New Band : Throw me the Statue

Ear friendly tunes

great choruses

Just listen!

http://www.myspace.com/throwmethestatue

Weekly Listening

Various Artists - Worried Noodles

This is an interesting experiment. Poet and artist David Shrigley wrote 40 poems and asked 40 musicians to cover his songs. In theory this could be a disaster but when your artists range from T.V. on the Radio to Franz Ferdinand you know that the results will be good. Most of the time it does work, scarily well. It seems that each band had a lot of fun sculpting music and singing Shrigley's warped and slightly perverted poems. Some of the standouts include Final Fantasy, YACHT, David Bryne and No Kids ( a side project of the group P:ano). There are some stinkers as well, most of them on the second disc but this collection should be checked out.





Richard and Linda Thompson - Shoot out the Lights

This is an album with a history. In the late 70's Richard and Linda Thompson were recording an album with Gerry Rafferty and it was an absolute mess. The duo scrapped the album and gave their demos to Joe Boyd ( Nick Drake's producer) Apparently the Boyd sessions sparked a lot of of creative juices and some new songs were recorded as well.

Thus Shoot the Lights was made.

It is a great album of beefy folk rock songs, Richard Thompson is a first class lyricist and good guitarist and his wife Linda knew how complement his music. Although the couple were having marriage problems and the lyrics are riddled with that imagry, it is worth noting that the songs were written in the mid seventies when there weren't any problems between the couple ( at least according to interviews and the forthcoming 33 1/3 book on the album)

This is an album which balances power and fragility in a brief half hour and should make it's way in every collection or at least be heard.





Justice - Cross

Six months old and this album actually sounds better! Although sometimes it can be a bit rough, Justice's debut album is an action non stop barrage of rough sounds, blazing techno and the odd 80's squiggle. Fun fun fun




No age - Weirdo Rippers

Now these guys are AMAZING. A whirlwind of guitars, feedback and noise. Yet underneath all the scuzz there are melodies blasting out of every corner. Weirdo Rippers is just a collection of No Age's vinyl singles and a couple of new tracks. a band that shows a lot of promise.

Book Review : Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Drew Daniel (33 1/3,No.54)

When I started reading Drew Daniel's volume on Throbbing Gristle's 'pop' experiment album , '20 Jazz Funk Greats', I had a bout of gastric flu. For two days straight, while reading the book, I suffered from the most agonising stomach aches and pains, known to mankind. I was weak and losing fluid. Not to mention the various toilet breaks I had to make. It was a very TG moment and im sure the whole band would be smirking if they read this (I can't help thinking that the author Drew Daniel - of musique concrete electronica group Matmos - would want to record the various stomach noises that were escaping from me)

I have to admit I am not a huge fan of Throbbing Gristle. The group, did, however have a great pop ear and when they used it I thought the results were excellent. United, Hot on the Heels of Love, the amazing walkabout.So I can tolerate (but not obsess about) 20 Jazz Funk Greats.

One also has to look deeper in the noise experiments that they made and when seeing the reason why they did atrocities as 'Slug Bait' and so on then you can see why their music makes so much sense and has gathered such a fanbase.

Anyway, the book itself is probably the most academic and well researched of the series. Daniel has also managed to interview all four members of TG, getting insights into the album from song meaings to production techniques. In short it's a nerdfest but a well written and interesting one. Personally I got a lot of insights on the album, which surprised me.

There is one drawback to the book. It is repetative. Daniel stuck to a certain type of research method and used it throughtout the book. Basically each chapter is devoted to a track, where Daniel first gives his own comments on the song, interviews all four members of TG and then gives us a more detailed breakdown on the track. This happens in every chapter and although it doesn't make boring reading, Daniel's style is too great to fall into that trap, but the reader will notice the pattern. It's not a flowing story.It is an analysis.

But this is a minor quirk. I enjoyed the tome immensely, I love it when an author's passion comes out in writing and it happens a lot here. Another worthy entry in the series.

Book Review :Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones by David Smay (33 1/3, No.53)

Tom Waits is one artist which I adore. At least once a year I will spend a month or so listening to most of his back catalogue (well from Swordfish onwards). When i'm in the mood his music will enrapture me and create false worlds sprouting up. While Swordfishtrombones is one record i like immensely my personal fave has to go to Blood Money.

I was curious to see how Smay would tackle the album and I admit I had doubts if one could pull off an appreciation of such a record and not sound arse-lickey or descend into tiresome Waits cliches ( his voice, his love for blues and so on)but I was amazed. Smay not only gives the reader a whole new angle on Waits but also manages to create the same feel as a Swordfish.... within his writing style. Sometimes dark, sometimes freaky, cool and casual. This is the true masterstroke of the book itself. Not only does Smay pay homage to Waits but also devotes chunks to the muse that saved Waits and made him the musician that he is today - his wife Kathleen.

Although Smay does not interview Waits and uses past articles as resources ( plus one e-mail interview with sleeve designer Michael Russ)he is well informed about Waits' life and shows a genuine love for Swordfishtrombones. I also liked the fact that his other albums are compared and critically assessed ( mostly Rain Dogs though)

After the mighty Celine Dion tome I was expecting a comedown but this book was a refreshing change. I wonder how Drew Daniel's volume about Throbbing Gristle will fare.

The Airborne Toxic Event

In theory I should hate The Airborne Toxic Event. Their sound is dated ( echo and the Bunnymen/Interpol etc etc) the songs are predictable and even the image is cliched (the black faux arty look) but dammit I fell in love with their songs. They swoop and soar and make you FEEL OH SO GOOD! there's a lot of power and guts in the four songs here ( especially this is nowhere) and they just shake you out of your seat.

I feel that given time this group will be dominating the world in someway

http://www.myspace.com/theairbornetoxicevent

Book Review : Celine Dion's Let's Talk about Love : A Journey to the end of Taste by Carl Wilson ( 33 1/3 , No. 52)

Celine Dion Encounter No 1

November 1994. I had just bought the double cassette compilation Now 29 ( I was a fourth former/eleventh grader - Cd's were a huge luxury back then) and I was liking it.In 1994 I had a 'like everything' attitude ( In a way I still wish I had that now) and I loved the first cassette - which was a mixture of rave and the first seeds of the Britpop movement, which absorbed me six months later oh yeah Louis Armstrong , New Order and the Rolling Stones featured . The second cassette focused more on Dancehall,soul and some chart pop. Right after a semi boring cover of Marvin Gaye's 'What's going on' there came the one and only song I hated on that compilation. Celine Dion's 'The Power of Love'. It was the most nauseating thing to ever assault my eardrums. Too dramatic, srupy, voice was way too high and it seemed to take ages to finish. As I hate skipping tracks or fast forwarding songs ( I believe in listening to something as a whole- something which has never changed) I would always cringe and shudder everytime I would hear Dion's voice introducing that ghastly ditty.

Celion Dion Encounter No 2

1996-1998

yes those two years were a dark period. I was in 6th form ( a sort of pre university course to train you for A levels) and I hated it. Obviously as perfect timing would have it, Dion released her Jim Steinmann produced 'It's all coming back to me now'Again I destested it,probably even more cause Dion invaded the radios, the 6th form canteen and every public place on this island. Yes there was a brief lull in 1997 but Dion rebounded with 'My Heart will go on', which was on mtv , blaring out of every car radio and of course, that musical cultural milieu called the 6th form canteen. I remember one particular tortorus session where the bus that took us to 6th form played Celine Dions 1997 opus 'Let's talk about love' in full. There was a traffic jam so we were lucky enough to hear it twice.

Celine Dion Encounter No 3

I'm browsing the 33 1/3 blog - Something I do on a daily basis and I find a youtube clip of Final Fantasy (aka Owen Pallet) covering... wait for it. 'The Power of Love. A full circle. This time round, However something dawned on me.

The song is good. It was the arrangements and delivery that irritated me in the past.

The youtube clip was part of 33 1/3's 52nd volume of it's ongoing series of books about music criticism (criticism in the loosest terms) . In this case the launch was for Carl Wilson's book on Celine Dion's 'Let's Talk about Love'.

Since I have every volume in the series ( in fact the Tom Waits and Throbbing gristle books are next and will each get a review in this blog) and I look forward to each one but I have to admit I was excited about this particular volume as 1) I read the first two chapters and thought they were first class 2) Wilson is actually talking about an album of an artist he cannot stand. Which is quite original as the past 51 volumes focus on albums that the particular author likes.

Wilson aim in the book's brief 164 pages is to critically reassess his view on Celine Dion. Why he and many others dislike her and alternatively why she is loved all over the world. In his quest he interviews fans , attends a concert and buys the album and reviews it and comes up with some interesting conclusions.

Personally I think that the sign of a good music crit book is when it manages to transcend it's main subject and give a more relative aspect and Wilson manages this perfectly. .In his 'Journey to the end of Taste' we learn about song culture in Quebec, the roots of popular music in general, the basis of fandom, objective and subjective criticism the globalisation of music in general and obviously taste.

What also is another plus point about the book is Wilson's impeccable prose. I could spend the rest of the day writing down the sheer quotability of nearly each line of the tome. There were many times where I was laughing out loud and then re-read the passage and laugh again. I simply adored the line

....until Titanic overturned all proportion and Dions' ululating tonsils dilated to swallow the world' ( pg 4)

and there are many more where that came from! Wilson has the knack of taking a complex subject and simplifying it without the subject losing any of it's potency. Take a peek on the treatise of taste in the last few pages of the book and you'll see that Wilson's proverbial pen is mightier than the sword.


'Let's Talk about Love : A Journey to the end of Taste' is one of the highpoints of the 33 1/3 series ( I would include Kim Cooper's book on Neutral Milk Hotel's In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, Alex Green's Book on the Stone Roses debut and Eliot Wilders' volume on Dj. Shadow's Entroducing). In every aspect. Content, writing and criticism. An excellent all rounder and a book that makes me appreciate and love the 33 1/3 series even more.

James Severy at Circus Circus

I just love it when you discover an artist and his tunes go on rotation in your head 24/7. I admit this happens to me quite a bit but then there are levels of obsession and James Severy's 'Do the Circus Circus' has driven me STARK RAVING MAD.

Starting out with a catchy as syphillis acoustic guitar riff and then evolving into a two penny hip hop beat it is one hell of an opening. The Severy's yelp enters and you're taken for a three minute journey.

on Severy's myspace http://www.myspace.com/jamessevery there are three other tracks and remix of do the Circus Circus and they are all great. Severy is clearly a poet and his plaintive pleas sound excellent with whimsical music. There's bucketloads of talent here and the fact that this guy's tunes have been soundtracking my weekend must mean something.

There isn't that much info but I can say one thing - TALENT

may you be infected with these songs!