End of year round up

It's been a bit of an odd year this one, what with moving to Manchester, being self-employed for a bit and then starting work at The University of Manchester. Probably haven't kept up as I used to with what is happening music-wise, and I have certainly let my cinema going slip.

I have retreated a bit into my comfort zone with the music that I have been buying and listening to. As it happens, this state of affairs has been no bad thing as there have been some great releases by old favourites like Bob Dylan and Sonic Youth this year.

Since joining Manchester University I have been checking out a good bit more jazz (thanks to Ade, Jane and Nicole) and trying to become a bit more knowledgeable about the whole genre, and have heard some great stuff this year by Keith Jarrett, Miles, Tubby Hayes and the extraordinary Moondog.

Other musical themes for the year include … continuing interest in Psyche Folk, Tropicalia and other Brazilian pop music (mainly from the 1970’s) and have been saturating myself in acoustic/electric Blues music in an attempt to improve my guitar playing – mainly the three Kings (BB, Albert and Freddie).

As an aside, I was very sad to hear of the death of James Brown (aka The Godfather of Soul, Soul Brother Number One, Mr. Dynamite, the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business, Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk) on Christmas Day. James Brown produced some of the most life affirming music ever recorded and made a self-conscious speccy white boy dance. Many thanks Mr. Brown.

Tracks of the year - the new stuff

1. Bob Dylan - Working Man's Blues #2
2. Kasabian - Shoot the runner
3. Bonnie Prince Billy and Tortoise - Thunder Road
4. Fujiya and Miyagi - Collarbone
5. Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
6. Midlake - Roscoe
7. Joanna Newsome - Cosmia
8. The Russian Futurists - 2 Dots on a map
9. Tunng - Bodies
10. Sonic Youth - Reena

End of year gig round up

A bit after the event(s) but here is a round up of some the gigs that I have been to this year

Buzzcocks - Manchester Academy 1
Poor sound and souless venue. Elderly pop punks played all the hits and highlights from there more recent material. All seemed a bit pointless really.

Ron Sexsmith - Salford Lowry
Great gig by much lauded Canandian songsmith. The gig may have tried the patience of less staunch fans at almost two and a half hours long.

Little Barrie - Manchester Roundhouse
The future of rock'n'roll (or so their warm up guy seemed to think). Balls to the wall rock in a Faces/Mod/Funk melting pot ... Somehow it works.

Richard Hawley - Salford Lowry

The Silver Jews - Academy 3

A Silver Mt. Zion - The Mint Lounge

Richard Thompson - Bridgewater Hall

I thought you were ... dead

A list of people and bands that are definitely "past their sell buy date", these have played Manchester recently or have tour dates lined up. I'm amazed that there is a market for a lot of this stuff (It Bites).

I promise that I am not making this up, this list is genuine:

1. Blue Oyster Cult
2. Deacon Blue
3. Y&T
4. The Meteors
5. Barclay James Harvest
6. UFO
7. It Bites
8. Michael Schenker Group
9. Northern Uproar
10. The Men They Couldn't Hang
11. Saxon
12. Thunder
13. The Anti Nowhere League
14. Go West
15. Shakin' Stevens

My most listened to ... during the day

With a bit of luck this image should update every now and again with help from my profile at lastFM.

Favorite record shops in the world

1. Amoeba Records - 1855 Haight St, (415) 831-1200 San Francisco. Probably the best record shop in the world, and the largest independent record store in the US.
2. Beatin' Rhythm - 42 Tib Street, Manchester M4 1LA. UK's premier store for soul, rock'n'roll, pop reissues, Funk, doo-wop, girl group, rare soul, NORTHERN SOUL, surf, psych, rhythm'n'blues. Better than that, the staff are amazingly knowledgeable, helpful and never patronising ... which is not always the case in record shops as you probably know.
3. Piccadilly Records - 53 Oldham Street, Manchester M1 1JR
4. Rough Trade - 16 Neal's Yard, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9Dp Slam City Skates Basement)
5. Missing Link Records - Basement 405 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 3000. Australian indie institution - have their own record label too.
6. Spin - 8 High Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, NE1 1EN. Not sure if Spin qualifies as a record shop but it is still excellent for less mainstream CDs
7. Monorail Records - 12 Kings Court, King Street, Glasgow. Left-field stockist with Steven Pastel connections, good coffee too.

Unhealthy Obsessions

I have always had that "fanboy" collector mentality, which is fine. You acquire all the official releases and then pick up some bootlegs, then onto the solo albums ... but sometimes you just go too far.

ELO

c.1977 (aged 12) . I think it began with buying "A New World Record" released the previous year. It was the first proper LP that I bought with my own money (up until this point I had only owned compilation albums and singles). My assertion that they were the greatest band in the world was confirmed with the release of "Out of The Blue".

Unhealthy obsession - purchasing the Violinski - Clog Dance 45 by ELO violinist Mick Kaminski. The Clash released their Cost of Living EP at about the same time - I didn't buy it, shame.

Hawkwind

c. 1980 - 1983 (aged 15 - 18) . I think I blame Deek for this. He lent me PXR5 and I was hooked, and with lyrics like these who wouldn't be?

Robots call, but we don't answer to their wail
Computers hum and bright
lights flash to no avail
The course has been set for us to go in light years
past
Outlaws of time, visions of an ancient cast
And so we search until
we find
the answers that we left behind
and we go from star to star
to find the dream
And we will pursue the race
that made us outlaws
of this space
and led us to become a seed of life,PXR5, PXR5

Unhealthy obsession - not having learned my lesson after purchasing the woeful "Choose Your Masques" in 1982 - I went on to see the band in 1983 live (for the 4th time) at Dundee students union. Unfortunately the small stage could not fully accommodate the wind's "space totem" and Dave Brock was wearing a skin-tight body stocking. My mate Shaun and I "hung out" with them backstage - I was wearing a labcoat, shame.

The Monochrome Set

c. 1983 - 1987 (aged 18 -21) . I still love this band and would urge anyone who is even vaguely interested in clever post-punk to investigate Volume,Contrast, Brilliance; Strange Boutique, Eligible Bachelors and Love Zombies.

Unhealthy obsession - 1985, blagging my way into Fat Sams in Dundee with a friend on the pretext of working for the fictitious fanzine "Is it a fish". Unfortunately when it came to interviewing Bid the charismatic lead singer I was so starstruck I was pretty much struck dumb. Bid felt so sorry for me that he gave my his bowl of ice cream which I stared at in awe as if I had been given custody of the holy grail. I continued to buy Monochrome Set records out of loyalty long after my obsession ended including 1993's Charade (which was very poor indeed).

South Park Me

http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/

Tear to a glass eye

Top ten (11) guarenteed to melt even the hardest heart:

1. Walter Jackson - My Ship Is Comin' In
2. George Jones - He Stopped Loving Her Today
3. Gram Parsons - $1000 Wedding
4. Fairport Convention - Farewell Farewell
5. Chris Woods - One In A Million
6. OV Wright - A Fool Can See The Light
7. Joy Division - New Dawn Fades
8. Bobby Bland - Ask Me ' Bout Nothing (But The Blues)
9. Hank Williams - My Son Calls Another Man Daddy
10. Elvis Costello - I Wan't You
11. Hüsker Dü - Hardly Getting Over It

List #10 Current Buns

1. Fujiya Miyagi - Transparent Things
2. Ethiopiques: Ethio Jazz and Musique Instrumentals 1969-1974 - Various
3. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
4. Tunng - Comments of the Inner Chorus
5. Miles Davis - Filles Die Kilimanjaro
6. The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane
7. Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy - The Brave and The Bold
8. Keith Jarrett - Expectations
9. Miles Davis - Miles in the Sky
10. The Best of Sun Records Volume 1 and 2 - Various

Manchester - Wild Billy Childish and the Buff Medways

I was eagerly anticipating my first Buff Medways gig. The Buff Medways are the current musical vehicle for the prolific "Wild" Billy Childish. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about him:

"He has published more than 40 collections of poetry, written 3 novels, recorded more than 100 full-length independent LPs and produced more than 2,500 paintings. He is a consistent advocate for amateurism and free emotional expression and was a co-founder of the Stuckists art group. "

Early evening entertainment was served up by Manchester DJ and record label owner Andy Votel who mixed up a heady brew of Middle Eastern influenced , "rare as hen's teeth" psyche rock. It is just a well the entertainment was quality as the Buffs arrived a couple of hours late after their "tour ambulance" broke down, which meant the cancellation of Billy's poetry reading.

The Buffs did not disappoint When they finally came on at 11.45 (just as well I had a free pass from the missus that night). The band were resplendent in full "Flashman" inspired Hussar's uniforms with Billy supporting a very splendid "Victorian dad" waxed moustache. The group blasted through selected nuggets from Childish's 25 year back catalogue which includes excursions with The Pop Rivets, The Milkshakes, Thee Headcoats, Theee Mighty Ceasars and of course the Buffs. The set was peppered with well some chosen covers that the Buffs made their own, including Son House's - John the Revelator, The Who - A Quick One and a blistering primal garage-punk cover of Hendrix's - Fire, but as Childish would probably say "Punk rock ist nicht tot".

Oh, and yes his guitar and moustache are both better than Jack White's.

List #9 - Current Buns (Christmas Swag)

As ever Santa was very generous (and displayed excelent taste thanks to my Amazon wish list)in the CD department. Some of the material I am working my way through at the moment includes:

1. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Worn Copy
2. Doris Duke - I'm A Loser
3. Terry Reid - Super Lungs (Anthology)
4. Various - Dirty Laundry: The Soul Of Black Country
5. Various - Round the Gum Tree: the British Bubblegum Explosion
6. Various - Music To Watch Girls Cry: Mixed by Andy Votel

List #8 - Country Rock Gems

As with some of the other lists, this presupposes that you are already aware of/ own the usual suspects, Burritos, Byrds, Parsons, Nashville Skyline ...

1. The Beau Brummels - Bradley's Barn
2. The Byrds - Untitled / Unissued
3. Gene Clark - White Light
4. Grateful Dead - American Beauty
5. Michael Nesmith - Magnetic South
6. Gene Parsons - Kindling
7. Nashville West- Nashville West
8. Pure Prarie League - Bustin' Out
9. Steve Young - Lonesome On'ry & Mean
10. Gram Parsons / International Submarine Band - Safe at Home
11. Twin Engine - Twin Engine

List #7 - Something for the ladies

You know the problem. The wife/girlfriend has her mates round for drinks and she wants you to put on some "background music", belive it or not there are some albums in the collection that seem to go down well and avoid the missus reaching for the dreaded Dido album.

1. Air - Moon Safari
2. John Martyn - Solid Air
3. Van Morrison - Moondance
4. Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
5. Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
6. The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers

Some to Avoid:

1. Big Black - Songs about Fucking
2. Gavin Bryars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
3. U Ziq - Tango n Vectiv
4. Captain Beefhart - Trout Mask Replica
5. Caetano Veloso - Araca Azul
6. Tim Buckley - Starsailor