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

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

Let’s start with a bit of background ( “Do you have to ?” I hear you cry. “Yes, I do” I respond, churlishly).

I have become increasingly ..how shall we put this…despondent , yes, that’s a good word, despondent over the rewriting of punk “history” , mostly by them that weren’t there at the time  ( I’m referring here to the “first wave” of 76-77) but also by revisionist axe grinders who write books (BOOKS ! About punk ! Pah !) about it and over analyse the pudding.

There’s an example today in the paper , a young lass who loves the Clash (http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/may/18/robyn-nichol-weekender) and who is very happy with her jacket which bears the names of two Clash songs including 1977. We must forgive her her age, I think, but talk about missing the point ! ( For those that don’t know it the song 1977 is a “call to arms” for punks and includes lines like “No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977″).

Over the years various bands have tried ( and in most cases I would say, failed) to recapture the “Spirit of ’76″ but , for me, have missed the mark. A certain “mythology”, if you will, has built up around bands like the Clash and the Sex Pistols which would have been derided most vigorously by their contemporaries at the time.

The essence of punk, in it’s early days is , perhaps, best captured in the line from X-Ray Spex’s “Warrior in Woolworth’s”  - “He doesn’t need no history,he threw the past away”. That’s where “we” were coming from ( I like to think). A “Year 0″ kind of thing, even when the artifacts and attitudes of earlier strains of musical rebellion were purloined for punkish purposes they were adapted and twisted to fit the new creations of the day.

I don’t think it’s really possible to recreate those times, the whole social , political, economic and technological landscape is very different today. 24 hour television, computers, mobile phones, cars that don’t break down every 10 miles, all these things ( and more) mean that today’s disaffected, disenchanted and in need of disinfecting youths don’t “get” bored in the same way.

However, things are different in China. Rock music there is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s only 10 years of so since the country was effectively opened up to western influences ( at least for the masses, I suspect the top bods had always enjoyed a drop of Stella and a pasty) and the musical infrastructure has had to be built up virtually from scratch, especially in the “indie and punk” sector. The “kids”, in essence, as it was BITD in Britain, have had to do it for themselves.

Thus it is that a band crawled out from the slums of Peking,fueled by a love of the Dead Boys, Pistols, Ramones and beer ( mostly beer,actually) and fired with a deep sense of despondency and inertia that is to be admired. They called themselves Joyside 

It took 3 years for them to get their first album out ( Drunk is beautiful-2004) but it was certainly worth the wait. No other record has, for me, captured that feel that I recall ( dimly it must be said) of chaotic, indolent nihilism, the driving force of punk.

Tracks like “I want beer” “I’m lazy and wasting” and “I don’t care about your society” ( all featured below) speak of a group of young chaps alienated from the new, booming China and longing for ..well…nothing really !

There followed ( in 1995) a grand tour of China ( by train !) documented on the wonderful “Wasted Orient” video. We see the chaps in their squalid home, interviewed in toilets across the land, glorying in dissolution and, in one memorable moment, instructing us in Chinese “nouvelle cuisine du punque” ( Whiskey Noodles- Take some noodles, fry in wok, add whiskey et “Voila !”).

We see them play miniscule gigs to tiny audiences and eat some weird stuff but mostly we see them drink beer, lots of it and generally lark about in a way that is very reminiscent of those far off days of my youth.

Before the video was released original (Japanese) guitarist Yang Yang “left” the band and was replaced by Xin Shang who brought a new “musicality” to the band as shown by the track “My eyes pissed again” ( a kind of love song) featured below.

The band staggered ( literally) on until 2009 releasing every more “sophisticated” records ( Dong dong dong featured) before burning out, blaming difficulties within the music scene and general disillusionment.

Or have they….in the past couple of years new tracks have appeared on their “Douban” pages, so maybe the legend that is joyside continues to haunt the Chinese music scene.

I do hope so, they were, I think, rather special.

* I should add that as a responsible parent these days I no longer consider being a booze addled punk rocker to be a sensible career choice and would council anyone against following such a path.

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

• Log in and type your nomination in the comment box – Song Title and Artist/Band name and

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.

• Add any more text you want

• Preview your post

• Post your comment

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:

• Suggest anything I feel like suggesting.
• Occasionally these have something vaguely to do with the topic. Mostly they don’t but are “good” tracks.
• Sometimes I make things up, I’m terrible like that.
• Songs concerning toilets WILL be nominated.
• Songs with ludicrous titles/subject matter/words etc will be nominated. The Guardian is sour faced enough as it is, a little technicolour weirdness ( or chocolate rainbow unicorn bunnies) is necessary to leaven the tide of grey gloom.Take nothing seriously but try not to upset too many people each week.
• Ignore the “list”. They have been terrible of late, more suited to a 50th anniversary wedding party or gathering of depressives ( is there a collective term ? A Misanthrope ?).
• Accept that the rest of the world is wrong. I find that helps.
• Pretend to like Yui to keep in Sakura’s good books ( only kidding….or am I ….?)
• Write rubbish.
• Don’t use spell check.
• Change group names or song names in “humorous” fashion.
• Above all, have fun ( by my standards which , I must admit, are set pretty low anyway).” Pairubu

Donding  

You have three choices, and you can use any or all or any of these:

• Click the recommend against the post
• Respond to the nomination post(s) by letting the poster know that you’re donding the song
• Compile your own dond list(s)

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

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.

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

Which was our point of view, more or less; and it was a bit of a shame we weren’t further over so Matt could see Mike better, because he’s interested in Mike’s twiddly bits. But TP came over to our side a lot, and the only one we couldn’t really see was Benmont because he is a) on the far left and b) completely surrounded by keyboards. Also he is the smallest Heartbreaker.

By the way, I hope you’re not expecting an objective review, because I’m not capable of writing one. Remember they’ve been my favourite band by far for the last two years, I’ve listened to almost no music except theirs in that time, and this was the first time I’d seen them. Instead I will tell you some things about the set. It started and ended with greatest hits, but in the middle there was a fairly long section where they did more obscure songs from the back catalogue and songs by other people; this is the part of the set that varies from concert to concert and I’m hoping I get to hear the whole lot by the time I’m done. There were two songs from my own TP top ten, and this is one:

That’s Lover’s Touch, a not-bad audience recording from the first gig of the tour. The sound goes a bit funny in the middle, but not because of anything TP&TH did. My other favourite that they did was Refugee, but nobody seems to have made even a not-bad recording of that one. However, if you’ve read this far you probably know how it goes.

You can’t help singing along, so I did, and especially during Learning To Fly where TP encourages the audience to sing the chorus towards the end and he sings a descant over the top, which was lovely, though he didn’t do the bird-song whistly bit at the end. Perhaps (like me) he’s lost his ability to whistle. Also, our rendition of Free Fallin’ was apparently the loudest one ever – though he probably says that to all the audiences.

Afterwards when we were back in San Antonio and people asked Matt what it had been like, he said it was “pretty good”. But I said it was magnificent and wonderful and awesome and so on. In other words, it was just as I’d expected it to be. There were a couple of things that upset me though. One was that (despite being in the very expensive seats) we had four idiots in front of us who spent their time chatting, taking photos of each other and going in and out to get more beer. Why do people like that bother to go to concerts at all? [Discuss]

The other thing, which really distressed me, was that TP was unable to sing more than two songs at a time without going to the back of the stage, lighting a cigarette, taking a drag and putting it out again. I hadn’t realised his addiction was that bad. (I know he was trying to give up a year ago.) So, if you want to see him, I suggest you see him soon, or it may be too late.

Bye, TP&TH. See you in Dublin on June 7.

Matt and I drove home, and as we approached San Antonio the sky filled with thunderclouds and lightning. It wasn’t as good as Jim Lenahan’s light show though.

Oh, and you maybe want to know whether I screamed. I had warned Matt beforehand that I might. No I didn’t. I spent pretty much the whole time with my mouth open in astonishment and joy, though. (Or singing.)

You wreck me, baby. And by the way, please stop smoking.

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?