Trash ONE – add ONE
yep, this week the rules have changed – I like changing rules!
We have a wobbly based FANGS playlist, if you would be so kind as to trash your least favourite, I’ll be mildly angry and after your blood. But you can make it up to me with an added bonus track.
I’d also like to know a movie or book that you’d recommend on the subject – AIP’s a closet Twilight fan, heehee (he’s been listening to the soundtrack – not reading the books or watching the movie – he’s not imploded with pressure that much) – keep it Vampires – I’ll do a wolf playlist next time I get a go.
A chance comment the other day and news items about the BBC got me thinking about British comedy. I like a bit of comedy, me , but find much of today’s output ( especially on the BBC) pretty feeble and lacking in laughs.
I began to wonder if this is a symptom of me growing old. Each generation , naturally, has it’s own comedic zeitgeist which , like an old photograph, is bound to fade over time.
I do think, though, that a path can be traced, in Britain, in which , though each generation succeeds the previous it also draws inspiration from it.
“So what, Big Ears ?” I hear you, rather rudely, enquire.
Dear Webcore, to wish you a very Happy 60th Birthday, here’s a long short story written to a secret formula by a team of your fellow Recommenders. We hope you don’t mind making an exception to your non-fiction habit, seeing as it’s such a special occasion. The RR writers’ workshop takes strange delight in presenting:
A RUM DO…
V Valentino, propelled by a whirl of thoughts, turned and beckoned to his legs, urging them to please keep up. Two steady elements – his non-beckoning hand holding the flat bottle in his pocket, a little more firmly as he crossed the bridge with its view of the drop between the iron railings; and directions committed to memory as he turned right at the bridge end and the river’s murmur emerged from the receding traffic noise. The river reflected muscovado in the last drops of sunset and the early fizz of street lamps. There was a party of special things to do. Continue reading →
My end of year round up is now turned into the ‘spill game:
you know the score DUMP one (or all of them – see if I care)
It’s pop and it’s fun – don’t take it too seriously.
Remember, they are my most played – I’m not claiming they will change the world – I just liked them.
Band names in BOLD – for those who believe I make stuff up:
1 Stroke My Curls The Dodoz Forever I Can Purr 2012
2 Cuka (feat. Ikonoklasta) Batida Batida (feat. Mck, Circuito Feixado, Ikonoklasta, Beat Laden 2012
3 The Empty Man Whitey Lost Summer 2012
4 Genevieve Stealing Sheep Into The Diamond Sun 2012
5 Horn For The Whole Damn World Lazarus and the Plane Crash Horseplay
6 Passenger Emily Wells Mama 2012
7 Kevlar Sweethearts Diablo Swing Orchestra Pandora’s Pinata 2012
8 Be Strong (Blakkat Remix) The 2 Bears Be Strong (Deluxe Edition) 2012
9 Rat-at-at The Skints Part & Parcel 2012
10 Clap Hooded Fang Tosta Mista 2012
11 Circus Sunday Driver The Mutiny 2012
“I’m as mad as hell – and I’m not going to take this any more”
1 Letter From God To Man Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2 Madder Groove Armada
3 Who Needs Actions When You Got Words Plan B
4 We Are Fucking Angry The King Blues
5 So Hungry, So Angry Medium, Medium
6 The Floor Buck 65
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1 Fight The Power (’95) Dreadzone
2 Penny For A Thought Saul Williams
3 Alone And Annoyed Eric’s Trip
4 Got This Rage Honkeyfinger
5 Fight Art Brut
6 Bad Luck Hot Chip
7 Open Mind Surgery Culture Shock
Now you’ve gone and left me and there’s nothing here,
But a tenner in my pocket and a fridge full of beer,
There’s an aRRmy around the country, we’re all stuck in our rooms
It takes a lot of preparation to make a move.
1 Foot Soldiers (Star-Spangled Funky) Funkadelic
2 A Brighter Beat Malcolm Middleton
3 On My Shoulders The Dø
4 Brave Tin Soldiers Sarah Nixey
5 The Happiest Place on Earth Desaparecidos
6 Soldier’s Grin Wolf Parade
Tokyo all female three-piece TOQUIWA release their hi-energy J-punk in the UK on October the 22nd, 2012. Scopitones announced TOQUIWA’s self-titled debut on digital release and limited edition tour CD.
They begin touring the UK on 26/10 in Bournemouth – I’m going to be there (in a home made bright orange TOQUIWA T-shirt) – I also made a T-shirt using the ticket from a live Wedding Presents Ukrainian Sessions gig. But I can’t wear both.
This is the track listing and below the review are Smash Hits style questions sportingly answered by the band.
(I want to post this today – so I will have to ask Sakura to advise if I’ve got anything in the wrong places)
Photograph of the band used with permission – all designs created by arTEEsane are not for profit – please don’t use.
illustrative track from Music Ripple recorded as Pinky Piglets
The self titled album by Toquiwa on the Wedding Presents Scopitones label, should almost be called go out and get ‘em girl – such is the frantic pace that they erupt with perfect pop rock. The first 13 seconds set up the album (you heard right – 13 seconds sets out their manifesto) – Fantasticly playing the many influences and condensing them into a tight Toquiwa package.
Strangely managing to be extremely talented musicians yet still exuding that punk ethic of innocence and naivety.
The tracks have so many astonishingly catchy segments and hooks, you wonder how the pace can be kept up, but keep up they do, building and building, twisting styles and era’s together as if timelines were squeezed, squashed and smashed into their musical brains. Until in comes out sounding as though these things should always have sat together (superbly) in each 3 minute track.
Not only that, they know how to sequence an album – just as your head might explode keeping up – (ten second bar room blues, into superfly 70′s style, into a quiet millisecond break – roaring back into .. you get the drift – I’m loath to compare because it all sounds so Toquiwa – but as reference you could detect The Animals merging with a Curtis Mayfield track with hints of Kirsty MacColl’s weariness and wonder, while a Status Quo repetitive rock riff underpins a track – and quiteloudquiet indie rock aesthetics jostle in) they take a breather with a ballad – and then we are invited to party hard once again, ending with an enthusiastic Wedding Present adaption to thrill and inspire while closing the album out.
It’s fantastic fun – superbly performed and feverishly played. Total enjoyment.
Would they be happy to answer my frivolous questions linking to each song on the album?:
I think I got the inaugural RR Player shirt? It arrived today (unannounced, with no fanfare) and was a wonderful surprise. It totally exceeded my expectations.
Shane had emailed me a list of my A listers to check which took me a few hours as I hadn’t got a clue and had to look some of them up in The Marconium. He has listed these as you can see on the design.
I requested a long sleeve ladies style in a faded-out looking black or gray colour. The fabric is great. Here’s a picture of everything except the neck (which is round).
This is going to be my Thursday shirt from now on.
This has been one illuminating topic – I’m not in the camp of: “this has nothing to do with the songs” – this has everything to do with the songs. Any choice and any dond this week illustrates a unique glitch or shinning diamond in people’s character.
Doesn’t everyone look at a music collection and analyse the owners ability to live day to day? – you really can judge (you might not judge correctly) – but it’s good enough for me.
The ability to take on new and interesting tunes must be great – if our teenage selves could understand what we are doing here – they’d be shell shocked to see aged replicas of themselves loving and conversing and inspiring … this thread totally nails why RR is an important release for those with a strange disposition in creating playlists – they say SO much.
If you read the song titles here – the overwhelming idea would be ‘run for the hills and take any sharp object‘ but, it is a playlist using black humour to cope – all I did when I was young, was cope .. I don’t now. I relish what I do – but music has an important part to play in how I survived, and how I grasped a way forward – these songs are not depressing; listen to the words in Teenage Suicide, the important part is the repeat of “don’t do it” – I like that turning on the head of snap judgement. It’s a dumb pop song with little depth – but it works for me… other songs here have a greater depth – serious drugs for instance – go on – listen.
That is why I delve deeply into songs and their words, it’s the feelings they give me… and the nodding in agreement to a life similarly experienced – and a need to express that artistically. (or it’s a great bit of fiction – shhh – don’t tell – the mystery intensifies)
My teenage self would sink his teeth into this list and ponder… he’d also find all the double bluffing bloody hilarious.
To those more blank than Frank and more dark than shark – enjoy:
1 Get Better Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip
2 Why Tell The Truth (When It’s Easier To Lie) Brakes
3 Weak Become Heroes The Streets
4 Sweet Words for the Sour Whitey
5 I Never Said I Was Deep Jarvis Cocker
6 My Struggle Withered Hand
7 Teenage Suicide (The Glass remix) Clubfeet
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1 The Truth Hurts So This Should Be Painless Her Space Holiday
2 Write Record Release Blues Jesus & Mary Chain
3 Serious Drugs BMX Bandits
4 Extra Medication The Manhattan Love Suicides
5 Medication Karaocake
6 Anything For Destruction Her Space Holiday
Hey Sakura !
It’s your birthday ( you probably know this) and some of the guys wanted to give you a little gift to make the day even more special. So here it is, your very own RR playlist !
Thought it might be nice to make a little playlist of Songs About Mars to accompany the exciting first photo the Mars Rover beamed back. Not a terribly original idea, there were already a few playlists out there on the interwebs. A lot of the usual suspects – Bowie, T Rex, Coldplay, etc, and plenty of shoehorns. Tucked in among the shoehorns was this new-to-me (am i the only one who had never heard it before?) beauty that only mentions Mars in passing, but any excuse will do to post it. Axe-fucking-tastic.
Jimi Hendrix – The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice
Webcore was kind enough to send Mrs Maki and me the DVD of his family’s appearance on a Japanese TV programme. We thought the rest of you would like to see it. Here it is with an introduction from the man himself:
Back in April this year a Japanese TV company asked me if I would play a Beatles’ song by the River Mersey, discuss Irish immigration to Liverpool, including any Beatles Irish connections, and indulge them in several other other sketches and vignettes, including going to my house, meeting my family, and singing Galway Bay for the population of Japan.
They turned out to be fantastic people; the lovely and extremely personable presenter, Yuuke, whom I hadn’t met before she approached me on camera; the director and crew; and especially Jim, the fighting-fit 66-year-old Oxbridge gent co-ordinator who got me the gig, fluent in Japanese, looking like a movie star, wowing the women like a clean-shaven Robert Redford.
I don’t play Beatles’ songs, I told them, and I’m certainly not going to play Galway Bay – my grandmother sang that one.
Then they told me how much I would be paid. Erm, I’m prepared to compromise, I said: I choose the Beatles’ song, and you film me reading Galway Bay off my laptop so that it’s obvious I wouldn’t normally play it.
As part of a 90-minute programme, a fourteen-hour day’s filming was edited down to 10 minutes.
As the day went on I was attempting to edit the filming in my mind, knowing that they couldn’t fit it all in to a TV programme, and I knew that it was the director’s job to create a coherent cut from a mass of material.
I was sorta unsurprised at what was included in our ten minutes. Leza had written the song only the week before, and Kevin had learned the guitar part only the night before.
I’d just like to say that MAKINAVAJA volunteered to organise and arrange this post for me. I couldn’t have managed it. So a big public thank you to him for being a gentleman and a scholar.
An automated theft machine or (ATM), also known as a hole in the scruples in British English, is a computerised telecommunications device that provides the suckers banking with a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a public space without the need for a cashier, human clerk or bank teller having to face outraged disgruntled customers.
On most modern ATMs, the customer is identified by shafting a plastic get out of jail free card in their orifice. Authentication is provided by the customer giving their hard earned money to a millionaire via the bank, the government, and any old bonuses the managers wish to add.
The newest ATM’s operate without ethics or morales of any sort. Do nothing and a boss will automatically withdraw the cash.
Engineers in Britain developed their own cash machines during the early 1960s. The first of these that was put into use was by Barclays Bank on 27 June 1967. This machine was the first in the UK and was used by English comedy actor Reg Varney, at the time so as to ensure maximum publicity for the machines. Thus cementing the fact that Barclays should always be remembered as one huge Piss Taking JOKE.
Here’s an offering of peaceful songs, following the personal and family histories that have been shared over on RR this weekend. Please feel free to add your own in the Comments. Peace songs don’t have to be quiet, indeed the stories over on RR remind us that there is a great deal to be angry about. I’ve tended towards the ‘peaceful’ peace songs here.
Curtis Mayfield – We Got To Have Peace
Captain Sensible – Glad It’s All Over
Toots and the Maytals – Peace Perfect Peace
McCoy Tyner – Search for Peace
They still say “fuck you” as a venomous insult; they still find “cunt” the most degrading epithet outside the dictionary
Germaine Greer, 1970.
Forty-one years on, and Azealia Banks has defused the power of the word, reclaiming it from the language of hate by placing it firmly at the forefront of a hip hop house banger. This is what Germaine Greer herself had to say about it:
So then, what’s your view on the word, and will you be using it day to day from now on?
I’ve just sold my house, for less than I wanted but I’m sure I can manage. So Ivan, Ellis and their parents will be moving to a new house and I’ll be moving to theirs. (Poor Ivan’s not very happy about it at the moment I’m afraid.) It’ll be all round to mine for the party in early November…
…and this is a song about moving on with no second thoughts.
Not much has surfaced from Withered Hand since he won my heart with his best-record-of-2009 album “Good News” – I mean I’ve seen him play loads and randomly walked past him & King Creosote in a wee fishing village in Fife of a day a few weeks ago. I’ve only heard him play one new song live, “Heart, Heart” and now a new one has come up on a radio session called “I Still Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye”. I know there’s at least two ‘Spillers who will love to hear these. So here are the songs.
Dan, please get the new record finished! We’re strung out here! X x.
To celebrate the International Year of the Cow* I thought it would be nice to trawl down the back of my metaphorical sofa and dig out some dairy themed “outsider” stuff for you all to “enjoy”.
Cows, are, I feel, somewhat neglected in song. There are plenty of great songs about cowboys and a few about green grass but not so many about our bovine friends or , indeed, the products they produce ( though, it must be said, milk does feature in quite a few great tunes “No milk today” “Ernie” etc). I love cheese and other dairy products, yoghurt for example, and present these tracks as an homage to a creature and food provider that even we vegetarians can talk to without looking totally barmy.
Another “outsider” fan put it very well on his blog, these are not tunes to be “enjoyed” they are tunes to “withstand”.
So, without further ado, I hope you withstand them.
First up we have Mike Sophia- Cow
This work of genius takes us deep into the mind of the cow , which, I suspect, is mainly full to thoughts about grass. In fact I’m willing to bet that the “word” “Moo” means “grass” in cow. Set to what may be best described as a “nightmare fairground” backing and replete with the joyful lowing of many cows it is a thing of beauty and wonder.
Next we have Rudy Burkhalter- Come to Cheese Day in Monro
I’ve been fascinated for some years by the annual Cheese Day event held in Monro County, Wisconsin ( Big Swiss-American community, apparently) where parades and events celebrate the foodstuff which we all know and love.
I stumbled across this celebration by accident, following on links that I discovered whilst perusing the online works of my favourite poet, James McIntyre who, whilst born in Canada, had some cheesy connections with the states. Here are a few lines from his epic poem “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese” **
We have seen the Queen of cheese,
Laying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze –
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
Lastly, but not leastly, a song from the New Zealand ministry of cows recording that was sent out to farmers to encourage them to medicate their cows against the foremost disease of the udders. The record, called Mastitis Melodies, utilises well known tunes to get the message across.
Here then is The Waikato Dairy Singers- Treat your teats
Well, I hope you withstood that O.K. I’m afraid I can’t take responsibility for any mind warping caused by listening to this stuff.
I hope to be able to continue posting, perhaps themed , songs in a similar vein for your withstandment and will include a “Mystery Track” to add to the fun
* Which I just made up.
** This, apparently, means a large cheese and not what I first assumed.
Absolutely tremendous new song and video from ‘Spill fave PJ Harvey. I especially like the use of a camera obscura in the last quarter of the video, it’s always something that I’ve wanted to utilise on film. This song, along with “Written On The Forehead”, that previewed a wee while ago – are all shaping up for a very promising album which may well be out on Valentine’s day.
It takes three legs to make a tripod or to make a table stand,
And it takes three years to make a blog called the ‘spill
And every triangle has three corners,
Every triangle has three sides,
No more, no less,
You don’t have to guess
That it’s three
Can’t you see?
It’s a magic number…
OK, here’s the beginnings of chapter one. I asked Maki to give me his list of instructions for posting music and then I added my thoughts and re-wrote it all, hopefully in a manner that’s foolproof. I’ve tested this and it worked. If this is acceptable we’ll continue and add instructions for posting titles, artists, pictures, videos, youtubes, text, links etc, plus posting links, pics and music into the comments area. For the benefit of potential new users or current ones who’re not clear about Dropbox I thought it would be helpful to start there.
Before I start to try to do a posting for the Spill I find it useful to place all my MP3 music cuts, JPG pictures and pre-written text into a labeled file on my desktop, it makes it easier later on. There’s another advantage to this, you’ll be copying & pasting http code for each cut into the ‘new post’ page at WordPress, it’s handy to also paste it into this folder for reference in case you need to come back to it, WordPress has been known to cause frustration by occasionally not not playing by the rules and it’s handy to have those html codes handy if you need to start over.
Begin by registering with Dropbox, [https://www.dropbox.com/home#:::] thereafter you’ll be asked to log in. You can upload music to Dropbox and anything you upload will be kept in your ‘My Dropbox’ file, next to that you’ll see ‘Public’: to use music on the Spill you need to have it in the Public folder so transfer it from your dropbox into Public. If you’re considering multiple cuts it’s a good idea to keep them in a labeled folder.
Having got this far, now click on one of your titles in Dropbox and you’ll notice a blue downward arrow off to the right, click on this and you’ll see a dropdown menu that has ‘Copy Public Link’ as one of it’s options, click on this and a window will open that contains a line of http code with an option to ‘copy to clipboard’, do so.
Now open WordPress [you may be required to log in] and on the left you’ll see a column that includes ‘Posts’ and below it ‘Add new’, click on that. A window will open that contains a rectangle with ‘Visual’ and ‘HTML’ at the top right corner, choose HTML. Now is the time to decide how you want your post to look, ie the placement of text, pictures and music, for now lets say that the music player goes at the bottom and you’re only having one tune. Type
If you now click on ‘Preview’ [top right] you should see a player icon situated at The Spill which if you click it should play your tune!
If you want to add more tracks:
1. Do not close the player – ignore the bit about closing the code with another square bracket.
2. Place a comma and a space after the first code.
3. From the public folder in Dropbox click your second piece of music and repeat the instructions above re. copying and pasting it into WordPress.
4. Paste it immediately after the comma after the first code, add a comma and a space and repeat ad-nausium ’til you have all the music cuts pasted.
5. When you have added the last html code don’t add a comma, just close it with a square bracket.
6. For 5 cuts it should give you a player that looks like this:
All these commas, spaces and square brackets are crucial, miss any one of them and you’re doomed to failure.
V Valentino, propelled by a whirl of thoughts, turned and beckoned to his legs, urging them to please keep up. Two steady elements – his non-beckoning hand holding the flat bottle in his pocket, a little more firmly as he crossed the bridge with its view of the drop between the iron railings; and directions committed to memory as he turned right at the bridge end and the river’s murmur emerged from the receding traffic noise. The river reflected muscovado in the last drops of sunset and the early fizz of street lamps. There was a party of special things to do. 
