Bass Bits II - Tracey Pew

Simon Reynolds is doin a bit on bass bits so I thought I'd put in my Tuppence worth. Well I wrote these a couple of years back anyway.....Immediately what sprang to mind was Tracy Pew of The Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party. There's a reason why he's on the cover of that HITS compilation because he was the heart and soul of the band. He drove them and without him on bass they would have been nowhere and nowhere near as fucking great!

The first one I love is The Friend Catcher particularly when the guitar/clarinet/sax(?) end up following his bassline every now and then. I could post entire LPs but I'll spare you. Mr Clarinet and Happy Birthday are much tighter and clipped but no less effective. A Catholic Skin is so good for the most part it is just one bass note propelling the song forward. Hats On Wrong is a much looser Pew and an indication of what was to come, geez he was good.

Then there's The Red Clock where Rowland S Howard does the old Ozzy Osbourne trick of following his vocal melody with whatever Toni Iommi guitar is playing (or was it the other way around?), except with Rowland's vocals it's to Pew's bass.

King Ink is possibly Tracey Pew's finest moment of bass glory. It's just so fucking grimey, muck is pouring from his fingertips. Human Skin and electricity fusing for a pure expression of filth. How does he keep playing that bassline amongst the rest of the shitstorm that is going down in this song.

Zoo Music Girl's bassline is just dirty funky fun for all the family. I could go on. Tracey Pew's bass on Nick The Stripper and Figure of fun are killer. 

Lastly there's Yard off Prayers On Fire. This is fucking incredible. Pew plays the bluesiest and most lonesome bass I've ever heard in my life. I think it's the only time he ever played double bass on a Birthday Party record.

*Originally posted here                                                                        

Bass Bits Replay - Walk On The Wild Side

Lou Reed

Walk On The Wild Side

Well how could you go past this iconic bassline with a little bit extra thrown in on the jam. Lou's group are fuckn cookin' right here (not Velvets as stated). That's Robert Quine on guitar dunno the other two but they're also awesome. Live in 82, rude form!

A Tribe Called Quest
Can I kick It

Then it was sampled here to great affect! Tribe kickin it to Lou in the goal square!

The Original LP version. Gotta give Herbie Flowers his due. He played two basslines on it, one double bass the other electric so he could get paid twice or so the legend goes. This has been an FM staple since it came out and with good reason. It's probably where I first heard about givin head. Double the bass pleasure!

*Originally posted here 

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RIP Stevie Wright

Surely Friday On My Mind should be Australia's national anthem. Strangely, I had written an entire post about this song for my 2015 wrap up but never posted it because I thought it was too negative. It was about how this tune ceased to be my weekly anthem as I'd given up the booze and finishing work on Friday had become something to not look forward to....blah blah blah...anyway after a couple of years I decided to have a wee drink on Friday nights again and well...the song's status may well be restored soon, I hope. Stevie, the lead singer of The Easybeats, died a few days ago. He had hedonistic demons that nearly destroyed him at one point. Wright suffered brain damage due to controversial treatment of his addictions in the 70s. He made several comebacks though. I saw one of these appearances that he made on the telly late one night and it was heartbreaking yet triumphant at the same time. That brought me to bittersweet tears which is no mean feat for the hard arse I thought I was at the time. So this guy touched me like few artists ever have plus he was fucking awesome! RIP.

Best Of 2015 - Albums & Mixtapes & ....

Reflekzionz/Enttropik EP - Ekoplekz
Another great LP from Nick Edwards and the EP has two of his best tunes ever. He's on a hell of a roll and is quite possibly the best living electronic artist on the planet.

Lost Themes - John Carpenter
Carpenter knocks his clones out of the park with this classic epic slab of prog-horror. He just does what he does and that's the beauty of this album.

Playclothes From Faraway Places/Why Does My House Make Creaking Moises? - Moon Wiring Club
MWC are still intriguing, captivating and delightful after 10 years. This is his best since Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets and that's saying something as that's probably his 2nd best work. So this could end up at 1 or 3. This conjures images of ye olde English spectres breakdancing in dank haunted houses. Like Stereolab before him he makes writing about his music pointless as the song titles say it all 'Hide & Ghost Seek' 'Cobwebby Whodunit' 'Chic Exorcist' 'The Hushening' 'Haywire Assistants' 'Timeless Tea Gowns' etc. What is all that whispering about?

Barter 6/Slime Season - Young Thug
How the fuck does he keep it up? Two great releases from rap's weirdest tripper with the most original flow in hip-hop's history? Me like a very lot.

Nightvision - Mark Van Hoen
Mark continues on his merry way outside of trends and makes a little gem of an electronic LP in the process. Did anyone even notice?

Thrilla - Boosie Badazz
Ignore his stupid name change, he's still Lil Boosie to me but as he says he's a 'bad ass mother fucker.' He sounds like a real slime ball with the most menacing swagga in the game. When he gets in a maniacal zone it's as intensely infectious as prime Iggy Pop. Why isn't he as big as Kanye?

Rudeboyz EP - Rudeboyz
Mesmerising tumbling rhythms that bounce around amongst gloomy minimalism.

DS2 - Future
What a year Future's had, especially when you consider his inconsistent previous year. This album is just the tip of the iceberg of his 2015. This is his unapologetic paean to nihilistic hedonism and something tells me this all ain't gonna end well...

EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE - Rustie
Rustie makes a fine return to form and sets us adrift on memory bliss. It's so hard to resist this cheesy, cheap and cheerful noise.

Rich Off Mackin - RJ & Choice
Everyone wanted to write off DJ Mustard in 2015 (including my barber) but Rich Off Mackin can't be denied. This is gold and really feels like a true collaboration between RJ, Choice and Dijon. It's party time, people!

Houston 3AM - Beatking
Beatking continues to kill everything he does and Houston 3AM is up there with his best LPs/Mixtapes. The King is the most un-PC rapper in the game. Bret Easton Ellis needs to do a podcast with this guy!

Safe - Visionist
Everything about this on surface value make me wanna be sick ie. the cover, the artist's name, the song titles etc....omg I want to punch this C*** in the face. So it's with great disappointment then that I have to announce this music is good stuff: Minimal, thin & empty with occasional flourishes into neon lit sound. Hauntological Grime, anyone?

OTHERS I ALSO LIKED
Slime Season 2 - Young Thug
The Hateful Eight OST - Ennio Morricone
Cub OST - Steve Moore

London Overgrown - John Foxx
Tales From The Black Tangle - Howlround
Don't Let The Sauce Fool U - Sauce Twinz
I'm Movin' To Houston - Starlito
Beast Mode/56 Nights - Future
3 Weeks/Club God 4 - Beatking
Candy, Diamonds & Pills - Gangsta Boo
Life II Death - Amber London
What A Time To Be Alive - Drake & Future
12 Reasons To Die II - Ghostface Killah

WHAT'S WITH THESE???
John T Gast - Excerpts
Puts in perspective how good Scorn were circa Evanescence and Ekoplekz are now. Switch it off.
Father - Who's Gonna Get Fucked First?
Awful Records is a rather apt title for his label, innit?
Arca - Mutant
It's alright I'spose but am I gonna play it a 4th time? No.
Helm - Olympic Mess
Olympic snooze-fest.
*I could go on and on and on some more but that'll do.....

TELEVISION
Girls: These characters are so fucking awful, I hate them. Genius.

Better Call Saul was alright particularly the comedy gold of the Bingo scene in the final episode.

The American TV Golden Age didn't last long did it? Beginning with the first episode of Sopranos and ending somewhere around the last episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad, I reckon. Britain however has pretty much been in a TV golden age since the 70s.

MOVIES
Remember when they used to make good movies?

2015 Best Archives/Reissues...

OK so no stuff I already have, just gear I've been turned onto because it's been reissued or is different or better quality than previous issues. So no Cassie or Martin OST.

User 18081971 @ Soundcloud  - Aphex Twin
So this was 230 trax from the Aphex archive dumped on soundcloud for like a week. It was like he realised 2015 was a very lean year in music so he gave 2015 a gift in 20 albums worth of top material. Some of the fan made comps of this stuff were great ie. Selected Ambient Works 3 & 10 Mellow Tracks For Free. This puts Mr James back in the spotlight as one of the greatest living electronic producers. So much goodness!

Individuals - Sunnyboys
My fave Sunnyboys LP in its original form before LA people fucked with it. It's one of the best Australian rock LPs of all time and this version is gold - the best.

Muscle Up - Patrick Cowley
More funky cosmic disco jams and spooky atmospheric exotica made for porn films.

Fridge Trax Plus - General Magic & Pita
Delve into the strange netherworld of droning fridges. Classic Mego 90s electronica.

Industrial - Allesseandro Allessandroni
Great intense library LP fom 1971.

The Guest OST - Steve Moore
2014 synth soundtrack action from Moore who's one half of Zombi.

Rosso Sangue OST - Carlo Maria Cordio
The one I was waiting for. Choice Italian horror soundtrack from 1981. This contains some of the best synth soundz I've ever heard.

Electronic Calendar: The EMS Tapes - Peter Zimofeiff
Plenty of primitive synthesiser, electronics, atonal sounds & so much more from a forgotten figure of the 20th Century's Avant Garde.

All The Rest of The Rudeboyz Stufff - Rudeboyz
If the 4 trax on the EP weren't enough for you, a bunch of other tunes were available here on the interweb.

Documents 1975 - Harmonia

Krautrock's most underrated group give us more magic as you would expect.

Best Tunes Of 2015

Best Friend - Young Thug
I Got Hoez - Beatking Feturing Short Dawg
Mitsubishi Song - Rudeboyz
OD - Young Thug
Halftime - Young Thug
Quarterback - Young Thug
I Serve The Base - Future
Constantly Hatin - Young Thug featuring Birdman
Round My City - Lil Boosie
Playin Tricks - RJ & Choice
Throw Some Mo - Rae Sremmund featuring Minaj & Thugga
Broke Boy - Iamsu! featuring RJ & Choice
Big Rings - Drake & Future
Get Down - Rudeboyz
In My City - Starlito featuring Sauce Walka, Young Dolph, Killa Kyleon & Sosa Man
Get Rich - RJ & Choice
Fuck Up Some Commas - Future
Where Ya At - Future featuring Drake
Rarri - Young Thug featuring Young Ralph
Blow A Bag - Future
Thought It Was Drought - Future
March Madness - Future

2015 RAP

Houston's Beatking and Atlanta's Young Thug have just released another quality album each. For me right now there are four rappers who stand out from the pack Young Thug, Kevin Gates, Future and of course Beatking. I love me Lils too ie. Boosie, Duke, Durk & Herb. HBK, MPA and Sauce people are real good too. It's hard to leave out the perennially underrated Starlito. Then there's Gangsta Boo, Youngs Dolph & Scooter, Zuse, RJ, Choice and a bunch of others. One thing I'm way not getting is the Awful Records roster. Every artist on this label seems to get a great critical response with every album they issue and yet I couldn't name you one that I thought was any good and I've listened to at least half of Awful's catalogue. Some things are for other people I guess, people not like me.

Those 4 aforementioned rappers are just several notches higher than the rest at the moment. Kevin Gates usually has the best quality control of these four but he's only released one short mixtape this year Murder For Hire that was a bit hard to handle as the djs were a bit overbearing, smothering Kev's idiosyncratic tunes. So really apart from those 7 tracks so far we've only got 4 tunes that are slowly trickling out of i-tunes from his LP Islah which now has a release date for 2016. What's goin on Kev? We were getting two quality albums/mixtapes for the last three years running and that was an unsurpassed winning streak for recent rap. Perhaps I should give Murder For Hire another chance. So 2015 has been a tad disappointing for Gates fans after those previous three years. I don't read gossip columns so maybe I'm missing something like record company troubles, parole violations, legal issues, personal problems - possibly all of the above. Of the remaining 3 it's hard to say who's on top. Thugga and Beatking have released 3 albums/mixtapes each in 2015. Young Thug can be a bit erratic while Beatking is very consistent but can be a bit samey so it's a toss up between those two. Future's released 3 albums/mixtapes as well this year but he has the edge I reckon because he did that collaboration with Drake What A Time To Be Alive which is surprisingly good. Anyway it's not football so we can enjoy everyone's season and I'm pretty sure before the year is out Young Thug and Future could have at least one more release left in them each. As Gates says these four guys 'don't get tired.'

Big Black & Stuff

I used to think this was a top tune/racket, still pretty good innit?. Those Big Black records were good as I recall. The Rapeman album and the first three Shellac 7"s I thought were classics back then, sure I haven't listened to them in years but old Steve had a bit of talent. I couldn't get fully into Shellac's debut album At Action Park so I didn't really follow his work after that. Dog And Pony Show is the outstanding tune I remember from that LP. He did a great job recording, producing, engineering (whatever he used to bloody call it) particularly on that first Breeders LP, Pod and of course Surfer Rosa from The Pixies. He recorded a million bands, most of which are probably not worth listening to. Steve produced some non angry men like Labradford and Low. He even produced a couple of good Australian bands ie. Crow and Dirty Three. One aspect of Albini's personality that really endeared me to him was that he was a huge Wildlife Documentary fan. Rock people didn't say shit like that in the 80s/90s. I thought that was pretty bloody punk or was it anti-punk? It certainly was not cool or in any way fashionable. I also liked Albini's writing. He might have been the reason I first got turned on to Slint's Spiderland as he wrote a review of it in the pages of Melody Maker, I'm pretty sure. He also produced their inferior debut Tweez. Come to think of it I'm pretty sure I read an article that Steve wrote where he went through a bunch of records he'd recorded and he slagged off Surfer Rosa. He was was just being honest, many thought he was a c***. You used to be able to just write what you thought back then and it was ok. Now all these sensitive little kittens would call him a bully or a troll, wankers! I think I'd rather be a c*** than a troll. Trolls just remind me of those stupid little dolls with pink hair.

Anyway enough words have been spilled onto pages about Albini and I'm not trying to get a job at Mojo so the reason he's being discussed here is because there's a recent podcast with a conversation between Albini and Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat and Fugazi. I was having a depressing Sunday and trying to take a nap so I thought 'Why the hell not? This might lull me into sleep'. Funnily enough the only time I ever saw Shellac was when they were supporting Fugazi at The Collingwood Town Hall in Melbourne, perhaps in 93 or 94. Shellac were an incredibly impressive live unit, Fugazi were alright but I think I may have left during their set in search of a pub (no booze at these shows, god even the Puritans loved their booze). This podcast chat is a couple of old geezers reminiscing about the good ole days. One thing I didn't know was that MacKaye had done a project with Al Jourgensen, he of Ministry and immense drug taking fame. So that must have been weird because wasn't MacKaye straight edge? How on earth did they get along? Anyway I've never heard that record by Pailhead....I might check it out....nah I doubt it. Ian and Steve discuss recording, the UK, crashing at people's houses, Chicago, Touch & Go, Wax Trax, a mutual love of Adrian Sherwood, boring shit, more boring shit and there's plenty of arse kissing despite them being occasionally critical of one another. It wasn't as boring as I thought it might have been. I must admit I did nod off towards the end, hey it was long, they are musicians ie. they sometimes make good music but that doesn't mean they're dazzling conversationalists and geez...guess what? It's only part 1 apparently.

Anyway this goes out to Ant, my first blog member who loved his Fugazi back in the day and followed Shellac long after I did. Let me know what part 2 is like as I don't think I'll be downloading that one.

A better podcast featuring Albini sans tedious twat MacKaye is here. Albini discusses his love for Baseball and it turns out he's he's a celebrity poker player and lover of cats.

I loved this cover of Supernaut when it came on the radio in 91 but I don't even think I knew it was a Black Sabbath tune at the time. All I'd heard of Sabbath back in 91 was the Paranoid album which I had on a cruddy tape and on the other side was Pink Floyd's Piper At The Gates of Dawn. That's a strange combo but I guess they both became beloved by my rock brain. I can't say I was a Ministry fan, like my mates were but this is Jourgensen and co along with Trent Reznor on vocals. Now, I did not know that he was singing on this until yesterday. Is it true? and who really cares? I still like it despite being aware of the Black Sabbath version for like 20 years now. Steve Albini would hate it.