It’s the start of another week, another Monday rising to meet us like the tip of the working-week iceberg that looms beneath the chilly waters.
So let’s grab a mug of the good stuff* and take a look back at the week that was in terms of listening delights that penetrated my lugholes.
Courtney Barnett – Write A List of Things to Look Forward To
I have really missed out here – Courtney Barnett being one of those names I’d heard and read of numerous times but never checking out. I guess we’re too spoilt for music these days and it’s hard to get to grips with anything, it’s like my son when we visit the Lego store; there’s so much he didn’t know he wanted and can’t make his mind up as to what to walk away with.
My wife got me back into monthly music mags recently and one of Ms Barnett’s tunes appeared on one of the cds they come with and proved to be the trigger I needed to check out and enjoy her new album Things Take Time, Take Time this last week. It’s pretty damn good.
Foo Fighters – Generator
I’m reading Dave Grohl’s ‘The Storyteller’ at the moment and it’s a cracker of a book. There’s a lot he leaves out for obvious reasons but it turns out that’s he’s quite the memoirist. In it he states his belief that There Is Nothing Left To Lose remains the best album they’ve made to date. I can see why he likes it, personal reasons aside. It’s certainly their first to sound like a real ‘band’ album and it’s stripped-back sound – thanks to Adam Kasper and the bare-bones nature of Grohl’s home studio where it was made – makes for a great listen to this day. I think I ranked it quite highly in my Least to Most a couple of years back but not a top three, good as it is.
John Fahey – Requiem for John Hurt
Because there’s always time for something so great
Cold Water Flat – King of the Undergound
In a weird jog of memory I found myself thinking of Cold Water Flat – a college / alt-rock band that never took off but, as they were formed by Paul Janovitz, brother of Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz, came across my radar many years ago. Pretty sure that if I have the cd it’s one of those boxed up in the garage and they’re not on the streaming service beginning with S so had to resort to YouTube to hear the album again. They managed just two of them, one for a major (which borrowed BT’s producer Sean Slade), before going their own separate ways. The drummer would actually go on to pick up the Pullitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel ‘Tinkers’.
Snail Mail – Valentine
Another of those new artists I’d read about / heard about but never checked out. This time it was the weekly emailer from my local / favourite record store Vinylstore Jr that got me tuning in when he pitched it as a ‘midway point between Lucy Dacus and Hole’. Now: I like a bit of Hole and I like Lucy Dacus, but which is best? There’s only one way to find out…
Jimmy Eat World – Just Tonight (Phoenix Sessions)
I hadn’t listened to Jimmy Eat World in blood years until I saw this crop up last week. Apparently the band did some of those full-album performances as streamed concerts when the world of touring was shut down last year and are now releasing the audio. Futures was one of their albums I thought was hampered by production so I’ve been enjoying the rawer / live takes on this.
*a rather fruity Kenyan blend today should you be interested
From the PR: “When AA meetings make her want to drink more, alcoholic murderess Maeve sets up a group for psychopaths.
Maeve has everything. A high-powered job, a beautiful home, a string of uncomplicated one-night encounters. She’s also an addict: a functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men. When she can’t find a support group to share her obsession, she creates her own. And Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Friends of Maeve.
Now in a serious relationship, Maeve wants to keep the group a secret. But not everyone in the group adheres to the rules, and when a reckless member raises suspicions with the police, Maeve’s drinking spirals out of control. She needs to stop killing. She needs to close the group. But Maeve can’t seem to quit the things that are bad for her, including her new man…”
“I mean there’s obviously no God, and if there was, He’s not sitting around thinking ‘I need to make Jill quit the booze because the red wine turns her into such a cunt.’ That can’t be right. Even if you are everywhere and see everyone and know everything and know everything, you don’t give a fuck about Jill, she’s so annoying.”
This is not your standard thriller, but then Will Carver’s novels are anything but standard, he continues to carve a unique space in the genre with novels that sharply tongued and plotted, deliciously dark in humour and bite and meticulously crafted. Psychopaths Anonymous is another slice of the very good stuff from an exceedingly talented writer – reading a Will Carver you know that not only is this the work of a skilled wordsmith but one who clearly bloody loves it too, it means there’s really no way to read his work and not revel in the joy of doing so.
Yes; Psychopaths Anonymous paints with the darker colours on the palette – there’s murder, very bloody murder in fact, a lot of sex, murdered gangsters with genitalia stuffed into their mouth and plenty of scathing takes on humanity – but it does so with a decidedly insightful voice and a wicked sense of glee and wit that is, if you’ll pardon the pun, addictive. There is a theory that if you’re only exposed to one narrative voice – be it in literature, film, television etc – for a certain amount of time you will inevitably find elements of it in which you identify similarities to yourself. It’s why novels where the protagonist is far from a match for the reader still work, even if they’re capable of the most horrific acts.
How many people watched ‘Dexter’ and still enjoyed watching the character’s breakfast routine with each new episode’s credits as if they were watching an old friend, even if he’d spent the previous episode cutting people into small pieces and dumping them in the ocean? Will Carver’s novels are often populated and narrated by some of the most unpleasant characters guilty of the most heinous acts – one of his former novels was narrated by evil ‘itself’ – and yet his skill lies in a superb ability to find a way in which we can not only find an element to relate to but even agree with some of their most scathing of commentary.
Take Maeve for example. Maeve, as a character and narrative voice is massively compelling – a woman who, on the face of it, has it all and has it all nailed down. Yet it’s a facade – beneath that surface, not particularly too far beneath, is a dangerous whirlwind of a psychopath with a very well managed alcohol addiction and an itch to kill.
And yet… for a supposed ‘psychopath’ – someone lacking in empathy – her actions seem fuelled by a sense of injustice or righting wrongs, whether to her or not, and there are more than a few signs of compassion that peek through the cracks – enough, at least, to ensure you’re ‘with’ this narrative voice rather than feeling your reading the rantings of a Jeffrey Dahmer, say. Is she acting out of a sense of righting wrongs inflicted on those who have penetrated her facade and actually connected to her in some off-kilter way or are is it merely an excuse to indulge in another addiction, like that ‘well nothing important happened today but it is Friday’ excuse for an extra drink? It’ll all depend on your take on Maeve really, how much you’ve already found yourself identifying with in her or her reliability as a narrator.
She’s got no time for dickhead clients – I failed to supress my laughter at her comments during a meeting – or phonies and those that would force either themselves or their beliefs on others and Carver get’s these across in a darkly humours and spot on commentary that you can’t help but agree with. Of course, the difference is that Maeve tackles it in a more ‘hands-on’ way and ends up with a head in her fridge and the reader doesn’t.
It all makes for fucking brilliant fiction and a book that’s hard to put down as you tear from page to page like every other Will Carver novel to date, in fact. A wicked, not-at-all guilty pleasure that’s a joy to read and another great book from an outstanding talent.
My thanks as always to Karen at Orenda for feeding my particular addiction and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review as part of the blogtour.
The purple fella wrote some absolute belters didn’t he?
Well, we’ve slipped out of autumn and into the arse-crack of the year that is November.
Today feels like an especially steel-toe-capped kick in the pills of a Monday thanks to four days of broken sleep so rather than stare bleary-eyed down the barrel of a week I’m too cattle-trucked to deal with, I’ve armed myself with a mug of Ethiopia’s finest and an egg banjo* to take a moment to once again provide a pithy summary of what I’ve been enjoying in the week past and let future-me deal with the next few days.
Sinead O’Brien – GIRLKIND
Getting started with something new again and another ‘holy crap I’m digging this’ moment from a radio-accompanied commute (thank fuck for DAB) – Sinead O’Brien is a multi-disciplined artist and her music, to quote the bio, is a “unique fusion of of lyric-focused spoken and sung words set against the ‘unholy orchestra’ of her band.” I’ve been digging it all week.
Aereogramme – Indiscretion No.243
Oh man I loved Aereogramme. They had a gorgeous way of creating epic, sweeping songs that could then punch into a charge and thrash but just… never made it and the toll of having to constantly self-finance and all the ‘almosts’ took the inevitable toll. I recently found out that Chvrches (who hate being called ch-vurches but what do you expect if you try something gimmicky like that) are made up of two former Aereogramme members which got me joyfully revisiting their discography.
Steve Winwood – Higher Love
If you wanna talk about an amazing CV then Mr Winwood has gotta have one of the most impressive out there. I’ve been dipping in and out of his solo work for a few months now and keep coming back to this most obvious of tunes, there’s something about it I love… I can’t get enough of that intro to this one, the tight, glorious restraint before the song breaks… the percussion, the groove… all great stuff and perfectly of its time.
Courtney Marie Andrews – To Ramona
A frequent name on this blog now.. this comes from a ‘Dylan… Revisited’ comp from Uncut magazine earlier in the year but popped up on my Spotify last week and has had a good few spins since.
Explosions in the Sky – Climbing Bear
Much like Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky have a knack for creating some gorgeous soundtrack work. I picked up their soundtrack to a PBS documentary on Big Bend and, even without seeing said doc, this is typically beautiful stuff from EITS and has often been in my ears since picking it up a week or so back.
Philip Sayce – Burning Out
Kicking into a different gear this week meant dipping back into Philip Sayce’s 2020 album Spirit Rising – plenty of revved-up guitar workouts to dig.
From the PR: “J.D. Salinger, mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, is remembered today as a reclusive misanthrope.
Jerome Charyn’s Salinger is a young American WWII draftee assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, a band of secret soldiers who trained with the British. A rifleman and an interrogator, he witnessed all the horrors of the war – from the landing on D-Day to the relentless hand-to-hand combat in the hedgerows of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the first Allied entry into a Bavarian death camp, where corpses were piled like cordwood.
After the war, interned in a Nuremberg psychiatric clinic, Salinger became enchanted with a suspected Nazi informant. They married, but not long after he brought her home to New York, the marriage collapsed. Maladjusted to civilian life, he lived like a ‘spook,’ with invisible stripes on his shoulder, the ghosts of the murdered inside his head, and stories to tell.”
There’s a massive difference between the “Sonny” Salinger of this novel’s prologue – an aspiring short story writer chasing his romantic infatuation with Oona O’Neill in the Stork Club and meeting Hemmingway for the first time – and that of the Sergeant Salinger of the coda – drifting through his memories as he tumbles down an escalator at Bloomingdales in 1947 (a point at which part of his famous novel had already appeared in a serialised form) struggling to come to terms with his experiences in the years in between.
Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn explores Salinger’s war years, how the horrors and tumult of emotions witnessed and experienced shifted and formed the young writer’s mind and outlook to the point where the naive romantic of 1942 could, less than a decade later, deliver a defining novel oozing in edginess and scathing critique of modern society.
Salinger’s war years are richly imagined, blurring lines between fiction and reality – there was a lot here that sent me to check ‘did that actually happen’ and with so much of it genuinely having taken place (Exercise Tiger really was the horrific cock up it’s described as here and more).
We view the horrors and brutality through Salinger’s experiences whether it’s coming ashore with the second wave on Utah beech and spending hours wading through water, the green hell of Hürtgen Forest or the liberation of Kaufering IV in a way that’s at times reminiscent of Catch-22 with its mix of the absurdity and tragedy of war and the increasingly detached state “Sonny” begins to inhabit – Salinger was hospitalised for ‘combat stress reaction’ after the defeat of Germany. We see a writer being shaped by both events and a growing disillusionment with those around him – be it the Hemingway he again encounters in Paris or his own superiors.
Taking a known figure and carving a fictional version of them with a bit of artistic licensing can often go awry in the wrong hands. But with more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction to his name, Jerome Charyn’s hands are safe ones to be in – here Salinger’s biological facts mix with another talented writer’s imagination to bring the young “Sonny” to life in a way that more straight ahead biographies wouldn’t.
Most importantly, though, even if you’re not familiar with or interested in J.D and his “Holden Caulfield novel” and short stories, Sergeant Salinger works bloody well as a novel in its own right and one very much worth reading.
My thanks to No Exit Press for my copy and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review as part of the blog tour.
It’s that kick in the lunchbox part of the week that is Monday again.
So as I sit here bleary-eyed after a few days off to give me a four-day weekend, I thought I’d soften the blow by giving a quick nod and a wink (say no more, squire) to those tunes that have been punching into my ear drums this last week or so.
The War on Drugs – Harmonia’s Dream
Is the new War On Drugs album good? Does a bear shit in the woods? Does the Pope where a silly hat? Did Donald Trump play a part in organising the Jan 6th insurrection? Should the gargantuan orange cockwomble and his vacant, in-bred looking spawn be locked away for years? FUCK YES
U2 – Kite
I never know how many people will have heard of this band… I know they had a few songs graze the outside of the Top 200 or so back in the 80s but they always seemed destined to remain in the garden centre bargain bin next to Pan Pipe Moods 12 and that album of television themes. Anywho, this is from their ‘comeback’* album All That You Can’t Leave Behind in 2000 and I’ve been singing this in the shower lately for some unknown reason. I don’t think it was ever released as a single but it’s one of the better tracks on the album (better than that tosh about a mole digging holes) and Bono Vox does an uncanny impression of a really good singer when he lets himself go on this.
Pearl Jam – Hail Hail
I celebrated the successful completion of another lap around the sun last week and my lovely wife gave me No Code on vinyl – one I’ve been wanting to add to the shelves for some time. On any given day it’s my favourite Pearl Jam album depending on whether it wins the arm wrestle with Vitalogy and I’ve been giving it plenty of spins since.
The Mysterines – Love’s Not Enough
Can’t tell you much about this band other than that they’re from Liverpool and they’re not much like that other famous band from that way. When I heard ‘Love’s Not Enough’ on 6 Music a week or so back I thought two things:
Kinda sounds like Eliot Sumner
This is pretty fucking good
Since then I’ve been enjoying the Love’s Not Enough ep over on that streaming service beginning with S.
The Twilight Sad – There’s a Girl in the Corner
Why did it take me so long to follow the signs and get into a band as blood awesome as The Twilight Sad? What is the origin of the M–sigma relation between supermassive black hole mass and galaxy velocity dispersion? Did Sammy Hagar deliberately use a tautological statement in ‘Why Can’t This Be Love?’
Big Thief – Little Things
Word be that the upcoming Big Thief album is gonna be a double – which is both impressive considering their two albums of 2019 were both of the ‘that’s really fucking good’ variety and exciting because their two albums of 2019 were both of the ‘that’s really fucking good’ variety. The singles they’ve released so far this year are also of a type that involves profanity.
*Comeback from what I don’t know, perhaps they’d had to go back to their day jobs at Plumb Centre or something for a while to fund it
From the PR: “Estranged sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries, and are not on speaking terms. When their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to look for her. But she soon realizes that her sister isn’t avoiding her …she has disappeared, without a trace.
As she confronts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend Björn, and begins to probe her sister ’s reclusive neighbours – who have their own reasons for staying out of sight – Áróra is drawn into an ever-darker web of intrigue and manipulation.
Baffled by the conflicting details of her sister’s life, and blinded by the shiveringly bright midnight sun of the Icelandic summer, Áróra enlists the help of police officer Daníel, to help her track her sister ’s movements, and tail Björn. But she isn’t the only one watching…”
There’s a quote toward the end of Cold As Hell explaining why so many missing people in Iceland are never found, as the country is “so wide and so sparsely populated, much of it not easily accessible, with its cracks in the lava, fissures and river valleys, mountain lakes so cold they never gave up bodies, and the restless sea all around.” It’s small wonder, then, that this chilling, remote country sat atop the world has given us a genre as rich as Icelandic Noir, a genre to which LiljaSigurðardóttir’sCold As Hell is a magnificent addition.
Cold As Hell is the first in a five-book series and it’s a mighty fine way to kick it off and get the reader hooked in. Taut, addictive and superbly plotted, Liilja Sigurðardóttir has written a real cracker of a novel here.
There’s a surprising amount going on in Cold As Hell. I say surprising because the narrative tears along at a superb pace with short, punchy chapters across multiple subplots and characters, each carrying just the right amount of hook to keep you charging ahead without ever feeling rushed.
Whether it’s Áróra’s search for her sister, financial crimes or the plight of an asylum seeker, Lilja Sigurðardóttir details every element of her novel with a wonderful prose style and populates it with characters that are vital and compelling.
While it’s clear that a lot of ground is being laid here for a longer story arc than one novel can contain, Cold As Hell is thoroughly satisfying in its own right whilst ensuring there’s plenty for the next instalment to sink its teeth into. I’ll also say that Grimur’s ‘twist’ is beautiful in it’s execution and was a hugely satisfying “oh!” moment that really shifted the plot in a manner that’s rarely so well done.
Cold As Hell is a great read. An intelligent and edgy thriller that makes for a fantastic start to the series – I’m already looking forward to book two. My thanks to Karen at Orenda Books for my copy and to Anne Cater for offering me a review spot on the blog tour.
Here we are with the weekend behind us and staring down the barrel of another week. So, on the day that always feels like a kick in the pills, here’s a quick wander down the path of tunes I’ve been giving a lot of ear time this last week.
Eddie Vedder – Long Way
An Eddie Vedder solo song without a hint of a ukulele? Yup – what’s more there’s an album on the way (I think he plays all instruments but that might be a malicious rumour from the fan forums) following quickly on the heels of the ‘Flag Day’ soundtrack he’d put out earlier. This is a real Tom Petty vibing track, rather than a Pearl Jam song that didn’t pass muster, and that’s no bad thing.
Regina Spektor– While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I’ve been watching a lot of Studio Ghibli films recently with my son and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ (which isn’t a Studio Ghibli but from Laika, another studio with a very strong set of films under its belt) came up. It’s got a great soundtrack as you’d expect from a film about a boy with a magical instrument, and while it’s mostly originals there’s this really cool cover of a – frankly – stone cold classic that runs with the credits. I don’t think Regina Spektor has put out a lot of late but she put out a couple of belters back in the day.
Sting – Rushing Water
I can’t say I’ve paid much attention to Sting’s solo output for a long time. I don’t think he’s put out much in the way of ‘straight ahead’ solo music for a bit. If I recall there’s been a musical about a ship, a winter solstice themed album, some tosh with Shaggy, duets…. if anything I’ve listened to his daughter’s work more than his. That being said, turns out he’s got a new album called The Bridge on the way. Not a cover of Billy Joel’s album, more one primed with ‘pop-rock’ tunes that he put together over the last year when nobody could really do anything outside for more than five minutes. Maybe I’m getting older but this seems like a pretty good upbeat and cheerful place to be.
Aerosmith – Boogie Man
We’re all victims of algorithms aren’t we…. I guess because I’d talked about Joe Perry’s book out load in the presence of my phone Prime recommended I watch Aerosmith’s ‘Rock for the Rising Sun’ concert doc. It’s an alright live doc but the most interesting thing was hearing them dust off ‘Boogie Man’ – the almost-instrumental closing track from their gargantuan selling Get A Grip. It’s been in my head ever since and has got me pondering an Aerosmith Least to Most series…
Pixies – Here Comes Your Man (’87 version)
When picking up my copy of the Trompe Le Monde anniversary press from my local record shop I decided to add the Pixies EP aka The Purple Tape to my collection which is a collection of those songs recorded during the band’s first studio session in 1987 that didn’t make it to Come On Pilgrim and it’s a great blast of ‘pure’ Pixies magic.
Pink Floyd – One Slip (2019 Remix)
As part of The Later Years box set Pink Floyd decided to remix their oft-derided 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason, their first without that cockwomble Roger Waters shouting at them about how shit they were. Because of Waters’ shouting neither Nick Mason or Richard Wright had enough confidence in their playing to contribute much to the album and it was mostly Gilmour and session musician – hence the remix that’s about to be released as a stand-alone outside of the box set. It features new drum parts from Nick Mason as well as the restoration for Richard Wright’s keyboard contributions to “restore the creative balance between the three Pink Floyd members”. It also sheers off some of the overwrought 80’s production that hampered the original too. Having loved it on The Later Years I’m glad it’s getting a wider reissue.
Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’ was the first band ‘auto-biography’ book I’d read back when it dropped in back 1997 and the well-thumbed hardback on my shelves is testament to how many times I’ve either re-read or consulted it since. I also picked up Steven Tyler’s ‘Does The Nose in My Head Bother You’ at, I think, an airport or similar some years back so I was keen to read to read Joe Perry’s ‘Rocks’ when it was published yet, somehow, hadn’t.
Until, that is, while hitting up the local library with my son to stock up on books for him to read (it gives me a massive sense of pride that he takes joy in sitting down and reading to himself already) I saw Joe Perry’s ‘Rocks: My Life in and out of Aerosmith’ waiting for me to pluck from the shelves – it’s probably worth pointing out that the music and biog sections sit close by the children’s section, this tale of excess wasn’t nestling alongside the Hilda or Roald Dahl books.
An expectedly calmer read than that of Mr Tyler’s prose – though Perry too was assisted in his auto-bio – while ‘Rocks’ offers a counterpoint to some of his singer’s arguments as well as picking up on the tumult within the band since 1997 (numerous fallings out, injuries, Led Zeppelin auditions and finding out about X-Factor gigs via the internet) as well as just how excessively manipulated by the toxic approach of their manager Tim Collins. Perry gives an insight into his personal life, how event recent addictions to pain pills nearly derailed his marriage and, of course, his relationship with Tyler.
One of the biggest take-homes though is the Perry’s dissatisfaction with his working relationship with Steven Tyler and his singer’s seeming reluctance to write with him alone anymore despite supposedly seeing them as a Jagger / Richards songwriting team. While Tyler – even as recently as Aerosmith’s last studio album Music From Another Dimension – seems inclined to keep trying to write a ‘hit’ single, Perry would rather stick to what the band is good at. If ‘Rocks’ is truth then he and the rest of the band were so appalled at ‘Girls of Summer’ as a song so non-Aerosmith they refused to be in the video.
While Tyler may think that a band into its fourth decade has another chance at a massive hit (likely the reason the last album was so dampened by the cheesiest of ballads), one thing’s clear – Joe Perry has a love for and a real knack for the dirty blues (as opposed to ‘pure blues) rock riffs that make up the band’s finest work.
In fact whenever he hasn’t had an outlet for them in Aerosmith, or when he’s not been in the band, he’s put out a good body of solo work that’s stuffed with great tunes. While there’s something missing in the lyrics or vocals that only Mr Tyler can provide, so many of these could well have been more of a massive Aerosmith song than the schmaltz the group-writing sessions stuffed their later album with.
Here are five of which:
Let The Music Do The Talking
Perry walked away from Aerosmith in 1979. There’s plenty of reasons as to why but it was a glass of thrown milk that proved the final straw. While Perry would later discover that his / Aerosmith’s management team were working to hinder his solo career, the Joe Perry Project’s first album Let The Music Do The Talking shifted well enough, went down nicely with the critics and made it clear that Perry had the riffs that could’ve kept Aerosmith going for a lot longer (by 1980, Aerosmith were playing increasingly smaller venues and Tyler was collapsing on stage more frequently). So clearly an Aerosmith song that when the group reformed it was their first single, albeit with altered lyrics.
South Station Blues
Perry may have had the riffs but he still had an active addiction, a wife that was spending his money as though he were still drawing down Aerosmith payola and as the years went by the Project’s output decreased in quality though, with a new album a year after his first, Perry was already outpacing his former-band’s output. This, from the group’s second, is a pure belter.
Shakin’ My Cage
Years…. decades in fact after his last solo output, Joe Perry decided to ditch the Project element for his first proper ‘solo’ album in 2005. With Aerosmith on another rest period, Perry seemed determined to keep on the bluesier side that had leant itself to their last album Honkin’ On Bobo and put out an album on which he played everything but the drums. It’s not a very varied album but Perry showed he’d still got a fuckload of those classic heavy riffs in his bag even if Tyler didn’t want ’em and if you happen to dig those crunchy guitar workouts then it’s a pretty strong album.
Mercy
Also from Joe Perry and one that was up for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance – fittingly Perry lost out here to Les Paul.
We’ve Got A Long Way To Go
With Aerosmith’s plans in the toilet after illness, injuries and strife called their tour with ZZ Top to be cancelled, Perry pulled together Have Guitar Will Travel – billed as a solo but much more of a band album and a lot less ‘produced’ than his previous album, feeling more like a warm, home-studio rave-up than polished, it feels like a relief in that respect but doesn’t hold together too well. Still, he also had songs like this which were clearly written with his usual singer’s pipes in mind and would’ve gone down well as an Aerosmith tune.
Here we are on the downhill stretch to the weekend once again and I thought it an opportune time to pull up a chair, pour a mug of the caffeinated stuff and take a butchers at those tunes that have been on repeat this week.
Elliott Smith – Let’s Get Lost
My wife recently added Air’s instalment of Late Night Tales to the record collection and that – as if I needed one – was a prompt to dust off From a Basement on the Hill this week and enjoy the gorgeousness of Elliott’s last (albeit posthumously released) studio collection.
Tad – Trash Truck
Tad loomed loud and large at the heavier end of the Seattle scene spectrum. Flicking through the racks in a charity shop a few weeks back I found an original copy of 8-Way Santa (before the couple on the cover found it and threatened to sue) still with its shrink wrap for a measly £8 (considerably lower than current market rate). Had to be done.
Metallica – Sad But True
Sticking with the heavy for a moment – with the album’s 30th Anniversary pushing a lot of attention toward it, I’ve had Metallica’s ‘Black’ album hammering away in the car for a few days this week, it’s one of those landmark albums from a period in 1991 that was just dripping in classic albums.
Placebo – Beautiful James
A couple of years ago I thought it was curtains for Placebo – their newer stuff was approaching the bottom of the barrel. On the evidence of ‘Beautiful James’ which harkens back to their Meds sound I’d say the layoff – seven years since their last album – has done them some good.
The War On Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore
More proof, if needed, that the next War On Drugs album is gonna be a good ‘un.
My Morning Jacket – Regularly Scheduled Programming
Apparently, in summer 2019, MMJ played a set of shows that were to be their last for some time and were going to be calling it quits for a bit with whispers of retiring the band. Instead those shows reinvigorated them and they decided to get back to cutting great music together. Somewhat sidelined by the pandemic, that new music is finally here and I’ve had ‘Regularly Scheduled Programming’ on repeat this week.
During the final planning stages of our wedding a hair over ten years ago now, aside from the song for our first dance and a few specific requests and genre preferences, our DJ was given only one hard and fast rule: “no fucking ABBA”.
Now, I know I’m in a minority here and I’ve read plenty of posts within my ‘blogging circle’ to cement that knowledge, but I can’t stand them.
So imagine my chagrin when I had the misfortune to hear the tail-end (enough to leave a bitter aftertaste) of the ‘new’ ABBA song on the radio recently, or the twitching of my eye when the approach of their new album release means I’m hit by sponsored ads on the one social media site I still use, or posts from record stores I frequent promoting the opportunity to pre-order said pile of festering shite in a multitude of colours.
However, rather than turn this into a rant about the evils of septuagenarian Swedes phoning it in (I mean, they’re not even gonna bother going on their own tour, they’re asking people to pay to watch fucking holograms!) to grab cash to feather their retirement beds one last time… I got to thinking of those bands which would make me cry hallelujah should they decide to get the band together, even for just one more ride round the block.
So, without wanting to overstay my welcome I’ll keep it at five though I’m sure I’ve missed a good few
REM
They went out on a high with Collapse Into Now which seemed like the perfect way to end it but didn’t tour that album, instead leaving us with a reminder of just how great they were. They needed to do it after Around The Sun saw them floundering. but their last album and the recent re-releases of their seminal albums (including the soon-to-hit New Adventures In Hi-Fi) are proof positive that the Athens, Georgia band had bags of the good stuff and with all members still around and involved in music (save for Bill Berry who has stuck with his retirement from the music industry since 1997) it feels like this is one that really could still happen and live albums such as Live at the Olympia demonstrate their concert draw.
Led Zeppelin
It’s a no-brainer, right? News of a Led Zeppelin reunion, even without the whisper of new material, would be lapped up like nothing else. They, too, would be minus their original drummer but it’s been done since: 2007’s show at the O2 Arena as part of The Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert saw John Bonham’s son Jason fill the stool for a roof-devastating sixteen-song blast that’s easily stated as the best final concert they could have given…. except of course it’s left everyone clamouring for more. Even the band wanted more. Except, that is, Robert Plant. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham were rumoured to be working on new material together and with Plant not having it, auditioned singers including Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler (which, according to Joe Perry’s ‘Rocks’ was not only a shambolic performance but caused further havoc one strained relations in his own band) but nothing came of it.
While it used to be a case that rumours would fly up regularly, Plant’s decisive and inarguable statements that it won’t happen (“I’ve gone so far somewhere else that I almost can’t relate to it. It’s a bit of a pain in the pisser to be honest. Who cares? I know people care, but think about it from my angle – soon, I’m going to need help crossing the street.”) and his desire to keep working on new material has meant they’re less frequent now. Still, as new documentaries and re-releases of their back catalogue prove, the public desire is as strong as ever… it’s a slim one but we can dream.
Sonic Youth
I know… this isn’t gonna happen. They had a brilliant run but with Kim and Thurston’s divorce it was curtains. Thurston has kept schtum on it but Kim’s ‘Girl in a Band’ seemed just as much as a way of airing their dirty laundry in public as it did her emphasising everything in her life non Sonic Youth as though and draw as clear a line under it all as possible and comments over the years but it as a done deal.
But.. hey; this is a ‘we can dream’ list after all and there are bands out there with divorced members (probably best not to mention the on-going drama that is Fleetwood Mac but the list still includes the White Stripes) and all members are not only still putting out some great music but often working together to do so… hell, Thurston Moore’s latest By The Fire shows he’s got Sonic Youth style tunes for days.
Screaming Trees
Of all those albums I forgot back in my post about great last albums, Screaming Trees’ Dust has got to be one of the biggest ‘d’oh’s. It’s such a strong album it’s pretty much perfect, easily their best effort. And yet… The album was already four years on from their previous – Sweet Oblivion – and Dust stalled on the album charts. Following another hiatus for Lanegan to work on his third solo album, the band went back into the studio in 1999 but couldn’t find a label with interest in the demos the sessions yielded. A few shows in 2000 still failed to garner label interest in the group and they called it day.
Always seemingly the undercard of the scene, Screaming Trees have a back catalog that’s stuffed with great tunes and even the recent-ish Last Words – The Final Recordings had plenty of solid contenders and it a reunion would be welcome, except that like so many bands Screaming Trees too seem pretty dysfunctional and relationships have only strained since.
Mark Lanegan recently sent an angry retort to a tweet suggesting he was up for just such a reunion: “I don’t know how many different ways I can say it but any Screaming Trees reunion, show, rehearsal, lunch or fistfight will not include me” which has lead Gary Lee Connor to ponder: “I really question what his motives were the whole time, though. Did he just use us to get famous? I thought it was about making great music.”
Still, if bigger hatchets can be buried I’m sure there’s still a chance…. right?
Dire Straits
Yep, I’d love to see this one but chances are it ain’t gonna happen. Mainly because I’m quite specific here: I’m talking the ‘classic’ Dire Straits lineup so chances are even slimmer.
Mark Knopfler couldn’t take the grief that came with touring on the scale that the last Dire Straits go-around had reached- after a break of five years, the On Every Street tour seemed determined to play on every street with 229 shows across a year and a half into 1992 and an era where the radio landscape was very different to that in which Dire Straits had their peak. For all its strengths both the album and the live document On The Night felt like it was time to stop and so you can’t fault Knopfler for doing so – it was too big to live.
But that was almost 30 years ago and I can’t help but think that a new Dire Straits tour done on a scale akin to Knopfler’s solo outings, where he’s not exactly playing garden sheds, might not seem so objectionable anymore and would be a much better way of saying ‘thanks and goodnight’ – especially if it were to feature Pick Withers who drummed for the band from formation through to Lover Over Gold (their finest) on a few tracks. It’d be unlikely that Mark’s brother David would be involved, though, but I kinda hope those two can at least get back on speaking terms… just take a listen to the difference in quality between their two live albums On The Night and Alchemy and the case for a better send-off is clear.
Mumbling About... 