Man-bag wearing, perma-tanned soul/folk/rock crooning all round pie, mash 'n' jellied eels geezer Paul Weller played a 'God's Jukebox' session recently on Mark Lamarr 's Radio 2 show. And it was a belter. Extremely well played (is that a mellotron?) and captured perfectly in the high quality files below, Weller and his " boys" run through a selection of tracks from his new album '22 Dreams' , as well as a track from 'As Is Now' and a cover of Manfred [...]
Wouldn't you love to? The ironic thing is, the track in question doesn't even feature Sarah Cracknell on vocals, but it is one of the best Saint Etienne tracks you're ever likely to hear. This is not a media hype ... 'Filthy' began life in 1991 on the b-side of 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' and features the enigmatic (and 15 year old) Q-Tee on vocals. It's dubby and spacey. There's a bit of wah-wah which may well have been sampled from [...]
On the 12th May 1995, Jeff Buckley was playing at Prince 's club, 'First Avenue' , in Minneapolis. On the same night, a session he recorded in Atlanta a couple of weeks earlier (probably) on the 22nd April was broadcast on the radio. It was later released on a bootleg CD simply titled ' Sessions '. I paid about £15 for my CD at the Barrowlands market one Sunday, way back before the internet was freely available and file sharing was all the rage. Of all the Jeff Buckley bootlegs and odds 'n' sods I have, the [...]
Part 1 of a new series in which previously underpraised records/bands get the praise they deserve. Nuggets was the brainchild of Lenny Kaye , guitarist with the Patti Smith Group and garage rock enthusiast. 'The Original Punk Rock' claims the sticker on my box set. 'Last Seen In Rolling Stone's List Of 200 Essential CDs of the Rock 'n Roll Era!' In 1964 when America went Beatlemania crazy watching the Ed Sullivan show, anyone who had a TV and a guitar [...]
...and he went. Poor Ronnie Wood . Making Pete Doherty look like a total lightweight, he's been on a bit of a bender recently, going off without his wife of 23 years, instead taking with him a 20 year old Russian 'cocktail waitress' (and escort) to Ireland for a massive drink, drugs and how's yer father session. And now he's in rehab trying to save both his vital organs and his marriage. Being a Rolling Stone, surely that's all part of the job? Just ask Keith Richards or Bill Wyman. At least Ronnie's girlfriend was above the legal age of consent. To [...]
Today's post has the feel of that dodgy Freeview Channel, ' Dave ', the channel that shows endless repeats of 'Have I Got News For You' , 'QI' , 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' etc - all great stuff, none of which was actually produced by ' Dave ' itself. Read on... Many of you I'm sure will be familiar with the Bon Iver album, 'For Emma, Forever Ago' . All critics and music fans alike seem to love it. It's been called modern folk, it's been called folktronic, but to me [...]
It's great to see her actually making news for all the right reasons this week. Well, she would be making the news if anyone had picked up on this, but I'm sure you get my point...Released under the radar to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever this week was a rather fetching 2 Tone-inspired 73 ep by Amy Winehouse . The 'Ska ep' does exactly what it says on the tin. 4 tracks, 2 on each side, of Amy interpreting Ska classics that you may or may not have heard first from listening to The Specials . I [...]
Yes! It's yet another of those fantastic studio master tapes that are all over the internet! It's hard to top The Beatles Master Tapes. You might say they'll never be topped. But this is a close second. Very close. This time it's only THE STONES! THE ROLLING STONES! The master tapes of 'Gimme Shelter'! Oh [...]
Got the new issue of Mojo through the letterbox today and amongst the usual excellent mix of articles, I spotted a wee nod to 'Dylan Hears A Who'. This was a project that I stumbled across quite by accident about a year ago, where a couple of guys recreated Bob Dylan's golden mid-6os period with [...]
My Bloody Valentine are back on a brief tour and the reviews have been a wee bit mixed. Some people claim they can't hear the vocals. Some people say the show they've attended is the best thing ever. Some people say the noisy bit in 'You Made Me Realise' isn't noisy enough. Some people say the shows [...]
Last weekend was Teenage Fanclub weekend. A triple treat, a trio of tip-top turns, a heroes welcome for a hatrick of homecoming shows. And any other number of alliterative delights. Each show was different and each show was great for any number of reasons. I've mentioned the 'Electric Chestnuts' show below, so we'll focus on the [...]
You might know this already, but I don't follow a very successful football team, so whilst many of my friends have recently been shelling out literally thousands of pounds to follow either half of Glasgow's Twisted Sisters on their European exploits, I justified my decision to buy tickets for 3 nights of Teenage Fanclub shows [...]
Acclaimed artist and Ayrshireman Peter Howson's very stylised work sells for tens of thousands of pounds at a time. Many of his paintings are centered around what he has observed in life - hard working men down the mines of Ayrshire, hard drinking men in the rough-round-the-edges pubs we've all seen wherever we live. If you look [...]
I was looking for my gardening gloves (!) yesterday and way at the back of my garage I found a box of half a dozen or so compilation CDs I had made up a few years ago. They've been in the garage since I moved house 2 years ago and I had forgotten all about them. [...]
Put another dime in the jukebox, baby! Fleet Foxes are possibly the most talked about band of the moment. If you're looking in the right places, they're everywhere. Having made a big splash at this year's SXSW, 6 Music has them on constant rotation, Mojo's just given them Album Of The Month and June sees [...]
Mention Blur and most folks think of Brit Pop, very big houses in the country and all that terrible stuff, or gurning smart arse Damon Albarn, who with his side projects involving World Musicians, hip-hop and opera (hip-hopera?) is becoming the indie Sting. Me? I still like them a lot. I have all the Blur singles. From [...]
In the early to mid 70's Stevie Wonder was on a bit of a creative roll. In 1972 he released not 1, but 2 albums - the underrated 'Music Of My Mind' and it's more well-known follow up 'Talking Book'. In the next 2 years he released both 'Innervisions' and 'Fullfillingness First Finale' . He also happened to [...]
Tommy Burns died today. He always seemed like a decent man to me. All the cliches are out - "football man", "family man" etc etc, and for once they're all true. I never met him, but I often cheered him on/cursed him from the sidelines when he was playing/managing for Kilmarnock. He was a majestic [...]
Yep. He's still one of them. The release of his long-talked about 'Archives' series is just around the corner. Well. September. But if like me you've been waiting 10 or so years for this, September is but a hold-your-breath moment away. Should be great. Cannae wait etc etc blah blah blah. And there the joy ends. 'Archives' will be released solely [...]
Shhhhhh! Listen! That sound you can hear is the sound of a million Radiohead fans tapping furiously on their iMac 4G Powerbooks as they vent their spleen on the umpteen thousand Thom Yorke Is God fansites that litter every corner of cyberspace. Prince is a bit creepy. Everyone knows that. But by far the biggest highlight of the recent Coachella [...]
Plain Or Pan?
Avicii – Two Million
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
H&M Lookbook Mujer y Hombre Otoño 2012.
Avicii - "Two Million" (MP3 Download)
