Month: November 2010

by

Lewes Bonfire November 5th 2010

Just a brief flavour of last night in the streets of my home town, Lewes, East Sussex. What you miss is the giant effigy of the Houses of Parliament with Cameron reaching out, holding the strings of a puppet Clegg in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. I’ll try and find a copy online, hang on…
http://www.chrisgilesphotography.co.uk/blog/?attachment_id=551 not sure if that works apologies for messy post..http://www.chrisgilesphotography.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Lewes-Bonfire-Night-2010-22.jpg
anyway it was a great night needless to say, spectacular and dangerous as ever, and it didn’t start raining til midnight.

by

They’re Back


by

Bonfire of the sanities


I had better be careful – if I said “let’s blow up parliament” for instance – a crack team of terrorist suppressers might break down the door – wasting a vast amount of public money that politicians would be better advised lining the pockets of bankers with – and even more worthwhile jobs would have to be cut……. so I will resist.

Have a safe Bonfire night.
Continue reading →

by

New Trivia Quiz


1. Who made the original recording of “Needles & Pins”?
2. Who wrote it?
3. Name a song written by Goffin & King that has been recorded by Amy Winehouse.
4. Gene Pitney had a hit with a song written by Jagger & Richard under a pseudonym. Name the pseudonym.
5. Who sang vocals in the background on that record?
6. At the time Carl Perkins released “Blue Suede Shoes”, there was a serious, but bizarre cover version. Who by?
7. Which recording artist was originally advertised by his record company as “The Screamin’ End”?
8. Which M-O-R recording artist was billed by his record company as “The Latest Rock ‘n’ Roll star, largely because they had no R & R singers on their roster?
9. Which act did Decca take on when they rejected The Beatles?
10. And which act did EMI reject when they signed The Beatles?

by

Speaking melodies

I’ve been thinking lately about songs in which the melody says something that words don’t or can’t. In Dear Old Southland (here by Louis Armstrong), somewhere in the middle of a jaunty tune the song breaks into a melody reminiscent of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, which seems to express conflicting sentiments about the American south. Blind Willie McTell plays a version of Amazing Grace that feels almost like a protest. In Mississippi John Hurt’s Talking Casey Jones, the guitar fills in the speaking parts. And then, of course, we have Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner.

Can you think of any songs where the melody seems to express some different meaning to the rest of the song, either as a subtle protest, or for some other reason?

by

Songs with false endings

I was listening to the new song from the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, and whilst i was enjoying its retro indie twee rockness and lyrics like “you were the miss in the mistake”, the false ending completely suckered me in!

I then began to wonder if there are any other songs with good false endings, false starts, or false bottoms, that you lovely ‘Spillers can bring to mind?

by

Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip

I went to see this strangely monikered duo last night in Brighton and it’s stayed with me so I’m posting a rare spillage in homage. Sold out last April much to my disappointment I made sure tickets were purchased way in advance this time around. They wouldn’t sell out twice in one year thought would they ? In a recession ? £14.50 a ticket ? Yes they did. I had one spare ticket, put it on Twitter, the band retweeted and I sold it to a zombie nurse outside – face value of course…

The show was awesome. Classic hip-hop set-up, but with two white guys from South London (Millwall fans actually in the case of Pip) one of whom resembles a Taleban commander. He’s the rapper, or wordsmith, because it would be a stretch to describe what he does as rapping. He’s a political poet of the old skool, spoken word merchant, and DanLe Sac’s beats place them into the hip-hop world. But their lyrical content is very fresh indeed, and very British too.

There’s another song I could have posted called Get Better, and yet another called The Beat That My Heart Skipped, yet another called Stake A Claim. Wonderful stuff ! For those who prefer content over style…..

by

‘All Creatures Will Make Merry’ – Meursault

More eagle eyed ‘Spillers will be familiar with Meursault (pron. Murr-So) what with their first LP being an album of the month on the ‘Spill, and that they occupy the M slot on the Scots A-Z ‘Spill series.

However, only  a wee bit has been said about their second record, which came out five months ago on the excellent Song, By Toad label. To be honest with you, I was so struck with the first album (it was number six on my top ten LPs of 2009 list, described by me as “A true original new voice, and cracking circuit-bent messed up folk tunes.”) that when the new LP didn’t have songs as immediate as “The Furnace” or “A Small Stretch Of Land” I had to give it more time and more listens.

“All Creatures Will Make Merry” is epic lo-fi, a massive amount of thought has gone into the recording of the songs giving them a vehicle that suits the mixture of traditional folk instruments (banjo, violin) and the ten quid drum machine that gets a good hammering on some of the songs. Neil Pennycook has a unique voice, one that sings beautiful words of loss, hope, and all the abstracts inbetween – in a way that can soar and elevate the spirits on the more focussed songs on the record.

“One Day This’ll All Be Fields” (above) is the stand out tune from the album, delicate yet terrifying, strummed on a ukelele down a phone line from a doomed planet – the last broadcast from a dead world, drifting in from space, makes me think of David Bowie’s “Five Years” in a way.

“Crank Resolutions” (above) is a good example of the Meursault sound, telling a tale of walking the streets alone on New Year’s Day, trying to make sense of everything – the music echoes the internal dialogue, moving from pensive to melancholic, to trying to gee oneself up and get on with things. The song has space in it, a rare thing these days, and scope too -as well as a great mix of electronics and things that are a bit more stringed.

The mandolin on “New Ruin” reminds me of mid-period REM, which is a comparison that I’ve drawn with Meursault from their first LP – I think the next LP may well be their  “Green” era and surprise the mainstream with it. Let’s hope they don’t lose the messed up noise along the way.

Song, By Toad Records is here, and Meursault have a page here.