My reading, gaming, gigging, listening and viewing from the last week in 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 words.
Friday, 3 October 2008
5-4-3-2-1 – A review of my week in 15 words - 03102008
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Wunderlich
Not a German comic book superhero responsible for administering most excellent cunnilingus... Instead the German 'composer' responsible for around 6,500 albums that house such Wurlitzer inspired aural monstrosities as the one below:
'Thanks' to a friend for reminding me that Wunderlich existed via a dream of his that went something like, "...me and a friend were buying vinyl in Godalming charity shops, ended up I had to clear of as my friend wanted to 'make out' with the shop girl.... what happened was we (in the current day but as our 17yr old selves) were listening to an old cassette (contents unknown) and as the leader gave way to the warm fuzz of ferrous oxide tape, there was the thump of a descending stylus then the bright crackle of static on vinyl kicked in and we were mezmerized by the technology of our yoof, so headed out for a vinyl fix. good job the lucidity dropped out when it came to actual choice of moosic, back in the day it would have been james last or some such twaddle..."
It was clearly Wunderlich...
Friday, 19 September 2008
double bummer
2 cd's here:
There's a sort of retro joy/gloom about this podcast. I was really pleased to hear the Mikrokosmos CD's (pick them up here) - It's Bic Hayes from Levitation/Dark Star etc. Not new material, but 2 CD's recorded not long after/during the time Levitation broke down. There is a tragi-story attached to the two albums, master tapes lost in fire, floods, plague... that's explained a bit more here.
I stumbled upon the Mikrokosmos releases after getting swept away on a wave of listening nostalgia post MBV live in Manchester at the tale end of June ('You made me realise' is still ringing through my head - still haven't made sense of it all). Around this time I also heard Nathaniel Cramp on Rob Da Bank with a shoegazing special (well worth hunting down on iplayer). He was mumbling about 'great lost albums, which got me thinking about Levitations 'Meanwhile Gardens' (coincidentally unreleased by Chrysalis - the same label who didn't release the album he was talking about). After listening to and loving Levitation all over again I thought I'd better track down what they were doing now, and so I found Mikrokosmos and also that the
'Dragons' records I'd been picking up was Dave Francolini (Levitation's drummer, part of the 'tightest rhythm section in London' TM) new project.
Is more of the same. It also features a very noisy record deck of mine - which I think adds a certain ambience to the Sun Electric track.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Weatherall - Freakin' - York - 12092008
Blimey. The night was like an episode of 'This Is Your Life',
your host 'Eamon' Andrew(s) Weatherall with his big red book of acid-house faves.Everyone who was physically able to crawl out of the woodwork did so. Some you wanted to see, some you forgotten had existed and some you never thought would have been allowed back into the community. I'm sure more would have like to have been there too but tagging, detention curfews and the bolts on the doors at a variety of psychiatric hospitals appeared to prevent their attendance. I think they even had "MC Khabi" apologising on a videolinkup for "not being there" and wishing us all "peace" and I swear I saw someone appear from the smoke wearing one of those t-shirts that changed colur in line with your body temperature.
Here's his 'last-tune' from the night...
Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love For Planet Earth (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
All back to Claytons...
The next day Liverpool beat Man. Utd. in the league for the first time in four years and a restaurant forgot to charge us for our drinks - nice end to Friday night.
Friday, 15 August 2008
Shteve Mclarensh -"I shay I think we are not just... what you call?... underdogsh but mashive underdogsh"
Just when you thought it was impossible for the man to sink any lower - out comes thish gem...
Rapeman - Dutch Courage
Boris - You were holding an umbrella
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
January 2008 Pottcast
January (apart from, of course, my daughters birthday) was memorable for being a 'piss-awful' month for Liverpool. We lost our game in hand against West Ham and didn't win a match apart from the one in the FA Cup against Havant and Waterloovile (and then it was a close run thing for 45 minutes) which really is nothing to crow about. Most irksome though were the off the pitch wranglings. Not a day passed without some ridiculous headlines about sacking a manger who has got us to two champions league finals (and most importantly) dragged the club out of the dark ages and overhauled it's structure.
Looking at the titles from Side A of the January Pottacast, for example, Hot Tears, Don't take it too hard and Bright Tomorrow, they seem to form a neat sequence of my thoughts about Liverpool. There is upset, dark moods then blind romanticism about the future. Maybe there was some correlation between my listening and feelings about the club?
Then again, maybe not - otherwise "End of an American Dream" by Lee Scratch Perry and Clap You Hands say Yeah's "Yankee Go Home" might have featured a little more heavily.Looking at the other tracks, The Fuck Buttons (presumably not a stage instruction from this film) are forming a very short list (two, along with Holy Fuck) of "Great bands with Fuck in their name to appear in 2007".
Don´t Take It Too Hard – Tuomo - 3:14
Bright Tomorrow - Fuck Buttons - 4:15
Komaron Runner - Pharaoh Overlord - 6:04
Decibels And The Little Pills - American Music Club - 5:41
New Hampshire - Scary Mansion - 3:16
My Spine Is The Bassline - Shriekback - 4:02
The Queen Of All Returns - Dead Meadow - 5:33 - presumably nothing to do with Christine Gonzalez
Walcott - Vampire Weekend - 3:42 - presumably nothing do with Theo.
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Songza
I've been using this thing a lot of late and it hasn't really let me down. It's a music search engine launched last autumn that searches the net fairly extensively.
Amongst other things - I found a recording of Ramleh live in New York from last October.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Belated December Pottacast
Belated ‘cast from December 2007.
Thinking back – I’m not sure what I was listening to in December – Looking at my iTunes, I downloaded 312 tracks. A lot of it was “backlist” – including Blue Aeroplanes a plenty, some Wackdaddies reggae and a couple of Victims Family tunes.
I remember being blown away by the new Black Mountain record, which has sent me on a trip through the psychedelic vaults and got me back into Circle (hence the track here) and Pharaoh Overlord. The Circle song is “an adrenalin packed comet of fiery-PCP intensity”. The best Finnish export since Jari Litmanen (not the cryogenic version now keeping the medics at Craven Cottage busy).
I liked the Japancakes cover of the whole of My Bloody Valentines ‘Loveless’ LP. There was some impressive ‘nu-gaze’ from Young Galaxy and reliable tunes from Sonar Kollektive.
I also remember reading an article by Lawrence Donegan in the Guardian that reminded me of the time I got a flyer through the post for Lonnie Donegans prophetically named “This could be the last time” tour. Nothing exceptional about this – except that it arrived three months after Lonnie Donegans death. I blamed it on the post.
Some months later though I found out from a girl I was seeing that it was she who had sent out the flyers whilst temping at the venue. Her boss had asked her to “send out all that shite in the corner of the room”. She duly obliged, unaware that the sultan of skiffle had left the crease for the last time. I found a link to some reduced price t-shirts from that tour – but didn’t bookmark it. Heh ho… There was an ironic element to this as the venue concerned was the Barbican Centre in York. With most of the acts they put on there, you look at a flyer and think “They are still alive?”…
Here is Side A: (click to listen/download)
Make the Road by Walking - Menahan Street Band - 3:09
Aly, Walk With Me - The Raveonettes - 5:02
Pump up the volume - Cool Kids - 2:37
Outside the City - Young Galaxy - 3:23
Circle – Circle - 6:39
World's Greatest - Bonnie Prince Billy - 2:26
Battles - Atlas/ MIA - Boyz mix – Diplo - 3:49
When You Sleep – Japancakes - 4:12
Western Lullaby - Tentacle Boy - 4:48
Sea Of Tranquillity – Colleen - 5:46
Ruf – Laub - 3:28
Some long songs on Side B: (click to listen/download)
Bright Lights - Black Mountain - 16:41
Like A Child (Carl Craig Remix) - Junior
Boys - 10:40
Slip Beneath – The Warlocks - 8:07
Crewell - Starving Weirdos - 8:50
Happy New Year – even if I didn’t even manage to get this out in time for the Chinese one. January to follow...
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