I can't think of a better way to cheer a Sunday up than with a Christmas song that lasts just 34 seconds! It's the catchiest half minute you're ever likely to have...so be thankful for it and be filled with joyous luv-buzz happiness.
Happyfuckingsunday! x
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Jim Diamond RIP
Glasgow singer/songwriter Jim Diamond has died at the age of 64. The singer, whose hits included I Should Have Known Better, Hi Ho Silver and I Wont Let You Down passed away at his home in London. A spokesman for his family said they were 'deeply shocked by his sudden death' adding 'He was a devoted family man who loved his wife Chrissy and his children Sarah and Lawrence. He will be much missed by everyone who knew him'. His death comes less than a fortnight after announcing his mother Sarah had died.
Jim first made the UK singles chart in 1982 as singer with PhD - the single I Wont Let You Down reaching number three. He went on to gain international acclaim as a solo artist with the hugely successful I Should Have Known Better a UK number one in 1984 and Hi Ho Silver - the theme tune for ITV series Boon which reached number 5 in 1986.
Fans have been leaving tributes on his Facebook page HERE
His official website is HERE
May you rest in peace...Scotland's answer to Ray Charles....we will miss you dearly.
Friday, October 02, 2015
Album Review... Keith Richards: Crosseyed Heart
Keith Richards
'Crosseyed Heart'
(Virgin EMI)
The facile composer of rock and rolls greatest riffs with his first solo album in over two decades
He is the quintessential rock & roll star.The literal definition. A rough edged, hard living vagabond spending almost 50 years on the drugs and booze frontline - this connoisseur of excess and hedonism who has wrong-footed and body swerved his own death so many times he has possibly earned the right to .live forever. As much as his widely documented exploits may have their place in popular culture it's in the formidable Rolling Stones songwriting partnership with Mick Jagger that the sheer magnificence of his greatness truly shines. And in songs like... Jumpin Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, Paint It Black and Satisfaction they have created some of rock musics greatest moments.
His new solo album Crosseyed Heart, the first since 1992's Main Offender, is deeply rooted in the music he is influenced by. It's the essentiality of the man, a compendium of distinction in measured parts of accomplished musicianship from bluesy rock and Americana to jazz, reggae and straight up ballsy rock and roll. Roughly hewed, lovelorn, beautifully crafted and with a passion that sears for an honesty divulged,
Opening with the title track, a gentle eight-bar acoustic blues that clocks in at under two minutes,His rasping vocal, all worn out and life roughened, as he deliberates '(Oh she's sweet but she drives me round the bend/ I go round the corner and find another friend/ I got a crosseyed heart) across the unflinching briefness of its entirety. The Country-tinged lament Robbed Blind is clasped in atmospheric piano and brooding pedal steel guitar. His sleepy, half-spoken vocal rattles with a subdued anguish as he interprets the lyrically tender tale... (the heart you stole was mine) with a profuse vulnerability.
The pre-released single Trouble is trademark Keith Richards, a riff-swaggering rock & roll song with hook laden bluesy-rock guitar chords - his cracked vocal delivery on the chorusing 'Baby, trouble is your middle name' powers its way through the Stonesy-styled grooves. The formula is similar on the melodic, guitar-driven Heartstopper and funky R&B track Substantial Damage.
One of several standout moments is his reggae tinged cover of the Gregory Issac classic Love Overdue complete with horn section and a surprisingly warm and tender Keith Richards vocal delivery that oscillates with a depth and character you would never have believed him to be capable of. Less so the drawn out cover of Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene which fails to justify its place here and becomes the albums only real disappointment.
A collaboration with jazz singer Nora Jones on the yearnful Illusion sees her smoky, deep reaching tone weave tenderly around the reflective mood of his 'Just an illusion that's for sure/Nothing that you've seen before' they sing, sharing lines and switching roles.. while frenetic nod to his Chuck Berry influence Blues In The Morning is an energetic 50's rocker featuring longtime friend and collaborator the late Bobby Keys.
This album is the very best of his solo efforts to date...a snake tangled, liquor drenched, rough diamond rocker with scattershot rural Americana and some sweet little rustic country blues all heaved together brilliantly. Personally I think it's better than anything The Rolling Stones have done since Exile On Main St.....and it's right here that you truly understand the fundamental importance of Keith Richards....right down to that ragged machine of a voice. If, like me, you kinda took him for granted as 'the Rolling Stones guitarist' then listen to this album and have your eyes opened and your opinions re-shuffled. The man is superb.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Album Review: The Decline: Resister
The Decline
'Resister;
(PEE RECORDS)
Some frenetic rabble rousing fury and nostalgic chaos from the Australian skate punks
Some frenetic rabble rousing fury and nostalgic chaos from the Australian skate punks
Skate punk is a sub-genre that combines the breakneck pace of melodic hardcore with the catchy youthful bounce of pop punk, giving it that very solid wall of guitar riffs and powerful drumming. It's not a new concept of cross-genre music by any means and it's a much used, overcrowded one thanks to the popularity of bands like NOFX, Suicidal Tendencies, Pennywise, Sick Of It All and Lagwagon who, through various personal adaptions of their own interpretation, generated the global reputation of skate punk music and, in turn, inspired a million other bands to follow suit. Some of those bands became really good and some became really not so. Australian band The Decline (with this album being the reference point from where my opinion is based) seem to be of the former.
Things here really couldn't begin any better than they do with the short but powerful opener NEW AGAIN, a song that lasts less than two minutes yet manages to hammer out a formidable entrance, bristling with energy and utter immediacy. It's quickly followed by the effective stop/start/stop guitar work that begins recent single GIVING UP IS A GATEWAY DRUG, a great song with little flourishes of inventive brilliance - with its change in chord pace and sudden vocal dips. It's a showcase for incredible drumming on faster paced THE BLURST OF TIMES pounding a symphony of melodic and frenzied skate punk percussion that ends with a clever guitar solo.
There's a heavier sounding hardcore launch for frenetic CAMBERWELL STREET, the ever restless punk rock urgency is skippered by some well pitched melodic partnering....again that ever present intuitive musicianship gathers things up and brings it together with a slick competence.WRECKING BALL has pace and it punches and snaps its way forward with aggressive punk energy, the crunching guitars and fiery attitude are intermixed with melodic vocal combinations...similarly the malevolent YOU'RE NOT THE WAITRESS and final track START AGAIN.
This may not be the album that will go on to inspire a new direction, but I'm pretty sure that is something this band are well aware of anyway. They seem genuine enough for what they do to ever care for or need such bloated accolades of superficial wank egoism....and it's a pretty good album nonetheless. Awash with neat guitar chords and huge rabble rousing bursts of sound it's kept mostly simple concise and to the absolute point....utilising their skilled musicianship at precise moments to suddenly steer things in a different direction...delightful bodyswerves you didn't see coming that completely change an entire song in that instant. Far from being some copycat fraudsters of a work already made they are a band delivering a perfectly executed homage to their influences with plenty of their own originality on view....just to prove their point.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Video Playlist: Back Street Hangout
A 15 TRACK VIDEO PLAYLIST OF THE FINEST SLEAZEBALL GARAGE PUNK ROCK LO-FI TRASH SCUZZ ROCKABILLY SURF POP.... THAT WILL LEAVE YOU IN THE DIRT!
THE BLOODY HOLLIES: I DREAM OF BEES
Rollicking guitar-driven big sound punk and blues
OBLIVIANS: CALL THE POLICE
A stomping fuzz-punk holocaust of raw garage trash blues
DEMOLITION DOLL RODS: GET IT ON
Primitive bluesy punk sex rock and roll
THE DETROIT COBRAS: CHA CHA TWIST
A self assured rock and roll guitar/drums meandering giant
SPEEDBALL BABY: PIN UP COWBOY
Fractured rockabilly/ gutter blues hybrid
REVEREND BEAT MAN: JESUS CHRIST TWIST
A one-man blues trash scuzz rock band
URBAN JUNIOR: MAN ON THE RUN
A rollercoastering swill of electro clash garage synth disco punk monstering
DADDY LONG LEGS: DEATH TRAIN BLUES
Late night alehouse harmonica rock and blues
JC SATAN: DRAGONS
Garage punk/thrash insanity cranked up to full power
GOLDEN TRIANGLE: NEON NOOSE
Catchy art/garage rock noise monsters
WOVEN BONES: I'VE GOTTA GET
Scuzzy, snarling, blissed out noise-pop
FUNGI GIRLS: GLARE
Surf-fused lo-fi garage punk rock
COACHWHIPS: EXTINGUISH ME
Stripped back rock and roll distortion
NO BUNNY: GIVE IT TO ME
One man, hook laden, pop/punk onslaught
THE COATHANGERS: HURRICANE
Tuneful, all female garage punks
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
Sunday, August 02, 2015
Cilla Black R.I.P
Cilla Black sadly died today at her holiday home in Marbella, Spain. She was 72. Best remembered for her successful television career hosting two of Saturday nights biggest shows Surprise Surprise and Blind Date where she quickly established herself in the hearts of the nation. Previous to her TV fame Cilla Black was a 60's pop star after being signed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein in 1963. Her debut single Love of the Loved was written by Lennon and McCartney. She had two number one hits the following year with You're My World and Anyone Who Had A Heart. Cilla went on to release 14 albums throughout her successful pop career before moving into television in the early 70's. Rest In Peace.
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Sunday, July 19, 2015
6 Online Music Documentaries You Should Watch.
IT'S SLADE
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A 50 minute documentary made by the BBC in 1999 with lots of television clips, live concert extracts, backstage coverage and solo interviews with each of the four members.
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MARC BOLAN THE FINAL WORD
Excellent in-depth documentary on Marc Bolan's life and career.
Archive footage and contributions from fellow glam rock stars
SLIPKNOT: RANK OUTSIDERS
Enigmatic metal band are documented via rare footage, interviews, news reports and contributions from friends with none of the controversy left out.
MADNESS: TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Autobiographical depiction of the band from their beginnings as pub band The Invaders to their eventual chart success and global stardom. Featuring live gig clips and a selection of Madness hits. Fans of the band will love it.
CRASS: THERE IS NO AUTHORITY BUT YOURSELF
The 70mins documentary traces the history of anarcho punk band CRASS through archive footage of live performances and interviews with the bands former members Penny Rimbaud, Steve Ignorant and Gee Vaucher
THE STONE ROSES: MADE OF STONE
With previously unseen footage Made Of Stone is a fascinating journey through the life of one of the most influential and innovative bands in the history of British music as they prepare for their 2012 reunion tour culminating in a triumphant homecoming Manchester performance in front of 75,000 fans.
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Album Review: Sleaford Mods
Sleaford Mods
'Key Markets'
(Harbinger Sound)
The deeply perceptive outrage of a skilled social commentator
The deeply perceptive outrage of a skilled social commentator
The socially conscious observational elegies of Sleaford Mods are hybrid relatives of the descriptive essaying found in the romanticised Englishness of The Kinks...a specific, distinctive style of picturesque lyricism, a huge photo-album of narratives almost, that can be easily viewed and interpreted for what they are. Moments are usually fleeting..but to ensure those fleeting moments remain is where the reputations of good and bad lyricists are built. It's a method of writing popularised in recent years by Ian Dury, Alex Turner and Pete Doherty...as one might update a diary, endless sequels to advancing modernity, triumphs of a past still culturally significant in this ever changing Britain...Today's most relevant of chroniclers, without question, are Nottingham post-punk/hip hop duo Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn...best known as Sleaford Mods.
Their third album 'proper' Key Markets is as previous two Austerity Dogs (2013) and Divide And Exit (2014) were. Jason Williamson's enraged dystopian monologues are brilliantly precise and show a sharp intellect for discourse...kicking and prodding at the face of a broken society with venomous grammatical zig-zagging. Andrew Fearn's minimal orchestration of strong, low toned bass lines and skeletal discordant beats is what completes that compelling curveball and sets them slightly apart from the rest. Latest single No One's Bothered is a catchy, quick paced, punk driven bluster of exasperated irritation...'You're trapped? Me too! Alienation, No one's bothered!' chants Williamson with swiping sarcasm, above the relentless drumbeat and throbbing bass, in a dig at human behaviours fading sense of connection under capitalism. In another withering analytical jab, this time on the marching swagger of Bronx In A Six he lashes out from the slow handclap of a beat 'You wonder why you've got no mates? You pretend to be proud of your own culture, while simultaneously not giving two fucks about your own culture, what culture? FUCK CULTURE, all you chinny wine tasters die in boxes like the rest of us wasters'. The bone rattling fury inspires such imaginative put-downs you start to wonder if the devil might have breathed a howling demon into his vernacular mouth.
The sashaying groove funk of Silly Me is the laid back, slowest song on the album while Tarantula Deadly Cargo with its post-punk thrum is a fragmented cinematic transition. But its the enraged political conviction of Face To Faces that brings out his best, and most frenzied bout of uncompromising vitriolic wordsmithery yet....'‘Nick Clegg wants another chance. Really? This daylight robbery is now so fucking hateful. It’s accepted by the vast majority..In chains, in our death and in our failure to grab hold of what fucking little we have left we have lost sight, And in the loss of sight we have lost our fucking minds, ALRIGHT??!.... Genius. Pure and utter!
What endears Sleaford Mods to the people is the subject matter of their songs and the fact its real. Most of us can relate to some if not all of what they sing about. The unfussy, no frills pub philosophies, dole que politics and council estate manners. It's that spilled beer and cheap tobacco ambience of dead end destinations where streets are narrow, most roads will lead nowhere...and that very British of traditions to resent the rich and nurture anti-establishment hatred.. alienating us from anyone with power.
They’re not canvassing to be the spokesmen of this generation.. merely voicing their own frustrations and dislikes and if they mirror our own then it shall be a shared mutual distaste that brings us together…nothing more. Jason Williamson will always be an outburst waiting to happen. Andrew Fearn will always let his beats do the talking. Sleaford Mods are the best band in the country.
They’re not canvassing to be the spokesmen of this generation.. merely voicing their own frustrations and dislikes and if they mirror our own then it shall be a shared mutual distaste that brings us together…nothing more. Jason Williamson will always be an outburst waiting to happen. Andrew Fearn will always let his beats do the talking. Sleaford Mods are the best band in the country.
Sleaford Mods Homepage
Written by: Alan Baillie
Published at : Subba Cultcha.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
No Manifesto: A Film About Manic Street Preachers
Who's responsible - you fucking are
It's been twenty something years since the mouthy neo-glam punks in eyeliner burst through the walls of our world with their youth and fury yelling their mandates and lecturing us with their iconic riff-powered protest songs, Their precocious intellect composed misanthropic dogma for revolutionists and endorsed the disenchanted to rouse from apathetic slumber. The songs were lashed with despair, hate, passion, revolt, love and vigorous two fisted aggression (now you say you know how we feel / but dont fall in love cos we hate you still) and an orchestra of crunching, spine rattling guitar work narrated with a furious vocal and again the accomplished grammatical nihilism. The brash sloganeers, a fireball of youthful determination armed with menacing politico and the intent to ravage us like a holocaust. They turned pop culture inside out - songs that heaved with political messages, unbroken prose, subtext, literary references and Nietzschean quotes and became more a snarling consumer of culture, a new breed of realism (I laughed when Lennon got shot) Now, nearly 30 years on from their fledgling cockiness Manic Street Preachers are still with us. They have carried each other through the darkness that has clouded them since the sudden disappearance of guitarist/lyricist Richey Edwards in 1995 and are now stalwarts of British music naturally evolving with their own years into a mellower, more content representation of the stirring agitators they once were.
Almost 10 years in the making No Manifesto: A Film About Manic Street Preachers by American director Elizabeth Marcus is the long awaited documentary about the band as chronicled through interviews with almost 100 fans from across the world alongside some archive footage, conversations with each member of the band and live performances from three tours. Through her use of the hand held camera Elizabeth Marcus generates an uncontrived intimacy especially when filming the band in their own personal surroundings and revealing the very ordinary lives they live away from their role in the band. It shows them at their most human - a side the public never get to see. I remember feeling mildly disappointed that they weren't in fact leaders of some anti-establisment non conformist organisation who held meetings once a week in the upstairs room of a pub. But then, if I'm honest..I never really hoped they would be.
No Manifesto: A Film About Manic Street Preachers is out now on DVD and Blue Ray HERE
Written by Alan Baillie for Spin Utopia...June 24 2015.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
The Prodigy feat Sleaford Mods
It's been a while since I posted anything in here - and that's because I have nothing to post - due to personal circumstances. I hope to return soon enough. Until then....feast on this!
http://www.sleafordmods.com/
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Davey Lane.
Best known as lead guitarist of excellent Australian rock band You Am I...Davey Lane released his debut solo album Atonally Young at the end of 2014. This was the second single to be taken from the album. If you aren't already familiar with Davey Lane, or indeed the band You Am I...then I suggest you start digging in....you'll love what you find. You'll love it all.
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Playlist For A Sunday.
The Rifles: When I'm Alone
Milburn: Cheshire Cat Smile
Harrisons: Dear Constable
The Paddingtons: What's The Point In Anything New
Bromheads Jacket: Fight Music For The Fight
The Futureheads: Decent Days And Nights
The Sunshine Underground: Borders
The Libertines: Don't Look Back Into The Sun
The Coral: Bill McCai
The Music: Take The Long Road And Walk It.
Shed Seven: Out By My Side
The Supernaturals: Dung Beetle
The Cigarettes: All We Want Is Your Money
The Lambrettas: Poison Ivy
The Circles: Opening Up
The Jam: News Of The World
Arctic Monkeys: Teddy Picker
Franz Ferdinand: The Fallen
Reverend And The Makers: Shine The Light
Alterkicks: Oh Honey
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Quiet Marauder: A Band You May Never Have Known Existed
Cardiff based Quiet Marauder are a loose collective of eccentric oddball musicians who have been on the go since 2011 playing their madcap, deranged, dizzy headed anti-folk songs to a perplexed but intrigued public. Their debut album 'MEN' was one hundred and eleven tracks long, split into four volumes and featured numerous collaborators making endless bursts of noise from unidentifiable sources. A mountain of oddities and mischievous mentalism. They are as darkly comical as they are creatively clever.
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