What's that you say - have I got something new, fresh and fruity - but with all the ready-to-wear familiarity of a long forgotten favourite?
Made from melodies - as soulful and sweet as a spring meadow, with a splash of backbeat and breaks full of funk and thump - and perhaps some hot Hammond on top?
And you'd like it drizzled with silky strings, punchy trumpets and driven by a tempo that gallops like a gazelle and twirls like a Northern Soul dervish?
Well, in that case Myron and E's Cold Game may be the very thing you're after...
Following on from Mick's bit of bubblegum blogging I've been inspired to post a pair of sweet-tooth booties, built around two Velvet Underground numbers.
Lou and Andy's band (not those two from Little Britain) may seem like the last lot on earth to ever make a Funky Friday appearance, but when the Willy Wonka of pick 'n' mix pop Mark Vidler sets to work, pure gold is often spun from the unlikeliest of ingredients...
You may have swift shrift for Christina Ag's warblings, or perhaps minimal interest in the Velvet's catalogue - but whisk them together, add sprinkles, sparkles and a dash of The Communards to the closing coda - and it's almost impossible to resist the lip-smacking sugar rush of this pure pop cocktail - something that sounds like a long lost summer single from the seventies..
And what's this - Waiting For The Man, Sugar Sugar and a splash of Basement Jaxx shaken and spun into something sweeter than candyfloss - well I never!
Photo by Bleech - he's in today's Observer you know
So as this year's chill begins to fizzle, perhaps it's time to take a reflective look at that was the winter that was - by way of a mix that's perhaps more downtempo, frosted - and some may even stretch to bleak, than the usual mondo mania. With a collection of cool jewels and crystal melts, from mainly Northern European icy climes.. Get Carter(Newcastle), Serge, Yves Montand and Air (France) John Martyn (Scotland), Baltic Fleet (Liverpool) and Stina Nordenstam (Sweden) ...threaded together by a motif of movment and travel - which I'd like to claim was planned, but in truth, is entirely random...
Roy Budd - Carter Takes A Train John Martyn - Smiling Stranger Yves Montand - Pour Faire le Portrait d´un Oiseau Serge Gainsbourg - Melody Minnie Riperton - Take A Little Trip Dennis Hoppers Choppers - Ballad Of Fu Manchu and The Red Bride Harsh Reality - How Do You Feel Money Mark - Cry Gather Round Children - Yoko In Idaho (Sufjan Stevens and Beatles mashup) The Beatles - Flying Stina Nordenstam - On Falling Air - Soldissimo Ian Brown - F.E.A.R Easy All Stars - Karma Police Baltic Fleet - 48 Hour Drive (Boston) Boards Of Canada - Dayvan Cowboy Soundhog - The Doves Are Mine
Soundhog's booty of Brandy & Monica meet The Doves is a thing of such slow shifting pure beauty it really does deserve a solo posting..
I’m guesting over at Devil Dick's blog today with brand new bespoke mix - ’33 and a 3rd Eye’ - that scrapbooks heavy mod, rocking hippy and some swishy sounds of the underground into a 70 minute blitz of grooving guitar based goodies - there’s a taste test below – but the full fat version is available right here..
33 and a 3rd Eye trailer
Two tracks I couldn’t seem to squeeze in - and one that I could, form a trio of early doors appearances, and low key/in disguise numbers featuring some of rock’s heaviest-hitters..
Until it finally closed a few years ago, my favourite local, second-hand record and bookshop (and the only place you'd get a fair price for your hand-me-down albums) was run by a genial 'Mr Pleasant' type, that would give a welcoming tap on the window whenever I passed by holding up items of interest, and keeping Beatles bits 'n' bobs back for me .
His shop was perma-stocked with an unusually healthy amount of quality goodies - framed sheet music, retro posters and promo CDs. So a bit of surpise then, when I heard the local BBC radio station dropping a reference to Mr Pleasant's shop - turns out he was none other than the Abbey Road/Decca legend Peter Eden, who'd discovered and signed Donovan after catching one of his early gigs in Southend..
He never managed a Donovan sized strike again, but had his fingers in several sixties pies - musician, manager, songwriter, A&R man and producer. A selection of which were collected for a limited edition (1000 copies) anthology of Pete Eden productions released last year - appropriately titled 'Nice'
Two of the many sixties band's to get the Eden treatment were also fellow Southenders - Crocheted Donut Ring - (whaddya mean you've never heard of them?), whose 'Get Out Your Rock and Roll Shoes' was/is one of my most played nuggets..
His shop may have gone, but Peter Eden is still alive, well and living in the Southend area with an active interest in music - in fact the last time I spotted him, he was bustling around catching some acts at the Leigh Folk Festival.
As footnote of Hi-randomness - Peter also devised,drummed (as Bongo),wrote the theme and a few songs for seventies Kiddy-cult show Animal Kwackers
Remember the 1972 smasher 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter - a track that galloped along at the speed of the space race, sounding like Donna Summer on Skylab, Cosmonaut pop and the future unfolding around your very ears.
Well, did you know it was actually a cover? A cover of a track already three years old, and taken from Gershon Kingsley's 1969 album 'Music To Moog By'...
Never one to miss a contemporary pop-trick (like the local Marching Militaire, or Brass Band that screech out refits of cinematic hits) Herp Alpert, had himself a wallop at Popcorn
Goodbye to bubbling, fat analogue sounds, sine waves and Moogadoodledoo . Hello to the soothing muted toot of the Tijuana Brass, the tropical lapping of steel drums and the soft plod of xylophonic pop...
Both varieties are below - so, why not try a taste test and see which you flavour you favour...
To walk into any packed pub with a piano, dust off the lid, roll up your sleeves, crack those knuckles - then knock out this fire-fingered piece of piano hammering magicness..
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
Probably some of the happiest moments of my teeny-times, were spent sipping, snogging, flapping and falling over, stumbling from gig-to-glugs, in itchy mohair jumpers, snug-fit jeans and motorbike jackets (bought from Kensington Market, The Great Gear Market or Nastys) - with the sickly smell of Boots Country Born setting gel, Snakebite pints and dry ice, to tunes like these...
In me pit all cozy-like, that's where I'd like to be today. Tucked up and having a lazy lay in, perhaps nipping off to our favourite fry up merchants round the corner (fried egg sandwich and chips, is my favoured munch of the moment).
But the good people at C2C made sure the trains kept a-rollin', and the Fenchurch Flyer services were almost unaffected by any snowy closures or problems with 'points', 'signals', 'overhead lines' or any other train-tech talk..*cue quiet nashing of teeth*
So it'll be a virtual duvet day with these kooky covers acting as a wintery warmer
