Showing posts with label #SongsYouveNeverHeard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #SongsYouveNeverHeard. Show all posts

Saturday 8 September 2018

Eno Collaboration


I was going to write this yesterday but with Burt Reynolds (see last post) leaving us I thought that more appropriate. Anyway I have been listening to a lot of Half Man Half Biscuit this week and started with "And Some Fell On Stony Ground" through "Achtung Bono" to "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road".

The first album is is an excellent ragbag collection of non album songs including a banjo driven version of "Trumpton Riots" retitled (appropriately) "On Finding The Studio Banjo".

However it also contains the single version of "Eno Collaboration" and the last album contains, well,  the album version. Nigel Blackwell's dexterity with lyrical apposition is so brilliant on this singalong classic that I had to share it with you as one of the #SongsYouveNeverHeard and if you take the time to listen to it you will love it. Lines like:

"I know Bono and he knows Ono and she knows Eno’s phone goes thus:
Brian’s not at home, he’s at the North Pole
but if you’d like to leave a weird noise”

You can read the full lyrics here.

Enjoy your Saturday everybody

Thursday 6 September 2018

Nothing Succeeds Like A Toothless Budgie


A favourite line of a decent maths teacher of man "Pop" Moulding but also the sort of line you would expect to hear in a Half Man Half Biscuit somg. I do find it interesting how when you listen to one album by a band you want to follow it with another by them. I was listening to "And Some Fell On Stony Ground", a collection of odds and sods which is still hugely entertaining with gems like "Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes", "Hair Like Brian May Blues", "Blood on the Quad" and culminating in the hilarious thirty seconds that is "Vatican Broadside".

This made me think , how do radio stations check songs for offensiveness, does someone have to listen to them and check the lyrics or do they have software to do it. I once got banned from Yahoo for sharing "Vatican Broadside" because Slipknot fans complained about it!

Listening to that made me follow it up with "Achtung Bono" which must be up there with their best, every song is funny and brilliant. "Bogus Official" doesnt start promisingly but soon picks up and it contains the wonderful "Joy Division Oven Gloves". I could list every song on here as being brilliant but I seriously suggest you get yourself a copy of the album. Also including "Vatican Broadside probably includes this in the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence.

You will have  abig smile on your face and who can ask for more than that from the Bards of Birkenhead.

Sunday 2 September 2018

Jah Live


This shows just how easily I am distracted. I switched on the radio this morning and Mary Ann Hobbs was playing Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier". This threw my mind back to the mid seventies, when after getting into Bob Marley and The Wailers through seeing their performances of "Stir It Up" and "I Shot The Sheriff" on The Old Grey Whistle Test and buying the absolutely sublime live single "No Woman, No Cry" I must have heard on John Peel, there were few other music sources at the time though Johnny Walker and Alan Freeman played good stuff, put he played "Jah Live" which I had to have.

The 'B' side was "Concrete" , "Jah Live" in Dub so I've included that as well.

This was fairly difficult to track down though my DJ friend John Allan who had a record shop at Lane Ends, Preston managed to source me a copy. He was an absolutely top man but I believe died in a road accident. Any I used to often exasperate him with hard to get singles that I'd heard and maybe I might try and get a copy on vinyl as reggae and ska do lend themselves to playing on vinyl.

I know this is a short post, and if Mary Ann hand't played that song I wouldn't have written it, but it is a chance to hear a Bob Marley song that you have probably never heard.

I have a walk to Wylam to do, you enjoy your Sunday my good friends.


Saturday 1 September 2018

I Was Going To Write A Poem Today


Of course I'm not exactly a writer, not even close but several lines came to mind and this is a snippet

Fat bloke on a mobility scooter
Wheezing as he lights a second tab
Moaning and coughing 
As he tries to hail a cab
The "Sorry Not in Services Bus" 
That almost mows you down
These are everyday things
You see when you hit the Town

I'm surprised I remembered that much, but I've written it down now, and these are the dangers of wandering around the Clayton Street / Newgate Street area on a Saturday morning.

I've been quite amazed how hot it was this afternoon almost like Summer had invaded Autumn like when Winter invaded Spring and Summer. As I say to people , Weather is Complicated.

Darkness is falling and the nights are drawing in though I'm not sure what tomorrow might bring, probably more good weather, which is always a good thing.

I'll leave you with "The Aubergine That Ate Rangoon"  from Hawkwind's "Astounding Sounds,Amazing Music" album, a bit of laid back mental music that actually fits with the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence.

The title is a steal from "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" a title that I knew and thought it was a book or play, but is actually another song by Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band and was actually penned by Norman Greenbaum of "Spirit In The Sky" fame. So that's a song that I have never heard and may be sharing it with you tomorrow.

Just had a quick listen on Amazon preview and it's about an Alien Invasion and fairly close to a jug band versionSheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" so I won't be sharing it with you tomorrow.

Sleep well my friends.




I Know


We're now into September and I won't be posting as much as I was for #August50, I actually posted 54 times last month, almost two a day, but for some reason the song "I Know" by Gary Wright's Wonderwheel came to mind when I was making coffee this morning. This is a song that has stuck with me since 1972 when it came out though for some reason I didn't buy it at the time.

Gary Wright was a member of Spooky Tooth and at some point parted ways to form Wonerwheel, and later found solo success with the excellent "Dream Weaver" which you will have heard unless you musical diet is X-Factor, Local Radio and Britain's Got Talent.

I found a live take of this which looks VERY 1970s but it is still a fine song for inclusion in #SongsYouveNeverHeard.  Although as I'm writing this the title track of the Arctic Monkeys' album "Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino" is drawing to a close and when I first heard it I wasn't too sure but now I think it is. The benefits of listening to Mary Ann Hobbs on 6Music. Recently I was surprised to find out her age and the fact that she is married to Miles Hunt of The Wonderstuff!

The spell checker has just suggested Tranquility should be spelt Tranquillity, that is strange or maybe not.

It's the first day of September, Autumn starts here, and the grey skies are clearing so the weekend is looking good.


Friday 31 August 2018

Fire On High


I first heard this as the 'B' Side of "Livin' Thing" . It is the opening track to the great Electric Light Orchestra album "Face the Music". I remember being impressed by the Electric chair cover, although the album was anything but grim.

It's actually quite a monstrous sound and shows fun, ingenuity and brilliance that seemed to desert the band in later years producing insipid pap such as "Mr Blue Sky" and "Xanadu".

ELO did produce my second favourite album ever "Eldorado"  and this song was the opener from the follow up "Face The Music" which contained some excellent blue eyed soul as well as this over the top sound storm. It is another one for the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence although it may one that you have forgotten.

The ELO were formed to continue where the Beatles finished with "Strawberry Fields" but when Roy Wood left it did become Jeff Lynne's vehicle.

So this is my last post for August 2018, and it is time to hit my bed now.

Enjoy this.

Thursday 30 August 2018

Orange Clawhammer


Another for the #SongsYouveNeverHeard series, I first heard this as an unaccompanied sea shanty style song on "Trout Mask Replica", still one of th emost amazing albums you will ever hear should you be able to get your hands on a copy.

Then I got hold of an NME compilation CD which had a version with music, including a harmonica. The only accompanied version I can find features Frank Zappa on acoustic guitar which you can hear here.

The song inspired an eponymous Beefheart tribute band and their site is here.

It is incredibly powerful and once you hear it it will stay with you forever, one of the many gems left to use by Don Van Vliet.

I know this is a very short post, but I would love to know what YOU think about it.

Enjoy your Thursday.

A Kaleidoscope of Rainbows


Well I've hit all targets for this month, but will still be walking into work today. Last night I was searching for something to listen to and Neil Ardley's "Kaleidoscope of Rainbows" popped into my head, a wonderful piece of music despite the odd trumpet noodling interludes but the introduction, which I am sharing with you "Prologue/Rainbow One" is wonderful.  The descending bass line against the rising vibes is sheer perfecton.

Although this is in the jazz universe, Neil Ardley is described as a composer who works with jazz musicians.

Kaleidoscope of Rainbows uses the five-note scale of Balinese gamelan music and has been seen as an early example of world music and features composition and improvisations. Neil Ardley, who left us fourteen years back gives an overview here and if you want to listen to the complete album it's on Youtube here.

This has been a decent week and September will start with a walk to Wylam with my daughter Kirsty, son in law Mark and Fiona on Sunday, so September shouldn't be a problem for hitting my walking targets. I am just waiting for the first moth when I don't hit my target but then again it'll probably never happen, I will always try and make sure that it does.

Yesterday I had tea with my friend Krista who runs Kota based in Commercial Union House and that was just lovely to catch up  and we are going to do lunch. We were talking about how we always make vague dates that we never keep and she got out her diary and we nailed it down.

Visit the Kota link, there are some wonderful things there including a lot of Moomin based items.

Enjoy your Thursday my friends.


Tuesday 28 August 2018

Seventeen Hundred


I thought I would post this just to hit seventeen hundred posts since I started posting, breaking the #August50 target, and sharing another #SongsYouveNeverHeard to make it worth reading and listening to.

There is a hell of a lot of great Antipodean music and my favourite band from down under are The Saints, but I also love Split Enz, Crowded House and Midnight Oil. I completely missed out on AC/DC in my teens / early twenties but they are a perfect example of how to last while staying exactly the same. Similar to the UK's Status Quo who really lost it when they tried to change their twelve bar sound, although my favourite two Qho songs are "Mystery Song" and "Accident Prone" which do deviate slightly from their normal formula.

The #SongsYouveNeverHeard that I am going to share with you is the excellent "S'cool Days" by Stanley Frank which was backed by the equally excellent "On A Line", one of those perfect singles like The Beatles "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain". All I know about Stanley Frank is that he is Australian (I think ... and yes I know how silly that sounds) and that is about it.

Another for you to enjoy.



Fifty Up


This is my fiftieth post this month. I suppose the quality of a lot of these posts has not been up to my usual standard, though that's not very high anyway. I know a lot of my friends read the posts but find it odd and virtually no one leaves any comments . positive or negative on the blog, although my friend Julie leaves a lot on Facebook.

Still the main point of this blog is to keep a diary and store memories for myself, it is a fairly selfish endeavour and therefore by extension is fairly selfish to expect people to leave comments. Life does take it's toll and even leaving a short comment can sometimes take a lot longer than you think it will.

When I share these posts on Facebook (where most of my interactions come from) I tend to give a short resumé of wat's in the post, I don't know if that puts people off.

Given that each post will be around 200-250 words this month has seen me put down 10K-12K which is enough for a short novel, although this will be short on interesting narrative but high on  interesting music content.

I am wondering if I can hit 300 posts this year, which should only require twenty posts a month, which is obviously more than feasible given that that has been my lowest monthly total this month (in June) and this is post 221 this year.

My next project will be #SongsYouveNeverHeard which I will start with this post and continue til the end of September, I would love you to leave a comment letting me know if you have heard the song, if you like it and any other thing you like.

So how do we start this .. Earle Mankey's "Mau Mau" which I heard once on John Peel and then never again. I tracked down a vinyl copy on Ebay about fifteen years back, and still love the record. I wrote about it here, and also created a Youtube slideshow featuring among other thing my dog as a teenager Simba and my first dog when I left home Jasper.

Earle Makey was a guitarist with Sparks but that about as much as I know about him. Also don't you think Russel Mael looks like Freddie Mercury on the cover of "A Woofer In Tweeters Clothing" ? Enjoy.