50 quid bloke

Have been listening to Far Away Trains Passing By on and off for the last couple of days. What a fantastic album. And it’s a couple of years old. How did it completely pass me by? (eventually read about it in Word - a recommendation by Sister Bliss). I’ve clearly been living under a rock.
Trying to find out about him (German, depressingly young, very talented etc) has also steered me to another new discovery: the forums on Shoegaze ” for lovers of shoegaze/dreampop muzik worldwide” with this excellent collection of their top 10 shoegaze albums of all time. A dead cert to find that CD to spark a digitally-induced depression,

When I read the review in the Observer, for Mr David Viner’s This Boy Don’t Care I thought it was actually a re-release. And looking at the cover and listening to it did little to change my opinion. It’s acousticy, folky, bluesy stuff: very simple, and even, well a bit, old fashioned. Reminded me quite a bit of John Martyn’s first album, London Conversation.
Anyway a photo on the inside of the CD case shows them to be, well, slightly more modern and, extensive research reveals that he’s actually 23 or so and this is a brand new release.
It’s quite weird to listen to, because these days we’ve got used to people going acoustic and getting all winsome and whiney. This is all back to basics stuff: simple, and all the better for it.
It’s all recorded at the analog-only Toerag studios in east london - which explains its old fashion sound. Should you buy it? Of course you should…just don’t expect to find it on iTunes.

Currently we’ve got Daltrey (vocalist) and Townshend (lead and rhythm guitar) plus various others (including, spookly enough for this plan, Ringo’s son) touring round. Plus Paul McCartney (vocals and bass) touring with a random band and Ringo (drums) doing whatever Ringo does these days.
Get rid of the stand-ins and session musicians, put the originals all together and you have a perfect foursome: The Wheatles, or The Boo. Obviously, I can see a few musical differences, but that can only add to the on-stage excitment….

I can’t quite work out how such a benign album as this could have ended up with a title as aggressive as ‘Destroy Rock and Roll‘ (and the art work to match). Mildly teasing, perhaps; tickling rock’s tummy in a smart and suggestive way, possibly; but destroying? please.
If you haven’t heard it, well you should. It won’t change your life. It won’t have you ripping your top off and shouting ‘Chooon’. It’s just very fine, listenable dance music: about half way on the spectrum between Royksopp and Daft Punk. That is to say, it’s got enough energy to keep it out of the ‘mildly enjoyable noodling’ camp, but not quite enough to earn the reputation of ’squelchy, funky, floor-filler’.
Oh, and we do like that Bette Davis’ eyes keyboard sample…
OMM was right to call it utterly charming; meanwhile I’m desperately impressed that he basically put the whole thing together with a G4 Mac, Reason and Pro Logic. Kids these days…

Has just arrived through the post. Too many treats to mention. I’m going to ration myself to one a day for the next week, so I get to listen to them properly. Today’s is Mylo: Destroy Rock and Roll. Which, according to the sticker on the front has been called everything from ‘Scotland’s answer to Royksopp’ (The Face), ‘Pure dancefloor destorying perfection’ (Q - don’t ask me what that actually means…), and ‘Utterly Charming (Observer Music Mag - which seems to be damning with faint praise). So far, so good. Frankly much more engaging than Royksopp which I found to be electro-easy listening.

I’d normally avoid the circus, but this was recommended by Time Out, and we had nothing planned for the night….so we headed off to Clissold Park to see No Fit State Circus’s immortal >show” href=”http://www.nofitstate.com/immortal/show.html”>Nofit State Circus > immortal >ImMortal show last night.
And and excellent use of £12 it was. This being ‘new circus’ there was a theme, (their promotional material claims it’s a ‘journey into what it means to be human’ which is pushing it somewhat), but basically, it’s a set of spectacular acrobatics accompanied by a band. And it’s quite remarkable what a dozen people can do with some ropes, lights and scaffolding. Oh, and some hula-hoops.
It’s on till 20 June. Much recommended and you can take the kids.

My dad had two tapes that I stole when I was about 13. One was Blood on the Tracks (which was red), which set me off into a world of Dylan, singer-songwriters and men with guitars; the other (yellow) Ray Charles’s greatest hits which took me to old R&B, soul and ultimately, dance music.
It’s not sad when someone dies of natural causes at 73. To be honest, I was surprised to find that he was a) alive and b) so young.
But it does remind me just how much I loved that tape. I think it eventually snapped after I’d rewind to hear his version of Living for the City one too many times.

Having whittled out a few flights of fancy after my initial cruise through Word and Uncut, I now have the following shortlist for this month’s Amazonian frenzy. I’m down to 10 - think I need to get it to six. They’re not all new. All suggestions welcome.
- Baby Dayliner: High Heart Low Estate
- Mylo: Destroy Rock and Roll
- TV on the Radio: Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babies
- Grand National: Kicking the National Habit
- Omara Portuondo: Flor de Amor
- Jesse Malin: The Heat
- Richmond Fontaine: Post & Wire
- Ulrich Schnauss: Far Away Trains
- Wilco: A Ghost is Born
- Rufus Wainwright: Want One
Purchasing frenzy to take place this weekend.

My campaign is working. Helped by the BBC 4 documentary (which I was away for…does anyone have it on tape?) and a new album, he’s suddenly becoming rather visible.
Word had a piece on him last month, and this month he’s got a (very good for his recent stuff) track on this month’s covermount CD from them.
Uncut wins however, with a cracking tale on the back page from their editor about going to interview Martyn in Leeds in 1975 (it was the night he recorded his Live at Leeds album.
To paraphrase: Martyn and Danny Thompson (folk rock bass god - did all that lovely double bass work on Solid Air etc) had apparently been drinking since time began when our journalist turns up. They threaten him. It calms down. Then a small bloke walks in and he’s been beaten up. Turns out he’s Paul Kossoff (of Free). Kossof says he’s been attacked by a gang of blokes. Martyn and Thompson grab, respectively a bottle and a chair leg ready to do damage to said hooligans. They go out, and find one small bloke. Kossoff had tried to maul his girlfriend, the bloke had seen to him and err, that was it.
At which point, Kossoff is dragged back to the changing room where Martyn closes the door and makes his disapproval known to the diminutive guitar genius in a very physical fashion. Kossoff is apparently dumped outside like a bundle of laundry.
Martyn and Thompson then go on stage and make music like angels.
Ah, that’s folk-rock-and-roll for you.

From both Word and Uncut this month. As well as all the usual verbal goodies, Word has dived into the world of covermount CDs with ‘Word of Mouth’ a collection of excellent recent stuff (better even than Uncut’s June CD, which was pretty good).
Uncut is also surprisingly (and unusually) readable. Not too much of a fan of their CD, but there’s an enormous interview with Paul McCartney that looks interesting at first skim.
The end result of both of them is that I now have a list of 20 cds on this month’s ‘possible’ list. That’s too many . I’ll be going through a rigorous selection meeting with myself later this week.