Podrophenia - Forgotten Britpop with guest Gary Bynorth

 

This month on Podrophenia: Forgotten Britpop - bands, acts, pioneers and events that get compressed out of the nineties timeline. From Rod Stewart’s French Crop (and dyed red), Kylie and the Manics - to proto-B/pop bands. Gary Bynorth - joins Piley, Mondo and Lord Hastings - live to spin new tunes. And there's a quiz! Brit Pop or Brit Bod DL Here

Podrophenia presents: Andy Lewis (Weller) , Adam Devlin (Bluetones), Steve 'Smiley' Barnard (Strummer) Billy Brentford ( Thee Faction) and Chris T-T - live tomorrow

If you're a fan of Joe Strummer/Paul Weller/From The Jam/ The Alarm/The Bluetones/Hoodrats Thee Faction - behold as Thee Cee Cees, a collective polling players from all of the previous, parks up at The Railway tomorrow  to officially launch their strictly limited 7" 'Have An Analysis' on Podrophenia Records.

Support comes from The Ends and Stern John, with Andy Lewis DJing til chucking out time, A bumper bundle all for free Southenders and out of towners

But, book early as for the last Podrophenia event the The Railway doors  had to be locked as we'd reached max capacity by ten pm.

So, could you click here if you're coming on Friday - so we know how many to expect .. salut..

Guest Blogger: Cornershop's Tjinder Singh on Readers' Wives

If you orbit about in the Twitterverse - you may have spotted a few fevered tweets back awhiles when I first fell under the spell of Cornershop's new LP Cornershop & The Double O Groove Of. What a joy and a gem of a collection it is. So a super-scoopy do then to get happy shopper himself Tjinder parking up on my corner of cyberspace...revisiting Cornershop's earliest recording, in his own words..

David C became our drummer over time. He had his own French Film Blurred fanzine, and output for us was very prolific in those days - an album a week. Not only did he like it, he encouraged it, & over the passing of many bells ringing in last orders, he finally joined us. In fact, he decided to learn drums - furthering our confidence.

At the same time my brother had joined too, playing guitar, but I talk of David more here because like most drummers do, he introduced us to an ex-boyfriend of his sisters, Andy Green, now located in Hove. We liked what music Andy had done & after playing Brighton he hassled us to do a mix of 'England’s Dreaming', which we liked so we took him up on the offer to work with him.

Me, my brother Avtar, David & his girlfriend Emma went to Hove near Brighton on a daytripper, well in my brother’s car actually. After a quick breakfast we got going. David & Emma went shopping & my brother took a deserved rest.

Well versed as I was in cassette tape technology, this was the first occasion I had used a sampler with a sequencer. At that time it was wonderment to see a track come together so quickly. The Akai sampler, an S950 has a certain crispness to its sound quality, not forgetting that vinyl has already gone through its many stages of recording & mastering - you are halfway there. Andy Green(away) put the selected audio into the sampler & quickly arranged it in the sequencer, & before we knew it a track was developing, & before I knew it I wanted to make music this way. The only live track inputs were feedback from an overloaded microphone, and my vocals. As the bass & drums had been put on, I started writing lyrics - it had got this far & I didn't want to leave without a finished track.

Andy was very good at explaining the processes, pulling in audio, trimming the start & end points, & triggering via sequencer, repeat half a dozen times, add feedback, add vocals, & then we mixed it on a TASCAM 424, all done at gas mark 7, heading back home by teatime with a very different 3rd single on an Agfa D30 cassette - I was the happiest Wog in the world. Oh I forgot the sitar was then put on after.

Written by Tjinder Singh p&c ampleplay'11



Getting back to the future - you can taste test, a track from The Double O Groove right below - or nip along to catch Cornershop LIVE tonight at the 02 Academy Islington.

A huge thank you is due to all at Cornershop HQ  for their help in putting this together..

Podrophenia - 12: Local Heroes/Southend Rocks

He discovered Donovan and produced Crocheted Doughnut Ring (see below) - but who is he? Find out in Podrophenia 12...

Dr Feelgood, Depeche Mode, The Horrors and My Life Story are just a few of the local legends appearing on the playlist for the latest Podrophenia as Piley and I Celebrate Southenders, local slebs and sea-siders  - casting our net from next door neighbours to neighbouring boroughs no more than five miles away. There's all the usual babble, rabbit and jabber covering: late night burger vans, local  venues, celibacy, the secret of Wilko Johnson's suits and which one of us was once a Video Man?

Podrophenia 12 (DL link is at the bottom of the page)



Or via  iTunes

Southend's legendary record shop Golden Disc: location  for this Mozza vid' and star of it's own song - which, gets a spin up in the podcast 




Crocheted Donutters at Hadleigh Castle a site also spottable in Oil City confidential

Creation Records

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.

The Creation - How Does It Feel



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?!?

Funky Friday - Britpopping

If you were between 18 to 30, and based in the UK during the Britpop years (bookended by Suede and the Spice Girls) it was possibly the closest anyone too young to remember the sixties got to tasting the uncorked excitement of an England Swings experience. The mid-nineties saw Britain's music scene blossom and bloom into hot spots of home grown, hybrid-mixing, hit makers - stretching from newly minted Anglocentric anthems, Indie rockers and Big Beaters to rediscovered retro funk, swishy soundtrack highlights and cheesy listening lounge tunes.

Add in Blur vs Oasis, Weller's return to form, former shy-eyed shoegazer guitarists giving it Guitar Hero riffery and the upsurge and momentum of the moment was enough to revive the surviving Beatles into action releasing new recordings and archived outtakes via Anthology.

If you fancied a night in there was the reinvented Radio One (which had finally shaved off it's beardy ol' DJs) or Vic and Bob's Shooting Stars. For a night out how about catching Trainspotting or any number or Brit-flicks hitting the cinemas or even shaking a leg at clubs like Blow Up.

So instead of waving the flag with the typical Britpop colours, how about a couple of remixed remodels and two often overlooked vids..

And you must check out Piley's review of Blur's recent Southend gig - their warm up for Glastonbury and Hyde Park.


The Pulp/Blur tracks are taken from the Steve Lamacq mixed Weekenders, so download them and they'll join neatly togther when played in sequence

Pulp - Common People(Motiv-8 Mix)



Blur - Girls and Boys (Pet Shop Boys remix)



Almost the forgotten men of Britpop, Black Grape's It's Great When You're Straight.... Yeah! is still the perfect summer soundtrack almost 15 years on from it's release - yes it really has been that long.

Black Grape - Tramazi Party