Yes, that’s right ‘Spillers, an all-new PODCAST! Long overdue, I know….but, better late than never, right? Well, don’t agree until you’ve listened to it !
It’s a very random and eclectic mix based on whatever was in my box of records at the time….and there were so many I didn’t get to that I wanted to include. They’ll have to wait until next time, I suppose.
Listen until the end for some exciting news ! Well, exciting for me, not perhaps for anyone else !
Enjoy !
Courtesy of Ghetto Bassquake, a blog that specialises in the sort of dance music that I’m way too old and staid to appreciate, but one of my little brother’s mates is part of the management, hence I was introduced to this…
“I’m sceptical that this guy’s fish really is the best in town if its only a quid but he most definitely has the best sales tune. Listen. And Learn.
Comon ladies Comon ladies 1 pound fish (X2)
1 pound fish comon have a look 1 pound fish heva have a look 1 pound fish
very very good 1 pound fish very very cheap 1 pound fish
6 for 5 pound 1 pound each (X2)
fish to the 1 pound (X4)
6 for 5 pound, 1 pound each
fish to the 1 pound (X2)
Comon ladies Comon ladies to the fish 1 pound each
1 pound each (X2)
very good and very cheap (X2)
With a tune this good, happy to see that Boy Better Know have sampled him on a new beat. Naturally. As Twister once said… ”make you a celebrity overnight”.
I think every rapper that ever lived has made a track about how cool, sexy and bad ass they are, but not all tracks made by musicians about themselves have to be so egotistical.
Bigga Raiji in Song Of the Stomach gives us a humorous look at his life as a “Big Belly Man” (which was an Earworm some time ago) and Scandal show us how little attention they paid in English classes at school in Scandal no Theme (featured in He Said – She Said – We Speak Enrish)
So this week challenge is tracks by bands and musicians about themselves.
To start you off I will nominate maybe my favourite AKB48 track. Of course AKB48 is one of the most successful J-Pop Idol groups ever. They are only the third girl group ever to play the Tokyo Dome and last year alone they sold more than 9 million records ! ! !
But success was not instant and when they first stated in 2006 they played in their theatre in Akihabara district of Tokyo to small audiences of curious passers by and empty seats. In fact in their first concert there were only 7 people in the audience.
AKB48 are made of different teams, each with 16 members. The first team formed was Team A which was originally 22 members (16 performers and 6 reserves as they performed every day and needed to rotate) Later teams K and B were added. Team A is still considered the best team and this was the group of girls that started the whole thing. In the song Pioneer they remember the early days.
Pioneer is one of the Highlights of their concerts and only Team A perform it. You can really see how emotional they are and feel the pride they have in being the Pioneers ! ! !
The video has English subtitles and the translation not so bad so I have not translated it.
AKB48 – Pioneer
I hope you like it
So my dear Spillers – what tracks do you like by bands or musicians about themselves ? ? ?
The reason that RR Comments 1 came into being resulted from discussion on RR that while lots of people show up, many of them don’t stick around. We wondered whether partly this might be because they don’t understand what we are all doing and think that perhaps that there are “unwritten rules” that they might run foul of.
What came out in discussion of this document was that it was felt that including this in The Marconium might seem even more restrictive and off-putting. Another important point that came of the discussion was to actually state that newcomers are welcome and valued. As I mentioned in my first post of today, I feel that a welcome should be written by someone else, whether it is included with this document (which may never go ahead anyway) or stands alone.
Based upon your comments and items for inclusion from The ‘Spill posting last week I have added in the extra stuff, and put in a summary header which I hope makes it sufficiently clear that this document is lighthearted and non-threatening. My WP programme does not have red-line capability so the new text is in blue. Please review, comment and vote on this one too.
I forgot on the previous one to put an end date. I’ll leave them both up until next Sunday 3rd June to give everyone sufficient time. Thanks
I’m attaching the draft Technical Tips RR document for you all to review, make suggestions and vote on. Anyone who doesn’t have the ability to use Adobe let me know.
I don’t know who the keymaster(s) to The ‘Spill is so that would be nice to include!
I did not include how to make contact for Dropbox. I thought that needed to be discussed.
Apologies for my lack of technical experience/technical writing ability. All comments and suggestions very welcome.
Following lots of good discussion last week, I said I would feed back from the first draft document, would make revisions to incorporate the views expressed, and break it down so that everyone could vote on the various components.
My understanding of the views expressed can be summarized thus:
Why I said I would put together a document on technical tips I don’t know, being very untechnical, but I stand by that! I’ve also incorporated your additional nomination and recommending/donding styles into a separate document.
I will be posting during the course of today the two documents for you all to review again and vote on:
1. A document containing only technical tips and useful information that has been suggested
2 A document which is provisionally entitled From The RR Confessional which contains your half-joking nominating/donding techniques
And if you don’t like either of them and they are scrapped, that’s perfectly okay. Just discussing these issues is good!
What I am not comfortable doing is drafting up a welcome, which I think should come from someone who has been on the blog for longer than I have. If you would like to post your thoughts on that below, please do.
Suite For Ma Dukes – Untitled/Fantastic (GAM Remix)
For some reason, L.A. seems to be where it’s at for me in producing quality music over the past few years; take this one from the Suite For Ma Dukes orchestra, arranged & conducted by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, of a couple of the late great J Dilla hip-hop compositions that have been remixed by Georgia Anne Muldrow.
AlBahooky
Moondog – Symphonique #6 (Good for Goodie)
I was vaguely reminded of this again when that Neil Cowley clip was posted a few weeks ago. This is such an extraordinarily eccentric funky classical/jazz piece by the Viking of 6th Avenue.
SpottedRichard
Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet – I Almost Had A Weakness
Every time that I listen to the Juliet Letters, this song leaps out at me. It does so just as much for the staccato strings as for the acerbic words – a marriage of sound and meaning that works so well, and which sounds so fresh.
Zalamanda
Esperanza Spalding – Crowned & Kissed
Gorgeous Portlander Esperanza Spaulding is out with a new album & once again enchanting me with her great bass lines & elvish voice. This hits all my buttons.
Fintan
Lulu – After the Feeling Is Gone (with The Dixie Flyers)
I always thought of Lulu as a bit of a raspy old belter – who knew she had the capability to deliver a song with the subtlety she does here? I love the thoughtful maturity of the lyric too. It all makes me think that, had she had better quality control, she might now be spoken of in the same breath as Dusty.
bishbosh
Damnation of Adam Blessing – Fingers On A Windmill
This Cleveland, Ohio group spent numerous years on a major label (United Artists), with nary a hit to show for it. And as a final insult, the label misspelled the title on the picture sleeve. Ouch! Some really cheesy hippie-dippy lyrics (“Someone killed a teardrop, made a child cry”), but an interesting example of very late period baroque psychedelia nonetheless.
SweetHomeAlabama ( … hover for extra blurb)
Please send all of your lovely earworms, with a few words to cover them (and keep them warm), to Earworm Central at earworm@tincanland.com. Thank you!
My holiday is almost over and I am chilling at my sister house in Okinawa for a few days now before coming back on Thursday. But she is working so I have some free time in the day.
I wondered if anyone had decided to make The Spill Challenge tomorrow?
I have an idea and if nobody else wants to do it, shall I post it tomorrow?
A while back I posted an e.p. by Círculo Polar, some friends of mine, who just happen to be regulars down at my mate Quique’s pizza restaurant. Some of you may remember it. They were thrilled with the response and enjoyed interacting with some of you here. Well they’ve called it a day but not before recording and releasing an album. They’ve asked me to share it with you. So here it is. The album is called Mainstreet / Meanstreet.
Mainstreet
Ignition
Velvet Sky
I’m Not Fading
Revolution
Who Are You?
Meanstreet
Mainstreet
Weird Love
Nothing Stays Till The End
Started Underground
A Magnetic Tape Reel Label: recording in the Steam Age
40 years ago, after almost two months in Yurp*, the Grateful Dead tribe of 50-odd (some very odd) musicians, roadies, managers, techies and associated ‘other halves’ packed up their equipment and belongings and headed back to the San Francisco Bay Area, taking with them an estimated 17 miles of music-coated magnetic tape. By all accounts, they had enjoyed themselves and accumulated good memories that would last for some considerable time. Continue reading
Pixies – Palace Of The Brine
Curve – Missing Link
Micragirls – Go Go Gorilla
Denim – Ape Hangers
Little Roy – Very Ape
Gary Clail & On-U Sound System – Speak No Evil
Barry Adamson – The Monkey Speaks His Mind
Matthew Dear – Monkey
Wevie Stonder – Quest Of The Sacred Baboon
Audio Active – Return Of The Space Ape
Jungle Brothers – Sounds Of The Safari
Fila Brazillia – President Chimp Toe
Plague Monkeys – The Plague Monkeys
Iron & Wine – Monkeys Uptown
Thee More Shallows – Monkey Vs. Shark
the apes of wrath? – dark side of the baboon? enjoy:
2 Mad Ape Judi Chicago
3 baboon Miles
4 A Japanese Dream The Cure
5 Card Trick With A Chimp The Victorian English Gentlemens Club
6 K-Hole CocoRosie
7 The Monkey Song The Mountain Goats
.
.
2 Monkey The Miserable Rich
3 Escape Artist Sage Francis
4 Get It On Grinderman
5 King Kong Regular fries
6 Soffry Soffry Catch Monkey Ikenga Super Stars Of Africa
7 Ape-like Califone
Hmm, looked in here to check on this week’s Spill Challenge and there wasn’t one. So this is a quickie well over a day late and a few dollars short, but better late than never maybe.
We all listen to new (to us) stuff i would imagine, that we’d like to share, but it doesn’t quite fit into an RR topic or a Spill challenge, or quite work for an earworm.
So this week’s challenge – What are you listening to now that you’d like to share with others?
Apologies in advance for being a bad host this week, probably won’t get back to check in here regularly.
Oops – forgot to name mine above – Vieux Farka Toure from The Secret – this cut with Derek Trucks. Two world class geetar masters who keep the egos beautifully in check.
Left to right: DaddyPig, treefrogdemon, AliMunday, RockingMitch
DaddyPig poses shamelessly mid-dance for the camera, with Pink Peg Slax in the background.
The Rocking Gold Stars, rocking and indeed rolling.
I’m afraid the photos aren’t brilliant, the walls of the venue were very reflective and the lights were, as they should be, low. Thanks everyone for birthday wishes, and special thanks to Ali and TFD for making the trip on a cold northern night !
Ismael Lo – Jammu Africa
Some Spillers may remember Senegalese musician Ismael Lo for his song, “Tadio Bone,” which appeared here some time back. This one is a wonderful mix of drums, guitar, background singers and Ismael’s amazing voice. It was featured in the recent film about the Rwandan genocide, “Shake hands with the Devil”; the prior song Tadio Bone was featured in Almodovar’s film, “All about my Mother”.
GoneForeign
Vincius Cantaria – Perritos
Cantuaria’s Horse and Fish album was an impulse buy in 2004 just because I liked the sound of it from the promotional write-up in Barnes and Noble. I was not disappointed. While it is no doubt Latin/Brazilian Jazz/Pop in origin, the acoustic and electric guitar work is exceptional and the whole album contains some offbeat as well as interesting interpretations of classics of the genre. This is a sweet one.
SpottedRichard
Chris Isaak – Except the New Girl
I recently saw James Vincent McMorrow (in support of Sinead) attempt an unwise cover of “Wicked Game” and it made me wonder whatever happened to Chris Isaak. What a voice he had! This laidback, countryfied number was always a favourite of mine.
Bishbosh
Billy Burnette And Jawbone – Just Another Love Song
The best Southern rocker that no one’s ever heard of. The lyrics are pretty much rote driving music but that guitar work is amazing.
SweetHomeAlabama
Glasvegas – It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry
How James Allan could write his band such a scorcher and … well, lets leave that. It’s a tender and thoughtful song for all it’s testosterone, a necessary element that leaves no doubt about the implosive destruction of guilt-fuelled paranoia.
Tincanman
Matthew Mayfield – Ghost
Several of us get freebies from Noisetrade these days. A recent album was Matthew Mayfield’s ‘Now You’re Free’. He hails from Birmingham, Alabama, and a track on the album, ‘Ghosts’ really grabbed me enough to want to share it with y’all. I love the beat, and the sandpaper voice. Waddaya think?
Glasshalfempty
Please send earworm contributions to earworm@tincanland.com. Thank you!
Massachusetts by the Bee Gees. Bye, Robin.
Albert Collins – 69 Underpass Roadside Inn
Mountain Goats – Southwood Plantation Road
White Denim – Bess St.
Fall – My New House
Pastels – Address Book
And Also The Trees – 21 York Street
Peter Broderick – It Starts Hear
Nathan Fake – Charlie’s House
Blancmange – By The Bus Stop @ Woolies
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Streets Of Philadelphia
Fred Eaglesmith & The Flying Squirrels – York Road
Nina Nastasia – Treehouse Song
Amsterdam – Does This Train Stop On Merseyside?
Mogwai – George Square Thatcher Death Party
My Bloody Valentine – Map Ref. 41°N 93°W
…and I’m still trying to make up my mind about it – is it great, or merely very good? I’m getting used with this artist to reserving judgement for quite some time, following my encounter with his Tetraband (drums, electric bass, trombone and way too much electric keyboard from the man himself) a couple of years ago, where I positively hated the live performance and then was completely captivated by the album. But this is his first solo album since 2000′s Solobsession, which is still one of my top Desert Island Discs; when the man can supply the bass, the rhythm and a couple of lead lines with just his own two hands, who needs a band, and how can this new album, Soul Shelter, be anything but wonderful?
First impressions… Fewer pyrotechnics, less playing inside and outside the piano simultaneously and fewer occasions on which he’s playing two completely separate melody lines; not that there’s none of it (see the video below for some examples) but it’s a lot more subtle and less flashy. Beautifully recorded. Less explicit Balkan influence, which is a shame. More meditative, more gentle – rather more classical influence, I think, as it tends to remind me in places of Keith Jarrett’s Koeln Concert (but rather more controlled and directed). All original songs, apart from a nice Duke Ellington cover – and, more significantly, all songs that appear on this album for the first time, whereas one of the highlights for me of Solobsession was the reworking of songs he’d originally performed with a full band.
All of which is, I suppose, just to say that this isn’t Solobsession II, much as part of me might like that, and it isn’t an ‘event’ album. It’s certainly a grower – various tunes are setting up permanent residence in my brain – and it will be interesting to see how I feel about this album in, say, a year’s time; not so much when the novelty’s worn off, as when my mild disappointment at the lack of instant fireworks has faded a bit.
What I really want is for him to play a solo concert within easy reach of Bristol in the near future…
My partner in crime is, as I’m sure you know, away at the moment besporting herself on sunny beaches on a beautiful sub-tropical island.
I’m not, I’m stuck in the hills in the rain and murk ( as usual) with only a few straggly sheep and rustics for company.
So I thought I’d take some time and scribble some screed concerning a band I have grown to love over the past few months and which, I think, briefly reignited the “true Olmpyian flame of Punk”. Until they fell apart , of course, bickering and burned out
Continue reading
Some weeks ago on the main blog there was a discussion about how confusing the nominating and donding process can be for newcomers to RR. We discussed some of the techniques used and I volunteered to put together something in draft for further review here and to see if Marconius might have room for a finished document in The Marconium. (He says good idea!)
Here is my draft for your review and comments. (I am not much of a technical writer so feel free to make appropriate suggestions for format as well as content.)
Please can you give your opinions and anything you think needs to be added in the comments below, even to indicate that you’re okay with the draft, so I get some feedback. I’ll leave this out there until Sunday 27th at noon to give everyone a chance to comment before I prepare a final document to give to Marconius.
If there are a lot of amendments I’ll post it back here for a quick look-over.
Thanks
SR
Nominating and Donding Guide
Other than following The Guardian format for posting, and their Community Guidelines, there are no right or wrong ways, no rules or conventions for nominating or donding songs/music on Readers Recommend.
Nominating
if possible, your justification of why you think the song fits the rubric for the week’s topic.
To link the song to a clip (e.g. YouTube) do the following*:
1 Highlight the text you want to link. If you wish to bold it, select the B [bold] tab, then
2 Go to the grey LINK box in the comment you are working on and click on it, then
3 Open another browser tab and search and find the clip you want to use, check that it is suitable, then
4 Copy the http address (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlAvh1GpVKw) and then
5 Go back to the RR tab and click on the L[link] tab again and Paste the copied text into the box that pops up then
6 Hit OK
* If you have a manky old computer, don’t worry. You can paste in the url address or just name the song and artist/band.
So, What Techniques Do RRers Use For Nominating?
“Whatever shows up in my head. If it’s a fertile topic, my head is flooded well into Friday morning from Thursday night. If I’m having a more difficult time, I’ll start to mentally or go through songs / albums by my favorite artists. If it gets even more difficult, I’ll look at online discographies to jog my memory. I do use google to check (and paste) my lyrics, sometimes a song isn’t about what I think it is. Or if I have a line in my head but can’t remember the song or who the artist is.” Rip This Joint
“I am too consumed by competitiveness… So I’m afraid I have been guilty in the past (less so now I’m less obsessed with the game, but it still happens) of searching my iTunes for relevant words. That said, the listings I’ve got have always been more satisfying when they’ve come a bit more hard-earned.” bishbosh
“I think searching your own iTunes is fine, because presumably it’ll bring up songs that you like (since you already have them)!…” Treefrogdemon
“Another nomming technique for ultra tight topics is to abstain! I had to abstain for the most part on bicycles, Wales (except for classical singers), and b-sides, to name just a few.” RipThisJoint
“I have a visceral loathing of the whole Midnight Feeding Frenzy [now 10pm Feeding Frenzy], dumping of long lists of vaguely-relevant song titles thing; if a nomination doesn’t consist of a 2,500-word essay referencing Nietzsche and Bourdieu then I’m not interested, even if it means that I miss out on A-listers because someone else has nominated the song while I’m still writing said essay. Equally, I hate themes where it’s possible simply to search for key terms in the title; I’d much rather rely on random inspiration, when a song or a lyric suddenly pops into my head, even if it’s after the deadline.” Abahachi
“The patented Ubu nominating technique is as follows:
Donding
You have three choices, and you can use any or all or any of these:
For me it’s a scattergun thing depending on how much time I have – I like weeks where I’m engaged in a tedious manual task like painting as I can just work through the Spotify List or Dropbox and just run through tons of often great stuff – I like that as I’ve not got any preconceptions of what is coming up. Some weeks I’ll just click around on things that catch my interest and dond songs that I know I already love. Some weeks, like this week, it’s somewhere between the two…” BeltwayBandit
“Could you include the Recommending option [for donding]. I used to keep a running list, whittle it down after second listens, etc and post my donds of the week after the weekend. But it all got to be too pressurized, and weeks when I didn’t have time to listen to everything I felt guilty. So I switched to clicking recommend, and then I don’t have to risk hurting feelings explaining that I liked a song but thought it was off topic or that I simply hadn’t had a chance to listen thoroughly and on and on. I think whatever works for a person is THE right way to do it, and that should be stressed .. even if the right way for someone is not to dond or recommend or to simply do it as the mood strikes from one week to the next.” Tincanman
Two in the same day and although not as well known as Donna, Chuck Brown has been hugely influential helping to create ‘go-go’ a variant of funk that has been popular in the Washington DC area for over 30 years.
Starting in the early 70′s as the leader of The Soul Searchers giving us classics like this :
And later in the 80′s and his covering tunes with his distinctive go-go style in live performances where he was king :
He’s been known in recent times for helping to promote Eva Cassidy, Chuck was a true original. Peace go with you.
This might not have been her best known or most innovative track, but it was the first time that I remember hearing Donna Summer’s music – and it struck a chord with my teenage self.
It seems quite appropriate to me, as I can imagine her rejoicing in the opportunity to join that ghostly dinner party full of deceased icons at long last.
Rest in peace, Donna – and thank you for the music. Your voice will continue to thrill us, as will those incredible tunes.
TP shows off the fancy embroidery on his weskit
Well, folks, I was…with Regina Spektor. I thought the first song she did, with no accompaniment except her own tapping on the mic, was really excellent. And I also liked the second song with her band. But after that I just felt everything was far too samey. Perhaps I should’ve taken more time beforehand to become familiar with her stuff…but she’s not on the European leg of the tour so I’m going to forget about her for now and investigate Jonathan Wilson (who?) the new opening act.
So anyway. We were in the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX, which is a basketball arena. I’d been thinking that the venue would be quite small, because a basketball court is small, but this proved not to be the case. It was vast (and sold out). They must like their basketball a whole lot in Austin. Matt and I had whiled away the time before the show started having very expensive drinks in the VIP lounge and we had enjoyed ourselves so much talking to fellow TP&TH fans that we had neglected to go and look at the merchandise…but never mind, I’ll have 6 more opportunities to buy stuff and I now know which T shirt Matt would like for his birthday.
Where was I? Oh yes. Imagine that we’re no longer in the VIP lounge but in our third-row seats watching the techies set up for the band. There was an enclosure with gear in it on the floor on our side of the stage and we saw some celebrity kiddiwinks having a tea party there, and after that Benmont Tench came and wandered round a bit, and so did Ron Blair, and so did someone who might have been Mrs TP, only I wasn’t quite sure. And then the lights went down, and everybody stood up and started to make a noise, and then it looked like this:
TP&TH get going
Anyone who has been to a ‘Spill/RR social will have noticed DaddyPig taking himself off to a quiet corner early in the evening to call home and sing his little angel a bedtime song. [And when he's done, his wife puts their young un on for awhile. ba doom b..oh n/m]
OK, it’s a bit heartwarming. Those of us with kids exchange knowing smiles and there has been the occasional tear shed.
Tears of LAUGHTER, the whuss!!!!!!!
OK, your turn. The man turns 50 on Friday. Let’s roast the old fart! This week’s Spill Challenge: What song would you sing down the phone to DaddyPig?
2 Badcard – Noise Polluters
Mark Stewart & The Mafia – Hysteria
J J Burnel – Freddie Laker (Concorde & Eurobus)
Primus – Lee Van Cleef
Stump – Kitchen Table
Tack>head – Dreamworld [Dub]
Bill Nelson & Mick Khan – Glow World
Shriekback – Lined Up [Disco Mix]
A Certain Ratio – Flight
Renegade Soundwave – Women Respond To Bass
Dub Syndicate – Night Train
Ghetto Priest & Ri Ra – Show Them
