The Residents

You Gotta check out this laser disc of The Residents over at UbuWeb. It's called 20 Twisted Questions 1972-1991. It's an hour of great Residents shenanigans.

2013???

While still kinda waiting for 2013 to happen I'm going back through some old and some not so old music. 2013 isn't even throwing up many good archival releases. The only ones I've come across are Atomic Forrest's Obsession on Now Again (but the date on that says 2011) and a couple from Strut Records (I'm still waiting for their arrival in the post). Apart from those Cairo Liberation Front mixes (I've got 3 check Soundcloud for them) good mixtapes are also few and far between. The first six months of 2013 have got to be the thinnest musical times since oh I don't know 2004, 1944 or take your pick of history's lame musical years. It can't be as bad as it seems can it?

On The Hi-Fi Part 62

sunshine Superman (1966)

Mellow Yellow (1967) 

Totally diggin these 2 LPs (and on the lookout for those that followed). Why was he so maligned I wonder? Sure he wrote some naff lyrics but it's not like The Beatles, Incredible String Band or Nick Drake were immune to to this. Donovan was still being derided in the late 80s, I recall, in the pages of Melody Maker. He was psych's whipping boy in much the same way The Clash were punk's (I guess someone has to take the heat). This is some of the best 60s production this side of The Doors catalogue. Sunshine Superman's got funky psych-pop, sumptuous medieval vibes and meandering folk jams swathed in sitar. While Mellow Yellow's more of a stripped back folk pop vibe tinged with jazz and blues.

Clube De Esquina (1972) - Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges

I'd seen this record cover a million times before in record shops but didn't realise until now that it was a hidden gem hiding in plain sight (thank you interweb). Clube De Esquina is without doubt some of the most beautiful music ever recorded. Bossa nova, samba & South American folk are mixed with rock, orchestral arrangements, heavenly harmonies and drenched in reverb. It's all created by a group of musicians who all lived together in a house for six months, Trout Mask Replica stylee, at the beach before recording this classic.

Stuff On The Interweb

There's been heaps of good stuff over at blog to the oldskool including this mini mix from junglistz Foul Play and this 20 minute documentary on Gabber. This is quite bizarre and a little bit scary. It's a portal into a very specific time and place. Check out some of the most mental dancing from the 90s! It's funny now how tame and normal a lot of gabba now sounds. I'm in the 90s now.

Here's an excellent interview with Julian House the dude from the GhostBox label and man behind The Focus Group over at The Quietus. Here's an old bit on Julian from 2006 at K-Punk. Over at bandcamp there is a 19 minute track from The Children Of Alice, a trio made up of House and 2 members of Broadcast, called The Harbinger Of Spring which is well worth your 3 quid!

I only just discovered this Moon Wiring Club Mix Midnight In Europe over at NightVision here which is a bit different than MWCs usual mixes. This mix is of 90s ambient post rave electronica and includes Woob, Baby Ford, LFO, Biosphere, Luke Slater and many more. I'm in the 90s now in a chill-out room. Do they still have those?

Visions

Whilst convalescing after another operation my mind has been relatively inactive er... thanks painkillerz!  I did however manage to watch some stuff in a very passive/pleaz distract me kind of way. I started watching the drama Hell On Wheels which I was hoping would be half as good as Deadwood. The period detail in the sets and costumes is incredible so it was a bit of a shame that they couldn't pay the same attention to the script. I finally had to stop watching it as they were using modern terms and language that were just too jarring. With Deadwood as the benchmark for any kind of ye olde American type of show there is a lot to live up to and Hell On Wheels just didn't cut it.

I watched The Art Of Punk-Black Flag-Art & Music which is a mini 22 minute documentary on Raymond Pettibon the logo and artwork illustrator for Black Flag the LA punk band.  It turns out his simple yet effective Black Flag logo is now the most popular tattoo design in America. Pettibon is a character and his hatred towards certain members of the band definitely endears him to viewers who may think Black Flag's music is a little naff ie. me for the most part. This is a totally recommended untold story of popular culture. There are apparently two more to come in this series, one on The Dead Kennedy's and the other on Crass. I look forward to those.

Raymond Pettibon was so punk he hated Black Flag

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 this 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?