Led Zeppelin IV - Eric Davis

I finally read this book in the 33 1/3 series after hearing those Zep trax in the films Argo and Silver Linings Playbook. Surprisingly I got through a book of 170 pages written about 1 LP. Surprising as my favourite template for LP reviews is Greil Marcus's appendix to Stranded. The appendix is basically 2 sentence reviews of hundreds of records that didn't make into the main body of the text. He once noted he loved doing that but perhaps prior knowledge was required to fully understand them. Considering we're in the age of info-overload this seems like a perfectly valid way to analyse Albums today. The kind of information in a normal media review is usually padded out with this type of background/prior knowledge anyway, so who needs another one. Every time Nick Cave puts out a record I have to wade through his immense history, usually in the Sunday supplements, before we get to the few words about his new LP. This has got to the point where I just scan to the new info or sometimes I just give up all together. So Eric Davis you've done well to get me through your 170 pages. Admittedly I didn't know that much about Led Zeppelin, their history and what they were on about.

I don't need to say anything about Led Zeppelin IV except I cant believe how much I enjoy it. For a large part of my life they were the enemy, everything worth hating about rock. This stance of course was residue from the punk/post-punk/new pop eras. I guess this all started to erode in the late 80s. I was very confused when Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in a Juke magazine (Aussie equivalent of NME, MM & Sounds) article said he was re buying old Led Zep LPs. I think though I started to cross the line when I could no longer deny how fucking great Jane's Addiction were and bought their classic Ritual De Lo habitual. Some how I could put it down to their mix of Zep rock and post-punk/hardcore/pop flavas. I was yet to be convinced that you could listen to a Zeppelin LP in all seriousness though.

I didn't really like the more trad Zep influenced bands like Soundgarden etc so it was ok. My Phobia & denial continued despite kinda digging the Dazed & Confused film clip which was frequently played on Rage from the late 80s onward. 6 or 7 years ago I thought 'if i can be massively into the first 4 Black Sabbath albums surely I can let go of my Led Zeppelin prejudice. They must be bloody good'. In a record shop I found II, III, IV and Houses of the Holy for 5 bucks each. II was the one for a couple of years. Then III & IV took my fancy then the levee broke and it was all over. I was finally emancipated from the narrow minded anti dinosaur dogma.

Buffalo - Freedom

One More For ANZAC Day

Buffalo

Freedom

9 minutes of slow burning hard rocking boogie oz rock stylee from 1971. I can smell the booze, smoke & exhaust from here. Taken from the classic LP Volcanic Rock. Rock on Sydney!

JPS Experience

ANZAC DAY

JPS Experience Inside Out

Absofuckinglutely gorgeous tune from an underrated Flying Nun band. Recorded in 1988.

JPS Experience Get My Point

From one my favourite Flying Nun records of all time The Size of Food. This is a fucking incredible intense psychedelic track. I love how he's losin his mind at the end. More gold.

The Eastern Dark

ANZAC Day

The Eastern Dark

Julie Is a Junkie

Wow I cant believe how great this is every time I hear it. I can't put my finger on what it is about this tune. From 1985 this is their only 7" before singer/guitarist James Darroch died in a car crash en route from Sydney to Melbourne for a tour. There was an EP recorded prior to his untimely death released posthumously. What could have been? More mid 80s gold from when Sydney was the place to be.

La Femme - Chelsea Kids

ANZAC DAY

La Femme

Chelsea Kids

Glitter punk into New Wave from 1979. I love this song.  Can't deny classic status for this track. The godfathers of Eddy Current doncha reckon? Frankston area scuzz.

On The Hi-Fi Part 22

Forest Of Evil II - Frank Reidy & Eric Allen (De Wolfe)
This would have to be in my top 5 library LPs of all time. Splendid Haunted Arrangements from 1981. Strings and electronics. Perfect for days like these. The title says it all. Class and quality all the way. This shit should get a reissue, can't recall where I found this though. I've been tryin' to track down Volume 1 for years now but to no avail.

Cold Nose - Franco Falsini
For fans of mellow kosmiche. Laconic atmospheric guitar and electronics from this Italian chap recorded in 1975. Reissued last year on the fine Spectrum Spools label

Tellus #13 Power Electronics - Various Artists
Downloaded this from UbuWeb and wow what a revelation. Only a couple of familiar names here for me Merzbow, f/i and Rhys Chatham. The rest ?? But the rest are fucking great. Who'd heard of Merzbow in 1985? The guys at Tellus were certainly documenting the cutting edge. I'm loving the track excerpt from between Space by Psyclones which is prime space rock electronics with radio and turntable manipulation by the sounds. The Heaviest from Master/Slave Relationship is a gas that sounds like it could come from the current cassette underground. Joseph Nechvatal's track How To Kill is an Oswaldian deconstruction of Janet Jackson's Nasty Boys. There's even a Christian Industrial band, Blackhouse, amidst these nihilistic fiends. Anyway that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's plenty more. Controlled Bleeding are here who once did a split LP with Maybe Mental who also feature with 2 tracks.  A lot of these bands recorded for the Ladd-Frith cassette label which was run by Brian Ladd of Blackhouse & Julie Frith of Psyclones. Other labels connected to these groups include Sub Rosa, Subterranean, Staalplat, RRRrecords etc so you know it's quality. F/i finish the set with the most er... rock (if you can call it that) track which sent me on this mission of rediscovery....

Space Mantra - F/i
This is classic space rock from 1988. Space Mantra is possibly the greatest scuzz psych/space rock LP of the 80s. Who else was doing anything remotely like this in the mid to late 80s? These are sonic transmissions from amongst the space debris. Occasionally stopping off in clangorous ethnic tribal colonies. This deep space rock drifts into black corridors then blasts itself out of the vortex. This is all driven by these Galaxian rockers F/i from er... Milwaukee. Then there are the rest of their 80s records The Split LP,  Why Not Now?.... Alan,  Paradise Out Here and The Past Darkly compilation which are all gold (More on those another time).

BBC in the Desert

On a recent trip to the semi-arid zone of Sunraysia district for a family wedding during the late throes of an Indian summer, I found myself listening to Delia Derbyshire (music & documentary), BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Ekoplekz, eMMlpekz and an audio book of JG Ballard's first novel from 1962 The Drowned World etc. A couple of the tunes from the eMMplekz record Izod Days surprisingly fit the draining summer heat, eMMplekz Theme and Bocanet particularly. I was going for that incongruity thing.

Later smoking out in my sister-in-law's backyard I heard the Dr Who theme (arranged & cowritten by Derbyshire) tune wafting over from a neighbour's TV set and thought 'yeah, right, that sounds perfectly normal to me. It's from my childhood and I spent that time in this geographical zone!'

The Drowned World I thought would be incongruous too, but as I thought about it; not really. As this district I was in was once part of an inland sea. Despite now being 500km from the sea, remnants of that inland sea remain - massive sand dunes, sand bars along the Murray River give the river that weird beach-like vibe, without the waves of course and the salinity problems in the soil. Post apocalypse stuff fitted too, considering Mad Max I and II were filmed a few hours north of Mildura and contain similar features to the terrain of Sunraysia. Man made disasters from damming once great rivers, now drying up  and salinity problems caused by over-irrigation and so on. All this stuff on my ipod seemed well, normal, and quite fitting. Blue Monday on the wedding dance floor - natural - as Joy Division/New Order were part of the soundtrack of my youth here.

Funnily enough, the most incongruous music moment happened back in Melbourne in an inner-city suburb. At 4.30 in the morning, a party started up next door, full of 18-22 year olds where they were singing Billy Joel's Uptown Girl at the top of their lungs, followed by a bunch of early '90's mainstream alternative tunes. Weird? This also parallels recent footage of a friend of a friend's 16 year old daughter being dragged on stage at a recent Springsteen concert in Melbourne to dance the Courtney Cox part during Dancing in the Dark.

It made me think of the atemporality of the times. The kids don't own their own times like they used to. My dad dragged me to an Everly Brothers concert as a young teen. As a protest, I pretended to go to sleep. The Models and INXS were playing a concert in Melbourne that night and there I was at the Everly Brothers, how naff. Now, of course, I think I was being naff by being an obstinate brat. But you had that rebellion to make a generation gap and to have your own soundtrack to your life.

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

More BBC Radiophonic Workshop gear here. This time it's a video documentary produced by the BBC called The Alchemists Of Sound from 2003. This is an hour long doco and features Oliver Postgate, John Baker, Delia Derbyshire, David Cain, Wendy Carlos, Sonic Boom & a dude from Portishead.

Delia Derbyshire

BBC Radio documentary here on Delia Derbyshire the BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer and member of White Noise at the fabulous UbuWeb.

Darkside Mix

Been diggin this Darkside mix from Blog To The Oldskool I Can't Believe How Dark It is. Heaps of great gear here for old and new converts. This genre is fast becoming one of my top 5 eras of music ever. On the evidence here, I also still have much to learn and that excites me. I missed a lot of this stuff first time around, only being aware of the major playerz. More treasure from Blog To The Oldsckool. Onya!

Hang on...... more dark science dropped here for Halloween last year at Blog To The Oldskool.  Two & a half hours, 70 + trax of prime Darkside gold for your pleasure.  With a classic section half way through featuring the panic attack trax Ricky, Scottie & Johnny. Can you handle it?

RIP UNCLE MONTY

100 Secret Rock Albums of the 80s

I've got to say I'm Impressed by Woebot's 80s list. There are 10 artists I've never even heard of. Of the 33 records he specially recommends I only own 9. There is one worry in the Goth category, that's Sisters Of Mercy's Floodland. Is that a joke? Then there is Thin White Rope's Moonhead which is in the highly recommended category. This is an LP I expected to love when I heard it, maybe 3 years after it was released and was shocked that I couldn't stand it. I must admit I've recently thought I should give it another go. Hey Woebot how secret can a Police LP be? Is this in the hiding in plain sight category. Hey Man Without Shame Rapeman's Two Nuns And A Pack Mule gets a recommend. Is it becoming a cult internet record all of a sudden? It's had 2 mentions in 1 week!

Here's the unknown 10 (well as it turns out only 5 are unknown artists).

??? Just saw this was produced by Philip Glass!

Turns out this is Charles Hayward's post This Heat
project. Who knew?  Gotta check this out.

Turns out this is Gil Trythall who I do know and actually
own a few of his records including the title track of this
 LP which I think was recorded in 1973. 

Bill Laswell & Rammellzee. Bootsy on da bass on
one track.

This is a Bill Laswell project with Manu Djbango
amongst others.

Electronic Canadians apparently.

French bloke.

Arthur Russell plays cello on this and Pete was the
trombone man on many of Russell's trax.

Disco dude.

I wanna hear this one 

Woebot

Funnily enough I was looking through some old emails and came across this last nite.

Which I barely recall coming out but it was an answer to my question on my blog from sometime last year. What happened to the Woebot archives? Where can I access them? So he'd taken down his blog only to later on sell it in electronic form. Sure it's only $10 so who cares? Anywho last night I was downloading a kindle app so I could read that and this

Then this email turns up today from woebot with another list. This time it's the 100 Secret Albums from the 80s which can be found here

m b v - other uses

I'm leavin m b v in its box for now.  I had an idea to perhaps exhibit or collect everyones unwanted copies to make some kind of statement concept art stylee.  Perhaps it would be about a redundant cultural artifact now becoming of use as it's included in some kind of intellectual discourse on redundant cultural artifacts.

Then there would be the whole Schrodinger's Cat thing. You wouldn't be allowed to peak inside so how would you know if it was in there or not? At one stage I must admit that I thought the whole website and ordering of mp3, cd and vinyl may have been a scam. I half expected this package to not arrive. Funny that in the end I didn't care if it arrived or not.

If this conceptual art jam were to take place though, would it not make these mass produced artifacts more valuable than the rubbish they were destined to be? Then you would have the situation where perhaps you would have to start verifying whether or not the said lp was inside the box. Wouldn't peeking inside the box kill the concept? Maybe instead of a physical exhibit you could have a virtual one where everyone posted a photo of their box onto the blog/website.

*er...re:Shrodinger's Cat. Would there be a dead cultural artifact and an alive one at the same time? I would presume yes. The dead would be the recorded music which could be seen as a dead/failed piece of pop culture and the alive would be its rejuvenated self that is now part of a living/relevant artistic concern ie. the exhibition.

Ian Svenonius, Shite Endings & The Replacements.

Got this the other day. I bought it because I thought I was gonna hate it. Having a quick glance though, it looks really funny. I dunno why I thought I'd hate it considering I didn't hate the Make Up and I really enjoyed some of those Weird War records. This guy's got the gift of the gab. I don't necessarily agree with everything Joe Carducci has to say but fuck I love the way he writes. So Mr Svenonius is probably a similar case. We'll see.....

*Worst non ending to a film I've seen recently would have to be the Australian film Wish You Were Here. How about an ending guys. Grrr...Thanks a fuckin lot.... another couple of hours I can't get back.

**Were The Replacements an indie band?  Talk about a band in the wrong situation. There was nothing cool or fashionable about The Replacements They were as anachronistic as Tom Petty Or The Georgia Satellites and yet they were seen by rock crits as an integral part of the 80s musical landscape. They would have been better off being sold in a more rock Sunset Strip kinda way doncha think? They probably should have been a mainstream band (like the bands they influenced Green Day, Nirvana, ugh! Goo Goo Dolls).  They were just as rockin and catchy as Bon Jovi or The Boss! They weren't willing to play the game though. I guess that made them outsiders.  One of them I noticed ended up in a later version of Guns & Roses. That makes total sense to me.  If Robert Christgau starts liking your band is it time to start dismantling your group.

Ya think Kurt Cobain liked this track?

Umberto - Confrontations

What's lost is now found. This is the 4th Album (well I've got 4) for one of my favourite groups of the last few years Umberto. I was gonna try and write about them without mentioning Dario Argento, John Carpenter or Goblin but hey that's absurd. On this record though I could probably chuck in Giorgio Morroder. The cover says it all really: Nite driving with an alien invasion. Italo-Disco meets Italo-exploitation with added hand claps. This could be my favourite of their releases so far. I could listen to this all day and all nite, er.... that's what I've been doing. Something tells me these aliens aren't gonna be that nice and might be wearing hockey masks but you kinda want them to land anyway.

Faust, Bono & Benedict Cumberbatch

Wake me when all the bad nows have turned to good nows. Listening to Faust's Faust on my ipod reminded me 'Did I need to get that Can triple cd I think it was called the lost tapes maybe....It's probably awesome....must get that tomorrow I think...That'll have some good nows and some good thens.

'We've arrived in the 70s again man.'

Reading about Scratch Acid yesterday on the interweb on a man without shame reminded me that The Drones sometimes remind me of them along with a band I barely recall The Laughing Hyenas, am I right? Who the fuck knows? Tried to watch 2001 the other day on the digital telly thinkin yeah this'll be great. Half an hour in I wanted to smash in the screen. Watched the new HBO show VEEP and thought it was just tryin to be an American The Thick Of It. Watched The Newsroom as well. It was so cheesie i almost liked it. Jack whitehall does Bono have to apologise to you personally for tryin to make the world a better place? It's a fucked up world that belittles people trying to abolish poverty! Am I like CJ from Eggheads? He likes all the same stuff as me. Five shirts arrived from London yesterday and I haven't even opened them all.....CJ would probably like them. I've lost the new Umberto album. 2013 seems like the least yeary year in my life. Are the 2010s the 2010s or the tens or has everyone given up on decades. I loved decades but they must have been a 20th century thing. What about female popes? When are we gonna have one of them? Can I become an Ecclesiastical Tailor? That's an impressive job title! Dug out Just Keep Eating pretty funny....Hey man without shame! Rapeman were a top band.... Is Game of Thrones good or a pile o shite? I like the sex and violence but I'm not so sure about the supernatural stuff and well c'mon dragons... I'm not 5.  Do I need to be more of a geek? Hey I've watched the first two seasons though. Where is dvd of season 5 part 1 of Breaking Bad mofos?? m b v turned up on my doorstep tonight. What shall I do with it? It's just sittin there mocking me saying "Gee that's $42 well spent." I was nearly over it and it turns up on a Friday nite! Benedict Cumberbatch ....

Saigon Rock And Soul

Dug out this classic compilation the other day after watching Apocalypse Now Redux. This LP was only released in 2010 and contains Vietnamese trax from 1968-1974. Sublime Frequencies is the excellent excavation label it was released on. This label is run by American Alan Bishop and some other dude. Bishop would be known to underground music lovers as a founding member of Sun City Girls. SCG played warped exotic avant rock and existed from the 80s right up until around 2010.  This treasure trove has got the lot! (like pretty much all the releases on said label). Who knew previous to this release that there was such a happening scene in Vietnam during this era? While watching Apocalypse Now the other day I was struck by the lack of any non-western music in the film. Imagine  if some of this shit was used. This archival package features Asian fuzz rock, sultry divas with slinky rhythms,  psychedelic jazzy soul with horns, forays into acid rock, female pop singers swathed in twang and wah wah and incredibly funky beats all lovingly compiled by Mark Gergis. Some of this music puts me in mind of French style beat pop of the era and other Asian styles of the time like Thailand's Luk Thung and Molam genres. Perhaps the Vietnamese style here is a bit more western influenced than those Thai genres, probably due to the presence of the American army and French colonials during this compilations timeframe.  Like the Thai music of the time though, this was a fleeting and ephemeral pop culture that has taken a long time to be collected and showcased to a Western audience. On this LP is some of the most vital, tantalising and far out pop/rock from any time and place.

*Here's an ABC radio documentary Saigon's Wartime Beat which features interviews with some of this compilation's musicians and its compiler that I discovered after writing this.

This guy was on my bus today

Did he fake his own death only to
wind up living in Box Hill?

Spoiler Alert

Two movies in 2 days featured the tunage of Led Zeppelin. Firstly there was When The Levee Breaks in a scene in Argo. This film was set in 1980 and once you got past most of the characters giant spectacles, it was quite convincingly set in its time. It looked like an American film from the late 70s/80. I wonder if this was a vibe they were going for. It's a pretty good idea to put people in mind of the greatest era of American film making (late 60s through to 80) in your 2010s film. This may have subconsciously put it into the minds of the awards voters. Also it's an incredible story. The producers were given a gift with this true story about the CIA getting American citizens out of Iran during the hostage crisis. Well they may have paid a lot of money for this story but the script would have virtually written itself. It would have been pretty hard to fuck up this tale. To make this heroic story more palatable and not make it look like American propaganda they've made the USA look pretty bad in the context of the Iran-USA conflict. This in turn almost makes Ben Affleck's character an anti-hero but not quite. He still saves the day and gets the girl. Anyway Ben Affleck turns in one of the most minimal acting performances ever put to screen. You can feel the fear and tension of the 6 embassy officials who need to be rescued. This is superb film making. My only gripe was at the end where they seem unable to resist a dash of cheese. Affleck's character reunites with his wife who he's been separated from. This appears to be for no reason as I doubt she would have been allowed to know the case he was involved in and what had transpired. The truth was not released to the public about this event until many years later. You get the feeling the studio execs put Affleck, director of the film, up to this saying "Hey this will double your audience. All you need to do is put this minutes worth of footage in your film otherwise we wont bankroll you."

Led Zeppelin's What Is & What Never Should Be features in a chaotic scene in the film Silver Linings Playbook. This is a love story about 2 people who have had a rough time and experienced varying amounts of mental illness. There is no doubting Jennifer Lawrence's magnetic star power. The camera absolutely loves her like no one I've seen in recent memory. For Lawrence to be the standout, in a film with Robert De Nero in career best form, is a testament to her presence and talent. She looks set to dominate the movies and their awards ceremonies for the foreseeable future. Bradley Cooper is also convincing and compelling as Jennifer's love interest and fellow fuck up in this romantic comedy. De Nero is getting better, Jackie Weaver's late blooming continues and the rest of the ensemble rises to the task. My favourite scene is when Cooper's character throws a Hemmingway book out of a closed window in the middle of the night.  I thought: It's about time someone took a stand against tedious literature that is forced upon us. Fuck the cannon! It's a curious thing that now for me (and many others I presume) to accept a love story it has to come from a very twisted, fairly sad and dark place. This was also a very funny film though.

Ex Cops

Barry Divolla from Australia's Who Magazine(Aussie equivalent to USA's People) writes this week about Ex Cops. Ex Cops are some new band probably from Brooklyn. Barry says if The Chills, early REM, Velvet Underground, The Feelies, The Smiths and Galaxy 500 mean everything to you then check out Ex Cops' LP True Hallucinations. All those bands I love (the first 3 REM LPs are gold and so are their 5th & 6th) so I wont be checking out this new record. Why the fuck would I? I'll just listen to those old records. The late 60s and the 80s are a long time ago. I can't really imagine this band being anywhere near that league of bands. That league is the highest water mark in underground guitar pop/rock ever. At this late stage it's hard to imagine anyone coming close to those epochal legends.

I wanted the Murmur version of Pilgrimage but couldn't 

find it. This is just as good anyway!

Yay!

More Yay!

Jesus they were really cookin' with Craig Gannon

on 2nd guitar. This fucking rocks!

How good?

Gotta have another!

'Listen to the Byrds sing on the tape recorder.'

The Zoo Is Cool

Couch Flambeau

The Zoo Is Cool

Great stuff from Nowheresville USA in 1985. Pretty unique I guess and a little bit funny. Saw this on the interweb about 5 years ago when I'd never heard of em.  Like J Mascis's  funny dork of a cousin  who was into MX80.

Peter Shapiro and Philip Brophy contribute to this months Wire. Shapiro does a primer on US Hardcore. It's one of those scenes that's got a lot of naffness and Shapiro isn't shy in pointing that out. It's the stuff with a bit of wit that really stands out. I mean Black Flag embody the scenes good/bad qualities. On the same record they would have something funny in a trashy yob rock stylee like TV Party then a woefully whingey track like Depression or Damaged II. Shapiro is one of my favourite music writers of all time but I have to pull him up on one sentence where he claims Husker Du didn't "devolve into emo's woe is me whining." Hmmm.... I'm not so sure about that. No Angry Samoans in the feature either, were they a little too homophobic? Not hardcore enough?

That previously mentioned Nuts & Co. LP from France in 1982 has been getting a fair airing around these parts. Kangourou is a lost treasure of post-punk. Young Marble Giants minimalism crossed with The Residents warp factor and you're about half way. Towards the end it goes into an almost communal demented exotica zone that you wouldn't have expected at the start. This record has had me going back to post-punk and experimental stuff like the label M Squared's a Selection and the Innocent Label compilation New music 1978/79 which have definite parallels as well as Der Plan's Geri Reig, Minny Pops' Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement,  2+2=5's Into The Future and Duck Stab & Eskimo by The Residents.

666

As stated previously I've just discovered this late psych rock gem from 1978. I know nothing about Marcus but I'm loving this LP From The House Of Trax. Ween and Ariel Pink must be fans.

Got a theme going here. I was first introduced to Black Widow about 10 years ago whilst getting my hair cut at a hipster's barber shop. This was being pumped full volume throughout the shop while the barbers sang all the words. I couldn't believe I'd never heard this fabulous record before. The entire Sacrifice LP is classic. Funky progressive satanic rock!

What's Goin On?

These are the main reasons I've not been posting much this year. I have a computer that's busted. I have 2 cd players that aren't working and a turntable that needs a new stylus. I can play tapes and my i-pod through the stereo but that's about it. I'm not in the zone for writing about music and culture. It doesn't feel right doing it on another computer where all my files aren't. I have the new Umberto album but I can't find it so no comment there. I've been listening to Trick Or Treat, the LP Ariel Pink did with VDO (some Mutant Sounds folk) under the name Shits & Giggles pre 4AD signing. Also just discovered Marcus's 1978 LP From The House Of Trax. Another new discovery is Nuts & Co's Kangouruo LP from like 1984. I have to thank the awesome Mutant Sounds once again for alerting me to these last 2. They do have their problems over there though with Rapidshare and stuff which I hope gets all sorted. I tried to download 6 things but I only got 2. They're still the best! I even started reading David Toop's Ocean Of Sound which has been on my shelf for years and I've never been in the mood to read it!  Hopefully Cardrossmaniac2 (ab)normality will be resumed soon.

Sonic Youth - Smart Bar Chicago 1985

This Smart Bar Chicago 1985 cd takes you right to the heart of the beginning of Sonic Youth's reign as the premier American underground band. This is where the noise meets the rock and the rock is introduced to the pop. I dig Confusion Is Sex and Bad Moon Rising and even though most of the material for this live date comes from Bad Moon Rising, it's different. I always thought Sonic Youth progressed quite naturally but upon hearing this I started to think that perhaps Steve Shelley was the catalyst for a more accessible, fluid and rock Sonic Youth. He was not long in the band when this concert was recorded. He injects new life into these tracks (that were played on Bad Moon Rising by Bob Bert) and you can hear the future Sonic Youth starting to come together.  Songs take on a (Can-esque) flow motion that was previously non existent. This is where the No Wave noise and post hardcore sounds begin to be sculptured into something more beautiful and sensual. This is exemplified here on an early version of Expressway To Yr Skull.  1985 was the first time I read about Sonic Youth in Juke magazine. In that article they were discussing Bad Moon Rising, the 60s, Charlie Manson and John Fogerty's comeback. The band were photographed with a scarecrow. This article/image stuck in my brain but it would have been 2 years at least until I first heard their music with Schizophrenia on the airwaves of RRR whilst visiting the big smoke.

Maybe it was the disappointment of m b v that made me buy Smart Bar Chicago 1985 and go back to MBV's original influences. Just before I dug out Dinosaur Jr's You're Living All Over Me, I listened to Isn't Anything. This LP immediately transported me back to the late 80s. Glory days I suppose. My Bloody Valentine were once raw and incredibly melodic. Their other unsung triumph was their wicked rhythm section that was sometimes at the forefront of a tune. There was light, shade, claustrophobia, ecstasy and surrealism. What happened? More to the point do I really care now? The mourning was done some time ago. We've got the old records and they're brilliant as are those of their contemporaneous influences. The aforementioned Dinosaur LP has been cranked up real loud over this last week and its blistering blissful vistas have had me ecstatic. What can I say? Wow! Geez I would love to have been writing at that time. It was so exciting and fertile. The great thing is that, that excitement is contained within some of those records still.

The live Sonic Youth cd has of course had me listening back to their Evol and Sister LPs. Is their anything left to say about those records? Except they still sound fucking awesome in 2013. I don't know where First Born Is Dead by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds fits in to all this but I've been giving that a spin too. That was a fabulous and strange record! They were just a weird little four piece band then. Blixa, Barry, Mick (on drums) and Nick. It's such a sparse LP and so powerful!

All these groups were influences on the young My Bloody Valentine.

So if you ever wondered (I haven't until now) what Bad Moon Rising would have sounded like with Steve Shelley on the skins check out Smart Bar Chicago 1985.

Retromania moves in mysterious ways. I'm in the mid to late 80s now.

m b v - My Bloody Valentine

It just came out of the blue. If you can call waiting for 22 years for a follow up to one of the all time great albums out of the blue. What I mean is it was put out with little fanfare. Kevin Shields said the other day it might be coming out soon and then bang there it was on their website. Some people were paying attention though as the website crashed due to immense traffic. I heard one track on youtube Wonder 2 and got a little excited. The next day I'd bought the LP, cd and download for more than 40 dollars. So a nostalgic vibe took over. What was I really expecting though? Surely I wasn't expecting them to blow my mind at this late stage was I? Can they still make dizzy music to disconcert?

In 1996 I was still hopeful about the follow up to Loveless. There were reports of the tracks being jungle and metal influenced. This kept me interested for a few years. Eventually though I came to the realisation that it was never going to come out. Then I was of the opinion that perhaps this was a good thing. Retire at your peak. Nice. Have years of meltdowns, budget blowouts and scrapped half finished albums. This will all add to the mystique and they will become legendary well, more legendary.

22 years on from Loveless and the innovations have become common place. The radical normalised. 22 years of artists pillaging this treasure chest have almost(?) made My Bloody Valentine redundant. So what could MBV have to offer us now? When Loveless came out there were even a few people who said "Is that it?' The shoegaze brigade (Slowdive, Curve, Lush, Pale Saints, Boo Radleys et al.) had already started using and abusing MBV's legacy which perhaps made Loveless less startling than it should have been. Then groups like Seefeel, Flying Saucer Attack, Third Eye Foundation etc. expanded upon MBV's frontiers and perhaps took their blueprint to several logical conclusions. MBV kept being a name checked influence throughout the 90, 00s and 10s. I personally have failed to keep up with the new shoegazers. The last things I heard were from 10 years ago when Pluramon and M83 began exhibiting a heavy MBV influence. The lineage continues to this day apparently with Deerhunter and the like carrying the torch.

The (non) marketing of m b v caught me a little off guard and I was swept up in nostalgic momentum. Wonder 2 is probably the best track on the LP, well at the moment it's only actually an mp3. The first half of m b v has the hazy sweet languidity part of the Loveless equation but lacks the other half ie. the noisy and chaotic undercurrent. These two yin and yang elements are what make My Bloody Valentine  so great. So it's nice but feels half finished. Where are the manic pop thrills?

Then along comes track six New You. I don't really know what to make of this track at all. It just feels wrong. Is this where I say nadir? Is it some kind of attempt at a MOR crossover? It just comes across like a bad Phoenix outtake. Next is In Another Way and thank god! It's a fucking MBV classic with all the elements that we know and love, but is it too little too late? Track 8 Nothing Is sounds like an attempt at a Meat Puppets instrumental?? Finally it's wonder 2. The album starts to really hit its stride with this dose of swirling and shape shifting psychedelia. Then the album's done. It's finished and you're left feeling a little bewildered.

m b v sounds like it could have come out in 1993 as a kind of follow up/companion piece to Loveless. What happened to the metal? Where's the jungle? Those recordings seem to have been scrapped and Kevin, Belinda, Colm and Debbie have gone for a Ramones/ACDC move ie. If it ain't broke don't fix it. They've settled on their bag of tricks and they've decided to sail in conservative waters.  Was there nowhere else to go? Did others get there first? Was there too much second guessing? Were the scrapped recordings shite? How did that winning streak from the You Made Me Realise EP to Loveless come to such a bizarre end? Are these the questions that have plagued Kevin Shields' mind for the last 22 years?

2013 has begun

I was about to write a post asking the question: Has 2013 started yet? A quick look on the internet made me go er.. maybe ....Ducktails have a new record...I should track that down. I was about to go to bed then I realised this

But I've left the computer cord at work and it's about to run out uuuurrrrrggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boring Monday Night

it was either watching Master Chef or some other shite tonight. Luckily I went on the interweb and found this on Hardly Baked one of Simon Reynolds other blogs. This is a true time capsule and fuck me it made my week if not my month actually. Simon found it on the Our God Is Speed blog who in turn found it on the Exile On Moan St blog. So I thought I'd continue the tradition and pass it on. This is an incredible glimpse into Berlin in 1983. Even more so though, is the glimpse you get of the British idea of Berlin and Germany in 1983. It's got Die Haut, Malaria, Einsturzende Neubauten, etc.

This is as German as I got in 1983. This really swings!, quite unexpectedly. I thought Nena was the biggest spunk (er...that's Australian for good looking) I'd ever seen. That final part of The Tube In Berlin Special where a British guy is at the Russian War Memorial reminded me of this song which I haven't heard since about 1984. If I recall correctly she had a follow up single I really loved as well but I can't remember the title of that. Oh hang on here it is!

The Church - She Never Said

One last one for Australia Day. This is taken from Countdown in 1981. Countdown was Australia's version of TOTP sort of. Everyone watched it every Sunday night. Anyway this episode was shown recently on Rage and boy did The Church not fit. I guess they never fitted anywhere as was stated in their Hall Of Fame anouncement. On this edition of Countdown were a whole lot of very bad and thin sounding synth-pop performers. So when the Church go into this weird dark post punk psychedelia that was at once a throwback and futuristic they stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a surprise to see this performance I'd never seen before and in that context all the more interesting and powerful.

The Atlantics

More classics for Australia Day. The Atlantics Come On. I love the clip but it's obviously mimed. I'd like to have seen a live version from this era.

Here's a band I've mentioned before Kahvas Jute and their great progressive hard rock classic Parade Of Fools. This is a proto-stoner epic from 1971.

Invasion Day/Australia Day

I loved this song when I was little which is strange really. This is so fucking heartbreaking I can barely even listen to it. I don't know much about Billy Field but he is definitely an anomaly in Australian Rock. He was sophisticated and urbane!

The plight of the Australian Aborigines is one of the more disgraceful chapters in The British Empire's history. Still today poverty and age expectancy are massive issues that seem to be perennially unsolvable. Anyway I saw The Warumpi Band once and man they rocked harder than ACDC.

Sun Araw/The Congos/Sherlock Holmes/Girls

Sun Araw and The Congos create a new zone somewhere between Roots Reggae and Hynagogia.
Stoned? Us?

Not much to talk about musically really. I just looked over my top 20 of 2012 and noticed I left out the  Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras Meet The Congos LP which is brilliant. And I only just, a week or 2 ago, got the 2nd Hacker Farm LP. I'm loving that and it's a huge leap from Poundland. I would describe it as Isolationist (in the best sense of the term) ambiance and dare I say the word, Industrial, anyway it's post all that, but post seems to be a bad word at the moment so I won't say that. The new Broadcast LP is the only other thing I've been listening to. A faux Giallo soundtrack that pays homage to Goblin and other Italian masters.

I've caught up on some tv though. Sherlock Holmes the BBC series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch & Martin Freeman is one I have watched. Thinking, well I didn't really like the Hollywood films of recent times but I'll give it a go, because Caitlin Moran rates it. I was immediately transfixed by the whole thing. The best BBC drama in a very long time. The plots are incredible and the acting, well fuck me!, where did this Benedict Cumberbatch come from? He's an incredibly charismatic actor with star written all over him. How does he do that unblinking thing? I've spent some of my life amongst people with Aspergers Syndrome and I could not come up with a more real version of the syndrome. At one point during the show Dr. Watson  claims Sherlock as Aspergers. This I find refreshing considering how many seasons has it been for Big Bang Theory? Where one of the main characters, Sheldon, quite obviously has Aspergers  and no one has muttered the word Autism or Aspergers as far as I know! But they are quite willing to make fun of his condition. Anyway what a surprise and I can't wait for the next season which is going to be at least a 12 month wait.

The next one was Girls. I was not expecting to relate whatsoever  to a show about 20 something girls in New York, but somehow it drew me in! I thought this may be an interesting show but did not expect to relate to it in any terms. I thought the era, ie now, would alienate me. Being married for the last 5 years etc. would exclude me but fuck this show just reminded me and the Mrs of our early 20s. Lena Dunham has captured in minute detail the confusion, bewilderment, the obsession with sex and the whatever else is happening in your 20s perfectly. Timeless, brilliant and so close to the bone sometimes, it almost makes you want to look away. Lena puts in all the bits, awkwardness, selfishness and embarrassment, that others would leave out. One of the most honest accounts of 20 something life I've ever seen.

This song played in the background of a scene.  One of my favourite songs ever. The best!