The main reason Bob came to my attention was that Malcolm Treece of the Wonder Stuff often wore a T shirt with their rather fine logo on it. That was enough reason for me to seek out a 7″ single of this, that I think I bought in Frank’s Wild Records (a long lost Birmingham record shop that was located in a subway off the old Bull Ring, pretty much where the Selfridges entrance to the Bull Ring car park is now. )
John Peel was a fan and in ’89 this made the Festive 50 (I have an old tape somewhere) and has recently turned up on the Kats Karavan boxset.
I saw them live at the OVT in Selly Oak when it was the Old Varsity Tavern, now the Goose at the OVT. They played in the huge upstairs room on a stage in an alcove so small it was more like a shelf. They were great. I bought a badge. Couldn’t afford the T shirt that night. Wish I’d bought a T shirt. I’d wear it out now for the kudos.
Before Guitar Hero, SingStar and Rock Band there weren’t many decent music and rhythm based games around. Parappa the Rappa was pretty much the exception and it was a brilliant game. There were no fancy controllers and peripherals for this Playstation game. Gameplay was just mashing the joypad buttons in time to make PaRappa rap. It had quirky paper cutout style graphics and a sense of humour and was a regular fixture of several boys’ weekends. We also played UmJammer Lammy a lot. There was some-thing quite Zappa-like about the guitar tunes on that. (update: found the soundtrack to UmJammer here)
I’ve got the soundtrack album for the PaRappa game which has all the raps from the game plus other silly little ditties.
I’m going to have to interrupt you there, this has nothing to do with the Taylor Swift song.
My dad was staying and told me he’d been learning some Dylan songs. I hadn’t got him down as particularly liking Dylan. He started to play one, although I’m not sure which song it actually was. I thought it was You Belong to Me which now that I look at it turns out not to be by Dylan but a cover of an old 50s ballad.
This track didn’t appear on any Dylan album but was on the brilliant soundtrack to Natural Born Killers
The Fairport’s Cropredy Convention newsletter arrived today. I’m not going this year so I’m not that disappointed to be missing the Quo headlining the Thursday evening.
They’ll just be churning out the same old 12 bar boogie and probably not be playing this classic slice of psychedelia.
I know that’s a cliché but psychedelia either comes in slices or nuggets. This is a slice, not a nugget.
The best club night ever in Birmingham was Tuesday night’s Click Club at Burberries on Broad Street between 1988 and 1990. Thereafter Burberries shut down and it moved around small Birmingham venues so much that nobody ever seemed to know where it was and numbers dwindled. It eventually resurfaced as indie became more mainstream as the Friday night club night, Freak Scene at Snobs. Burberries was always the best though.
I made a Spotify playlist to celebrate Tuesday Night’s at Burberries. It’s collaborative so if you ever went feel free to add tracks. Be warned though, I do have my own specific memories of the place and if I don’t think a track got played there regularly I reserve the right to remove it from the list.
This was a favourite track and always resulted in much angst ridden posturing that I think pretty much answers the overiding question in this song. The answer is probably something along the lines of “because you’re an awkward, self conscious angst ridden freak in a cardigan.”
How I look at the emo kids and laugh and their self-indulgence.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Transatlantic Sessions at Symphony Hall. One of the performers was Sara Watkins. To be honest I hadn’t heard of her before but was impressed enough to buy* a CD and get her to sign it after.
It was only afterwards I found out she was the fiddle player from Nickelcreek. (No! not Nickelback-pay attention!) Now I’ve heard of them but not really listened to any of their stuff. I’m more familar with their Mandolinist Chris Thile’s solo work.
*I realise now that I fibbed in yesterday’s post when I claimed not to have bought any CDs so far this year because I bought a few at the Transatlantic Sessions. However they were bought at a gig, not online or in a record shop so don’t count.
I bought a CD today for the first time in ages. This year I’ve been using my Spotify subscription a lot and not buying CDs. It’s saved me quite a bit of money over what I’d normally spend. Given that previously I may well have been the sort of person keeping the music business afloat by buying CDs, I’d say the music industry is screwed regardless of the payment model.
Anyhoo, the CD I bought was the final posthumous Johnny Cash album – American VI:Ain’t No Grave. I think it’s supposed to be an album about death but it just doesn’t seem to have the sort of weight I’d associate with such a claim. It’s not as solemn and poignant as earlier Rick Rubin produced albums such as American IV: The Man Comes Around.
It is a good album though and I think a few more listens and it’ll grow more on me.
The Sheryl Crowe (nearly wrote Cheryl Cole there) cover, Redemption Day is my favourite track so far. It hasn’t cropped up on YouTube or Spotify yet but when it does I’ll update with a link.
Heard this on the radio today and really enjoyed it’s cinematic vibe – the strings, the castanets (probably some other form of percussion but you should get the idea). I’d actually read about these in Word Magazine and was interested in what I’d read but not actually got round to listening to them. It was pleasing therefore, to match up this great track from the radio.
Something of a discovery. I need to hear more and have added their album, Memoirs at the End of the World to my Spotify playlists.
The sleeve design is quite cool too. I like the label and edge marks that make it look like a worn 7″ single sleeve.
Listening to last night’s Radcliffe and Maconie Radio 2 show I heard this for the first time. It’s a pleasant uke based tune.
Embedding’s disabled so you’ll have to go off to YouTube for a listen. Hurry on back after and have a look around.
The eagled eyed may notice a huge gap between this post and the previous one. I can’t guarantee that I’ll post something every day but I’ll try to be more frequent.
The main reason Bob came to my attention was that Malcolm Treece of the Wonder Stuff often wore a T shirt with their rather fine logo on it. That was enough reason for me to seek out a 7″ single of this, that I think I bought in Frank’s Wild Records (a long lost Birmingham record shop that was located in a subway off the old Bull Ring, pretty much where the Selfridges entrance to the Bull Ring car park is now. )
Before Guitar Hero, SingStar and Rock Band there weren’t many decent music and rhythm based games around. Parappa the Rappa was pretty much the exception and it was a brilliant game. There were no fancy controllers and peripherals for this Playstation game. Gameplay was just mashing the joypad buttons in time to make PaRappa rap. It had quirky paper cutout style graphics and a sense of humour and was a regular fixture of several boys’ weekends. We also played 
