 |
| Aruba Airport |
Good morning dearest friends,
 |
| I, Ludicrous |
A mighty tune, so enjoy!
Ta,
Dirk
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
JC is back ... with a jetlag!
Good morning dearest friends,
just a quickie this morning: I just read that finally our pal JC aka The Vinyl Villain has returned from his holiday in Aruba, suitcases were delayed at the airport, he can't really cope with the cold Glasgow temperatures in comparison and, in addition to this, he suffers from a jet lag. Poor guy, but fucking hell, these things won't happen when going to Weston-super-Mare instead, so it's all your own fault, darling!
In fact I am of course only [A] just a jealous guy and [B] use every opportunity, even as far-fetched as in this context, to herald a I, Ludicrous - revival, which I start with this from their 1987 debut album 'It's Like Everything Else':
Good morning dearest friends,
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Harold's Leap - 'Too Much Time'
suffering from a conjunctivitis is not nice, I can tell you. The only good thing is that you can't go to work, which, let's face facts here, is something I can cope with for a week or so ... after 25 years in business, because it means yiu find time to do things you normally don't have the time for that easily. And this post is but one of them:
quite a while ago I received a CD in the post, out of the blue, sent to me by my mate Tim. Now Tim is the mastermind behind the Contrast Podcast, a site which I highly recommend, especially currently, because the Festive Fifty will be on its way shortly. If you want to vote, by the way, you have another week to do so. Have a look here for further information/instructions.
But back to the CD. I knew actually that Tim was involved in music thingies in one way or another, what I didn't know though is that he is in a band, and in a proper one as well! The CD is by and large marvellous and it really is a good listen throughout! I am no good at all in reviewing music, drawing comparisons, highlighting the positive aspects of some tunes and figure out why it is that others are not as brilliant. I think people should always judge by themselves and therefore here's a tune from said CD for you to do the very same now:
Harold's Leap - 'Feeding The Dumb Glutton' (mp3)
A real corker, isn't it? And the other 13 tunes are just as neat, I would think, although this one is my favourite!
'Too Much Time' is out on Constitution Music and you can find additional information here and you can purchase the CD here.
Please do the necessary,
Dirk
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Keepingitpeel Day 2011
as usual it is an honour for me to participate in the annual Keepingitpeel Day, as installed by Webbie from Football and Music. Please find out more about the event on his site. Also my friend JC over at The Vinyl Villain posted some great articles about the event within the last week, so I suggest you have a look at his site as well: some neat songs were being featured there!
I think there are mainly two things we are missing, now that John Peel is no longer with us. The first, of course, is the music he brought to us. But secondly, at least this is true for me, I think we miss his voice a great deal. Therefore, and I hope it meets with your approval, this year I decided to focus a bit more on the voice than on the music, so I dug out a few of my old (from 1989 in this case) BFBS tapes and searched for some of those amusing little stories we all loved John for back then. The sound quality may not be absolutely perfect perhaps, but please don't let that put you off from listening closely!
So, without further ado, here we go:
Well, I do hope indeed you enjoyed my choices and please remember to keep it Peel: not only today, but everyday!
Any comments would be, of course, highly appreciated.
Cheers,
Dirk
Thursday, September 29, 2011
I want one of those for Christmas!!!
Dearest friends,
I know that most of you all sit around already, doing nothing else but contemplating about what you might possibly could get me for Christmas: there is no need to waste your time any longer, folks, because, yes, I felt your desperation and will herewith help you out of your misery!! Just spend a little bit of your money in visiting www.supersizeart.com and get me one of those, please:
Now, isn't that neat indeed? The best record in the history of the whole world ever, but measuring almost four times the original size of the single at 27"/68 cm square. And, even better, just like the original single you can select the sleeve to be in blue, pink, green or yellow. The lucky chap pictured above, by the way, is Don Letts, D.J., musician and film-maker ('Westway To The World')..
But, as you might already have gathered, there is a catch in this, as it so often is the case in life: those imbecile villains want 380,- (!!) quid for the item, can you believe that to be true?! That's 440,- Euros for the rest of Europe .... and the weak Pound doesn't help a great deal here!
Then again I know that you all love me to no degree and that you, contrary to me, are all loaded anyway, so just leave a comment when you bought me one of those for Christmas and I'll provide you with an adress where you can send it to .... and, before I forget, I'd like to have a yellow one, okay?
Here's the tune:
mp3: The Clash - '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (S CBS 6383, June 16th 1978)
... and, because I know it will meet with your approval, a version you probably don't hear all that often:
mp3: The Clash - '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (live at The Orpheum in Boston, USA, 07.09.82)
Cheers .... and thanks beforehand,
Dirk
I know that most of you all sit around already, doing nothing else but contemplating about what you might possibly could get me for Christmas: there is no need to waste your time any longer, folks, because, yes, I felt your desperation and will herewith help you out of your misery!! Just spend a little bit of your money in visiting www.supersizeart.com and get me one of those, please:
Now, isn't that neat indeed? The best record in the history of the whole world ever, but measuring almost four times the original size of the single at 27"/68 cm square. And, even better, just like the original single you can select the sleeve to be in blue, pink, green or yellow. The lucky chap pictured above, by the way, is Don Letts, D.J., musician and film-maker ('Westway To The World')..
But, as you might already have gathered, there is a catch in this, as it so often is the case in life: those imbecile villains want 380,- (!!) quid for the item, can you believe that to be true?! That's 440,- Euros for the rest of Europe .... and the weak Pound doesn't help a great deal here!
Then again I know that you all love me to no degree and that you, contrary to me, are all loaded anyway, so just leave a comment when you bought me one of those for Christmas and I'll provide you with an adress where you can send it to .... and, before I forget, I'd like to have a yellow one, okay?
Here's the tune:
mp3: The Clash - '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (S CBS 6383, June 16th 1978)
... and, because I know it will meet with your approval, a version you probably don't hear all that often:
mp3: The Clash - '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (live at The Orpheum in Boston, USA, 07.09.82)
Cheers .... and thanks beforehand,
Dirk
Friday, August 26, 2011
"I Love My Label ..." (Pt. 3: Beggars Banquet)
Good morning my beauties,
another one in the 'I Love My Label' - series, this time we'll have a closer look at the Beggars Banquet back catalogue. A label I was very fond of in the eighties as they had quite an immense volume of great artists under contract. Here's some historical background for you, friends:
Beggars Banquet is a legendary UK indie label launched by Martin Mills in 1977 with two 7" singles by punk band The Lurkers. Over the years, Beggars has released music in nearly every genre imaginable - punk, goth, synth-pop, folk-rock, indie and more. They have launched several spin-off labels (4AD, Situation Two, City Beat, XL Recordings...) and bought out/invested in many others (Too Pure, Mo Wax, Matador...), creating Beggars Group, one of the largest networks of indie record labels in the world.
In April 2008 the Beggars Group, chaired by Martin Mills, opted to retire the Beggars Banquet imprint, moving key artists to the Beggars Group owned 4AD label.
So here come my choices: songs by bands, as I said above, I always admired:
["Rodeo Radio" - LP, SITU 16, '85]
["7th Dream Of Teenage Heaven" - LP, BEG A 66, '85]
The Lurkers - 'Ain't Got A Clue' [7", BEG 6, '78]
The Ramones - 'I Wanna Live' [12", BEG 201 T, '87]
Well, not THAT much of information included in today's post, I admit. But then again you have a bulk of killer tunes to download and everyone of them's a winner if you ask me! So have fun, enjoy .... and leave comments, please!
All the best,
Dirk
Monday, August 22, 2011
French Connection
Bonsoir mes amis,
did you notice that everybody's seems to be doing it the French way these days? Literally ALL of my favourite blogs recently had at least one post connected with, in one way or another, music out of France:
Drew @ Across The Kitchen Table did some really nice Jacqueline Taieb, then you have Webbie from Football And Music with a podcast named 'French France', Phil Spector @ Plain or Pan featured Sly Et La Famille Pierre here, Adam from Pretending Life Is Like A Song did this one ('En Francais'), Adam @ Bagging Area did 'Les Fleur' and Davy H. contributed this article over at The Ghost Of Electricity. And all of them write little essays about the merits of eating moules (or, some of them (ignorants!!), the merits of NOT eating moules) in the comment sections. Now, eating moules in vast amounts is something I can indeed cope with, and in fact I did so two weeks ago whilst being on holiday on the Dutch seaside .... and very good they were too, my moules (Spanish style, should you be wondering), highly recommendable! I only wish I would get them over here in Germany more often .... that fresh and at reasonable prices!
Now, as I don't want to be the kid noone plays with, I dug out a very useful compilation called 'The Atomic Café - French Cuts', a double LP I used to play heavily when it came out back in 1999. The vinyl, alas, occasionally proves that I really must have played it to death back then. But then again there's loads of great stuff on it, so much so that I don't have any problems in not being able to play to you those tracks that are by now by and large unplayable .... to my geat dismay: nevertheless, 'cos, as you might imagine, the ones that are REALLY good are the ones that are mostly destroyed. But the rest is just fine as well, so here you go!
Compiled by djs of a Munich club, this sampler concentrates on the more garage-like, obscure, unknown and otherwise unusual and fun tracks .... which makes it all even more worthwile to listen to. So, here are a few tracks from 'The Atomic Café', perhaps not really the most unknown of the whole lot, I should admit:
What else do I have for you? Some classics from yesteryear, not as old as the above and styled completely differently, but I thought I'd give you a listen anyway .... I still like 'em a lot and I hope you do too. I have a feeling though that (at least) the latter two are not French bands at all, but then again they fitted oh-so-nicely into this 'Les ....' - context and, even more importantly, both are killer tunes, so I thought I'd better be not too pedantic and pack 'em in as well:
Well, that's it, enough for today, friends. Have fun and enjoy your evening with a good bottle of French red wine: I'll rush down to the garden and will do the very same in a second!
Salut et au revoir,
Dirk
did you notice that everybody's seems to be doing it the French way these days? Literally ALL of my favourite blogs recently had at least one post connected with, in one way or another, music out of France:
Drew @ Across The Kitchen Table did some really nice Jacqueline Taieb, then you have Webbie from Football And Music with a podcast named 'French France', Phil Spector @ Plain or Pan featured Sly Et La Famille Pierre here, Adam from Pretending Life Is Like A Song did this one ('En Francais'), Adam @ Bagging Area did 'Les Fleur' and Davy H. contributed this article over at The Ghost Of Electricity. And all of them write little essays about the merits of eating moules (or, some of them (ignorants!!), the merits of NOT eating moules) in the comment sections. Now, eating moules in vast amounts is something I can indeed cope with, and in fact I did so two weeks ago whilst being on holiday on the Dutch seaside .... and very good they were too, my moules (Spanish style, should you be wondering), highly recommendable! I only wish I would get them over here in Germany more often .... that fresh and at reasonable prices!
Now, as I don't want to be the kid noone plays with, I dug out a very useful compilation called 'The Atomic Café - French Cuts', a double LP I used to play heavily when it came out back in 1999. The vinyl, alas, occasionally proves that I really must have played it to death back then. But then again there's loads of great stuff on it, so much so that I don't have any problems in not being able to play to you those tracks that are by now by and large unplayable .... to my geat dismay: nevertheless, 'cos, as you might imagine, the ones that are REALLY good are the ones that are mostly destroyed. But the rest is just fine as well, so here you go!
Compiled by djs of a Munich club, this sampler concentrates on the more garage-like, obscure, unknown and otherwise unusual and fun tracks .... which makes it all even more worthwile to listen to. So, here are a few tracks from 'The Atomic Café', perhaps not really the most unknown of the whole lot, I should admit:
What else do I have for you? Some classics from yesteryear, not as old as the above and styled completely differently, but I thought I'd give you a listen anyway .... I still like 'em a lot and I hope you do too. I have a feeling though that (at least) the latter two are not French bands at all, but then again they fitted oh-so-nicely into this 'Les ....' - context and, even more importantly, both are killer tunes, so I thought I'd better be not too pedantic and pack 'em in as well:
Well, that's it, enough for today, friends. Have fun and enjoy your evening with a good bottle of French red wine: I'll rush down to the garden and will do the very same in a second!
Salut et au revoir,
Dirk
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Little Loser's Lottery .... Pt. 3
Hello friends and followers everywhere,
I hope this little something finds you well and in good shape, I, personally, can't complain, although, as usual, time on me own is rare these days for reasons well known to you all by now, I would think.
Nevertheless yesterday afternoon I used the time I spent together with Little Loser (two an a half years by now) very well, so much so in fact, that I forced him to choose six records out of the collection. Normally I would have expected him to tell me to bugger off, but no: we had one of these very rare occasions in which he promptly did what I asked him to do, believe it or not, so there you are!
Although this is part three of the series, means I did it before (obviously), I was inspired to do it again yesterday by London Lee, who does the same thing with his son in his wonderful blog, 'Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop'. He calls it 'Junior Choice' and Junior seems to have a splendid taste, that's for sure.
Now, in order to create more space for Mrs Loser's unbelievable amount of silly nonsense, I recently was forced to rearrange the shelves on which my records were and I had to store them in a different place, a much smaller one. This meant less room altogether, the conclusion was that I had to give up seperating full length albums from 12" singles and compilations: everything is now filed in alphabetical order, regardless of the format. Apart of the 7" singles, obviously, those are in two different boxes on their own.
Little Loser, in his own strange wisdom, managed to trace 12" singles only (plus one compilation, I admit), but no albums at all. And, most curiously, the bulk of them are from 1987. He is a strange kid sometimes, let me tell you.
Okay, enough of that, here's what he found:
I hope this little something finds you well and in good shape, I, personally, can't complain, although, as usual, time on me own is rare these days for reasons well known to you all by now, I would think.
Nevertheless yesterday afternoon I used the time I spent together with Little Loser (two an a half years by now) very well, so much so in fact, that I forced him to choose six records out of the collection. Normally I would have expected him to tell me to bugger off, but no: we had one of these very rare occasions in which he promptly did what I asked him to do, believe it or not, so there you are!
Although this is part three of the series, means I did it before (obviously), I was inspired to do it again yesterday by London Lee, who does the same thing with his son in his wonderful blog, 'Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop'. He calls it 'Junior Choice' and Junior seems to have a splendid taste, that's for sure.
Now, in order to create more space for Mrs Loser's unbelievable amount of silly nonsense, I recently was forced to rearrange the shelves on which my records were and I had to store them in a different place, a much smaller one. This meant less room altogether, the conclusion was that I had to give up seperating full length albums from 12" singles and compilations: everything is now filed in alphabetical order, regardless of the format. Apart of the 7" singles, obviously, those are in two different boxes on their own.
Little Loser, in his own strange wisdom, managed to trace 12" singles only (plus one compilation, I admit), but no albums at all. And, most curiously, the bulk of them are from 1987. He is a strange kid sometimes, let me tell you.
Okay, enough of that, here's what he found:
(12", 1987, Play It Again Sam Records)
(B-Side of 'I Wanna Live', 12", 1987, Beggars Banquet Records)
(from the 'Trainspotting' - compilation, 1996, EMI Records)
(7", 2000, Ché Trading)
(12", 1987, Vindaloo Records)
(12", 1979, Stiff Records)
All in all not too bad, I would think .... I do hope you agree .... and, yes, of course, enjoy!
Have fun, see you soon!
Dirk
Monday, January 31, 2011
Lottery Winners On Acid
Hello my beauties,
I bet most of you would have severe difficulties to name your 10 favourite songs of all time (a definitive + unchangable list, preferably having to be done in front of a loaded machine gun if you know what I mean). I certainly couldn't do it .... and I'm trying very hard to do it in my head for some 20 years now. There are three or four songs that would make it on said list, and this is but one of them.
I don't know awfully much about The Crimea, I have a full length CD flying around somewhere and it might even be worth listening to in its entirety, the problem though is that I always keep coming back to this tune, 'Lottery Winners On Acid'. In my humble estimation it certainly is one of the best songs ever written and here it is to you in two versions, first from the original CD, which came out on Shiny Beast Recordings in 2002, and also the re-release, a 2006 7" on Warner Reords.
Hard to tell which one is to be prefered, I think both of them are simply awesome and, dear Crimea: thanks ever so much for this piece of music. With it alone you certainly have achieved much more than I would ever be able to achieve in all of my life!
I bet most of you would have severe difficulties to name your 10 favourite songs of all time (a definitive + unchangable list, preferably having to be done in front of a loaded machine gun if you know what I mean). I certainly couldn't do it .... and I'm trying very hard to do it in my head for some 20 years now. There are three or four songs that would make it on said list, and this is but one of them.
I don't know awfully much about The Crimea, I have a full length CD flying around somewhere and it might even be worth listening to in its entirety, the problem though is that I always keep coming back to this tune, 'Lottery Winners On Acid'. In my humble estimation it certainly is one of the best songs ever written and here it is to you in two versions, first from the original CD, which came out on Shiny Beast Recordings in 2002, and also the re-release, a 2006 7" on Warner Reords.
Hard to tell which one is to be prefered, I think both of them are simply awesome and, dear Crimea: thanks ever so much for this piece of music. With it alone you certainly have achieved much more than I would ever be able to achieve in all of my life!
Also I feel like a lottery winner meself, at least a little bit, because a few days ago I received an email from Craig who runs a t-shirt mailorder shop in the UK, "Mr Cloud" ... and some very nice stuff he offers there, too. Well, in his email he offered me a shirt for free (I chose a Sonic Youth shirt, should you want to know) if I mention his shop on Sexyloser ... and it is my pleasure to do the very same here. Also he offered me to provide me with a recording of the last Christmas show John Peel did: I already have that one, Craig, but thanks for the idea!
The link is www.mrcloud.com so I strongly suggest you have a look and choose something nice for you and/or your beloved ones!
Enough for today, as usual any comments are highly appreciated!
Take good care,
Dirk
Monday, January 17, 2011
"I Love My Label ...." (Pt. 2: Rough Trade Records)
Good morning dearest friends,
The advantage of having had a burst appendix is that the doctor thinks I need two more weeks to recover from the experience, this means I have quite some time which I can spend in front of the computer and write silly nonsense, as it is the case right now.
Okay, as for the second part of 'I Love My Label ...', this time I had a go at Rough Trade Records. Not an easy thing to do, because the amount of stuff they released over the years by various artists is immense at the very least. But I think I found some neat tunes and I do hope you share this opinion. This is what I want to play to you today:
A cover to start with, but one of a neat tune indeed, originally done by The Five Royales. The Detroit Cobras to me surely were one of the best five 'new' bands in the last decade, all of their stuff is outstandingly good and I'll never become tired to listen to Rachel Nagy's wonderful voice, they indeed are a highly recommended band! This song is from their second album, 'Life, Love And Leaving' (RTRADCD067) from 2001. Pictured above is the front cover of the US release, but it was on Rough Trade in the UK.
Again a great song, but not my favourite one by The Go-Betweens. As it so often is the case, I like the earliest recordings best ('People Say' for instance), those though were issued on the Able Label and not on Rough Trade. This doesn't mean that 'Cattle And Cane' is a bad song in one form or another, the only problem might be that you know it already by heart. For those of you who don't: it's from the band's second album, 'Before Hollywood', released as ROUGH54 in the UK back in 1983.
'One Man Clapping' was the third full length release from James, a live album which came out in March 1989. The album was recorded at the Moles Club, Bath, UK on the 14 and 15 November 1988. The album was issued on their own One Man imprint of Rough Trade Records (One Man 1 LP), after parting company with Blanco y Negro/Sire. So at least Rough Trade are a bit involved in here, reason enough to play to you this wonderful tune! Hope it brings back memories to those of you lucky enough to having had the chance to see James play live back in the 90's ....
Led by goddess Hope Sandoval, here's to you Mazzy Star: their debut album, released in 1990, is a real treasure. It was also released on Capitol Records back then in the States and in Canada, but for the UK it was ROUGH 158. 'Apparently 'Blue Flower' is a cover by a band called Slapp Happy, they wrote the song in 1972. I must admit I never heard the original and I am not sure whether I want to hear it at all: I'm afraid it may destroy what I like so much about Mazzy Star's version.
Okay, I have to cheat a bit here, but the song really is a highlight and I have to find a way to file it under Rough Trade in one form or another. It was originally released as a 7" on Hearthan in the US in 1976, a pressing of 3000. Then, in June 1980, Rough Trade UK re-released it, again as a 7", but with a different B-Side and titled the whole package 'Datapanik In The Year Zero-A' as RT 049. But, to make life even more complicated, Radar Records, back in 1978, also released a 7"-EP called 'Datapanik In The Year Zero', this though doesn't contain 'Final Solution' at all. Either way, it really is a gem, this tune, so please enjoy and play it loud loud loud!
Of course this post wouldn't be complete without having chosen something by The Smiths out of the Rough Trade back catalogue. Not an easy task, as you might be able to confirm, because obviously they have released so many good records over the years. This one though is one you don't hear all that often, the B-Side of the 'This Charming Man' - 7", 'Jeane': RTT 136, 1983.
From the album 'Reading, Writing And Arithmetic' (ROUGH 148 from 1990). Lead vocals by the awesome Harriet Wheeler, who, one would think, has been listening to The Cocteau Twins quite a lot when she was a bit younger: nothing wrong with that, I suppose ....
A total classic which I'm sure all of you know by heart, some 31 years (Jesus, is that really true? I'm afraid it is ....) after it's release. No reason not to play it again .... because I rule and I like it a lot! A 7", catalogue number was RT 043.
As mentioned previously, bearing the quantity of the Rough Trade back catalogue in mind, this wasn't that easy all in all. I do hope though that you enjoyed my choices. Any comments, verifying the same, or not, if you'd rather, are of cause highly appreciated. As usual.
Cheers,
Dirk
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