Blink 182

Whilst Kev is shuffling I am listening to Blink 182’s eponymous album, their final studio album before their hiatus, re-emerging this year.
I will be honest with you hear, I listened to an album yesterday that I never reviewed, it was a double album, a compilation done for me by a friend a few years ago that I never listened to at the time, and this time I listened to half of it on the way to work, and a third of the second disc on the way home, and as I passed my wheelie bin I popped it in, it has nothing to do with todays listening, it was bad obscure indie that was dreadful.
Todays album is not Blink 182’s best and it does contain their worst bit of music in The Fallen Interlude but on the whole the album is good to listen to and at times has some works of genius, Down, Go, Feeling This, I Miss You as well as a song sung by Robert Smith of The Cure in All Of This.
It does have a few needless track in The Fallen Interlude and a live version Anthem Part Two, but they are crimes that are forgivable on the whole, after all anthem is a very good song.
The album though does venture into that maturer sound that bands, particularly of their ilk, have to adopt to continue selling records as their fanbase grows up, The Offspring, Green Day have tried to do it, so why not Blink 182? I personally think though that Blink 182’s attempts are a lot more enjoyable, fulfilling but perhaps not as profitable as Green Days, thankfully though Blink 182 collaborate with Robert Smith and not U2.
So all in all enjoyable, 8 out of 10



All Of This by Blink 182 ft Robert Smith

Shuffle Medley

My friend Thom was musing this morning on his 3 song, car park to office, ipod shuffle medley musical accompaniment, and how this might determine the mood with which he enters the building, ready for a new day at the coalface. His three this morning were Dancin in the Moonlight - Van Morrison, Alphabet Street - Prince and Al Wilson's The Snake (yes Peter, I know it's a metaphor, but the woman went home with a snake for God's sake). His musings spookily coincided with my own thoughts, as I have being trying to formulate a posting on my own shuffle experiences of yesterday, which were

• Tree Top Flyer - Stephen Stills


• That's When I Reach for My Revolver - Mission of Burma


• You Don't Know Like I Know - Sam & Dave
  

I'm sure people more learn-ed than me have written wise words on the topic of how the ipod has shaped our listening habits, and how society is now even more fractured due to us all being cocooned in our own little world, with our own soundtrack. Does anyone today ever phone up a friend and say 'I've got the new ****** album! Wanna come over for a listen?' I guess not, we no longer listen comunally, unless we're at a concert. I'm not talking about listening to the new ELP album in a religious silence, but there is a joy to listening together isn't there? The shared experience? No? Oh put your headphones back on then.

I remember a computing teacher at school telling me that computers only did what we told them to do. In my case, with no interest in such machines (or the people who used them, other than my friend Stu who had a fishtailed parka and liked The Who), this meant nothing to me, other than a vague understanding that we control the machine, rather than it controlling us. The ipod is the same. It only plays what we put into it, although the combinations created on shuffle can create emotionally confusing episodes when sardine'd onto the metro and pressed up against the back of a builder who knocked off early and has been in the pub for three hours. Stale beer and fags smell suit a random Damned track but not Bobby Darin.

I have recently been listening to a podcast of Treasure Island, read by nasal Americans with little feeling for the language. A short burst of pirates, maps and one legged scoundrels sandwiched between Natacha Atlas, Merle Haggard and At the Drive-In, turn the whole thing into something akin to the soundtrack for Carry on Up the Atlas Mountains crossed with the Dukes of BioHazard.

But this is what we're all after isn't it? It's the personal shopper we can't afford. It's the butler we'll never have bringing us our slippers and crack pipe at the end of a long day. It's personalised, monogrammed, hand made and rolled on the thighs of virgins for your own satisfaction. It's not just right up your street, it's knocked on your door, and if there's nobody in it's gone round the back, let itself in, and put the kettle on, and there are two cups with teabags in, one with sugar and the other with sweetner. That's how good it is.

But is it? The ipod can't replicate that feeling you get when you hear something on the radio that stops you in your tracks, and you have to press your ear to the speaker in order to catch who it was, and when the divjockey doesn't say who it is you scramble around in your own head for a fragment of the lyrics in order to find it. The ipod doesn't do that.

I have a wife, and I don't want to swap her (unless of course it's for a re-chroming of my 1959 Lambretta), but the principle is a good one. Lets gather like minded people together, throw our ipods in a dish and go home with someone elses musical mrs.

It seems only fitting to now have a video from The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

13

I forget at times that I have more Blur albums than is normally considered acceptable, but I also own 2 more Alien Ant Farm albums than is considered acceptable, current count is 2.
13 today, no not me, todays listening was 13 by Blur, I bet any money that it was produced by Eno, I havent checked yet, but I reckon it was.......wikipedia......nah, William Orbit, that kind of makes sense, its at times a little noodley, not in a Paul "Check this tasty riff out" Weller kind of way. More of a string a song out to 7 minutes kind of way. That would be a bad thing if it wasn't this album, but as it is this album, "7 minutes sir? you couldn't make it closer to 8 could you?", Why certainly!

This album contains my favourite Blur song, and one of my favourite ever songs in No Distance Left To Run, where as Albarn was leaving behind moustachiod Elastica frontman Justine Frischmann, it was rather poignant for me as at the time I was going through relationship woes with my hobbit like wife, but that will be represented I am sure some years in the future when we hit the Pernice Brothers.
I digresse, not only are we treated to No Distance... but also Tender, Battles, 1992 and Swamp Song, a truly well formed adult album that cuts free of woohoos and knees up muvva brahnisms, its a thinking album, cerebral, and a bloody good album at that.
This album sees Graham definitely getting more of a voice and the first green shoots of The Gorillaz, showing in Damons vocals, Damons next recorded work was with Deltron 3030, teaming up with Dan the Automator prior to recording the Gorillaz debut album, or as they were described, The Banana Splits.
So in summary, an enjoyable album, made me listen to it, and not just have it playing in the background whilst I called cyclists that dont use cycle paths c#$%s. 8 out of 10.



No Distance Left To Run by Blur

Vespertine

Vespertine today, Bjorks album and one that I had planned out in my mind, just how intolerable it was going to be. I think Bjork has been the real surprise of the B’s as I found this album strangely pleasing.
I decided that it was going to be a 2 before it went on, I do that for all albums, I judge books by their covers and every CD I mark it before I play it and adjust that mark accordingly, so Vespertine was initially a 2.
It isn’t a two though as it is a really well formed and interesting album, it was the follow up to selmasongs and that alone should have alerted me to the fact that this album would be quite exciting, and it is, it’s a really enjoyable journey in all honesty.
I don’t profess to being a lyrics man, very few songs do I even listen to lyrics, and even fewer songs do I know the lyrics to, but this album seems rather sad in its own way, rather mournful and regretful. That may be just my take on it.
Coccon, track 2, which is a beautiful song, is rather filthy mind, it would make you blush, but where it is rather saucy, it does it in a beautiful way, its not Sid James.
So in summary, I really enjoyed this album, I like the Schneider TM like beats, I love the lyrics, Bjorks singing on this album is inoffensive and the production is fairly great, all in all I must be getting old. 7 out of 10.



Cocoon by Bjork

New Scoot

Today's post is slightly celebratory. At the ripe old age of 40, baldy, paunchy and prone to complaining about the pain in my back, I have been able to tick something else off the list marked Things I Want to Do Before I'm So Fat I Can't Get Off The Sofa. A premature 'Bucket List' if you will. It's probably asking for trouble but I've bought, with the full support of the committee (she will probably want one too), a 1959 Lambretta LI 150. It's red, a bit scuffed, doesn't start and is a new entry on my (other) list entitled Things To Defend with Your Life.

Even though I probably went home and listened to Status Quo and Neil Diamond, the late seventies Mod revival had a lasting effect on me. I had a Harrington with a Bad Manners sew-on patch on it. My mate had the loafers and The Jam albums. I reeled in shock when Terry Hall sang about 'piss stains' on his shoes. I remember buying The Lambrettas single 'Poison Ivy' (the old Coasters hit) and playing it to death. I think I knew it wasn't about a plant, although I have a healthy mistrust of green climbers to this day.

This is to celebrate my new scoot.

Wake Up

Wake Up its a beautiful morning, the commercial radio DJ’s dream song, and one of the songs on todays commute CD, Wake Up by The Boo Radleys. 1995 if memory serves me and an album owned by my short wife and sent to me on tape when I working at Butlins, I played it a lot that year.
The Boo Radleys, or to quote Simon Bates, that’s Bob Randley. He was a bit of an idiot that Simon Bates.
Any hoo, Wake Up is perhaps the bands most accessible work and it does have flashes of genius, although their interludes do get samey at times and they have a lot of interludes. Interludes aside, this album has some extremely fine tracks on it, Wilder in particular, It’s Lulu, Wake up Boo, Find The Answer Within, and a few more besides.
The thing with The Boo Radleys, and many bands in a similar position, they don’t like to keep to a formula and so the follow up was such a disappointment.
I think it was all downhill after this, squeezing out two more albums and then splitting up, Martin Carr the main songwriter went on to be Wichita records signing Brave Captain, Bassist Tim Brown is now a teacher, Steve the former drummer had a stint in Placebo, Rob Cieka is in a band with Bez and Sice, the baldie headed lead singer is now the baldie headed lead singer of the band Paperlung. You now know all there is to know about Boo Radleys.
The album though, its a good album and if this was 1995 it would be a great album, but as the world in 2009 isnt as forgiving as 1995, 6 out of 10.



Wilder by The Boo Radleys

Cider with Roadies

I'm half way through Stuart Maconie's Cider with Roadies. It veers from the mundane to the laugh out loud funny, although there are many pages when I wonder how this ended up on a page, as it's just so ordinary. He ended up on 6 Music via the NME and Q Magazine, so I'm hoping the second half of the book picks up. Anyway, as a native of Wigan he has plenty to say on the Northern Soul scene, so I'm going with Tony Clarke's Landslide, which is highly praised by Maconie. Around the time he exits university he has moved on to Orange Juice and Postcard records, so I'm lobbing in some Edwyn Collins.

Blur

Saturday and I am working again and so it is the self titled album by Blur. Some weeks ago I said that they, Blur, didn’t really hit their stride until the last 2 albums, 13 and Think Tank. I may be wrong about that and listening to this album really confirms that error. I likd and like a lot of the tracks on this album and as one finished I thought, aha another I like. Song 2 may be a worldwide anthem now, but it is still a great song. One afternoon in Virgin around the time of the release of this album the stereo in store went off just before the Woo-hoo, and a vast majority of the shop sung it, its an infectious song.
Its not just Song 2 though, there is more to this album than a video game soundtrack, I’m Just A Killer For You Love, Country Sad Ballad Man are the non single tracks that highlight the songwriting talent of Blur. The singles on this album would be difficult to better thankfully a million miles away from the comedy of Country House. All in all a pretty good album that I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed it at the time. 8 out of 10.



Country Sad Ballad Man by Blur

Dog In The Sand

I should have put Howl in the car 2 days running, I apologise if anyone gets this delivered by RSS to a work email, or you object to any of the following words, Shite, Filled, A and R, Bypassing, Pile, Of, Bollocks.
That all said todays car journey CD was the Frank Black album Dog In The Sand. Without being too rude it is best described as a shite filled A and R bypassing pile of bollocks. It appeared to put an extra hundred miles on my journey, seemingly a hundred miles that were cold grey and lifeless, I appeared to be stuck tearfully in a gridlock of emotions that were neither joyful or content. This album is a stinker, its lazy, cliche driven, middle of the road whilst dressing as a hip young gunslinger, this is I Just Called To Say I Love You, this a moustache on the Mona Lisa. I did not like at all.
Even ruling out Black's career with the Pixies and arguably his first couple of solo efforts, this is an unforgivable album, he has popped his career on cruise control and he is reading his stars, (Aries, you will find an overwhelming urge to release dull rock that only loyal followers will buy and like as they hope one day you will write something close to your early career output, oh and a dark haired man will talk washing machines with you), he needs to pay attention to his career and put down the metaphorical newspaper. This is a bad album, a really really bad album. No song was memorable, no song was enjoyable, 0 out of 10. it would be less than zero but then we get into that stupid X factor one million percent nonsense. No video as well, as that would imply there was something good about this.

Howl

Ages ago I reviewed a self made Black Rebel Motorcycle Club compilation and gave it 1 out of 10. Today I listened to a copy of an album a friend made me by the same band, the album is called Howl and I have to be quick here as cider is being poured downstairs and Chiles is on the telly, a thrilling cocktail, you will no doubt agree.
Anyway Howl, Howl just may be the first CD that gets into the car 2 days on the trot, it is an absolutely fantastic album that was a joy to listen to start to finish. Influences on this still are Big Star, but also a nice combination of watered down Delta blues, gospel and enough rock for it not to make the mistakes of the early singles I hated.
This album, potentially could be the best B when I get to the end, mainly because I was not expecting it to be so flaming good. Seek it out, really, in the mean time cider beckons 10 out of 10, I am not shitting you. Just wish it was more detailed.




Open Invitation by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Have You Fed The Fish

Almost fittingly, as he is from the north, today I returned to Badly Drawn Boy and his 2002 album Have You Fed The Fish. Goughs third album and I think the last one that I bought, I may be wrong on that as although I have this on my ipod, I don’t recall buying it.
As I have said before I am a fan of BDB, I consider him to be a great songwriter, not good, great. Musically sometimes he faffs about, he doesn’t on this album, well not as much as on About A Boy, this in comparison is faff free.
It does contain one of if not my favourite BDB song in You Were Right and if the list I had done a few months ago extended to 100, that song would have featured.
However, even without the faff, this album is not nearly as good as his previous efforts and I find it difficult to listen to All Possibilities without thinking of Scots groupie, Edith Bowman telling me about the fantastic range of fridges on offer in my local branch of a leading electrical retailer.
This album features the drumming talents of Joey Waronker, you don’t know the name but you know his chops, trust me you do. This album also feature some musicians that enabled Blunt album see the light of day, fucking enablers.
Its rather telling that this album soundtracked a steady 70mph when I tend to be nearer 90 when NOFX are playing so for safety and law abiding purposes Badly Drawn Boy is the tops, well until I play my wifes Natalie Imbruglia, but then that might be responsible for a different crime. 6 out of 10.



You Were Right by Badly Drawn Boy

Don't Try This At Home

I don’t dislike Billy Bragg, I really enjoy his music, its more of a guilt thing and having to subject you the reader to BB overdose, I mean how many albums do I need, and this morning was indeed another, the M6 between junctions 14 and 27 were soundtracked by Billy Bragg and the album, Don’t Try This At Home.
My wife pretty much banned me from listening to Billy Bragg in around 2002, which was OK as it kind of coincided with the when I was going off him, I like to let her believe that she has had a small victory, I also put the toilet seat down when the mood takes me. The thing is though I listen to albums like this and on the whole I realise why I used to like him so much, yeah he is a leftie and lefties tend not to have a sense of humour, oh they believe they have, but they don’t, and I should know, rewind back to 2001 and you will have seen me outside Telford Town Centre trying to get you to buy Socialist Worker, you didn’t buy it by the way, you looked at your feet and hastily made off, I don’t blame you for this, I do it myself now.
None of this of course tells you about this Bragg album or my thoughts regarding it. Well for the uninitiated this album is the home of the singles, Sexuality, Accident Waiting To Happen and You Woke Up My Neighbourhood, the latter featuring Michael Stipe and Peter Buck, who Bragg appeared with earlier in the year under the guise of Bingo Hand Job, a recording of their version of Tom’s Diner appears somewhere else in my record collection, on an REM bootleg and it is without question up there amongst the worst cover versions ever, think Annie Lennox doing Train In Vain or James Blunt doing Where Is My Mind.
I digresse, this album also feature the contribution of Johnny Marr, and if you have read my views on him contributing to other tracks you might know that I do not rate Johnny Marrs production highly at all, him and the ginger one from Queens of the Stone Age are so caught up in their own egos they have to have their stamp any artist they work with, and it is Marrs contribution to this album that taints it.
It is not a bad album however, in the scheme of things Braggs take on Fred Neils’ The Dolphins is as good as any and much better than the version Beth Orton recorded with Terry Callier.
Also on this album we have Braggs ode to his father in Tank Park Salute, a really touching song and amongst the best of his career. We also have Bragg eulogising former Wolves player, Peter Knowles in Gods Footballer, Knowles was a Wolves player that gave it all up for religion.
Outside of these tracks we also have Cindy of a Thousand Eyes and Everywhere, but also Braggs worst, lyrically, song ever in Body Of Water, Christ it stinks.
As a whole though at 15 tracks long its easy to forget the bad, so 7 out of 10.



Tank Park Salute by Billy Bragg

The Beatles

Blimey Charlie, today I listened to The Beatles, or The White album depending on your preference, it is a lengthy expensive album, that in places has moments of greatness and in places has moments of Yoko.
This album is the 30th Anniversary edition, bought by my wife and cost in the region of 30 quid, EMI really did like to squeeze every penny out of Beatles albums and my current wife thoughtfully got it me for my Birthday.
I know from reading too many Beatles book and using my ears that this is a fractured recording, the sound of a band on its uppers, possibly one of the last concerted efforts to get something Beatles on record, some songs didn’t make the cut and appeared on the final Beatles albums proper.
What you get with The Beatles though are 3 musicians trying to make solo records, Lennon in particular is having a stab at his debut solo album and Julia would not have been out of place on Plastic Ono Band, and it is with perhaps one eye on this record that Lennon had whilst putting together his songs.
McCartney is also guilty, his, at times intolerably optimistic songs grate and seem totally at odds with Lennons often spiteful lyrics, on the one hand you have the angry young man and on the other you have the thumbs aloft optimist. Both seem to be in their own world, if not their own studio.
The songs though if you remove the filler, are amongst the best ever recorded by the Beatles, from the sublime Dear Prudence, the rock n rolling Back In The USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird, I Will, Julia, Don’t Pass Me By, Cry Baby Cry and Helter Skelter, if this album were two sides long this could be amongst the best ever made, and if you believe Rolling Stone magazine, its in the top ten.
But what about the songs that aren’t akin to Helter Skelter or I Will? What about the songs that have more in common with Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, or worse? Well who knows who had the most influence on this album , but there are too many Savoy truffles, too many Obladi bloody dahs and too many Rocky flaming racoons and if there was one of the above then it would be forgivable but it seems George Martin pissing off during recording meant that the voice of reason left the building too, you say you want a revolution? Well yes we do but can we have the fantastic rock n roll track and not Revolution bloody number 9. Stick your Stockhausen up your hausen.
So how do I mark a great album, that is overly long, meandering, selfish, disjointed, drug fuelled and probably seemed like a great idea at the time. 10 for the great songs, 0 for the bad? 7 for the good the bad and the ugly. 7 out of 10.



I Will by The Beatles

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis and Larry Sloman

I finished my new book this weekend, it is Scar Tissue, the biography of Red Hot Chilli Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis.
I must say after the Elvis book it was a breath of fresh air, Elvis is Elvis and all but hell he led a dull life, but as Kiedis sampled his first drugs before he was a tennager and this carried on off and on until 2001, this rollercoaster wasnt about love but the life that he led during and around those highs.
The book documents all the shittyness associated with hardcore drug use and for a man that has an image to retain and rely on, the warts are and all, and the tales of of excess.
In amongst his dalliances with heroin, cocaine, crack, speed, meth, canabis and alcohol, we also get an insight into how the band came about, how they lost and discarded their members, and how they became what they became.
Kiedis explains his own behaviour and tries to put the case on why at times he can be perceived as a bit of a diva.
The book also chronicles Kiedis relationships with women over the years and this is given almost as much focus as his drug abuse, you get a sese that he is a romantic and each and every female encounter of note left a lasting impression on him.
So the book itself is an excellent read, weighing in at over 450 pages and nothing is hidden. You are left at the end hoping that he doesn't return to the drugs, but I certianly thought it was quite inevitable. I came away from it actually liking Kiedis, from a stand point of thinking him an arrogant arsehole.
On the whole though one of the better mucic biographies I have read and it will be a difficult one to follow.

Back To Basics

I thought it may have been Billy Bragg and what do you know, it was, the odds weren’t the most adventurous though. Today though it is the compilation of early material, Back To Basics.
This album is a compilation of the albums Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy and Brewing Up with Billy Bragg and the EP Between The Wars. This should be an easy album to review then, Lifes a riot got 9 and Brewing up with got 8, bingo, 17 out of 20, or 8.5 out of 10.
Which it could be, and I don’t want to be too dismissive here, but as these songs are coming round over and over again I don’t really have much more to say on them, I did on my commute agree that Saturday Boy is still one of the finest songs ever written and lyrically A New England probably can’t be bettered, and that the Leon Rosselson song, Th World Turned Upside Down is done absolutely superbly.
So that’s it really, if this had been The Internationale you would have got something more indepth as it isn’t, Back To Basics, 9 out of 10.



Saturday Boy by Billy Bragg