slowdive

We should have kept it every Thursday, Thursday Thursday in the afternoon…. for a couple of spins

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Never fear, readers of the blog world! I am here to put your mind at rest on multiple fronts: yes, I’m still about; yes, I’m going to answer that burning question ‘what the fuck has he been listening to?’; yes, you’ve made it to the ‘good’ list and Santa shall be dropping gifts beneath your tree; no, the Right will not win forth; YES, you have just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, legendary E STREET BAND!

Well.. at least some of those, ok?

Life, being monumentally busy with work, health, DIY projects… all of these things have conspired to keep my fingers away from pushing ‘new post’ but music has continued to throb through my ears at various decibels throughout.

On a side note, I spent last year’s festive period absorbing ‘Get Back’ at leisure whereas this year looks set to be spent soaking in the joy of Lee Child’s famous one-man-army being perfectly captured by Amazon with the second season of ‘Reacher’ providing a pleasing counterpoint to the usual fluff on at that time of year:

So aside from a lot of Bruce (as I work on another longer-form Boss Post), what do I want to share today? Here are a few nuggets you can take or leave….

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul – Inside of Me

It’s not Bruce but it’s definitely connected…. I’ve just got underway with Stevie Van Zandt’s book ‘Unrequited Passions’ and while I’m a way off I’m looking forward to getting his take on his departure from the E Street Band. Everything I’ve read indicates it was down to Van Zandt looking for more of a creative partnership whereas Springsteen wasn’t looking for that level of input. Given that Miami/Little Steve was already in the progress of making Men Without Women at the time the ‘now or never’ feeling to step out and try it alone proved too strong. I’ve yet to delve too deep into Van Zandt’s solo work but I’ve been giving that first album a lot of time this week. There’s some great lines in this one: “There was a moment in time, we could almost taste the adventure every day. Now I know that we’re a little bit older
but that don’t mean there’s nothing new left to say”

New Dad – Nightmares

In my efforts to stop myself turning into a guy in his mid 40s and paraphrasing Homer ‘they stopped making good music in 1996′ I keep trying to find new music that gets my feet boppin’. New Dad are exactly one of those newer acts that just tick a whole lot of boxes for me. They’ve been dropping great individual tunes over the last year or so with their debut album primed to drop early doors next year and no doubt going straight into my slightly-less-stuffed record shelves*.

Slowdive – Kisses

We’re already into that time of the year when everyone is publishing those ‘Best XXX of 2023’** lists and there’s been a lot of great albums. Slowdive’s Everything Is Alive is just one of those but it’s had a seemingly constant presence in the rotation list since its release.

H.E.R & Foo Fighters – The Glass

I had no clue as to who H.E.R was until I caught her collab with the Foos on SNL and then saw her mentioned when Music Enthusiast put Rolling Stones’s ‘fucking fiasco’ of a 250 Top Guitarists List on blast. As we’re talking great albums of the year I’m as surprised as anyone that Foo Fighters would make that list for me in 2023 as anyone else but But Here We Are is worthy of that place and this is a great take on one of its cuts.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Bitch, I Love You

Some time ago I got lost down one of those Spotify rabbit holes while delving into blues-rock and ‘artists like’ stuff and found Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears and stuck around to explore and enjoy. This is the kind of love song that should get more play – though I don’t think I’d try singing this to my wife at any point+.

F.J McMahon – The Spirit of the Golden Juice

A couple of months ago we popped over to Amiens and grabbed a copy of Mojo en route. I’ll often pick up one music mag or another a month these days but the ‘Buried Treasure’ cd on this one caught my fancy and F.J McMahon’s ‘The Spirit of the Golden Juice’ really stood out.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying his album of the sam name since. It’s one of those glorious ‘mystery’ albums (much like Solid Oak’s Top Drawer) in that since being pressed in a small run in 1969 it and F.J disappeared without making an impact. I read recently that, frustrated at diminishing returns in a crowded scene, F.J headed to Hawaii on a friend’s advice but gave up after realising he’d ended up a covers act / juke box for tourists and walked away from music. He joined the Navy and got training and a career as a field computer engineer. His record, meanwhile, was becoming something of much-loved cult classic and, once it was rereleased properly back in 2017, found a much more appreciative audience than it had fifty years earlier.

*upgraded storage not ditching any wax

**XXX as insert here rather than “step bro, what are you doing?”

+Not more than once that is

Thursday now, that’s such a crazy, lazy day…. current spins

/ Tony / 13 Comments

A whole month between posts…. this is getting pretty sporadic to say the best.

Thursday is a pretty good day really – the weekend is just a nad hair away and it’s time to load up on caffeine and hit up Mr Fyfe’s weekly quiz. It also feels like a good moment to cast an eye / ear over what I’ve been enjoying of late.

Pearl Jam – In My Tree (Live at Melbourne Park)

Record Store Day this year was a bit of a non-starter for me. I spent a couple of weeks of this last month barely able to walk thanks to severe knee pain – caused by what turned out to be something called a Baker’s Cyst* – so the notion of getting up at a dirty time of the morning and standing for hours was ruled out. Thankfully the one thing I had my eye on wasn’t this year’s big draw – seems like Pearl Jam aren’t as popular with RSD crowds as Taylor Swift or The 1975 – and I was able to wander down at a much more human time of 11am and find plenty of them left.

Give Way – the sign used in place of Yield in most places outside of the States especially Australia – is a live album that’s long been sought after. It was originally prepped for CD release as a freebie for early purchases of their ‘Single Video Theory’ but minds were changed at the last minute and 55,000 copies were ordered destroyed. Some escaped the cull and became massively valuable. Twenty five years later as part of Yield‘s anniversary (one of their finest and ranked fourth in my list way back when) and the concert – recorded March 5th in Melbourne Park – was unleashed for RSD.

A live Pearl Jam album is always worth wrapping your ears around and this one is another brilliant addition to their already strong selection – it’s a real showcase for Jack Irons’ drumming and the vibe his looser drumming style bought to the band. Sadly the run in Australia would be Jack’s last as he was battling a lot of mental health issues behind the scenes and would soon announce his decision to part ways with the band following the tour – he’d be replaced on the Yield tour by Matt Cameron, documented on Live on Two Legs.

Paul Westerberg – Mannequin Shop

My son is building up a Spotify list of his ‘favourites’ – though this is more any song that takes his fancy. We recently caught ‘Waiting for Somebody’ in the car and it made me dig out Westerberg’s 14 Songs for a spin – it’s still a solid listen but it’s the delightful take on the plastic surgery of the early ’90s that has been stuck in my head since. Much in the same way as I wonder how the writer of ‘Answering Machine’ would feel about today’s lack of real communication I’d have to wonder how Mr Westerberg would feel about the state of enhanced vanity in 2023. Unfortunately though, Paul seems to have gone to ground again.

Adé – Insomnies

I popped over the channel again this weekend past for a couple of days and have been keeping an ear to RTL2 since both to assist with the language learning and the variety of music – it seems hard to find a station here that plays as genuine a variety (though their obsession with Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran gets annoying) . Last summer I heard Adé’s ‘Tout Savoir’ a lot and, this trip, it seems that her song ‘Insomnies’ is the current radio player and another I’ve been enjoying.

Daughter – Be On Your Way

Daughter’s new album Stereo Mind Game is bloody good. Gorgeous sounds and arrangements with Elena Tonra’s vocals breathing through an album of lush shoegaze / moody indie-rock vibe.

Slowdive – When the Sun Hits

Speaking of lush shoegaze… I picked up Slowdive’s Souvlaki recently and have spent many a glorious spin lost in the warm blanket of sound it generates.

Silver Moth – The Eternal

One of those albums I hit pre-order on as soon as it was announced – Silver Moth are a band formed out of a few online conversations during the pandemic. Only members Stuart Braithwiate (of Mogwai) and his wife Elizabeth Elektra had met before they hit the studio on a remote Scottish island and recorded Black Bay in just eight days. It’s a bloody strong album – a multilayered beast of slow-burning yet immediate songs that combine its members’ shoegaze** and post-rock dynamics with two vocalists who’s vocals find a place between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser.

Faith No More – Epic

Another one of those ‘hey, if you like this one, check this out’ conversations with the cub after picking up a 7″ of ‘Easy / Be Aggressive’ recently. There’s very little like this and it remains a fucking awesome tune some (gulp) thirty four years later.

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Texas Flood

Texas Flood is forty years old this year, which is as little a reason as I need to have been giving this one some attention.

*whether this is something first experience by a chap called Baker or those spend their time kneading dough develop the issue I don’t know.

**third and final mention.

It was that Wednesday when the storm was sinkin’ low… some mid-week tunes

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Here we are on week eighteen of January and it feels like a suitable moment to take stock on what – in between sunning myself on tropical shores and spending my money on fast women and slow horses – I’ve been punishing my ears with this last week or so.

Camp Cope – Caroline

I’d seen Camp Cope’s 2022 album Running With The Hurricane crop up on a few ‘best of year’ lists recently and have spent this week hooked on it. It’s absolute cracker.

Alexi Murdoch – Through The Dark

Occasionally I’ll flick on an episode of something while I’m chewing down my lunch (usually in between the second and third meat courses while the servants are refilling the wine). I recently flicked on an episode of ‘House’ in which this song featured and I found myself captivated by it – in a way it recalls those moody acoustic bruisers that Pearl Jam would drop in their middle period.

Laura Cox – So Long

‘Half English – half French, 100% Rock n Roll’ is how Laura Cox describes herself. All I know is I’ve been digging her new album of late – she fits into that blues rock vibe with a nice meaty tone.

Tori Amos – Pretty Good Year

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Tori Amos’ first couple of albums since 1357’s appraisal of Little Earthquakes and they’ve both been rereleased in pretty coloured vinyl packages recently too. My cassette versions of them are holding up ok so I’m not about to drop coin on replacing them but there’s genuine gold in those albums. Related question: does anyone burn cds anymore?

Russian Circles – Ethel

The whole Memorials album is strong but there’s something so transportive about ‘Ethel’ that it’s a regular player on my Post-Rock playlist. I know, even as a lover of the genre, some post-rock tunes can hang around longer than an unwanted politician but this one is in, out, done in just four minutes of brilliance.

Slowdive – Slomo

Speaking of transportive…. I’v played Slowdive’s Slowdive more times than I can count since it joined my collection at the tail end of 2021 and it was only a week or so ago that, when slipping the lp back into the sleeve, I realised it had a download code in there. Since then it’s been on the regular in the car too – there’s something immediately soothing about ‘Slomo’ in particular that makes it as an ideal to cue up for the drive home as it does chilling out at home after a hard day’s drinking and hitting the pipe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHY2w9NO57Y

Tracks: Bluebird of Happiness

/ Tony / 7 Comments

According to search results various, the bluebird has been a ‘harbinger of happiness’ for thousands of years. Said bird reminds us not to lose hope in the face of an adversary and not to let go of the joy even in the direst times. Lovely stuff.

For me, Mojave 3’s ‘Bluebird of Happiness’ is one of those magic songs. You know; one of those songs that connects on a different level to other tunes, automatically fires of an emotional response for reasons you may never fully understand and, frankly, probably don’t need to.

“Who are Mojave 3?” I hear imagine you asking. After the critical spin and uppercut that felled the shoegaze scene* the ridiculously wonderful Slowdive were dropped by Creation just a week after the release of their fifth album, Pygmalion** -also ridiculously wonderful. Members Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon switched direction a little, following the more ambient leanings Halstead’s writing was already taking and throwing dream pop with a bit of folk and country rock into the mix. By the time of the band’s fourth album Spoon and Rafter in 2003 they’d added keyboard player Alan Forrester and ex-Chapterhouse guitarist Simon Rowe and were leaning more into dream pop/alt-country elements with a sound not a million miles away from Mercury Rev.

Neil Halstead – as borne out by his solo work as well as Slowdive and Mojave 3 – is a songwriter who places emphasis on arrangements and layers. Spoon and Rafter is full of examples of just this approach but no song more so than the 9:15 opus ‘Bluebird of Happiness’ with its multiple parts gently transitioning into each other, Halstead’s vocals remaining calm and measured against a mesmerising backdrop that at turns rises to guitar-driven chorus and falls back to piano lead reflective chill.

Anyway, back to that magic stuff… From the second I hear those opening ambient sounds (there are some birds in there, some whispered vocals) and piano notes I feel a sense of calm wash over me and when those nine minutes and fifteen seconds are up I feel lighter and at peace, if only for a little while. I don’t think you could ask for more from a song, really.

Mojave 3 would release one further album – 2006’s Puzzles Like You – before dropping into hiatus for a couple of years ahead of a touring comeback in 2011 though any music they may have recorded after that has yet to see the light of day. Halstead and Goswell both kept busy with solo work until Slowdive reunited in 2014 with a new album following in 2017*** and another currently in the works.

* Fuck you, Britpop.

**Spun at least once a week on my turntable

***Also, you’ve guessed it, ridiculously wonderful.