Eno-electro trilogy with Lodger while his peers were busy booking seats on the boogie nights bandwagon.
* The asterisks and $$ are a deliberate attempt to avoid being blog-whacked
You can build a wall to stop people, but eventually, the music, it'll cross that wall.That's the beautiful thing about music - there's no defense against it. I mean look at Joshua and Jericho - made mincemeat of that joint. A few trumpets, you know? -Keith Richards
We've covered vocals, guitars, drums, keyboards and even a bit of bass - but so far, not a sniff of the ol' bugle tooters. I think it's Keef who holds the theory that over-amped electric, rhythm guitars were the beginning of the end for horn sections (in the same way synth's replicated, but never replaced strings) And in fact the 'Satisfaction' riff was originally heard - in his head anyway - as a riff written for horns..
Now as fine and funky as this selection of stompers is, they clearly wouldn't have the same weight or wallop without the brass giving it plenty o' honk Barry Stoller - Funky Spider
Funky drums, even funkier hooting and a' tooting
Blood Sweat and Tears - Go Down Gambling I think Boys Wonder may have re-riffed this guitar part for What Makes You So Good - which, I'm hoping Piley will get round to ripping and posting some day soonish
Please to lend an ear to the giddy fiddle fingering bass work, and the Zarathusa/2001 horns (a motif that was close to overuse during the seventies)
Otis Redding - Satisfaction (with brass instead of guitars, and Duck Dunn's piledriving bass runs)
The riff was in essence not meant for the guitar. Otis Redding got it right when he later recorded it because it's actually a horn riff. I never thought that was song was commercial anyway. Shows how wrong you can be. Keith Richards
Most of the Stones uptempo output comes with a fully formed stomp in it's step, created by a combo of Charlie's pumping pulse-beat drums, Keef's louche grooves and Mick's swishery (check out 'Bitch' or 'Monkey Man' for examples of all three in perfect synch'), so it only takes a touch of extra heat under the tunes to clonk them up a groovy gear...
Recording possibly the most influential "ooh-ooh's" ever (kicks in at 1:18)
Thelma Houston - Jumpin' Jack Flash
A beaut' of a belter
Otis Redding - Satisfaction
Otis's (backed by Booker T and The MGs)entire Monterey set is explosive, but this track is unrelenting - listen out for 'Duck' Dunn's piledriving bass runs.
I read the Ron Wood biog' last week, which is pretty much 350ish pages of drunken stumbles, lucky breaks and bad investments. But it left me thinking what must it be like to be a Rolling Stone? Possibly not too dissimilar to this....
Waiting on a Friend.
*Stoner update - I've just found out (via searching Friends Reunited)that I used to go the same Youth Club as Ronnie's Sister in Law. I knew he'd made a few local appearances attended gigs, been spotted in pubs etc - all makes sense now.*
As an extra here's a tune I came up with a couple of years ago. Well, it's not really a tune - it's a 1 take piece of tat that took 10 minutes to crack out as an experiment in 'open G' tuning. Open G is a technique regularly employed by Keith Richards, it's the heart of the Stones sound and more importantly saves having to faff around remembering endless fancy chord shapes (nice and easy if your feeling a bit 'relaxed' of an evening). Tune the guitar to open G and one simple shape fits all frets. Please excuse any clunker notes and blame them on first take nerves.
Here's something to put the frighteners on those pesky trick or treaters, and Halloween party hangers on.
The Rolling Stones - Too Much Blood
The Stones go death disco in this video nasty directed by Julien Temple. Bleeding TVs, Keith looking like Captain Black and lurking like the Midnight Rambler, Easter Island Bill Wyman with a headless bass and Mick doing his voodoo dancing around the ruins. Yikes!!! Is there room for one more behind the settee?
Now why not pop over to channel mondo and check out the Trilogy Of Terror that's been showing on Channel M Or enjoy some grave shaking grooves in a Mondo mini Mix
R Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House Fabienne Delsol - I'm Gonna Haunt You Ella Fitzgerald - Knock On Wood Corduroy - The Frighteners The Ventures -Superstition Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein (edit) Amanda Shankar - Jumpin' Jack Flash The Rolling Stones - Too Much Blood
Also don't forget to check out the Halloween theme mini mix from last Friday - here
Merrie is the lung busting session singer featured on Gimme Shelter by the Stones. This is her own super funky version of the song, and she has a tear up with it.
Dirty horns, funky wah guitar, crazy bongo’s – Its all going on here!.
As a Brucie bonus I've also added the super rare Stones demo of Gimme Shelter, (with Keef singing and no backing vox) so you can really see what Merrie brought to the track
