music

Wednesday morning papers didn’t come…. Mid-week Spins

/ Tony / 5 Comments

This temporary interruption in Springsteen-focused posts is bought to you by a smattering of tunes that I’ve been enjoying recently in one form or another and feel fitting for a mid-week posting.

The Cure – And Nothing Is Forever

It had only been sixteen years since their last studio album but The Cure dropped a clear contender for Album of the Year at the start of the month. Thankfully this isn’t a Chinese Democracy situation. It’s a gorgeous album from a band that I’ve become increasingly in love with in the years since their last album.

Eric Serra, Arthur Simms – It’s Only Mystery

One of the surprising changes that I picked up on returning to Paris after five years away recently was the loss of a great shop – Boulinier’s larger location on Saint-Michel if you’re curious – in which I spent many a happy hour rummaging their stock of used books / dvds and records. Anyway, last time I was there back in ’19 I decided not to pick up a record, the soundtrack for the 1985 Luc Besson film Subway… and then regretted it. So it was a no-brainer for me when my local record shop got it in.

Half-Man-Half-Biscuit – National Shite Day

This delightful moan about the miseries of British life must have been written on a dreary November morn, it occurred to me as I sat in a line of traffic after someone with the IQ of a cornflake had decided to take a lorry down a country road it couldn’t fail to get stuck in and cause everybody else to be late. It can never do anything but raise a chuckle with its references to “fat kids with sausage rolls, poor sods conducting polls” or someone careening “out of Boots without due care or attention.” Long live Stringy Bob.

B-52’s – Roam

On such a grim morning I can’t help but want to ‘roam around the world’. I saw recently that Mr O’Neal complained that he can’t sign his emails ‘love, Shaq’ because the B-52’s ruined that for him. While I’ve always had an issue with their apostrophe misuse there’s no denying the joy of this tune.

Mdou Moctar – Imajighen (Injustice Version)

Mdou Moctar’s Funeral for Justice is an absolute fucking ripper. So they’ve decided that if that album is ‘rage’ then to give the ‘grief’ they’ve completely re-recorded and rearranged it for acoustic and traditional instruments for the Teasrs of Injustice album due to drop early next year. Loving it.

Pearl Jam – Seven O’Clock

Anyway, here’s Pearl Jam again, “then you got Sitting Bullshit as our sitting President.” Things are going to get grim and dark next year for sure… Gigaton has aged really well. Listening to it again recently I feel that while it isn’t as consistently punchy, it offers a lot more depth / warmth of sound than Dark Matter

Least and Most: Born to Run

/ Tony / 9 Comments

All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood…

I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real…

Man there’s an opera out on the Turnpike, there’s a ballet being fought out in the alley…

It’s chapter three. In which our hero gives the E Street a shuffle, welcomes back an old confidante and gains a new one to boot, sharpens his street poetry to make it more universal, plucks his characters from their boardwalk hideouts and puts them into something chrome wheeled and fuel injected so they can bust out of Asbury Park en route to becoming rock and roll future. That’s right; it’s the Catalina fucking wine mixer Born To Run.

Once again – and certainly for the next few posts – I’ve placed myself in a tricky spot: citing a track that I find my least preferred on an album that’s easily one of Springsteen’s finest and no doubt a favourite album of many. Born To Run has become one of those albums – you know: an instantly recognisable cover that’s been parodied countless times, one that’s stuffed full of killer songs and tracks that delight night after night after night after night… one that routinely tops magazine ‘best of this or that’ polls etc.

Does it even have a track that I don’t love as much as the others? Well, perhaps not but that’s not really what we’re looking at here but there is one song that I certainly listen to and recall less than others and that means that..

Least: Night

AGAIN – this isn’t a slight of ‘Night’ but I can’t recall much about it even now after having run through the album again yesterday. It’s a great tune and on any other album wouldn’t be here – hell even Bruce’s least memorable cuts are better than many artists’ highs… but it has the misfortune of being a three minute blast of good stuff in between two fucking great cuts; ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ and ‘Backstreets’. It’s like the definition of a filler slot, it would have to be a really remarkable track to stand its own there and it’s to the song’s credit that it’s still bloody good… but there’s nothing stand-out about it for me. That’s all.

Picking a ‘most’ from Born To Run is almost as challenging to be honest. I mean, there’s ‘Thunder Road’ which is one of his finest, there’s the title track itself and the the previously mentioned ‘Backstreets’… but there’s nothing really like..

Most: Jungleland

It’s beyond compare, really. It’s like everything great on this album was building up to the magnificent epic that straddles nearly ten minutes of pure delight at the end and manages to encompass everything great that Springsteen had hinted at in his music to come and would for decades yet to arrive. The street poetry is there, the surging hope for better tomorrows, the ridiculously moving saxophone break, the builds and release and powering along, and the fact that, somehow, he manages to make the whole thing still feel like an anthem to be blasted to a stadium full of fans giving as much passion as they can ‘tonight…. in… JungleLAND’.

Fuck yes.

Least and Most: The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

/ Tony / 7 Comments

Might as well tackle the bull by the horns, as they say. Though who in their right mind would want to tackle a bull at all, let alone by the pointy end. Probably the same person who’s trying to find a ‘least’ track on a pretty-much faultless album. I reckon this is more one for Tom Cruise and his IMF team than it is for me. I don’t grin “like an idiot every fifteen minutes” though.

Put simply The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is the beginning of Springsteen’s unimpeachable run of albums. It delivers on a promise that wasn’t all too apparent on his debut released just eight months prior. After plenty of shows with the fledgling E Street Band and with keyboard player David Sancious as his first musical lieutenant, the songs on The Wild.. add strains of jazz and other styles to Springsteen’s street-life scenes and boardwalk characters and while the lyrics still feel like he’s falling through the pages of a thesaurus, they’re getting ever tighter and more evocative. The run of ‘Incident on 57th Street’, ‘Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)’ and ‘New York City Serenade’ mean that Side B is easily the greatest second half of any album out there alone.

Given the sheer brilliance of these early albums, while I hope it’s not needed, I’ll add a caveat to this that I’d rather take these songs other plenty of others and that ‘least’ is meant only in a relative sense. Now, with that being said I’m also fully aware that I’m probably committing an act of Bossphemy when I say…

Least: The E Street Shuffle

That’s definitely the sound of ‘boo’s not ‘Bruuuuce’ I hear right now, I’m sure. Again: I fucking LOVE this album. But there’s something about the opener in comparison to everything that follows that feels a little, well; lesser. It feels a little like Bruce is trying too hard to get that live show stopper song into the mix that he’d perfect with ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze Out’ and ‘Out In The Streets’.

Lyrically…. it’s a jumble. While just one song later we’ve got pure evocation with “the fireworks are hailin’ over Little Eden tonight, forcin’ a light into all those stoned-out faces left stranded on this Fourth of July” on ‘The E Street Shuffle’ we’ve got a ‘man-child’ giving double shots to ‘little girls’ and some dude called Power 13 and his girl Little Angel? Again, this is only a relative ‘least’ because I’m comparing it to the utter ‘provoke a gold-rush and mass migration to the west’ level of quality the rest of the album has both lyrically and musically.

There, that’s the hardest ‘least’ I’ve faced while putting this together. I need a lie down. But before I do…

Most: New York City Serenade

I’m not one to reinvent the wheel or work too hard – or hard at all – when I don’t have to. As such I’m going to borrow from my Least to Most take on The Wild The Innocent.. and say “there’s a few, a small few songs that I’ll listen to where the opening bar is so immediately ‘right’, so ‘spot on’ and tuned to me that it affects me to the core. It’s like an instant high. ‘New York City Serenade’ is one of those. That hammer of the piano strings, the cascade of notes that follows. Sometimes you’ll hear an intro that’s perfect and you’ll think ‘ok, how’s this gonna get marred?’ because not everything that follows can be as good. With ‘New York City Serenade’ everything works beautifully, the arrangement is so perfectly put together that every element just flows into the next in a way that makes it seem like effortless poetry. There’s not a single bum note or misstep in the entire song. Bruce Springsteen was 23 when he wrote and arranged ‘New York City Serenade.’ When I was 23 I though it was a good idea to call a band ‘Wookie Cushion’”.

This isn’t just my favourite song on this album, it’s one of my favourite songs of all time.

What are you thinking? Should I be strung up for suggesting ‘The E Street Shuffle’ is lesser than ‘Wild Billy’s Circus Story?’

Least and Most: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Am I really kicking off a new series? Is it another Springsteen-focused run? You betcha.

This shouldn’t be as time consuming to write or read as previous though. The idea is a pretty simple one: Bruce has twenty studio albums – discounting archival boxsets and karaoke soul cover albums – and having recently spent time running through the lot of ’em I’m gonna be picking two tracks from each, the most and least played / loved / enjoyable from my perspective. Granted, with so many five star albums in the mix it’ll be easier with some than others but that’s part of the ‘game’, right?

Spending time with Springsteen’s catalogue again recently I’ve noticed how my appreciation of certain albums has changed over the years and his 1973 debut Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. is one of those that’s grown in my appreciation.

Adding an unbridled sense of exuberance to Dylan style thesaurus-wrestlers with exaggerated imagery and street scenes, Springsteen’s debut sets folk-based tunes to an electric band backing. This phase of Springsteen’s career was short-lived. The coffee-shop folkie mode he’d shifted to after Steel Mill seemed to have run its course even with Bruce for as soon as he’d signed as a solo artist he assembled a band again to cut his first album – which was also the first and only time he wrote complete lyrics before the music.

It’s pretty hard to identify lesser tracks from Springsteens early albums (early as he’s now into his sixth decade of releasing them) but ….

Least: The Angel

‘The Angel’ is such a slight, seemingly ineffective song that you’d pretty much forget it after hearing the album. It’s only been performed live twice. Ever.

Meanwhile there’s a wealth of great songs on here that stand up to constant repeating. Whether it’s the radio ‘hits’ – ‘Spirit In The Night’ and ‘Blinded By The Light’ – that he was sent to write after handing in an album that Columbia felt lacked any or the familiar ‘Growin’ Up’ and ‘For You’, these early nuggets are as golden as they get. For me, though, there’s one that stands head and shoulders above the rest…

Most: Lost In The Flood

It’s epic. It’s ridiculously well-written and arranged for a dude of 23 and has remained a fan favourite and crowd pleaser since. There was talk that Steven Van Zandt had a hand in creating some of the song’s sounds (particularly the explosion through the amp at kick-off) but he’s on record as denying that and there’s no mention in either Springsteen or SVZ’s* auto-bios. It’s one of those brooding, sparse story songs that Springsteen would smash out of the park throughout his career. Is is it his first Vietnam song? I think so… correct me if I’m wrong. Hell, I even had a ‘Bronx’s best apostle’ t-shirt for years my adoration of this song is so strong. It sits right in the middle of the running order but, to me, this is a key puzzle piece on the road to Born To Run and Darkness – it’s an underdog saga with just a small glimpse of hope.

To paraphrase El Duderino, though, this is just, like, my opinion, man. Let me know if you think I’m miles off.

*Reading Unrequited Infatuations it would seem Van Zandt was completely off Springsteen’s radar between his signing with and releasing his first two albums for Columbia as he wasn’t part of the band you get the impression he was having a little bit of a sulk about it.

Catch-up spins

/ Tony / 3 Comments

It’s been a while since I was ‘here’ having pretty much taken most of summer off. It feels like a fitting way to get back up to speed with a review of what’s been going on in my ears over the past few months.

Air – Radio # 1

I spent a good chunk of time in France, again, this summer. Arriving in time to watch the Olympics’ closing ceremony from a hotel bed and marvel at – after hours of more pointless faff that rivalled the opening ceremony for fuckery – how wasted Air were. It did mean that I spent time in a number of Lyon record shops hunting for Air albums though and came home with their first trio. Following up the faultless Moon Safari was never going to be easy and while 10,000 Hz Legend wasn’t as successful or well-recieved I’ve always had a soft-spot for its willingness to experiment.

Soccer Mommy – Driver

It sounds like the upcoming new album from Soccer Mommy is a bit of a retreat from the production of 2022’s brilliant Sometimes, Forever to a more organic sound and I’m all on board for it.

The Cure – Alone

It seems strange that as we near the end of 2024 I’m still enjoying a new Pearl Jam record, I have pre-orders in place for new records by Smashing Pumpkins, Pixies and The Cure. On the one hand it’s akin to Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones releasing new albums in 1994 which would’ve been pretty much unnoticed by the younger ears of the time, on the other hand I’m bloody loving the fact that so many of my favourites artists are still dropping records and that so many of them are hitting at the same moment. The wait for a new Cure album has been ridiculous but Song Of A Lost World is shaping up strong based on the two songs dropped thus far.

Girls In Hawaii – Flavor

Another album fittingly purchased while in France – the 20th Anniversary edition of Girls In Hawaii’s From Here to There, an album my wife and I listened to on repeat on our first holiday together some 16 years prior and soundtracked plenty of our driving around France at the time. While I’ve enjoyed some of their subsequent albums more, this Belgian band’s upbeat indie vibe is always a fun spin.

Kim Deal – A Good Time Pushed

In some ways it feels mad that we’re only getting a Kim Deal solo album in 2024 but given how many wonderful Pixies, The Breeders, Amps albums we’ve had it’s not like she’s been shirking. Given that she walked from working on new Pixies material it’s not too surprising just how sonically wide-reaching the sound of the songs released ahead of the album are.

Crowded House – Together Alone

I’ve been trying to listen to whole albums at a time again on my commute. Together Alone, the final of Crowded House’s first run of albums and still their finest, has popped up a couple of times. I adore this album’s sound and vibe especially the Maori choir and log drummers on this track.

Pearl Jam – Other Side

Anywho, here’s more Pearl Jam. As much as I’ve been enjoying Dark Matter since its release, I’ve been listening to tunes from their ‘lost’ era – Binaural and Riot Act – lately and Other Side, the other side to ‘Save You’, is a great tune that should’ve made the cut.

Post-rock Monday: new shit has come to light, man

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’….

Before even attempting to catch up here I thought it a good hit of post-rock would be a suitable way to try and blow the cobwebs off just as I employ the genre on a Monday morning to ease the kick in the jewels that the start of the week resembles.

As it happens, there’s been a glut of great new post-rock recently that’s been working its magic in my ears but before we get to that, here’s another wonderfully daft attempt at defining the genre:

“Post-rock is a genre of music characterized by its use of rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, often emphasizing atmosphere, texture, and mood over traditional song structures and lyrics. This style frequently incorporates elements from various genres such as electronic, ambient, and experimental music, resulting in a sound that is expansive and cinematic in nature.”

Hm, much beard-stroking.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Grey Rubble, Green Shoots

Yeah, let’s start it with the biggest of bangs. How good is the new Goodspeed You! album? It’s fucking glorious – it’s vast, grungy, majestic, it’s powerful and sweeping in its scale and, on the few listens I’ve been able to fit in since it dropped on Friday, sits strong in their catalogue. It’s title – No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead – a reference to the number of dead Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Mogwai – God Gets You Back

New Mogwai is always a reason to sit up and pay attention. While the announcement that accompanied the release of new song ‘God Gets You Back’ (another random title) was that of a tour, all signs point to new album to follow and this one manages to feel like a much-desired combination of their soundtrack work with their ‘usual’ sound.

Exxasens – Space Collapse

New Exxassens? Space-themed samples? Thunderous beats? Oh sign me up mate.

Public Service Broadcasting – Arabian Flight

I’m relatively sure you can sneak a chunk of Public Service Broadcasting’s music into this category. While I haven’t jumped on board with every album they’ve done when their combination of predominantly instrumental music to accompany archival samples hits my interests I’m in. Previously this was with Race for Space but their new album The Last Flight – chronicling Amelia Earhart’s final attempt – fits into that category too and has already had a couple of spins here.

Jambinai – once more from that frozen bottom

Not strictly ‘new’ but very new to me as I only recently discovered the South Korean band’s 2022 ep apparation and there’s nothing but love from me for their combination of heavier post-rock with traditional folk instruments.

More midweek spinnage

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Here we are once again at the midway point of the week with the scale starting to tip toward the weekend and, for me, the beginning of holiday season.

With that in mind, here’s what’s been going in the ears this week.

Smashing Pumpkins – Goeth The Fall

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a new Smashing Pumpkins album in the way I have Aghori Mhori Mei in years. Released last week and heralded as one that’ll please the fans of the ’90s stuff and a ‘rock’ record, I’ve gotta say that’s about right. It’s not that good but I’ve been surprised how much I’ve been listening to it and enjoyed to the point of pre-ordering the vinyl.

Air – Kelly Watch The Stars (Edit Version)

While I’m not usually one for picture discs (especially overpriced RSD ones), when this one appeared in my local store’s sale it was an easy decision. Moon Safari is unimpeachable but getting this meant getting hold of the version that was played on MTV back in the day.

The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds

With the exception of Smashing Pumpkins there seems to be a much more mellow edge to everything here. Maybe it’s the build up of CBD but that’s where I’m at lately. I actually caught this one on the radio this weekend and it’s gained a few spins since. I’ve also just discovered that it’s Rickie Lee Jones talking about clouds – the lads in The Orb heard her trippy response to “So what were the skies like when you were young?” in an interview (who the fuck asks that without smoking something first?) and sampled it. After paying her $5,000 for its use first.

Ben Howard – Time Is Dancing

Oh man I played this album so much when it came out I was surprised that the CD still held up when I chucked it in the car this week. It’s coming up for its tenth anniversary – with the prerequisite re-release in special colours / clear / etc – and for me marks the perfect point in Ben Howard’s sound; moving away from the ‘only love’ festival-pleasing acoustic work and embracing the more experimental elements that would enthuse the later albums while still retaining a focus song structure.

Pearl Jam – Force of Nature

Anyway, here’s some more Pearl Jam and another favourite deep(ish) cut from recent times. Backspacer is the only album I’m missing on my record shelves (for some reason it’s not as widely available as other albums) and while not my favourite it has some wonderful tunes on it and I love the shift in this song’s vibe.

It always gets so hard to see, right before the moon – Five from The War On Drugs

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I know I’ve dropped a few tunes from The War on Drugs over the years here yet as I sit here with them in my ears through the day I figured it was time to drop a few more in one place in a more organised manner.

Originally formed when Kurt Vile and Adam Granduciel discovered their mutual obsession with Bob Dylan, the band dropped one album with that initial lineup before Vile’s departure to pursue his own solo career (on completely amicable terms) and a mass exodus of players led to Granduciel recruiting new members and gradually expanding on the band’s sound ahead of the release of 2014’s Lost In The Dream signified a massive shift in both their appeal and sound having arrived at a seemingly perfect combination of grand guitar-driven soundscapes that build and unfold into blissful tunes that combine obvious influences like Dylan and Petty with elements of My Bloody Valentines and Sonic Youth while retaining their own identity. From Lost In The Dream thru I Don’t Live Here Anymore they’d parlay this sound across three pretty-much faultless albums (so far) that inevitably occupy plenty of car stereo time as well as so often proving a mainstay in headphones as the sound manages to feel suited both to the intimate listen as well as creating a sensation of cruising down a clear highway at sunset.

A Needle In Your Eye #16

Debut albums are funny things when looked back on so many years later. Wagon Wheels is very much and album of 2008’s indie-rock feel and more heavily indebted to Vile and Granduciel’s love of Dylan than anything else with the band’s name on. While there’s plenty to enjoy Only ‘A Needle In Your Eye #16’ (I’m guessing the numbering of songs as ‘versions’ is another nod to Bob) is a real standout for me .

Brothers

Originally a longer tune on the Future Weather EP the version on second album Slave Ambient manages to retain the song’s vibe but bringing it into a tighter arrangement that – like a lot of songs on the album including the wonderful ‘Come to the City’ – feel like a clear transition is underway as Granduciel refines his sound.

An Ocean In Between The Waves

One of many highlights from 2014’s Lost In The Dream

Pain

A Deeper Understanding is another of those albums I can cue up and just let… flow. Adding a little more grit to the tone of Lost In The Dream, I love the sound of the guitars across the album and ‘Pain’ builds to a point that just lets these go.

Victim

It would be daft to repeat the same formula over and over and so, just as A Deeper Understanding adds to Lost In The Dream‘s sound, 2021’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore still contains just as many long burn, slow builders while adding a few more electronic elements and drum loops into the mix, bright sounding synths and upbeat tempos all wrapped-up in a mix that highlights the ‘morning in America’ era FM sound that manages to sound both reverential and fresh. There’s also plenty of lush guitar tones and scorchers too.

Another midweek spinnage

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Slipping seamlessly into the middle of another week with an eye firmly on the approaching weekend like a desert oasis…. here’s another selection of those tunes that have been gaining traction this week.

Pixies – Chicken

As the Pixies prepare to drop album ten (with bass player number four) The Night The Zombies Came, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the vibe of the single (do they still call it that? Is asking ‘do they still call it that?’ a signifier that I’m old?) they released this week, it’s a little different to their usual flavour but, as with the vast majority of things Frank Black, I’m here for it.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – First Flash of Freedom

I’ve been giving Mojo a good bit of attention recently. I didn’t when it came out but after a few tracks came up on shuffle I’ve lined the whole album up for my commute a couple of times and while there are a few duds (someone really needed to have nuked ‘Don’t Pull Me Over’), if you trim those out there’s a more concise and close-to-perfect album there. The blues-based, jammier style they tapped into for their last pair of albums fitted them perfectly.

Muna – Anything But Me

Sitting there waiting for a tire to be changed the other day I caught a tune on the radio that I could’ve sworn I knew. It was this, and I did – having enjoyed their self-titled album in 2022 but failing to have listened much beyond that until hearing it again this last week. Sometimes there’s just so much to listen to that I feel more slips through the cracks than gets the attention it deserves. I think I read that Muna‘s singer has got a solo record about to drop too.

Slowdive – Cath The Breeze

Slowdive’s gorgeous 1991 debut Just For A Day – pressed on a nice translucent red marble vinyl – arrived in the post on Monday and I’ve since been covering myself in a lush blanket of shoegaze.

David Gilmour – The Piper’s Call

Due to arrive in the post at some point in the second half of this year, David Gilmour’s upcoming album Luck and Strange is touted as taking a different approach in production values with younger hands at the helm that weren’t in thrall to his legacy and the ‘deluxe’ sound that’s been slapped on all things Gilmour / Floyd since the ’90s. ‘The Piper’s Call’ is a pretty strong tune and Gilmour’s guitar, as always, is definitely worth tuning in for.

Mdou Moctar – Oh, France

Two thoughts here. One: I haven’t seen Mdou Moctar’s fucking PHENOMENAL Funeral for Justice in any where enough mentions for ‘best albums of the year so far’ conversations and B: I’m heading off to France for a couple of weeks in a couple of weeks – timed to slip between the Olympics and hopefully avoid too much faff. Three: this song is a fucking belter.

Pearl Jam – In Hiding

Anyway, here’s some Pearl Jam. ‘In Hiding’ is one of those beloved deep cuts for me – while my battles with the black dog of depression continue it’s lines like ‘No longer overwhelmed and it seems so simple now, it’s funny when things change so much it’s all state of mind’ to a tune like this that help me up just enough.

Midweek Spinnage

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Been a while… again. Without further mumbling, it feels like a good ‘get over the mid-week slump’ exercise to share half a dozen of those things that’ve been getting into my ears this last week or so.

Wilco – Either Way

I’ve been slowly but shortly putting together and whittling down a list of what I would consider to be 100 albums that are essential to me – in a way revisiting a list I put together some sixteen years ago. I haven’t mentioned them much here, if it all, but Wilco are a wonderful band and their Sky Blue Sky is definitely on that list. It’s easily their finest album and I love this tune especially.

Gary Clark Jr – Bright Lights

Listening to the iPod on shuffle in the car can often mean a few tracks get skipped but whenever a tune from Gary Clark Jr’s Live comes on I’ll end up turning shuffle off and lining up the full album. I’ve been spending more time with his studio discography lately and his 2011 Bright Lights EP is a favourite and this is a hell of an earworm.

Larkin Poe – Preachin’ Blues

Across the summer, the park behind my house hosts a number of festivals and concerts. This weekend past was the ‘Maid in Stone’ festival which veered towards the hard rock / metal crowd. On our usual evening walk on Sunday, the cub and I were lucky enough to get there just as Larkin Poe kicked off their set and so sat under a tree a few yards from the stage – while not within the festival grounds – and got to enjoy a solid slab of the great stuff.

The National – Fake Empire

I added Boxer to the vinyl shelves this weekend (in a nice yellow hue) and hearing this made me harken back to a time that – while not all that long ago – seems like a lifetime ago in terms of political news from a former colony.

Bruce Springsteen – Rockaway the Days

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Springsteen’s monster Born In The USA. Understandably, given how he’s since shared his dissatisfaction with the grab-bag nature of it, if not sadly, we’re not getting anything to celebrate the milestone beyond a coloured version of the record with a few extra photos in the liner. No The Promise or Ties That Bind revisit. Which is a shame for, as I’ve already covered in a three-parter, there were multiple versions of the album and a bounty of songs that were recorded and discarded before the final album emerged. While getting those out into the air wouldn’t necessarily cause a reevaluation of the album, it would certainly be great to get them all collected into one place and show that the scale of Springsteen’s vision at the time went far beyond the twelve tracks that kickstarted his Rambo era of stadium domination.

Pearl Jam – Wishing Well

They may have cancelled their London show at the last minute but I’m still spinning Pearl Jam on any day ending in ‘y’. This cover – from 2015’s Christmas single – has cropped up a few times lately and is still worth a listen.