I hate the Vaccines...

...but their old label Marshall Teller has a penchant for putting out some pretty cool, trashy, dreamy rock at the minute. I bought the Total Slacker LP 'Trashin'' and at first really rated it but am now a little underwhelmed by it's constant stoner humour and reference to the nineties. Even the songs themselves have become tiresome, it's that kind of new but familiar sound you get from a band that reference so blatantly to the past.
I bought, because of the inclusion of Total Slacker, the split 7" between them and Weird Dreams. The Total Slacker numbers seem just like off-cuts from the album, nothing too special but the flip side; Weird Dreams... hmmmm.... 'Summer Black' is popping along, keeping me bopping along when suddenly... Bam!!... 'Joan' starts to play... You know why they chose this to close their side. Maybe it's because it's new to me but this song 'Joan' is just such a perfect melding of pop-pathos, classic rock and total sonic meltdown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ep5gdmvDXk

My friend recently caught them supporting Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and his description was that they were "too dreamy" (a direct quote)...

Dip it after seventeen

Jazz. I used to hate it. Rock 'n' roll. I've always loved it.
Though rock 'n' roll in it's modern 'commodity' doesn't really sit well with me, there has always been something about a four four beat, guitar, bass and songs of love that has always done something for me. Buddy Holly.
On the other side of the coin, I love jazz. I love noise. I hear free-noise. PC Worship 'Godless Love' with it's acoustic timeless and timely strumming, electronic whistles and wails in the background could be nothing but free. I have another PC Worship tape that melds extreme noise to almost grunge-lite rock songs, always ending with an uneasy mix of violin or sax noise playing to close and open the side (they're cassettes I have... you remember them, kids!)...
I was trying to compare it to living in a suburban environment and having all these disparate influences baring down on you, influencing every sound you make... when it's probably just the bass player awaking late, too stoned to get up for his mid-morning alarm clock and someone with a saxophone turning up to band practice instead.


I was going to post this blog sooner but having seen this extra "review" scrawled in my own, drunken spidery hand (typos included) on the side of the previous writings I feel compelled to include them.... :

"This ain't no where near jazz this is noise. Pure simple noise punk with freedom many talk about but seldom act upon"

 

http://pcworship.bandcamp.com/

He had nubs at right angles

I sold an Epiphone Dot the other day for £140. I think I got a fair price, the local guitar emporium talked me out of selling it to them on the basis of their tax returns and I don't have any guitar-less rich friends who I could rip off. Anyway, the money has set me straight. Debts = nil. I now have a small stake that after the next pay day (too long away) will go towards a hot microphone. Or I could just splurge it all on bunch of vinyl from http://www.normanrecords.com/

The Polyps

Ants On The Golden Cone by The Polyps is acutally the best album of 2011. Sorry Ryan Garbes, but this shit just hits me where it hurts and I hurt so bad at the minute.

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity - for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

Wise words, from Peter there. I am a slave to the ungodly sounds of Rock 'N' Roll and right now I couldn't think of anything more ungodly than Starving Weirdos' 'The Path of Lightning'.

I own their 'B/P/M Series 1' LP and have been playing it loads recently, a total modernist take on piano music. Destruction as a form of creation. General tomfoolery in the studio. One side taken by one member of the group, the other taken by another to which they both add and twist the work of pianist Darius Brotman. Really haunting, enchanting stuff that I heartily recommend.

Now, 'The Path of Lighting'.... I'll readily admit I have downloaded it from some nefarious source and have been playing it to death. Four tracks of cacophonous atmospherics that make me see the full possibility in music making. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, these guys have a craft (the B-P-M Series 1' LP stands testify to that) but so many groups do noise and oddness for the sake of it whereas these guys are trying something new and interesting.    

I will be buying it, not only does it have the best album cover you'll ever see, it's also worth every red cent of the $20bux you'll spend on it musically. As I've said previously about a different band, when my pay day comes... so will there's.

My girlfriend hates my heroin (my record collection)

Over the past couple of weeks I have discovered a bunch of bands that have simply put my whole out look on music in a new light. As I've said before I never generally had much time for contemporary music, which  I'm going to lay a lot of the blame at the door of the NME, but the music I've discovered recently has just simply blown my mind.
Ryan Garbes and the Wet Hair group... drone rock supreme.
Tyvek.... Hardcore in excelsis
PC Worship... a big bag of free noise, grunge (as in real dirty, fuck ups) mixed with a pop sensibility
Broken Water... Guitar abuse like it should be.

I don't know, the list could go on. This year's been a happy year for me. I've got out of my pre-'94 rut and started enjoying new music again!! Anyway recommendations are heartily welcomed.

But....

Noisy trash like Tyvek, Johnny Thunders and Iggy & the Stooges pisses all over them (The Beatles)... A good pop song is a good pop song. It moves the masses, creates a sing-a-long and forms mass memories and emotion........ But the screaming and wailing of a less-than-quarter coherent Iggy Pop lolling around on a table with shards of glass sticking out of his chest is so much more of a thrill and musical epiphany than 'love, love, love, we all need love, love, love...'....


Take your kafkans and your friggin' joss-sticks and shove it. I want visceral experience. To quote the great Iggy Pop:


"Look, you're here to see me, and I can't go on until my dealer is here, and he's waiting to be paid, so give me some money so I can fix up, and then you'll get your show"

Iggy & the Stooges - Live at the Whiskey a Go Go (17/10/73):

http://www.mediafire.com/?uuu17j8sickmp3i

It's raw, recorded in someone's sweating armpit and exudes more power and attitude then the past three decades put together... I don't care if it's on headphones, car stereo or some shitty cassette deck from the eighties.... blast this and have your mind blown.... Whatever your view on drugs is, they aided in the creation of some of the most visceral, heart-felt, energetic music created. Like I've said before... I ain't golden and I ain't no fucking starchild...

After a brief discussion through the intraweb

It has been decided that The Beatles double A Side single 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' is the greatest single ever released. Fuck Englebert Humperdink.

Velodrome 2000

A random EP I bought when I was a poor, simple, Nirvana loving teen.... if only I'd thrown my entire music collection in the bin the moment I'd got home and become a disciple of theirs I probably would have been listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain rather than Rancid and those other American sub-par-punk-pop bullshite that me and my friendship group were somehow drawn to... (I'm pointing the finger at someone but names will remain nameless)......... anyway, back to Velodrome 2000. Trashy, badly recorded, male/female vocals... they pretty much sum up everything I like about music nowadays when it comes to punk rock.... I'm sure they won't mind me putting up a couple of tracks for your listening pleasure:


http://www.sendspace.com/file/bnt3h0

Anger Jam in Fuck You Minor (with harmonica solo)

If I ever have to engage in a blues jam in D again, then please kill me slowly. I didn't pick up this piece of wood and wire to strum tired ol' licks and bust out that I IV V progression for my own personal fucking entertainment!...!...!. Goddamnit! I love the blues. Albert King, Professor Longhair, Josh White... yadda yadda... but to turn up at a friends house that contains at least five guitars, two basses, plenty of percussion, an 8 track, a drum machine, a computer, mics... the lot.... and it's just cover after cover.... I'm not a starchild and I'm not fucking golden and no-one wants to hear another shitty version of 'Woodstock'... I don't want to play that shit.
We can all play. We have the equipment. Not to sound too high and mighty but let's create. Let's do something exciting. Maybe it's just me? It seems most people are happy going the whole cover/tribute act, wedding-song-quick-buck-repertoire...

Broken Water

I'm tired and over-worked but so happy because I've discovered an amazing band out of the blue! Those lovely folks at Night People Records have got a couple of compilation mixes up for download free on their website (http://www.raccoo-oo-oon.org/np/) and one of them ('Cola Heavy Nights') is just pure revelation. I mentioned Wet Hair in the previous post reviewing Ryan Garbes LP 'Sweet Hassle' and for some reason after years of complete and total rejection of all music post 1994 I keep finding these incredible noisy bands I instantly fall in love with (PC Worship, Trailblazer, Peaking Lights etc.). Who would have thunk it. Anyway, this one comp. that I just mentioned has a song called 'Heal' by a band called Broken Water... and fuck me if it isn't one of the greatest pieces of noise rock grunge psychedelia I've ever heard. When it peaks and explodes it's just beautiful... it's been a while since I've heard a guitar squall like... Buy their music at:


http://brokenwatermusic.bandcamp.com/


When my pay day comes, theirs will as well.


Special mention to the compilation for giving me the PC Worship track 'Staring at the Sun' as a separate entity. I got the 'Millenial Kreephaus' download (for $2bucks) which is two sides of free-noise jazz punk with the aforementioned track buried inside it's flowing mix. Buy that as well, it's unlike anything you're likely to hear this year, next year or for the next few years.


http://pcworship.bandcamp.com/album/millenial-kreephaus

The Slits' Y3LP: the perfect follow up to a perfect debut.

The Slits' debut album 'Cut' has grown to become one of my all time favourite albums. There's so much energy, wit and melody contained within, something most punk albums of the time lack. The production is also spot-on perfect (big up Dennis 'Blackbeard' Bovell). Now this blog post isn't really about the debut, I want to write about the follow up they released in 1980, a collection of studio jams, demos and general fucking around. I think they even self-bootlegged it. All I can say is more groups should do this. This is a real album. Pure, unadulterrated mayhem and melody thrown in the bin and rolled down the hill. In a strange way it reminds me of Neil Young's 'Journey Through the Past'. An artist just doing what the fuck they like for sake of no one but themselves and maybe a couple of friends. Fucking wild, creative music unlike anything else.


The Slits - Y3LP
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4crczf