Leader Of The Pack-The Shangri-Las

I read somewhere that Billy Joel played piano on The Shangri-Las Leader Of The Pack. A fabulous trivia fact that sounds too good to be true. Check out this video that turns out to be quite comical as The Leader Of The Pack turns up on his motor bike to be sung to by Mary Weiss.

Is I Can Never Go Home Anymore the best girl group song ever?

Ooga Boogas

At A Nice Price!

If like me you've been unable to track down Ooga Boogas self-titled LP from earlier this year no need to fear here it is in digital format at bandcamp. Along with the aforementioned LP you also get their first record Romance & Adventure from 2008 plus the As & Bs of their 2 7's all for the low price of $5. Do yourself a favour. The Ooga Boogas LP introduces keyboards and some very funky (I guess they always had a good sense of rhythm) elements to their sound. You gotta love an album that mentions Big Lizzie. Not only that they have dreams of getting Big Lizzie rolling again on the tune Archie & Me. 

*More here on Big Lizzie

Dolphins-Tim Buckley

Who needs words? Well one will do: Sublime.

The 80s Again....

It doesn't get much better than this.

Here's a Top 100 LPs of the 80s list that isn't the usual rock-crit consensus. FACT certainly do their own thing and good on them for that. Good to see one of my all time favourite records Julee Cruise's Floating Into The Night getting some recognition, although I thought it came out in 1990 but no the date on the label on the vinyl says 89. Steve Roach's ambient masterpiece Structures From Silence, which is an endlessly listenable LP, doesn't usually make these lists so that's a pleasing surprise. Rapeman's LP makes another 2013 appearance which has surely pushed it into cult LP territory. The Cocteau Twins and Felt make it but AR Kane and Siouxsie And The Banshees miss out. The cult of Coil continues its ascendancy, with Horse Rotorvator making an appearance. This list is so hipster it doesn't include This Heat but has a This Heat side project! The same goes for Swans, no Children Of God but (World Of) Skin's 1st LP makes it. This is definitely a 2013 look at the 80s which FACT acknowledge. It's funny what's seen as hip or worthy from the 80s by the kids of 2013 (some of these writers were maybe there in very mini form). Virgo come in at no. 2 with their self-titled LP. Who the fuck are they? More music to discover from the 80s who'd have thunk it? Hang on no Birthday Party! What? No MX 80 Sound! Perhaps it's a joke list....

Ministry over this?! Naye.
Ministry over Pat Benatar?! No Way!

Good Times 2013

Tony Soprano's Legacy

To put it simply Tony Soprano acted by James Gandolfini set the benchmark for characters in television drama. This in turn has had an incredible affect on the acting and drama that has followed since on the small screen. It's a funny turn of events that has led to the best acting now being on the telly and not in the movies. Me & the Mrs would watch Sopranos and say 'Can you believe this is not real?'  Tony had other characters surrounding him that were as brilliantly acted as he was. Carmella, Paulie, Christopher, Ralphy, Uncle Junior, Johnny Sac, Janice, Adrianna, Dr Melfi, Tony's mum etc. That's an incredible list of characters whose actors were so good that you believed they were real.

It was Tony's show though and his multidimensional and nuanced performance is monumental. Apart from making the Sopranos the classic that it is Gandolfini has raised the stakes so high that he has caused an unprecedented eruption of great character acting.

Walter in his Whites.

Music may have died in the new millennium so this late flowering of tv drama is perhaps how we'll remember the 00s and the 10s as the new golden age of tv drama. Who'd have ever thought that? We hardly watch tv like we used to. With our i-phones, i-pads, wiis, xboxs and computers up the wazoo does the telly even get turned on?  So this peak in tv drama has come at an odd and unstable time for tv. I'm sure downloads & dvd sales insure it occurring. In my home at least these series are consumed in seasons via the dvd. Last weekend the entire season 5 (part 1) of Breaking Bad was watched. That's 8 episodes. Right there you have some of nows greatest actors. Who can believe that Walter White is the same guy as the dad in Malcolm In The Middle? Then there's Jesse, Gus, Tuco, Hector etc. Without Tony Soprano would these characters have existed? Maybe he made writers and actors see the potential for the quality standards we could have. McNulty, Kimia, Bunk, Omar, Bubbles, Marlo, Prez, Snoop, Avon, Stringer Bell to list just a few of the unforgettable and incredibly acted characters from The Wire a show that followed in The Sopranos wake.  I didn't even realise two of these guys were actually posh British actors. This cast took The Sopranos mantle and possibly even surpassed it. They certainly equalled their standard as have others like the aforementioned Breaking Bad as well as Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Boardwalk Empire et al.

I guess Tony Soprano was a catalyst for premier acting and we all get to reap the benefits. David Fisher played by Michael C Hall in Six Feet Under is possibly my all time favourite but hang on what about Clare and Brenda from the same show? The list goes on...Nicky, Margene, Alby, Roman, Frank and Rhonda from Big Love.... Al Swearagen, Alma Garet, Trixie, Calamity Jane, Joanie Stubbs, The Doc, Charlie Utter, Mr Wu, EB Farnum are also all great characters beautifully acted in Deadwood... I can keep the lists coming.

The Sopranos and the shows that followed are going to be seen like late 60s LPs are seen by the likes of Rolling Stone and Mojo. These shows are going to be your Sgt Peppers, Pet Sounds, Blonde On Blondes  et al. They will perennially feature in the top 10s of all time, be endlessly discussed, have their order shuffled every few years and be revered as peaks of popular culture because they are.

Is The Sopranos The Sgt Pepper of telly?

RIP Tony Soprano

Gene Clark's No Other

The Best LA LP of The 70s?

What I've been tryin to get to for a while now is this: Gene Clark's No Other. Here's another record I don't really need to talk about as some of the greats have written about it here and here. Anyway this is a record that is still building its cult. It'll probably be 5 to 10 years before he gets to that stage that, I dunno, someone like Nick Drake ended up in 10 years ago. A sort of saturation point where you've gone from cult figure to everyone who's ever gonna know about you knowing about you. I guess Rodriguez is reaching this position now, sure a doco helps! As does an Academy Award for said doco. Anyway David Geffen apparently pumped a hundred grand into Clark's magnificent 1974 opus and upon receiving it in the flesh promptly chucked it in the bin in a hissy fit because it only had 8 songs. Geffen refused to promote the LP and it came and went in a flash. Clark's career never recovered and he allegedly became a tragic figure until he died in 1991 before the No Other cult had gained much momentum. This LP is up there with the best 70s West Coast records by Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Sly Stone and Dennis Wilson and could possibly be the best of the lot. I reckon we definitely get our $100,000 worth. It's lush. It's sublime. This album is the perfect amalgamation of songs, performance and production. It does not get much better than this if indeed it does at all! There's something intangibly magic about this LP and framing it in Gram Parson's term 'Cosmic Americana' doesn't do it justice. This ain't no hippy hillbilly record. However there is a dichotomy at work here. Clark wrote this album during a deep spiritual time but then recorded it in the grips of out of control cocaine use/abuse. An interesting footnote to Australian readers is that Venetta Fields, yes she of John Farnham's band, sings backing vocals on the trax Life's Greatest Fool & Some Misunderstanding.

I is diggin those 1974 threads man.

The Eagles & Satan Part 2

Here's a very bad close up of the previously mentioned dude in the 2nd window of Hotel California. According to some Christians online this is apparently Anton LaVey who was the founder of The Church Of Satan. Don Henley says it's a woman hired by the band. Who should I believe? Check out Jesus Is Saviour for more info!

Anton auditions for a villain
part in Get Smart

Ensemble Skalektrik-Trainwrekz

Totally diggin this. More gold from the Ekoplekz, eMMplekz dude whose name escapes me at the moment. This is different to anything he's done before and quite a surprise! Dubby environmental power hauntology if you get me?