Friday Night Music Club Vol 29

And we’re back in the room.

So after (almost) a week off, I was going to do a mix of stuff I saw (on TV) at Glastonbury last weekend, but I figured there’s probably more who didn’t attend the Mother of All Festivals may read this than did, and you’re probably as sick of hearing how amazing it was from those who were lucky enough to be there as I am, so instead I looked around to see what was happening in the world, and realised that next week it’s 4th July, a day of great signifigance to our special relationship (but not when striking up trade deals – can’t say we weren’t warned, eh?) buddies over the Atlantic.

So, I figured I’d do a mix to celebrate all things American. Well, almost all things. I mean, I’m not about to celebrate the emboldening of the far right, or the next/latest mass shooting. Nosireebob, as our Yankee friends say (possibly). Rather, tonight we’ll be celebrating (almost) all things American and musical.

Unfortunately the old Gregorian calendar hasn’t seen fit to let this fall on a Friday this year, preferring to plop it down on Tuesday, right in the middle between Fridays. The question is: Friday before, or Friday after?

There’s only one way to find out:

No, of course not. The answer is obviously the Friday before, or it will seem like an afterthought and, moreover, can’t be played by either person who wants to listen to it on the big day.

And don’t worry: I’m not going to resort to lazy stereotypes by making cheap jokes about Americans being stupid and obese, because that simply isn’t true (obese means fat, by the way), in the same way that all French folk aren’t cheese easting surrender-monkeys who wear berets, stripey jumpers nor do they have onions permanently draped around their necks; English folks don’t all wear bowler hats, speak like they have a plum in their mouth and are definitely not sexually repressed (I wear a titfer, don’t you know); Germans don’t…ah, let’s not, eh?

So no jokes of that nature here. This is a celebration.

So here you go, America. I hope you enjoy this:

Friday Night Music Club Vol 29

And here’s your tracklisting and yes, I’ve actually bothered with sleevenotes this week:

1. John Mellencamp – R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.

“Hello? Is that Trading Standards? I’d like to report a rock star purporting to be a camp melon, and he is clearly neither.”

I love this record. Genuinely, I do. It tells how musicians in the 50s and 60s rose up to create modern music as we know it now. It also contains a roll-call of American artists (“There was Frankie Lyman, Bobby Fuller, Mitch Ryder (They were rockin’)/Jackie Wilson-Shangra-Las-Young Rascals (They were rockin’)/Spotlight on Martha Reeves, Let’s don’t forget James Brown”) and this simplified narrowing down my extremely long list of acts who should be in this mix, as all those named are now immediately precluded from appearing later in this playlist, because as any mix-tape/playlist maker worth their salt knows, the same artist cannot appear twice in the same mix/playlist. So, cheers Mr Camp-Melons, you just made this a whole lot easier!

2. Bangles – Hazy Shade of Winter

The easiest way to include as many American artists as possible in this just-shy-of-an-hour mix, in which it is of course impossible to include everything, was to include a few US acts covering other US acts. And so here we are with the Bangles frankly breath-taking romp through Simon & Garfunkel’s tune.

Oh, and as is compulsory round these parts: *sighs* oh, Susanna! Still looking great in her *checks notes* sixties (!). I’m 53. Perhaps she’d enjoy a younger man, even if it is one riddled with a skin complaint and arthritis. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. Ready and waiting if required Susanna!

3. The Black Crowes – Hard to Handle

More cover version shenanigans with this Otis Redding tune given the Southern Rock work out. They never sounded as good as they do here again.

4. The Long Ryders – Looking For Lewis And Clark

Before I knew anything much about American history, I’d always assumed this was about the DC Comics alter-ego of Superman and his sort-of girlfriend, deliberately mis-spelt to avoid copyright issues. I was wrong, of course. The titular Lewis & Clark are in fact Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, best known for the Corps of Discovery, an expedition from the Mississippi River to the West Coast and back, between May 1804 and September 1806. Look it up yourself if you want to know more, what am I, your teacher?

5. The Georgia Satellites – Battleship Chains

Tune. That is all.

6. The Hooters – Satellite

An excellent satirical swipe at the evangelical right and all they promise in return for as large a donation as you can possibly afford. And if you can’t afford, send it anyway. God will love you more. As will their pockets.

Incidentally, despite much research, I’ve not been able to establish if this lot are called The Hooters because they all have big noses, or comical car horns, or all used to work in a bar where tight-fitting t-shirts are the uniform (so I’m told). Probably none of the above, if I’m honest.

7. The Rainmakers – Let My People Go-Go

More (anti) biblical stuff here. My love of this record is well-documented (on these pages), so I’ll not wang on about how great it is this time out. (It is though.)

8. Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl

For my money, one of the finest forbidden/unrequited rock songs ever. So there.

9. The Strokes – New York City Cops

This isn’t on the US version of 2001’s debut album Is This It?,  replaced with the far-inferior track When It Started on the American CD edition following the September 11 attacks due to its lyrics regarding the New York City Police Department. Attacking heroes does not lead to a long career.

10. Nirvana – On A Plain

This lot should be massive, and will be as long as the lead singer and songwriter doesn’t do anything stupid, like shoot his own face off after releasing the band’s Difficult Third Album.

Seriously though, were it not for this band then Dave Grohl wouldn’t have had as much fun at Glastonbury as he clearly did, so…y’know….little victories….

11. R.E.M. – Little America

You didn’t really think I’d get through a playlist of America’s finest without featuring this lot, did you? As with many of Stipe’s early lyrics, I’ve no idea what he’s singing about, but I assume from the title it’s a swipe at some of his fellow countryfolk.

12. The B-52s – Roam

The follow-up to the absolutely massive world-wide smasheroo Love Shack, and nowhere near as massive commercially, is still much loved around Dubious Towers. Suck it up.

13. Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road

Mr Blue Collar himself, included because a) is there an act more representative of the average American? and b) to please long-term reader George, who *coughs* is a massive fan of Brooce’s work….

14. Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood – Summer Wine

Had I not done an emergency post last weekend about Lana Del Rey, then she would have featured here. Instead, something by the woman who has clearly been a massive influence (she’s even covered this one).

15. Pearl Jam – Daughter

Pearl Jam in not-posted-immedately-after-Nirvana-tune shocker!

Forgive me, something about posting a song which contains the words “Don’t call me daughter” immediately after a song by the daughter of one of the most famous Americans ever tickled me somehow.

16. The Go-Go’s – Our Lips Are Sealed

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this record, co-penned by Go-Go Jane Weidlin and Special Terry Hall, is one of the greatest pop singles ever. Period.

17. Aretha Franklin – I Say A Little Prayer

Speaking of The Greatest: Aretha is the greatest singer ever to grace this world. Right? (Right!)

That’s yer lot. More soon.

Late Night Stargazing

I wasn’t going to post anything at all this weekend, preferring to indulge myself in the BBC’s wall-to-wall coverage of Glastonbury. Nothing personal.

But I’ve just watched a set which deserves a mention.

Well, half a set as it turned out.

Saturday night’s headline slot on The Other Stage belonged to Lana Del Rey. When she finally appeared she looked gorgeous in a white silk wedding dress, trimmed to a mini-skirt, and her set was incredible, cinematic, beautifully staged, and shaping up to be a classic.

Until it was cut short.

See, there’s strict curfew rules at Glastonbury for the live acts; carry on too long and your set gets stopped at the stroke of midnight. Unfortunately, nobody told Lana this or if they did, she didn’t believe them. You’ll have noticed I used the word “finally” to describe the moment her set started; she was at least 25 minutes late. She had the good grace to apologise; her hair takes a long time to get just right apparently.

Mid-way through what turned out to be a shorter set than planned, somebody must have given her the news. She announced they wouldn’t be changing the setlist at all, would carry on as planned, even if they pulled the plug.

Then, just before midnight, as one song ended, she could be heard directing her band and dancers that they’d skip the next song and go to…well, I couldn’t make out which one. Give it a minute until everyone was in position, she said.

And that was the last we heard from her, as her mic was cut.

But that wasn’t the end, as she somehow managed to conduct the crowd in a rendition of Video Games before she went down to the front row, held hands, spoke to and posed for selfies with the predominantly young female crowd, all of whom clearly adore Lana, before leading them all in a sing-a-long of the appropriately-named Summertime Sadness.

Not the ending anyone wanted, sure, but probably the best possible outcome for that young crowd, some of whom were in tears. The only person who looked happy was the Dad who could finally lower his daughter from his shoulders.

It was an incredible watch from start to premature finish. I would recommend catching it on the BBC iPlayer if you can, but not if you want to hear either Video Games or Summertime Sadness, and you should want to because they’re both wonderful records. (It’s worth a watch anyway.)

But you can hear them here:

Lana Del Rey – Video Games

Lana Del Rey – Summertime Sadness

More soon.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

This week, a song by an old favourite of the blog, and who penned the song that this series is named after.

Kris Kristofferson is rightly lauded for his skills as a story-teller, and few of his songs are more perfect examples of his craft than this, from 1971’s The Silver Tongued Devil and I:

Kris Kristofferson – Jody and The Kid

More soon.

Late Night Stargazing

I’d like to say that I’d been asked, but that wouldn’t be true, so I occasionally wonder if people wonder why this series is called what it is. Very long term visitors may recall the reason, but I would think the majority do not. So, I’ll explain.

Many years ago, when living in rented accommodation, as a smoker I had to go outside to partake and quell my nicotine urges. I would take my trusty iPod with me, go out into the garden, pop my earphones in, spark up, and spend a few moments looking up at the stars, listening to whatever tunes my iPod chose to give me.

After a while of it giving me stuff like Rage Against The Machine, or AC/DC, which is just fine in a much different scenario, I decided to – and this will shock you – put together a playlist of songs which were a more suitable soundtrack for such meditative moments.

Generally, these would be acoustic tracks, with the occasional one which I’d describe as “a glorious cacophony of noise” thrown in for good measure (see Radiohead’s Cuttooth as an example, which I posted here) but more often than not tunes here would fall into the category of (what used to be referred to as) “chill out”: down-tempo electronica, sometimes bleepy, sometimes less so.

Tonight’s choice falls into the latter category. Most of you will know it already, I suspect; for those of you that don’t, give this, from 2010’s Swim album, a whirl:

Caribou – Odessa

More soon.

Friday Night Music Club Vol 5.4

Yup, it’s that time of week again, and many of you will be delighted to hear this is the last time we’ll be doing admin, by which I mean revisiting a tediously-long older mix, splitting it down and spicing it up into a series of shorter (around 60 minutes, give or take) mixes. Hoorah!

And, as you may have gathered from that gif up there, this week’s edition is very much one which will hopefully have a fair few of you singing along, preferably a few sheets to the wind. There’s even one where you can properly test your memory of the lyrics, or make your own up if you prefer. I don’t have to listen to you, so fill your boots.

As usual, it’s a right old time-and-space busting edition, with stuff from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s..in fact – and be warned, you should be sitting down when you read this next bit – there are even two songs which were released post-2020. I know! Something that could be described as modern! Here! On this blog! Who’d have thunk it?

Hopefully that’s whet your appetite, so without further ado, let’s get going shall we?

Friday Night Music Club Vol 5.4

And here’s your tracklisting (no sleeve notes again this week, I’ve just not had time, sorry!):

1. Billy Bragg – Lovers Town Revisted
2. An Emotional Fish – Celebrate
3. Arcade Fire – Everything Now
4. Teenage Fanclub – Everything Flows (‘Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It’ version)
5. Kirsty MacColl – A New England
6. The Long Blondes – Once And Never Again
7. Nik Kershaw – Wide Boy
8. Hall & Oates – Maneater
9. Miley Cyrus – Angels Like You
10. Dua Lipa – We’re Good
11. Cheap Trick – If You Want My Love
12. Paul McCartney & Wings – Jet
13. Belinda Carlisle – Leave A Light On
14. Janis Joplin – Me & Bobby McGee
15. The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset (Session Excerpt – Backing Track Take Two)
16. Blur – The Universal

There won’t be an edition of Friday Night Music Club next Friday, as I imagine many of you will be at, or watching, Glastonbury (I’ll be doing the latter, sadly).

But there will be more soon.

More soon. (See?)

The 100 Greatest UK Number 1 Singles #87

Here we go again, plodding my way through these, cursing the yoke I placed on my own shoulders when I embarked on this series.

Here’s what The Guardian had to say about the record they place at #87:

“Every part of Adamski’s production is perfectly designed: the sad chords, the funkily interrupted alien transmission of the synths, the prodding bassline with its edges almost imperceptibly corroded by acid. Most beautiful of all is Seal: half activist, half oracle.”

I’m not sure I have anything much to add to that, except to say that Killer is a great squelching stomper, and I think it’s fair to say that neither Adamski nor Seal ever got anywhere near matching it’s utter brilliance again.

Also: this should be a lot higher in the list than #87.

Adamski – Killer

More soon.

Tuesday Short Song

I think I need to save then copy and paste the words “It’s been a while since I did one of these…”.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I did one of these, so it seems only right that my first sub-two minutes post in yonks should be an utter classic:

Wire – Three Girl Rhumba

Of course, it’s nigh on impossible to mention that song without making the…erm…connection to the song which it…er…inspired is probably the most diplomatic way to describe it:

Elastica – Connection

More soon.

New Mood on Monday

It’s been a while since I posted an uplifting song to kick off the week, and truth be told, I wasn’t expecting to post something by eels in this series at all, let alone in the first post in yonks.

See, eels, brilliant though they are, are not exactly renowned for making cheerful, upbeat records. And the title of today’s choice, lifted from 2005’s double album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.

But check it out. I dare say you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

eels – Losing Streak

More soon.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Glory be, former Rilo Kiley front lady Jenny Lewis is back with a new album, Joy’All.

Here’s the opening track, which pretty much sets the standard for the rest of the album (which is, needless to say, reliably terrific):

Jenny Lewis – Psychos

Joy’All is available to buy or stream from the usual places. Go do it. You won’t be disappointed.

More soon.

Late Night Stargazing

Mention of Underworld in a rather sad post last week led me to revisit their back catalogue, where I alighted on their Beacoup Fish album, and their song Jumbo, which seemed perfectly suited for a posting here.

And I was right, and I know this because it turns out I’d already posted it, here. The link still works if you fancy giving it a listen.

Which left me a bit scuppered as to what to post tonight. Luckily, I have an ever-expanding playlist on my iTunes for this series; as and when they occur to me, I often drop new tunes into it for such occasions as this. It’s always good to have a back-up plan.

So this isn’t by Underworld, but it is by The equally-brilliant-if-not-better Chemical Brothers. It’s a beautifully woozy affair, and it has the added bonus of a simply gorgeous vocal by Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval. And if that’s not enticing enough to make you give it a listen, then I don’t think I can save you.

The Chemical Brothers – Asleep from Day

More soon.