U Turns

This sent in by our sometimes electro-pop correspondent (he lives in a shoe you know) Neil K

It’s big to admit your wrong, particularly after being so vocally anti something that it’s seen as a real back down. It’s happened to me on a few occasions musically, where early output from a band makes me take an instant (often illogical) dislike of them, and laugh loudly in the face of anyone that claims to like them. What? You’re that naïve you buy THAT!? … Sometimes it’s not so much the music but the personalities, or maybe inappropriate levels of press adulation or success, or because I’ve been told I’d like them because they’re like band “x” that I’ve been know to champion. Anyway, however it starts - 99.9% of the time it remains that way – but sometimes – just sometimes - something happens (usually hearing a particular song or a full album) where said band get rewarded with a reappraisal – or maybe they just raise their game and they really were crap. Either way, something happens where I see them in a different light and I think “you know what, on their day, they’re actually pretty damn good, and the world is a better place for their noise after all…”.

So, what examples of this phenomenon can I recall?

Feeder – What? The band that did that annoying Buck Rogers (“it’s got a cd player –player – player” indeed) that the Radio overplayed – and still plays now? The joke Welsh rockers with the Japanese Adam Clayton? This was until I heard a work colleagues (you remember ‘Pete’ don’t you Kevin T? – came in Our Price and stood there staring at you?) copy of Echo Park – and in particular the glorious “Turn”. That song got stuck on repeat play for many a day after that. Since then, I’ve discovered other highlights such as Tender, Feeling A Moment, Purple and the gloriously souring Silent Cry. A band that can rock but also do subtle and heartfelt. One of those bands where you look at the lyrics and think it’s a bit clichéd – but when your hear the delivery by Grant – you feel it. They really do regret and loss incredibly eloquently. One band I’m still hoping to get chance to see live one day.

Green Day – What? Those cartoon punks? Fronted by the Cliff Richard of Punk? Following the Punk A-Z handbook. Piercings? Check. Bright hair? Check. Throwing TVs out of Window? Check. Rich boys acting poor? You betcha. Sooooo rock ‘n’ roll… Until I heard “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”- the ultimate ode to taking comfort in solitude. Perfect meld of melancholy and melody. One of those moments where the words and music and mood and image just works together to produce something stellar. Holiday was alright too, and American Idiot was just the right side of a joke song. That said, the 20th Century bollocks CD (do you mean 21st Century? - Kevin T) was a big let down and they’re close to going back in my bad books.

The Smashing Pumpkins – What? Baldy screacher looking like someone from the Adams Family? “Tonight…” Who’s dragging their nails down a black bored?! Arrggghh!?!?!??! Be quiet – let me just listen to the music. Until I heard Ava Adore CD – where thankfully Billy Corgan's singing is generally more restrained and thus more bearable. I still can only take one album at a time before my ears start bleeding, but I can recognise the beauty in the melodies and hear the words without the barbed wire delivery. He also wrote Hole's only good song (and I thus hold him responsible for keeping the despicable Courtney Love in the public eye for so long). Songwriter for hire however is probably a good direction for him to take - let a singer sing it.

Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right To Party indeed. You may have gathered - joke songs I don’t like. Punk I wasn’t keen on at that time. I wanted my pop stars to leave me in awe, not make me think I could do what they did but better. I thought and hoped these guys would disappear within 15 minutes. They didn’t. They actually developed their sound and went on to produce gems such as Sabotage and Intergalactic Planetary. And they’re still going – so much for 15 minutes.

I’m still waiting for the Billy Brag reassessment mind you, I’m beginning to think it will never happen...
Anyone out there with similar cases?

License To Ill

NO....SLEEP....TILL.....BOREHAMWOOD!!!

Go on have a guess waht was the commute album today from the good town of Stafford, to the London Village. Yes, yes you are right it was the Beastie Boys debut, Licensed to Ill.
They do a lot of illing on this album, be it flaunting their license, or alerting people that the time is time to get ill. I had best aquant myself with the vernacular.....it appears that its either a malady, or a river in Alsace, that really doesn't sound correct, a little more digging...ah it seems ill means "off da hook".
This album is off da hook though, it is most def also, its a debut that displays across its bows their very best tracks. The best tracks before they got all serious about the ladies, the days when "MCA's in the back skeezin with a whore". Again I don't know what skeezin is, so again its off to urban dictionary....oh my!
MCA was a bit of a scoundrel and his friends at the time, AD-Rock and Mike D, were no better and this is the album that chronicles their pre saving tibetan monks days when they drank bud, had dust smoking managers and had ladies in cages on stage with them. They were fun then.
Musically though, this album really is off da hook, I found that I loved it as much as I did when I was skeezin whores, smoking blunts and rocking the mic when I was studying for my o'levels. Crazy times.
7 out of 10.



Time To Get Ill by Beastie Boys

The Beastie Boys Anthology, The Sounds of Science Disc 1

Yesterdays commute CD was the first disc of the Beastie Boys Anthology, Sounds of Science. You might not recall that I listened to the second disc a few weeks ago and didnt think much of it, thats how I roll!
Disc 1 was an entirely different affair, it may have been me, my mood, the tracks or all of the above but if the anthology was a single disc then it could be just disc one and it would be almost perfect.
Disc one has nuances, where disc 2 didnt, it has light and shade, up and down, yin and yang, and of course 3 MC's and 1 DJ, Root Down and Slow and Low. Three of my favourite Beastie Boys tracks.
The only downside to this album is Country Mike and Fatboy Slim, both serve no purpose in my mind and stop straight out Beastie Boys tracks making it on to this album.
Otherwise a contender for the best of the B's. 9 out of 10



Slow and Low by The Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science Disc 2

The previous post has bought a few more people to the blog, its nice to feel that the readership extends to more than just me and Kev, but I suspect even he doesn’t actually read it.
In case the people that read the Saint Etienne post do return, daily I listen to the next CD album in my collection on my commute to work, Stafford to Birmingham, its roughly alphabetical, (the CD collection, not the commute, although the return journey actually is, Birmingham, Coleshill, Lichfield, Rugeley, Stafford. I am waffling now) and then I review it, ordinarily it is out of 10 and I post a Youtube video highlighting anything that is good about it. This is in addition to anything Kev or I might post. Looking down this page you may be assuming that this blog is heavy on the indie, it isn’t really, I just hit a patch of it in the CD’s and I also decided to write about Amelia Fletcher and The Field Mice.

That all said, today’s CD was Disc 2 of a moody copy of The Beastie Boys Anthology, The Sounds of Science. One of the first illegal CD’s I ever made, released in 1999, it has pretty much remained unplayed since then, in all honesty I made it to see if my CD writer worked. Stick that up your arse RIAA!

This CD is best described as diverse, I don’t mean diverse in a Tad/Kool and The Gang/Nana Mouskori mash up, I mean it swings quite violently between pretty good, to fair to absolute shite. I guess they were very particular when naming the compilation, what with trade description and all that, any great hits may only extend to an ep, or a mini album, a double album, perhaps could be seen as taking the piss.

When I was 16 and busy not revising for my exams I was rather keen on The Beastie Boys, they made hip hop for white boys, and that’s what I liked, my hip hop liking never really went beyond them, yeah I could nod appreciatively to an electro compilation and I knew most of the words to Christmas In Hollis by Run DMC, hell I owned the 12 inch of The Show by Doug E Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew, lets just say outside of The Beastie Boys my tastes were less KRS One and more KRS Tarrant. I do however tell people that my 7” of The Fat Boys version of Wipeout was bought purely to pre-empt me being a Beach Boys completist.

So what of this disc then, well the good is represented by the marvellous Sabotage, a nice opener to the album and a track that made me think, this compilation can only produce good things. If that’s representative of the quality, I will be rolling like a baller when I hit Coleshill.

The album picks up on highlights from all areas of their career, not just Ill communication and Licensed to Ill. Check Your Head, Hello Nasty and Paul’s Boutique are also represented. This anthology also dips into the lesser known corners of The Beatie Boys repertoire and that maybe where this all falls apart for me, admittedly Egg Raid On Mojo from Pollywog Stew was good to hear, its an oddity from their very early days, but the previously unreleased Benny and The Jets is absolutely f*cking diabolical, as covers go it’s a dreadful mess that should have remained unreleased. Similarly the Country Mike track, you know when you are 8 and you get hold of a tape recorder and you record yourself jabbering, and play it back and have a giggle at how funny you sound, then you record Jimmy Saville over it? Well The Beastie Boys did the recording and decided to release it.

The good is in equal measure to the bad though and its was a break from more of the same which I have been experiencing over the past few weeks. 6 out of 10.



Egg Raid on Mojo by The Beastie Boys

Last Train to .......................

Peter made the mistake of not ordering the interesting version of 'Last Train to Memphis' and then struggled through the book, only to be saved by one bread roll too many (see below). My ex house mate Dan used to regularly take the last tube from central London (the vomit comet) back to our flat in Bounds Green, but excessive pintage, crossed with an ability to sleep standing up, often saw him over shoot his required stop, and end up at the end of the line. He then, rather bashfully, cast about for other sheepish looking travellers who also reeked of beer and fags, and they shared a taxi back in the direction from whence they came.

There is no song called 'Last Train Past Bounds Green and Back Again', although there is 'Last Train to London' by E.L.O.,made more interesting by cross ferilisation with the Beastie Boys. I have my suspiscions that if you look at E.L.O. really closely in this video it is actually the Scissor Sisters with fake facial hair.

The Boys

Peter has a bag of pennies, as any band with a harmony of more than two parts is compared to the Beach Boys, and somebody somewhere seeks him out and gives him a penny. The same happens when The Alarm are compared to U2, or somebody somewhere confuses Cliff Richard with Elvis Presley.

I am not a liker of The Beach Boys. Other boys should be given as much attention. No, not the Pet Shop Boys and their anthemic albino anemia ridden pop, nor the Backstreet Boys (although the Backstreet Pet Shop Boys would be worth a look simply for rare animals). I'm tempted to put forward The Oakridge Boys, just for William Lee Golden's glorious beard, or possibly Badly Drawn Boy for being able to include the words ipso facto (a certain effect is a direct consequence of the action in question, instead of being brought about by a subsequent action such as the verdict of a tribunal) in a song. The Beastie Boys deserve a special prize simply for still being around 22 years after the release of their first album, although none of them can match The Blind Boys of Alabama., who got together in 1939. Of the founding members, Clarence Fountain still plays when his health allows.

Higher Ground by the Blind Boys of Alabama