Sunday, February 28, 2010

Let's Try Again, Shall We?

Here are both sides of my fabulous tape, this time housed on a rival filepilfering site. If this doesn't work it might have to become one of those Great Lost Projects because it took bleeding ages to upload, which suggest you might be wise to pour yourself a stiff one while you're waiting for it to do an incy wincy spider down your broadband guttering. I am dispappointed to learn that my new favourite song was used on an advert at some point, so its charms may be lost to those of you of a telly-watching disposition. I assume this happened in the 90s, because I'd certainly never seen it before. I have included tracklisting documents.

Here goes. I hope you derive something other than frustration and annoyance from this. As a special bonus, the URL almost contains the word "jizz". Shoud boost my download count considerably. If that is not enough, Blogger gives me sone examples of labels for this post, in this case "scooters, holidays, autumns". Why not try to write a short stroy of not more than a thousand words incorporating these three elements? You could post your finished story in the comments section, so that I feel more popular than usual. But I digress:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ynnjzznjm1w

Feb 2010 C90 Side 2

Here is side two of MY TAPE. I think it is better than side one because it has some singing on it and also ROXY MUSIC who are brilliant and my new favourite song, PUSH A LITTLE BUTTON by 60s technophobe NINETTE. The last song is very poignant, COME LIVE WITH ME by HEAVEN 17. It is so poignant you are supposed to sit in silence after it has finished, pondering life's missed opportunities and wishing you were 37 again.

Don't say I never give you nowt.

Incidentally, thanks to BOTH PEOPLE who downloaded side one, I'm touched.

01 Free South Africa – Stetsasonic
02 Hot Smoke and Sasafrass – The Bubble Puppy
03 I Never Loved A Woman (The Way I Love You) – Spencer Wiggins
04 Push A Little Button – Ninette
05 West African Safari – Sir Victor Uwaifo
06 Cobra – Bailey’s Nervous Kats
07 Reformation! – The Fall
08 Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear
09 Fine Fine Fine – Judy Hughes
10 Same Old Scene – Roxy Music
11 Falling In Love – The Dynamic Tints
12 You Should Have Seen The Wayu He Looked At Me – The Dixie Cups
13 Jet Biguine – Les Loups Noirs d’Haiti
14 Come Live With Me – Heaven 17

Side Two:

http://rapidshare.com/files/356810727/FEB_2010_C90_SIDE_2.zip

And Side One again:

http://rapidshare.com/files/355791738/FEB_10_C90_SIDE_ONE.zip

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Feb 2010 C90 Side 1

Here is side one of a tape what I made (link below). It is mostly instrumentals. Side two will be songs with singing on them, for the most part.

Laurie Johnson tracks are from The New Avengers

Phenomenal Cat is a Kinks instrumental of the Village Green track. It is... Floydian.

101 Strings Orchestra is a groovy freakout involving a young lady getting a jolly good whipping. I have no doubt she deserved it.

The Byrds prove their Coltrane thing goes all the way up to eleven.

The Dead Weather had the good grace to include a corking instrumental on their debut album.

Big Youth Fights Against Capitalism is heavy dub by King Tubby. It also serves as a tribute to the recenlty deceased Yabby You, my favourite Jamaican renaissance man.

Gene Page - Black + Dracula = Blacula.

United is a Gamble and Huff track here presented in a sumptuous instrumental version WITH HARPS AND THAT.

Duane Eddy jumps on the lunar exploration bandwagon so beloved of instrumentalists and ends up sounding like a Joe Meek protege.

Bill Justis's Flea Circus is on Sun Records. Well I never.

Black + Rio = Black Rio. Bluesy Brazil.

A Sly and Robbie dub with more bass than is really sensible, thank goodness. Nice title too.

Louie Ramirez does another Gamble and Huff tune with lashing and lashings of disco strings swirling around the lation percussion.

Pipeline is the opening track from Johnny Thunders' album with the likes of Phil Lynott and him out of The Only Ones.

That is all. Stay tuned for side two, which I will have to be quick about because it's nearly March.

01. Laurie Johnson – Pop Fans Riot
02. The Kinks – Phenomenal Cat
03. 101 Strings Orchestra – Whiplash
04. The Byrds – Universal Mind Decoder
05. The Dead Weather – 3 Birds
06. Yabby You/King Tubby’s – Big Youth Fights Against Capitalism
07. Gene Page – Blacula
08. Music Makers – United
09. Duane Eddy – Moon Shot
10. Bill Justis and his Orchestra – Flea Circus
11. Black Rio – Uniao Black
12. Sly, Robbie and the Gang – Tickle Me Version
13. Louie Ramirez – Do It Any Way You Wanna
14. Johnny Thunders – Pipeline
15. Laurie Johnson – Red Mask Party


http://rapidshare.com/files/355791738/FEB_10_C90_SIDE_ONE.zip

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Some tracks that didn't make the cut, hopefully tagged and named in an acceptable fashion:

DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.zshare.net/download/711913157f808aa4/
FILE NAME: PJM 2009 OUTTAKES.zip
FILE SIZE: ~85.75 megabytes

Sonic Youth, Prodigy, Stone Roses, Airplane Crashers, etc.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Alley Oop

Back in the days when broadband meant cummerband, I waited weeks to see this short film. It was being shown in San Sebastián as part of a season of films called Islam and Cinema. It kept being delayed because they couldn't get hold of a print. It is by Abbas Kiarostami, but I had never heard of him, or the resurgence in Iranian cinema. Instead I was attracted by some information in the small print - the music was by The Beatles! So I waited and waited, weeks and weeks. I saw a highly technical Egyptian film about mummification, an Algerian youth drama about the difficult choice between listening to rai music or consuming cassettes of speeches by radical clerics, and several other films I can't remember. By the time Bread and the Alley arrived I was in a frenzy, fully expected to hear the legendary Carnival of Light or some unknown psychedelic wig-out. It wasn't what I expected, but neither was it a disappointment. Now you can see it on YouTube for the price of a few clicks. I think my love for this film depends on how hard I had to work to see it (freezing cold, catching the last bus home, etc.), so it probably won't have the same effect here. The big screen helped, as did being part of a pretty large crowd, and sitting in an old theatre with a very particular smell. But I still think it's well worth seeing. It started me off on a love affair with Iranian film that lasted a few years, and which I hope will one day bloom again. Here it is:



I was reminded of this film by watching the strikingly similar The Red Balloon, so here that is as well, in two parts (short version, it says here). Watch it with a small child and marvel at the strong emotions it produces:





Bread and the Alley also reminds me of another Iranian film, The Apple, and that Norman Wisdom film, On The Beat, where he wants to be a policeman (after two minutes, I'm not completely mental):

Friday, January 08, 2010

PJM's 25 from 2009: Revised Repeat

Following the annual barrage of complaints from the Shepherd's Bush area regarding my end-of-year compilation, I have renamed the mp3 files, retagged them to enable ease of use, and provided the following exhaustive and fascinating multimedia sleevenotes (mp3 download link below):

01) MORRISSEY - SOMETHING IS SQUEEZING MY SKULL

Like a New York Dolls track, only about depression. Curiously uplifting. I don't think it made much of an impression on the wider world. I wonder if Morrissey really is on any kind of medication. It would explain his girth and also his willingness to settle for producing less than brilliant work, such as most of the rest of the album this is taken from.

02) DEPECHE MODE - WRONG

Another song about depression. This and the Morrissey song would make a great double A-side. Again, it screams so loud it becomes kind of life-affirming. This on Later was perhaps the TV appearance of the year. The album is not much good.




03) DENNIS COFFEY - BLACK BELT JONES

From the compilation Can You Dig It? which explores the Blaxploitation mini-genre of soul. I knew about half the tracks already, but even so it is quite revelatory, that there such be such a solid heavy little slab of this stuff, a lawlessness unto itself.



04) WORLD OF TWIST - SONS OF THE STAGE (RADIO EDIT)

Rediscovered via the wonderful world of music blogs. So much better than most of the Madchester stuff it was lumped in with, and it has really stood the test of time. I had a tape with this on, it followed Emerson Lake and Palmer doing Stravinsky, which seems ideal.




05) GOD HELP THE GIRL - HOWARD JONES IS MY MOZART
06) GOD HELP THE GIRL - STILLS

I just think these two are brilliant. The first one is a B-side; the second is an EP track.

07) BLONDIE - RAPTURE (SPECIAL DISCO MIX)

From a Blondie singles compilation, this version goes on for ages, but never flags.

08) LITTLE BOOTS - STUCK ON REPEAT

Not much to say about this, except I like it a lot. Some people call it Coronation Street in space, but I call it Giorgio Moroder on Pukka Pies.

(Speaking of food, if you go to the catering tent featured herein later on in the day, the only thing left is cake. Mountains and mountains of cake.)



09) THE BEACH BOYS - FALLIN' IN LOVE

First official release, apparently. I think the introduction has been added. Just a beautiful song, although now it reminds me of David Walliams.

10) JK AND TRU-SKOOL - JHOOTEH LAAREH

From Derby. I suppose one of the advantages of the download era is you can hear something on the radio and then just look for it and buy it, which is what I did when this was played by one of the northern puddings that populate the radio waves of an evening. I think it may have been Marc Riley. I hope it was.

11) PET SHOP BOYS - LOVE ETC

Up there with Left to My Own Devices. Again, the album is not very good. But the video is.



12) YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND - THE SUN IS DOWN!

The new Yoko Ono album is full of haunting melodies and poetry that is simple to the point of dumbass, yet no less effective for that. I think (and hope) it will be around for years to come. This is probably the most disco track. I saw her in concert and it was... OK.

13) THE DEAD WEATHER - HANG YOU FROM THE HEAVENS

Blues explosion.



14) THE HORRORS - SEA WITHIN A SEA

This reminds me of The Psychedelic Furs. The album is quite My Bloody Valentine-ish, guitars that have lost their voices, only with these blunderbuss vocals. The video is very rock'n'roll, and rather beautiful.



15) JOYCE - CLAREANA

I have never bathed in molasses, in fact I don't think I have ever even seen molasses, but I imagine bathing in them is a bit like listening to this.



16) TINKERBELL'S FAIRYDUST - (YOU KEEP ME) HANGIN' ON

This is what happens when you think you've heard it all - you end up buying obscure UK psych albums by beat groups trying their hand at the new thing, except by the time it gets released the new thing is no longer the new thing and nobody buys the resulting record. It turns out you really have heard it all before, but it's still quite good fun. In my opinion, the definitive version remains the snippet at the end of Time Buckley's live performance of Pleasant Street on the Dream Letter album.

17) THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - LOVE SONG FOR THE DEAD CHÉ

Drifting, drifting...

18) THE CLIENTELE - HARVEST TIME

The live version of this by Amor de dias at the Hangover Lounge was one of the highlights of the year.

19) RODRIGUEZ - SUGAR MAN

Second appearance by Dennis Coffey, who produced this. If ever a record sounded like it knew it wasn't going to be a hit, this is it. Very popular in the South African army, apparently. I wonder what their Cuban counterparts were listening to during the Angolan war. Here's hoping for a themed compilation.

20) HERON - SMILING LADIES

From Maidenhead. This is your acid folk, which I got deeper into when my considerable skills and experience, obtained and honed over many years of hard work, were required to subtitle a 70s nudie film featuring incidental music by Comus.

21) LENNY BRUCE - TESTING THE SONY MICROPHONE

I am slowly learning to love Lenny Bruce. Not sure I have anything useful or interesting to say yet.

22) SEYFU YOHANNES - MELA MELA

Ethiopian. I think I actually wanted another, quieter track, but I couldn't find it. This one is fairly indicative though. One could lose oneself in Ethiopian music, and one day that is what I intend to do.

23) SARAH WEBSTER FABIO - GLIMPSES

From Fly Girls, a 2CD history of women in rap featuring all your favourites and a few more besides. Jazz meets poetry, I suppose. It is very beguiling.

24) FUCK BUTTONS - SURF SOLAR (7" EDIT)

The other side of the Little Boots coin, I think. Album of the year? Possibly. There is Weatherall involvement. The video features penguins underwater. I don't think I would have taken much notice if this if it hadn't been for the penguins in the video, so that is conclusive proof that videos are a necessary promotional tool in the music industry.



25) DAVE GRUSIN - ASCENSION TO VIRGINITY (CANDY OST)

I watched this film Candy, which is basically a load of very dodgy rape fantasies with an air of mysticism and flag waving, but the music is fantastic. There is also a Byrds song. Well, two Byrds songs, but one wasn't used, apparently because McGuinn's co-writer wasn't well-known enough. This is Captain Useless Information, signing off.

Download 25 from 2009 (164 MB):

http://www.zshare.net/download/70928813b904cd62/