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:

Brigitte Bardot - 'Harley Davidson' ('67)

Gillian Hills - 'Tut Tut Tut Tut' ('69)

 Stella - 'Beatnicks D'Occaison' ('67)

Jacques Dutronc - 'Le Responsable' ('69)

Charlotte Leslie - 'Les Filles C'est Fait ..' ('66)

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:

Les Coronados: 'C'est Le Soir' ('84)

Les Rita Mitsouko: 'C'est Comme Ca' ('86)

Les Calamités: 'Le Garcon De New York' ('84)

Les Negresses Vertes: 'Zobi La Mouche' ('89)

Les Thugs: 'Never Get Older' ('86)

Les Trois Frommages - 'La Tartiflette' ('06)

Les Breastfeeders - 'Ostrogoth A Go-Go' ('04)

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

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:

The Bollock Brothers - 'Harley David' (mp3)

(12", 1987, Play It Again Sam Records)

The Ramones - 'Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)' (mp3)

(B-Side of 'I Wanna Live', 12", 1987, Beggars Banquet Records)

Underworld - 'Born Slippy (NUXX)' (mp3)

(from the 'Trainspotting' - compilation, 1996, EMI Records)

Helen Love - 'Shifty Disco Girl' (mp3)

(7", 2000, Ché Trading)

Ted Chippington - 'The Wanderer' (mp3)

(12", 1987, Vindaloo Records)

Lene Lovich - 'Lucky Number' (mp3)

(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

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!

The Crimea - 'Lottery Winners On Acid' ('02) (mp3)

The Crimea - 'Lottery Winners On Acid' ('06) (mp3)

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

"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:

Detroit Cobras - 'Right Around The Corner' (mp3)

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.

       The Go-Betweens - 'Cattle And Cane' (mp3)

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.

James - 'Chain Mail' (live) (mp3)

'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 ....

  Mazzy Star - 'Blue Flower' (mp3)

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.

Pere Ubu - 'Final Solution' (mp3)

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!

 The Smiths - 'Jeane' (mp3)

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.

 The Sundays - 'Here's Where The Story Ends' (mp3)

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 ....

Young Marble Giants - 'Final Day' ('80)

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

Kids ...

Hello my beauties,

not that I want to bore you here with personal details, but I spent the last weeks with severe pain in my guts, and in the end, after having visited a million different doctors between Christmas and New Year, it turned out to be a burst appendix. This little something has by now been removed from the inside of my pretty body and I'm back from hospital where I spent all of last week thinking beautiful thoughts. Mostly two things came to mind when I lay there, first:

- my water bed is the fucking best purchase I ever made in all of my life (apart perhaps from the four 7" singles of The Clash's 'White Man in Hammersmith Palais' (all in different sleeve colours) and perhaps also the original Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks' 7" EP on Good Vibes, the one with the fold-out sleeve): hospital beds are no fun to deal with if you have a water bed waiting for you at home: you can write that down and use it for yourself if you like!

and secondly:

- my son (and yes, my wife as well). I mean, they visited me every day and so on, but I really missed Little Loser a geat deal as soon as he had to leave each day. Nearly cried when he shut the door behind him ... and the nights weren't easy for me all alone without him.

So it's songs about kids today. Don't care too much about the song titles, they mean nothing much and don't reflect any of my personal views whatsoever. It's just three songs I like a great deal, this and the fact that they all have 'kids' somewhere in the title is the only thing they have in common. So here we go, friends, enjoy:

 Sportique - 'The Kids Are Solid Gold' (mp3)

... and indeed they are, well: most of the times. A nice little UK 7" from 1998 on Roxy Records, ROX004 in fact.

Vampire Weekend - 'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance' (mp3)

Their best song ever in my humble opinion! I mean Vampire Weekend are a brilliant band for sure, but this tune is very hard to match indeed and I don't think they'll ever succeed in doing so. A white vinyl 7" on XL Recordings, home of the mighty Ballboy, people, and released in 2008. XLS 399 is the catalogue number.

The Indelicates - 'We Hate The Kids' (mp3)

Outstandingly brilliant as well, as pretty much of their stuff is. Another 7", this time from 2006 on Sad Gnome Records (SG0601) and thanks to the nice guy who runs the label: he gave this 7" to me from Norway for small money out of his private collection, although it is long out of print! Thanks again, mate!

Three killer tunes in a row and I do hope you are delighted to get the chance to hear them here on Sexyloser, people! I certainly am ...

Enjoy,

Dirk

Recent Purchases ...

Good morning friends,

I think I told you before that I'm selling most of my record collection on discogs (go to discogs.com and search for seller 'fullofhope', should you be interested to buy a little something. I'd be more than pleased, of course, because Little Loser needs new shoes constantly), but occasionally I still see an old 7" here and there that I always wanted to have and then I buy it. A contradiction in terms if you like, but that's the way it is, I'm afraid. Now, rather recently I found those three little gems and I thought I'd share them with you, because it really is quite extraordinary stuff indeed, at least as far as I'm concerned:

Joe Strummer with  Long Beach Dub All Stars - 'Harder They Come' (mp3)

A nice version of the Jimmy Cliff favourite and on red vinyl as well (I always like that). Seems to be some sort of white labelled bootleg, the etching reads STRUM 1, but I'm afraid that's all I can tell you about this single, there is no recording or label info whatsoever, although I think it was released in 2009. There are two other tunes on it, a live version of 'Harder They Come' (quite why the 'The' (Harder They Come') from the (original) title disappeared without a trace I don't know either) plus a live version of 'Rudi, A Message To You', both done along with The Mescaleros.

The Marabar Caves - 'Seeds That Never Grew' (mp3)

Again I first heard this on Peel in another century and I always thought it is an astonishing recording indeed. Then a few weeks ago I got my hand on a mint copy of the 7" for little money, so here it is to you, friends. And also again there ain't pretty much I can tell you about the band, I think they are British, the 7" was released in 1984 on Tiki Records (MBAR1) and 'Seeds That Never Grew' (only) is the B-Side (of 'Sally's Place'). Astonishingly enough, because, at least as far as I'm concerned, it is the much better tune. I wouldn't really know how to describe it to you in style (a mixture between bass-driven rockabilly and strong power-pop perhaps, if you'd force me to name something), I suggest though to download it and judge by yourself: the song really is worth a few seconds of your internet time! The Marabar Caves actually are in somewhere in India, but I'm sure you knew that all along ....

King Short Shirt - 'Nobody Go Run Me' (mp3)

A mighty tune!! Alas, as with so many of these original Caribbean releases, without a picture sleeve. King Short Shirt was (and still is, as far as I know)  a cult figure in Antigua, and this 1976 track really proves why this is. Again a B-Side, the A-Side being 'Tourist Leggo', from a single on Weed Beat Records (WB 031). Do yourself a favour, folks, and listen to this at immense volume!

Okay, I hope you enjoyed my choices for this week, there is more to follow soon. As soon as a certain CD arrives in the post, something I'm waiting for for quite a while now and I do hope the British Postal Service didn't lose it in the snow along the Festive Season: I'll take them to court should this really turn out to be the case, promised!

Have fun and all the very best,

Dirk

A mixtape .... and why not?

Hello dear friends,

Mrs Loser, together with Little Loser are away for a few hours now (@ the neighbours, preparing food for a Halloween/Birthday party, which is going to take place tomorrow evening. I'll turn up as a mummy there, should you want to know ...).

Either way, I used the time on me own to mow the lawn (for the last time this year I hope) and then went to the computer and listened to some tunes from yesteryear. And whilst doing so I thought to myself: 'Hold on, why not share this stuff with the five blighters who occassionally read this blog?' And there you are, friends, a mixtape for you! Nothing special, just a few songs I listened to earlier today, that's it. I like them a lot, and I hope you do too.  I only used songs not dating prior to 1990, because I thought, okay, if one or two people leave comments, perhaps this gives you the chance to do another mixtape of songs from even an earlier period, the one that I like best (1976 - 1989) .... so let's wait and see, shall we?

So here's what I spent my morning with, in no particular running order ....:

(1) Mr Symarip - 'I Was Busted' ('06)
(2) Detroit Cobras - 'Shout Bama Lama' ('04)
(3) Midwich Cuckoos - 'Show Me' ('90)
(4) Harrisons - 'Man Of The Hour' ('07)
(5) Louie - 'Dead Man' ('06)
(6) Clinic - 'The Return Of Evil Bill' ('00)
(7) Mo Ho Bish O Pi - 'Hear The Air' ('00)
(8) Spoon - 'Jonathon Fisk' ('02)
(9) Pulp - 'O.U. (Gone, Gone)' ('92)
(10) Jesus & Mary Chain - 'Rocket' ('98)
(11) Inter - 'Happy Ending' ('97)
(12) Broken Family Band - '12 Eyes Of Evil' ('03)
(13) Raymen - 'Buzzsaw Baby Of The Hollywood Hills' ('90)
(14) Shane McGowan & The Popes - 'Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway' ('00)
(15) Crimea - 'Lottery Winners On Acid' ('03)
(16) Electrelane - 'I'm On Fire' ('03)
(17) M.A.S.S. - 'Hey Gravity' ('02)
(18) Pooh Sticks - 'Young People' ('91)
(19) McLusky - 'Alan Is A Cowboy Killer' ('02)
(20) Metal Mike - 'I Don't Like This World Anymore' ('91)
(21) Soledad Brothers - 'Break 'Em On Down' ('02)
(22) NOFX - 'Kill All The White Man (live Hollywood '95)

Hope you had fun with that, friends. I certainly had.

Leave comments. Please.

Cheerio,

Dirk

October 25th: Peel Day

left picture: Peel & me in a London pub, 1988 or thereabouts. Jesus, look at that haircut! And, even worse, that jacket: I look like a fugitive from East Germany!!

right picture: at Peel Acres, a few days later: in the background you see a small (!) part of just one (!) of the four (!) double-sided (!) shelves where Peel stored his 7" singles in!!



Dearest friends,


yes, yes, I know: three posts within one month, so you might think 'what the hell is wrong with this guy ...  nothing happens for half a year and now he is bombing us with articles!' Be relieved to learn though that I just do this in order to draw your attention to the fact that today is October 25th!

Six years ago on this very day I was honeymooning in Jamaica, me and Mrs. Loser were driving in a hired Jeep from Negril all the way to Port Antonio, rather a hard drive because of the bad roads, but nevertheless fun fun fun ... which came to a sudden stop when reaching the suburbs of Kingston: it was announced on the radio that John Peel had died. Now, this, to date, has been the greatest shock in all of my life, I can't remember anything that hit me that hard so far. Peel had not only been a hero for me since I first heard him on BFBS back in 1983, over the years he became a true friend. Whenever I was in London we would meet up and have a few beers together and he always was friendly and honest to me. Never bad tempered or arrogant, nothing like that, never! I know this may sound rather silly for you to say, but losing him was like losing a close family member .....

Now, Webbie over at the Football And Music - blog had a brilliant idea, and I immediately decided to participate. I think the easiest will be to quote him here:

"There once was a Radio 1 led John Peel Day, but they stopped doing it a few years ago.

The day is still commemorated and kept running with various events taking place at places around Europe, but my fear is like with 6 Music this day is slowly being killed off.
We shouldn’t forget his memory and should not forget his legacy. All those bands, all the music that we discovered thanks to him.

There should be a web version of the John Peel Day, with this one being commemorated by all the bloggers, tweeters, LJ users and tumblr’s out there. If you are Facebook then please join in too.

So on the 25th October 2010 I want everybody to post a Peel Session track by any of their favourite bands.
That date, you’ve probably already worked out, is the date when we lost the great man…

This was partly inspired by JC using the same idea he had with the Paul Haig Day and I hope that he and all his fellow writers will join in to support this one."

Well, there ain't very much more to say to that, right? Apart from the fact perhaps that you should pop over at Football And Music and have a look what the other contributors have to say/post. As far as I'm concerned, I use the opportunity to play to you not one, but ten of my favourite Peel Session - tracks .... and here we go:

The Frantic Elevators: 'Hunchback Of Notre Dame' (mp3)

25/02/1981 - TX - 03/03/1981

The Buzzcocks: 'Promises' (mp3)

18/10/1978 - TX - 23/10/1978   

Culture: 'Lion Rock' (mp3)

11/12/1982 - TX - 11/01/1983

The Cure: '10:15 Saturday Night' (mp3)

04/12/1978 - TX - 11/12/1978

Laurel Aitken: 'Rudi Got Married' (mp3)

28/04/1980 - TX - 12/05/1980

The Screaming Blue Messiahs: 'Let's Go Down To The Woods And Pray' (mp3)

24/07/1984 -TX - 02/08/1984

Stiff Little Fingers: 'Nobody's Hero' (mp3)

03/09/1979 - TX - 17/09/1979

 

That Petrol Emotion: 'V2' (mp3)

11/06/1985 - TX - ?

 

 The Undertones: 'Rock 'n' Roll' (mp3)

21/01/1980 - TX - 23/01/1980

The Mighty Wah!: 'Basement Blues'/'Story Of The Blues' (mp3)

22/08/1984 - TX - 17/09/1984

And, finally, here's the great man himself. This was recorded by the BBC's answering machine one day before John Peel died whilst being on holiday in Peru:

John Peel Phone Call 24.10.04 (mp3)


Webbie, again thanks a lot for your idea and I do hope that it helps us all to 'keep it Peel' indeed!

Have fun,

Dirk

Link Problems

Dearest friends,

I just found out that something must have changed with the download links for the post below and also for previous posts: in the past you just had to click the yellow mp3 links with the right side of your mouse and then you were able to download directly.

If you try to do this now, you will fail. Quite why this has happened I don't understand, but either way: you now have to click with the left side, then another site will open up (in German, it's Google Groups: that's where I 'store' my music) and you can easily download from the link shown there.

Rest assured this is no spam/virus thingy ... it's safe, so just do it.

Cheers,

Dirk

Little Loser's Lottery Pt. 2

Good morning Vietnam!!

Oh boy, AGES since I my last contribution to this site, and whose fault is this?! Not mine, I assure you, no, it's my son, Little Loser (pictured above in all of his cuteness), who demands my attention as soon as I enter the front door in the afternoon when I come home from work. Sometimes he wouldn't even allow me to get my jacket off before I have to lift him up and give him a hug .... which doesn't stop until he falls asleep some five hours later. Not the hugging, demanding attention that is! But I won't complain, because he turned two years three weeks ago and by now is cool as fuck! He understands every word I say (although most of the times he doesn't do what I want him to do, but that's another story) and spending time with him gives me enormous pleasure!

Now, a few days ago I dragged him to the shelf where my 12" singles are and I forced him to pick five of them. He, being a good son, immediately started doing so by choosing the last one in the row, the one that was the easiest for him to grab with his little fingers .... and there went my copy of the Yeah Yeah Noh 'Peel Sessions' 12", because he smashed it on the floor and of course the record fell out of the sleeve! Therefore, although technically it was Little Loser's first pick, you won't get to hear this one, because it is now by and large unplayable.

After that I took more care and finally (after quite some struggle and discussion about the fact that the guy pictured on the sleeve of The Selecter's 'Too Much Pressure' - album is NOT suffering from any heavy physical pain [Daddy!! Man!! There!! Ouch!!] and about the fact that this record CANNOT be chosen by him (because it is no 12" Single)) he managed to pick five other records ... without destroying them, thank God. All in all good choices, I would like to think. I tend to leave the question unanswered though whether this is because his taste is already that good (I don't think the sleeves attracted him, because all of those are rather uninteresting) or whether the collection itself doesn't contain that much crap in the first place. Then again he currently is very fond of one of the great records of all time (which means he does have some good taste indeed, at the very least), The Lime Spiders' 'That's How It Will Be' .... he likes the part where the music fades down and the singer goes "Heeeyy!!" .... and he is imitating that scream perfectly well since five days now when he lies on his back whilst I try to change his nappies. Priceless!

Okay, so let's go, here's what Little Loser picked for you, Ladies and Gentlemen .... please enjoy:

mp3: The Unknown Cases - 'Masimba Bele' ('83)

mp3: The Style Council - 'Shout To The Top' ('84)

mp3: The Midwich Cuckoos - 'Show Me' ('90)

 mp3: The Men They Couldn't Hang - 'Whiskey With Me Giro'

          (live '85, taken from the 1986 'Shirt Of Blue' - 12")

 mp3: Killing Joke - 'Love Like Blood' ('85)

Not bad, ey? I enjoyed his choices, especially the first and the last one, because I hadn't heard those for years meself! What did you think? Any comments are highly appreciated, as usual, and this time I promise to read them all out to Little Loser!

See you soon,

Dirk

Cool T-Shirt for free? Well, why not!

Hello dear friends,

the wonderful world of blogs is rather small, I just found out. But effective, I hope. I started with reading what my friend JC aka The Vinyl Villain had to say today, then I went from his bloglist to the wonderful Postpunk where I found a link to this great site, 3D Supply. Now, they pretend to give a t-shirt out of their huge and most impressive collection away for free, that's as long as you write something nice about it on your blog. Which I'm doing right now obviously, so I hope the friendly people at 3D Supply read this and after having done so they send out the shirt to me .... right in time before I leave for my holiday later this month!

This is the shirt I chose ...

... and for those of you whose German is not good enough: it's all about vinyl and cassettes, which is fair enough for me, old fashioned as I am.

Well, let's hope 3D Supply keep their promise, because the shirt is dead cool indeed!

I'll keep you informed as soon as it arrives!

Cheerio for now,

Dirk

It's Paul Haig Day today ... again!

Dearest friends,

Paul Haig gave great support to a number of bloggers in the Spring of 2009 when a number of us were hit with all sorts of dmca notices, to the extent that he gave full authority for tracks from his back catalogue to be used in postings. Paul Haig Day was organised at short notice for 6th April and some 40 different bloggers used their space that day to write about his life and work.


Paul Haig Day II is once again on 6th April 2010: today, in fact.

All of this was organised by my good mate JC aka The Vinyl Villain, who runs a fantastic blog which is updated on a daily basis. I find it hard to believe myself, but perhaps there are two people in the whole wide world who are reading this here but have never visited his site. Should this be the unlikely case: do yourself a favour and go here, okay?

Back to Paul Haig: I must admit I know very little about the things he did on his own, that's after the mighty Josef K. split up back in 1981. I won't even begin to try to give an overview of all the things Paul Haig did from 1981 up to now, it would be pointless, I'm afraid. Instead you should either read this article on Wikipedia or have a look at the aforementioned Vinyl Villain on a frequent basis: JC very often offers excellent tunes and/or articles from/about Paul.

The song I chose for today is not one of his solo tunes though, not because the things he did on his own are less preferable, no, the truth of the matter simply is that I haven't listened to this specific one for quite some time, and playing it again today brings back memories of better times (1981), so 'thank you', Paul:

Josef K. - 'Sorry For Laughing' (mp3)

Enjoy,

Dirk