Leaving it propped against the door wasn’t so great though

I take it all back. I’m very sorry, people of Royal Mail-shire. T’was a splendid surprise to see a woman pushing around one of those hi-tech mailbag-on-a-trolley devices today, delivering the mail in place of our normal postie. As a result, I am in possession of the Edgar Jones album!
It really is as good as I was hoping for, if not a little bit better. I’m not sure how best to describe it, but it resembles one of those exceptionally good compilation albums put together by trendy record labels with a mix of early sixties rock’n'roll, reggae and soul. It certainly doesn’t sound like it was recorded any time in the last forty years. Nevertheless, it’s bloody marvellous and sounded fantastic sat out in the garden during what was officially the first proper day of summer. It has left me in an astoundingly good mood, so good that even the little errors with the BBC‘s iPlayer thingy won’t make me cross. Honest. No, really. Ok, well maybe a little bit.
This is a track from the Edgar Jones album (which is called ‘Gettin’ A Little Help From “The Joneses”‘) that isn’t particularly representative, but then no one song is, I’m afraid.
Just buy it! (Here, if you so desire)

Sorry, you were out. Why? I had a nice time.

I’d like to spend some time today talking about how great the Edgar Jones and The Joneses album is. I’d like to dedicate a number of paragraphs to exploring the retro-soul/psych sound of this delightful record. Sadly, I can’t, as the British postal system has gone to hell in a handbasket. Fuck alone knows where that package is. I gather they’re not doing anything tomorrow or Thursday either. As much as I sympathise with their plight, I do get tetchy whenever anything gets in the way of me and my records.
On the plus side, the pile of Beta Band vinyl has started to appear.

"Well, hello there, girl’s name"

Musical Revelations Of The Week:
Spoon - ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga‘ – As documented in yesterday’s post, I made a bit of a boob with this band, and ignored them because I, ahem, didn’t like the artwork of one of their old albums. Turns out I had my head nestled firmly up my arse. Feel-good indie with charming melodies that is a late contender for album of the summer. Mind you, summer’s late too, so who knows, the summer album might come out in October!
Lily Allen – ‘Everybody’s Changing‘ – Her utterly fabulous ska-cover of the pleasant-enough Keane single had passed me by until I was in a situation whereby I was listening to a compilation of live stuff from Dermot O’Leary‘s Radio 2 show. It turns out that it was the b-side to the 7″ of ‘Littlest Things‘, which is now winging its way to me. Who knows, if the posties show up to work tomorrow, I might even receive it.
Josh Rouse – ‘Country Mouse, City House‘ – Wooo. ‘Subtitulo‘ may have been mediocre tosh and ‘She’s Spanish, I’m American‘ was a quaint diversion, but this latest effort from Josh is right back up to his usual high standards. On the off chance we have some sunshine this week, feel free to dust down ‘1972‘ and ‘Nashville‘ and play them back to back with this newie for some genuinely sunny tunes. As cheesy a comment as I’ve ever made, but accurate, methinks.

Non-musical Revelations Of The Week:
Jekyll – What a fantastic conclusion. Some neat twists, brilliant acting and numerous laugh-out-louders. A genuinely brilliant piece of modern drama. More, I say, more!
Scrubs – Yeah, I know I keep banging on about Scrubs at the moment, but I’m only doing it because it’s ace. This coming Thursday on E4, at 9pm (repeated numerous times, including Saturday at 5.30pm) is a quite brilliant episode with a musical theme. I’m aware that truly shite shows have attempted this in the past, but rest assured that the Scrubs writers pull this off with aplomb. You’ll particularly enjoy the song about poo. No, really. Ah, go on then, here’s the two best songs:
‘Everything Comes Down To Poo’

‘Guy Love’

Nick Abbot on LBC - I used to love Nick’s phone-in shows of the 90s on Talk Radio and Virgin. Having been quiet for a few years, Nick returned to the phone last year and is now running at full speed. This week he filled in for Iain Lee for a few evenings, and I can’t recall sniggering at a radio show so much since Kevin Greening left daytime Radio 1 for the last time. While I can’t recommend future fill-ins, as I’m not aware of any, I can point out that he’s on every Saturday at 10pm, via channel 0177 on Sky and through their website at www.lbc.co.uk If you do fancy treating yourself, you can subscribe to their podcast service, which will allow you to download all of Nick’s past shows. If you happen to do that, and want some tips on which ones to get, get in touch.

Have a good week all.

Goo Goo

So, that new Spoon album’s a bit good, isn’t it? I have to confess that this was one of my ‘not heard a note of this, or indeed anything they’ve ever done’ purchases. The splendid people over at a music messageboard I frequent have been raving about it, and I finally decided to pick it up earlier this week. Sadly, my local indie didn’t have it in stock, but it did give me a chance to make a long-distance purchase from my old stomping ground, Spillers in Cardiff. Anyway, this record is much more accessible and feel-good than I was expecting.
That old saying, ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’ also applies to records. My first experience of Spoon was their ‘Gimme Fiction‘ album, of which all I know is the cover. That cover made me think it wasn’t for me, and, because I’m an idiot, I didn’t pursue it any further, despite critical approval. I’m actually now quite surprised by how I managed to find out nothing about the band’s music between then and me finally acquiring ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga‘ this week. It confirms for me, once again, that it’s impossible to ever feel like you’re on top of ‘new music’ as an entity, and also that I can be a picky and stubborn fucker when I want to be. Anyway, I’m enlightened now, and I’m very glad to be. Worth grabbing it while it has a bonus disc very neatly tucked into the back of the digipak sleeve.
In other news… I watched ‘Damon and Jamie’s Excellent Adventure‘ thanks to the quite marvellous www.blurcast.tv that I believe I’ve waffled on about in the past. It’s the story of how Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett put together ‘Monkey – Journey To The West‘ a truly unique opera. It’s a genuinely engaging piece of telly, and worthy of note because of the Albarn musical sketches that are littered throughout. Watching Damon make up a vocal melody on the spot is astonishing, and it sent me back to the track on the ‘Help: A Day In The Life‘ album that he submitted as Gorillaz, entitled ‘Hong Kong.’ If you’ve not had the pleasure yet, head over to the War Child music page at 7 Digital and spend the best quid you’ll part with all weekend.

Great show, Steve

On a musical note, may I recommend the Elvis Costello DVD, ‘A Case For Song’, featuring a BBC concert performance from 1996 that combines different strands of his career, including a section with The Brodsky Quartet. Finally out on DVD, and with 100 minutes of loveliness, it’s going cheap at a music emporium near you. It’ll be in the revelations, but just in case you want a head start!

On a non-musical note, it’s always nice to find out that Steve Wright’s been made to look a dick.
Click here to find out how this time.

Not sponsored by YouTube, honest

Whilst piddling around on iTunes again earlier (yep, same voucher), I noticed some Beta Band remixes available in the ‘Plus’ format and thought I’d take a punt. This in turn led to me putting the ‘Best of‘ DVD on and this in turn led to me ordering the three studio albums on vinyl. Fuck knows quite how my mind works, but it does at least ensure that I have a constant pile of great records to plough through. They were a fucking awesome band at times, and I have fond memories of catching them on their farewell tour. They were slightly too ‘out-there’ for the music-buying public and never seemed to concrete their reputation outside of critical adoration. I loved ‘The Three EPs‘, which I received from the ever-splendid Adam Walton at BBC Radio Wales as part of a competition prize pack. Weird but wonderful – the CD that is, rather than Adam, who is one of those genuinely passionate broadcasters who makes you as enthusiastic about certain records as he already is. Anyhoo, loved the EP collection but didn’t buy the debut because, as a cash-strapped teenager, their interview in the NME where they denounced it just prior to release ensure that I couldn’t justify it being one of the rare additions to my still nascent collection. As a result, I have to confess that I took my eye off them for a while and only really returned with the quite fabulous, ‘Heroes To Zeros‘. By then it was too late. The band were splitting up and the future was bleak in terms of record company support. It’s well worth picking up the aforementioned DVD to check out the documentary about the making of that album. Interesting stuff. Plus you get to see an old Safeway store. Ah.
Anyway, spiffing band and the subject of today’s chit-chat as I’d dug out some of their marvellous music and thought you might like to as well. Ahhhh, again.
Anyhoo, here’s a bit of classic Beta.

Fizzy cola bottles for me every time

I had no idea there was a video for ‘In The Neighbourhood’ by Tom Waits, but it would seem the Tube wishes to enlighten me.

I’ve just ordered the new biog by Patrick Humphries. His Nick Drake book was a little dull, but the reviews for this one have been universally positive, despite not saying an awful lot about the quality of the writing. Still, with Waits it’s generally worth a punt.

This is in complete contrast with the music I’ve been listening to thus far today. Picked up the Sugababes best of for a fiver in Woolies earlier, which in turn led to the Girls Aloud greatest hits. Also had a first listen to the debut album by Justice, which is an awful like Daft Punk put through a blender and the latest Josh Rouse finally got a full airing. Better than ‘Subtitulo’, which is more than enough good news for me. Splendidly cheap music DVDs in Woolies at the moment, by the way. The highlight is the recent Marvin Gaye CD/DVD retrospective thingy, ‘The Real Thing.’ Well worth the fiver they’re asking. Other entertainment shops are available.

For the time being at least.

I once sat a few seats down from farmer boy at a Rufus Wainwright concert

I picked up the ‘Glastonbury’ movie yesterday. Haven’t watched it yet, but did flick through the bonus material and got all maudlin at the interview with the late, great Peelie. Anyway, this reminded me of a genius Glasto moment from this year that I forgot to talk about. Namely…

Only Rufus.

T’is worth shoving the word ‘Glastonbury’ into YouTube. You can turn up all sorts of vintage performances. And The Seahorses doing ‘Love Is The Law’, back in 1997!

One other thing. I noticed that Dermot O’Leary’s Saturday Show on Radio 2 has spawned a compilation album full of live performances recorded for said broadcast. It has to be said that it is overwhelmingly average with one notable exception. That exception is a quite brilliant ska take on ‘Everybody’s Changing’ (the Keane tune) by Lily Allen. Genius, I promise.
EDIT: Oh, just found a slightly shite quality version with a truly terrible video on YouTube. Presumably the shitty video was made so that they could simply upload a cracking tune. Enjoy.

It was Kevin Greening’s last record on Radio 1

A strange day today. Not only have I had it made clearer than ever before the need to save the independent record shops from almost certain doom but I’ve also experienced the potential upside of the iTunes store.
Actually made a special journey to Sheffield today to visit Record Collector, a revered indie store at the heart of the city’s music scene. From my personal perspective it was, well, alright, but as a shop it was a marvel. If I hadn’t bought so many bloody records then I’d have been thrilled by the incredibly good pricing, but as it was I kept finding myself saying ‘Bollocks’ before thinking ‘Well, I’ve had it for a while now, and got good use out of it.’ Who am I fooling? Sadly the vinyl section was closed to due to ‘long-term illness’ which is no doubt more sad for the person involved, rather than people who just want some cheap LPs. Still, it’s a great little shop and it serves a clear purpose to an obvious audience. Not quite as spiffing as my beloved Reveal Records but then what is. I’m not sure I can ever move so that I’m not near enough for regular visits. Ever.
Then, upon returning, I had a gift voucher for iTunes so I thought I’d round up a few ‘iTunes exclusive’ thingies I was going to pick up recently. Then, figuring that I wasn’t going to do anything else with the credit, started tiddling around searching for certain names to see what they’ve been involved in. It’s been rather interesting listening. For example, I’ve never heard Damon Albarn‘s cover of ‘We Have A Technical‘ with Matt Sharp before and it’s, well, not brilliant, but interesting. That’s the key word here, folks. Similarly, Damon, Graham Coxon, Thurston Moore and Voafose‘s collaboration, ‘101% / Threpton‘ from the bafflingly titled, ‘Fabulous Shit‘ was, you guessed it, interesting. None of these tracks are going to make future compilations, but they’re nice to have. Also picked up the Super Furries‘ ‘The Proper Ornaments‘ from ‘The Free Design : The Now Sound Redesigned.’ No idea what it’s ‘supposed’ to be, but it’s bloody good. I have to confess to downloading ‘Where I Find My Heaven‘ by the Gigolo Aunts too, but we don’t need to dwell upon that.
Anyway, who knew that iTunes could be a satisfying experience? Even with things as ace as the ‘Live at SoHo EP’ for ‘The Good, The Bad & The Queen‘ record, I still resent paying for digital files, rather than a physical item. Downloads don’t mean an awful lot to me. I’m far, far less likely to play something on a CD-R than a proper CD, and furthermore, if I like a record, I want a proper copy on the shelf. But, having said that, I did quite enjoy the hour spent pootling round the iTunes store. Frigid Vinegar‘s ‘Dogmonaut 2000‘ brought back some bizarre memories, and I think I’ll download Bowie‘s ‘Baal EP‘ in a moment, to supplement my prized 7″ copy.
That said, and this is where the big lesson came whilst browsing not only Record Collector in Sheffield, but also the charmingly traditional Hudsons in Chesterfield, the thought of this being the only way we do things in the future is horrifying. It’s a nice little toy. A digital jukebox, but you get to keep the songs you choose in a little file. It’s not, however, wholesome, aesthetically pleasing or materialistic to suit me.

My Bones Hurt?

Musical Revelations Of The Week:

Super Furry Animals – Absolutely everything they’ve ever done – Listening to ‘Hey Venus!’ this week has once again convinced me that this band have NEVER done anything less than excellent. I’ve spent the last couple of days working through all of their albums, and even ‘Guerilla’, the record I tend to put at the bottom of the SFA pecking order, sounded fantastic. Every time Gruff et al release a newie I think the same thing; ‘God, SFA are great. They’re really underrated, I should listen to them more.’ Which I duly do, absolutely love all of their records and then move on again. The Super Furries seem to be condemned to being one of those bands that everyone says they love but never quite achieve legendary status. With ‘Hey Venus!’ they really should.

Daniel Pemberton – Tvpopmusik – Loads of bits and bobs that Mr Pemberton has composed for TV shows, in longer versions along with other assorted instrumental bits. Shame there’s no League of Gents theme, but the music from That’ll Teach ‘Em sounds superb, freed from the irritating connotations of that tittish headmaster.

Maps - We Can Create – Bollocks to the fact that I’ve talked about this before. It got a Mercury nomination this week, and I can only hope that that leads to a number of people checking it out that might otherwise not have done so. T’is a tremendous record, and if you’re a vinyl nut there’s a quite beautifully pressed 2×10″ edition available while stocks last.

Non-musical Revelations Of The Week:
Jekyll – Another brilliantly written episode. Laugh-out-loud funny and full of suspense almost simultaneously, this series has been a joy. Final episode next week. I don’t imagine it’ll make much sense, but then who cares when it’s this entertaining?
Scrubs – Back to that start via the DVDs for me. Season Six is currently being shown on E4, and is meeting the high standards one has come to expect from it and as a result I thought I’d nip back to the start and remember why I fell in love with it. It’s the nature of the ensemble performance that does it. The plots ensure that virtually everybody is used in every episode, and the throwaway gags that are peppered through the not-especially-complex plots range from genius wordplay to the most vintage slapstiok imaginable. Word is, Season Six will be Zach Braff’s last, so this could be the final run of greatness. E4, Thursdays, 9pm. Or the first five seasons on DVD from all good retailers and lots of shit ones too.
101 Great Welsh Tries - Ok, something of niche item here, but I enjoyed it. I say I enjoyed it, but I speak mainly about the tries themselves. The talking head bits with Robert Jones and Clive Rowlands are at best funereal and at worst bloody pointless. I tried watching it at double speed and suddenly Rowlands was almost talking at the speed the rest of us use normally. Still, some great footage.