just awesome.

Best band in London (and former flatmates of mine) Morton Valence have made a video for their bloody wonderful new single Chandeliers..

It’s available here and I can’t recommend it, or any of their releases, or their truly joyous live performances, enough…

(another vid, for their last single Sailors, here )

R. I. P.

Here’s a tribute someone made earlier.

Here’s the brief:

‘List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to’.

I’ve come very late to this (haven’t really been blogging or reading blogs for a month or so) so not sure I can fulfil the final part (tagging 7 other people) since they’ve probably already been tagged.

Anyway, here’s my 7 (and here’s a link to a zipfile containing all the mp3s)

1. God Machine - What Time Is Love?
The God Machine were just mighty. A monolothic sound that somehow avoided being just another kind of macho dullard metal permutation - there was a real beauty in a lot of what they did. Home was - I think - the first single and they didn’t really top it. I’ve been putting together a kind of ‘riff-driven’ compilation / mix (my arsequake one petered out when I realised that would have ended up simply being a Butthole Surfers comp) and ‘Home’ is a shoo-in. However, Home isn’t what you’re getting. In digging up that track, I rediscovered its B-side, a blistering version of the old KLF classic  which I’ve been playing to death.

2. Johnny Dowd With Maggie Brown - First There Was
Johnny Dowd is a fairly abrasive artist. Loosely country / blues, but with a real snarl and a roughness that sets him apart. I’ve got this track on the original album he released it on, but far prefer this version, which is taken from a wonderful scene in the Jim White-helmed “Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus” movie. The duet takes place in two parts of a deep south barbers shop, with the camera panning between Dowd and Brown.

3. Black Box Recorder - England Made Me
Black Box Recorder are one of those ‘great lost bands’. God knows why they didn’t do well - witty and literate indie pop full of ideas and barbs. Maybe Luke Haines was too much of a misanthrope. This is off the debut album of the same name and is a good example of what they were up to- arch social commentary delivered with a cool, unsettling detachment.

4. josie mel and luton fyah - rasta still deh bout
Somehow, I seem to listen to almost no reggae these days. At first it worried me a little - something that had preoccupied me so much for so long just seemed to drop off the radar.  But then I realised that’s a fairly dumb thing to fret about. I’m sure I’ll come back to it. I think mostly I fell out of love with dancehall, and a lot of the one-drop stuff of late hasn’t been particularly inspiring either. However with summer lurching  into view (and then out of it again!), the odd roots track has been getting played, none more than this tune from a couple of years ago, which I’m ashamed to say is one of the last new reggae tracks that really impressed me.

5. Kling Klang - Heavydale.
Back in the realms of the ‘mighty’, Kling Klang had a stint on Mogwai’s Rock Action label and sound how I imagine Van Der Graaf Generator might have done (if I’d heard any). Overdriven, analogue synth drones and a lovely racket. They’re back (after a long absence, I think) and supporting Portishead. Absolutely LOVE this tune.

6. Sister Wynona Carr - Dragnet For Jesus
A curious and surprisingly funny gospel track Lamarr played a while ago. Carr was mostly unknown when she was alive and not much more appreciated now, but she had a great gospel (and R&B) voice and this a great track.

7. Carole King - You’ve Got A Friend
If any of the tracks in this septet need explaining, it’s this one. Never had any time for Carole King as a performer (although it’s hard to deny that she did write some great songs in the 60s). However: a good friend of mine died a couple of weeks back and it was his funeral last Thursday. In the middle of a lovely, personal,  perfect service, a fella stood up - initially, I thought, to allow someone else out of their seat - and taking his place in front of the coffin launched - unintroduced - into an truly powerful and beautiful acapella rendition of this song. It took a moment or two to work out what exactly was happening but by the time he hit the chorus, the entire gathering (and it was standing room only and a line of people out the door at Honor Oak crem) were joining in, tears streaming down their faces but somehow with a real sense of joy as well, which I guess is just how a funeral should be. I think it’s exactly what Yves would have wanted and exactly why this song will never, ever sound the same to me again.

So nothing current (guess I’m just not the hipster I once was) but seven songs that right now are getting heavy rotation on Streatham Hill.

To paraphrase the name of an Optimo mix, I guess this is why nobody comes back to mine.

I’ve not been very well, hence the prolonged absence. But the sun is shining, the meds seem to be working and I’m feeling better.

Not that you’d necessarily know it from this mix.

After a very heavy night recently, Ailsa and I found ourselves sleeping, late afternoon, all comedown and scratchy. Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone was droning away in the background and something… malign crept into our already edgy dreams. This eldritch music - which seemed at the time to be like some kind of condensed evil - turned out to be the central track from the new Sunn O))) / Nurse With Wound collaboration, Iron Soul Of Nothing (a bonus disc with the reissued Sunn O))) Double Void album). Ailsa was so freaked out, she actually fled the room, demanded I turn it off and made me promise never to play it again or bring it to the house. A promise I singularly failed to keep.

That track ends this mix. The beginning of the mix grew out of an idea to put together some of the quieter, more reflective stuff I’ve been listening to in this extended break from work and school. And somehow it seemed like a good idea to get from the bucolic melancholy of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra to the terrifying scrapings of the final track. Perhaps a dappled sunny day in the fields which ends with a walk in the woods….

(Click the pic for the link)

1. Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter (0.00)
Penguin Cafe Orchestra

2. Stars Of The Lid – Mulholland (02.45)
The Tired Sounds Of The Lid

3. AC Marias – Just Talk (09.20)
One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing

4. Fennesz & Sakamoto – Abyss (14.50)
Cendre

5. Sabres Of Paradise – Smokebelch (Beatless Mix) 19.10
Smokebelch 12”

6. Asa-Chang & Junray – Hana (23.15)
Jun Ray Song Chang

7. The Books – Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again (29.45)
Lost & Safe

8. Nearly God – Poems (33.45)
Nearly God

9. Adem – To Cure A Weakling Child / Boy Girl Song (40.00)
Takes

10. Mount Vernon Arts Lab – Goblins (Coil Remix) (46.10)
Seance At Hobs Lane

11. Rhys Chatham / Jonathan Kane – Rotate (51.40)
Septile / Elated Systems

12. Alturo Stalteri / Brian Eno – Here Come The Warm Jets (56.10)
?? / Here Come The Warm Jets

13. Growing – Afterglow (60.00)
Lateral

14. Sunn O))) Meets Nurse With Wound - Ash On The Trees (The Sudden Ebb Of A Diatribe) (65.50)
Iron Soul Of Nothing

Ironically, the Sunn O))) track had to be shortened a bit (it’s very long). And I’m serious about how terrifying some people find it….

so I’ve been busy - college work, work work, drinking.

Also, bought one of these:

Which is the best gadget ever- plugs into my amp and streams all my mp3s (and seemingly infinite internet radio stations and podcasts) from anywhere in the house.
However, it runs on mp3 tags so I’ve spent a VERY long time sorting them out. It’s dull and it’s annoying and it’s stopped me blogging.

However- in the pipeline:

Be Uplifted!!! By a selection of recent kinda country-gospel tunes
Be Disgusted!!! By a really really nasty arsequake / pigfuck ‘greatest hits’ mix
Be Utterly Depressed!!! By a mix of some of the more depressing country tunes I could find

And there’s more…..

(first in a planned series of entries about really classic shows)

Five quid. 5 hundred pence. For that line-up. Even all 16 years ago, that was something of a bargain.

Understandably, I’m hazy on the full details of the day: as a massive Leatherface fan, I was compelled to pay lipservice to being a Sunderland supporter (this is almost as close as I ever got to supporting a football team) and this was the day they got beaten in the FA cup. So when a bunch of us showed up early at Brixton Academy (all on the list, because the venue subscribed to the music publication I worked for and so my colleagues and I had ridiculous blagging powers) to catch ‘the Boat’, they were in particularly subdued mood. I remember they ran through their set pretty quickly, and without much enthusiasm. They finished with a quick burst of ‘howay! the lads’ as well.

I didn’t warm to Leatherface at first - there was something a bit drab about them, they came across as a poor blend of Stiff Little Fingers and Motorhead. But I grew to love them a lot, and even now rarely miss them when they play*. Mainman Frankie Stubbs is a helluva poet and a really compelling bloke, and they really do rock.

I don’t recall if they played this tune that night, but I’m going to post it anyway simply because it’s the best thing they ever did, and it’s from about the same period.

Leatherface - Springtime
(from the Roughneck Records / Fire album Mush)

* If you get hold of a fairly recent Leatherface live DVD, filmed at Camden Underworld, you can rewind / slow-mo / otherwise amuse yourself with the shot of me stagediving and landing on my stupid fat face

Shudder To Think were up next. A Dischord band that were easier to be impressed by than to love. I still have a pile of their records under the bed which never see daylight, but they were different (at least until Placebo came along and nicked at least some of their ideas), especially Craig Wedren’s quasi-operatic voice. I know we didn’t pay CLOSE attention (in fact, I think it was during their set that Ian McKaye from Fugazi caught me backstage drunkenly trying to convince a drunker friend that a bottle of mace was actually poppers. I wasn’t REALLY going to let her sniff it, man…)

Shudder To Think - Hit Liquor
(from the Sony album Pony Express Record)

Then came The Jesus Lizard. I was never as much of a fan as most of my mates were - David Yow was reassuringly mental and they made a great noise, but I found the albums a bit leaden. I always preferred Killdozer.

But they were something else at this gig, and the crowd went absolutely batshit as well. Again, my memory is dim - I remember boots and bodies flying and general mayhem and a brilliant rumble from the stage. By this point I was speeding my nuts off and biblically drunk and the whole venue seemed to be turning into a seething mass of drunken nutters.

The Jesus Lizard - Good Thing
(from the Touch & Go album Head)

By the time Fugazi came on, probably about 5 hours after we got there, standing was getting to be a problem. Luckily, I’ve seen them enough times to know what they’ll have been like if they were on top form, and I know they were on top form.

I came across Fugazi on SnubTV (see also Loop, Dinosaur Jr, Spacemen 3 and pretty much every other great noisy band from the late 80s) when, true to form, McKaye mumbled intensely from under his hoody and Guy Piciotto concentrated on looking cool. That’s one of the many things that gave Fugazi such an amazing energy live - the contrast between tight-as-a-nut McKaye, all hunched and tense and more hardcore than thou, and Guy flinging himself round the stage with utter abandon. Their albums always seemed hit and miss to me - often stunning, but they could be quite airless, bleak affairs too. But as a live band they had few equals. They seem to have split now, which is a fucking shame, but I saw them lots and they were always astonishing. It was actually a toss-up between this and another Fugazi gig, out at Stratford Rex - supported by Shellac! - for the first entry in this series. If you don’t know about Fugazi, check them out - they really were something very special.

Fugazi - Waiting Room
(from the Dischord album 13 Songs)

Afterwards, it all got out of hand. There were personal revelations, ridiculous plots, two friends spinning madly in the middle of Brixton highstreet joined together with interconnected belts. Craig and I decided we loved Fugazi so much we were going back to DC with them, so we wandered across the vast Academy stage and into the back of a big truck, where we hid behind a speaker cabinet expecting to stow ourselves away all the way to Washington. The PA guy who found us explained it was only going as far as Notting Hill anyway…

I’ve always loved country, from before I even knew what it was. My dad had some Glenn Campbell records, and some Don Williams – very MOR, I guess, but something always resonated with me. As I got older, people thought I was being ironic, or kitsch, or weird for the sake of it, but I always found something in this music– especially the more melancholy end – that I wasn’t finding anywhere else.

My real immersion in it started about ten years ago and now I listen to country almost more than anything else. Not just the ‘alt’ or ‘insurgent’ country stuff either: old guys like Lefty Frizzell, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, The Louvin Brothers. Then the soulful 60s and 70s with Jim Ford and Tony Joe White and Bobbie Gentry. The usual roll-call of over-lauded country legends. I do quite a lot of country DJ-ing when I get the chance, too – used to do a lot of slots at The Windmill as DJ Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain and worked on some of the the Acid Country All Dayers. Now, just the odd slot here, my favourites being with cohort Jared as Randy & Earl’s Old Record Club, especially when we get to play What’s Cookin’ over in Leytonstone.

It seemed like country was irrelevant in the UK in the 90s – the old guys still listened to the big-hat Nashville stuff, or slightly more clued up Mojo reader types probably stuck with the legends. But there certainly didn’t seem to be any new UK bands at all.

Apart from The Rockingbirds.

I’ve mentioned the Rockingbirds on this and other blogs in the past. For my money, the great lost British band. And country through and through, when it was commercial suicide to be anything of the sort. They were marvellous, drunken, shambolic, heartbreaking. Nobody gave a fuck and they called it a day. If they’d have held on, or arrived even five years later, they might have reaped the benefits of the alt-country boom, got the attention they deserved.

This mix - which is made up entirely of UK country acts (or country songs from non-country acts, in some cases), from the present or the recent past – has The Rockingbirds, and particularly frontman Alan Tyler, at its heart,and it will become obvious why.

So let’s get on with it…

DJ Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain - The Return Of The Streatham Hillbilly
( 76.15 mins / 87.2mb / 160kbps)

1. The Rockingbirds – Gradually Learning (00.00)
The first track from their first, eponymous album, and it doesn’t get any better than this. A rich, warm, yearning love song that builds to a beautiful brassy ending (courtesy of The Bad Livers – see, this was when Heavenly Records thought it was worth sending a bunch of drunken Camden cowboys to Austin, Texas). I’ve probably sung along with this song more than any other, drunk or sober…

2. Sally Timms – Tumbling Tumbleweeds (5.44)
An old and much covered Sons of the Pioneers standard, here covered beautifully by Sally Timms from the Mekons (of whom, more later). So I’ll say no more than it’s a gorgeous version sung by the 2^nd person to find out I’d just asked my girlfriend to marry me (the first being my girlfriend). I didn’t know she was who she was at the time, it was a random drunken NYE in Barcelona, with fireworks and stars, and stuff like that just seemed to happen. I doubt she’ll play the wedding.

3. Richard Hawley – Coming Home (8.42)
One of the few ‘ I was a mod before you was a mod’ claims I can make these days, I came across this song bloody years ago and figured another fantastic songwriter was going to go unnoticed. It took a while, but Hawley got there. This is one of lovelier songs, only loosely country but it’s near enough and he had to be on here somewhere.

4. Robert Love – Below The Wire (12.4
The Alabama 3 piss a lot of people off: the fake accents, the schtick, the cod-techno element. I think they’re wonderful and the h8terz can swivel. Robert Love (ie Larry Love from A3) made a solo album a couple of years back, from which this track comes. Proof if proof be need be that he really does love this stuff, it’s no gimmick.

5. The Arlenes – Lonely Won’t Leave Me Alone (16.05)
The Arlenes – South London Steve and Californian Stephanie – are a band I discovered through Come Down & Meet The Folks, probably the first of the ‘donations in a pint pot’ country clubs in London. Run by Big Steve (6’6”, dammit) along with Alan Tyler, it was the first place I saw several of the bands on this mix, The Arlenes being the first. Some of their stuff can be a little smooth, if i’m honest, but always full of heart. This track, though, does all the proper lovely gorgeous yearning stuff that the best country does.They live in Nashville now and make movies and that.

6. Lincoln – Proud Of Myself (21.30)
My god, did Lincoln fuck it all up for themselves. I saw them at the Windmill first (friends of friends, etc), and they were a revelation, somehow grafting Calexico-style blasted-desert country and near-mariachi brass to a Mogwai-ish sense of grandeur and space. The guitarists hooked their trumpets onto their belts while they played their guitars, which seemed ineffably cool. But some balance of power shifted, the lead vocalist seemed to come to dominate things more and more and the songs got a tad MOR. When they introduced the otherwise wonderful, Betty Page-esque Tracey Van Daal on co-vocals, it was all over: they’d turned into an indie Beautiful South. The crowd went absolutely home. This song was one of the last good things they did, although the spirit of Heaton hovers over it nonetheless.

7. The Mekons – Lost Highway (25.49)
How the most shambolic punk band of all turned into the most shambolic country band of all is a matter of record (if you don’t know , go listen to the ridiculously seminal Fear & Whiskey and hear how). They’re still about, 30 years on, spread across the US and Europe. Jon Langford runs Bloodshot Records out of Chicago, a visionary country and roots label. He’s also a fantastic artist – his are the images that litter this piece. Anyway, Hank certainly never did it this way, and god knows if he’d have approved. But we like both kinds of music here – punk AND country.

8. Michael J Sheehy – Crawling Back To The Church (28.45)
There’s some reason I’m not supposed to like Sheehy – something someone did to someone’s girlfriend once or some other such nonsense, I really don’t remember – so I won’t say much, except that he used to be in the deeply crap Dream City Film Club and that this track is one of the best British takes on that ole Southern Gothic style I’ve ever heard.

9. Scott 4 – Hello Doctor (31.50)
Mixing krautrock with country. Well, that was never going to work. Except, sometimes, it did. Mostly when they left out the krautrock, like on this track.

10. Alan Tyler – Everybody Is A Cowboy Now (35.5
Alan Tyler again. So, after The Rockingbirds (who I kind of knew to nod at, and got drunk with at Phoenix Festival once) Alan seemed to vanish, although other members were sighted in other bands. Then I heard about Come Down & Meet the Folks, and heard Alan was playing. In those days, it was in the Golden Lion in Camden – ludicrously small, but a great little pub. It was the end of a lovely sunny day, the light dappling the back of the room where Alan was playing. I was that warm, melancholy Sunday drunk that’s probably the best drunk of all, and then Alan did this song and my hairs stood up and my eyes welled up and I STILL can’t fucking believe the guy’s not a national hero. You may be interested to know that my nipples are actually erect as I type this and listen to the song again. The guy’s a genius and the thought that he may fade out with hardly anybody realising it actually makes me want to punch something.

11. Southern Tenant Folk Union – Sweeter Times (40.3
I’ve written about STFU before, so: saw them first at Come Down & Meet The Folks (are you getting a sense of how much Alan is at the core of this mix?), they blew me away, and still do. This is off the first album, the new one’s out now, go buy it.

12. Redlands Palomino Co – Goodbye Love (42.56)
See if you can guess where I saw this lot first then… Like The Arlenes, who must have been an infIuence, I find some of their stuff a bit cloying and MOR, but they’re great live, seem like lovely people and wrote a song about riding a pony over fences and into the sky that made my girlfriend cry. This isn’t it.

13. The Famous Times – Springboard (47.00)
Actually, after The Rockingbirds and before I saw him again, Alan had a short-lived project with Big Steve Tree called The Famous Times. Just an EP and a single, as far as I know. This is from the single, and is one of the most beautiful songs about teenage summer crushes ever. The quality is horrible – I’m sorry, it’s a badly done vinyl rip, and the pressing wasn’t all that to start with. But when it got redone by The Arlenes later, they made it shit.

14. The Broken Family Band – The Booze & The Drugs (50.45)
I’m a bit worried about The Broken Family Band. They used to be a rubbish indie band that I never even heard, turned into a (possibly not serious) country-rock band and became absolutely brilliant. One of my favourite bands of the last few years. But the last album was a bit too rock, a bit too stadium, and last time I saw them live they had guitar solos. Although they might have been sarcastic guitar solos, it’s hard to be sure. They’re ace blokes (in a bitter and resentful way) and Steven played a song for my birthday once, so i’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. One below standard album (after several fantastic ones) is hardly a deal breaker. This song is ace to sing when you’re REALLY pissed.

15. Piney Gir – Greetings! Salutations! Goodbye! (53.15)
Actually, this is cheating because Piney Gir (who’s in 115 different bands) is actually a seppy. But she’s over here, and plays all the usual places and is great, if a bit odd and ‘kooky’. I didn’t put this tune next to a Broken Family Band track for any reason other than that it fitted, but i’m sure there’ll be gossip. Somehow, this track manages to sound like Goldfrapp doing country and yet not be shit. That’s magic.

16. Billy Bragg – You Woke Up My Neighborhood (57.15)
Who’d have thunk it? Our Billy doing a hoedowny sort of relationship song, and doing it really well. When you listen to it, try and forget that the actually rather perfect backing vocals are by that simpering twat out of REM.

17. Menlo Park – Cochon Cochon (60.20)
Mostly horrible band of Shoreditch twatmonkeys fronted by somebody famous’ son. However, they did have that crazy-haired drummer out of Acoustic Ladyland and they did make this leery, sleazy bit of quasi-cajun nonsense so what the hell…

(By the way, I know these track comments are getting shorter, but it’s not cos I lack commitment or anything. I’ve just run out of stories about Alan Tyler. He’s got a fucking bostin’ beard these days though, proper mountain man shit)

18. The Rosinators - Oblivion (63.52)
South London’s finest cajun / hillbilly / country-gospel trio. Lovely Fliss, big tall Will and the geezer who wrote the songs for kids programme about dolls living on a barge. Proper trad stuff – fiddles and a guitar and amazing harmonies. This is a song they kinda share with Alabama 3. The A3 version is, obviously, silly. This version is glorious. However, only the A3 version comes with a full set of hand movements for the chorus (go on, I’m sure you can work them out. When you have, stick a vid of you doing them on Youtube, send me a link and i’ll let you know how you did.)

19. The Rockingbirds – Band Of Dreams (66.3
Just realised what a clumsy segue that was. Ah well, can’t be bothered to do it again. The Rockingbirds, then. This was on their second and final album and is about being The Rockingbirds. It’s a sad and cautionary tale and new young country bands could learn some lessons from these boys. For example, don’t go on those spinny, cage-type fairground rides with cans of beer from your rider in your pocket because they’ll come out, explode and cover you and lots of indie kids in booze. I’m sure there are some other lessons too, but that one always seems to occur to me first.

I went to the Rockingbirds farewell concert, at a totally sold out Highbury Garage. It was rammed, but you suspected EVERYONE who liked the Rockingbirds was there. They wouldn’t play this song because it was too painful, and when Alan came out and said goodbye and started crying, we all started crying too.

20. Alabama 3 – Peace In The Valley (70.30)
A perfect way to finish, I think. Proper rousing and surely another rebuttal for the people who persist in thinking this band is just a gimmick. There IS a gimmick, a mythology, sure – but it works, especially on their never-surpassed debut (for which this is the final track) – there’s a story and a whole world of ideas, with a serious point to it. It’s widely known that, despite being as hedonistic and variously fucked up as they’re reputed to be, they’re also one of the best read, most politically committed and all-round smart bands you’re likely to come across. This is PROPER gospel music, brother.

(I’m not going to put links to all the tracks up, the widely available stuff is widely available and the obscure stuff isn’t. However, I will put up a link to Jon Langford’s website because his art is fantastic - I just bought a book of it, and if just one of you does too, I reckon that covers me nicking his pictures. )

I know Speakers Push Air is supposed to be a music blog, and I know I’m a bit late with this, but nothing has made me laugh as much in a long time:

seen in the ladies toilets at the 100 Club (not by me, I hasten to add):