7 posts tagged “music”

Beardy Man, UK National beat box champion does some cooking.

With the approach of New Years, the current Christmas trading frenzy and a fat wallet I've picked up a few new CDs. Woohoo!

Lady Sovereign - Public Warning
A big thanks Herding Cats for reminding me about this lady. I found the CD at JB's for $18.99 and just about jumped on it. Great British Hip-Hop with Def Jam production. Tha Biggest Midget in the House! There's also a great remix of Love Me or Hate Me featuring Missy Elliot as a bonus! lovely.

Neil Young - Greatest Hits

OK, running the range of my tastes here but this is a splendid collection of Neil Young's best songs handpicked by Neil himself. There's only two songs from the 80s and 90s which is an interesting view into Young's own perception of his career, but this album is stashed with songs from almost all of Young's bands (no Buffallo Springfield though).

Rodriguez - At his Best
A collection of the 70s folk genius' best tunes. This is a vinyl replacement for me (literally the record disapeared probably after a New Years event). There's some fine folk on this and I recommend for anyone looking to push beyond the confines of Peter, Paul and bloody Mary.

Oh this is just wonderfully frivoulous and fun. Dig the theremin!

A good week on eBay. I picked up all of these CDs for $25 in total and a damn good set it is.

The Ghost World soundtrack is a splendidly eclectic mix of music from the film reflecting the character's unique musical tastes. Music is a plot device in the film as it binds Edna and Seymour's odd friendship and the delightful mix of old school blues and folk makes this a great late night relaxing disc.

I've lusted after this soundtrack since I saw the film and our latest New Years mix CD opened with Mohammed Rafi's Jann Pehechaan with its big drums and Bollywood bigness.

A bit of 80s back cataloguing for the next two. I have Echo and the Bunnymen's Songs to Learn and Sing on vinyl but as I don't have a working record player and can't afford at the moment to replace the needle/cartridge on the one I have I saw this going cheap and bid!

This is a great album, which has only dated marginally. Its carried by the power of Rescue and The Cutter and deserves a place in any 80s new wave fan's record collection.

Speaking of pride of place in a new wave collection and speaking of eclectic how can you go past Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads. My Dad used to own this on cassette, and I swiped it mostly on my experience with an awesome cover of Life During Wartime by a local Brisbane band and years of FM radio exposure to most of Talking Heads' early hits. The early period of this band was marked by diverse influences such as reggae, punk and soul and it produced one of the 80s most diverse and interesting bands. There's always a Talking Heads album in every Top 100 list of the 80s or even rock in general and this album is a nice little marker for what was their most creative and interesting phase.

What is your favorite cover song?
Question submitted by Ray.

Just one? Oh that's just plain impossible! But I can tell you the song that really opened me up to the possibilities of a cover.

I was at the Orient Hotel in Brisbane back in 1989 with a girl I'd just broken up with and another I was going to spend the next few years with as best friends and big crush. Why I'm not friends now is a story for another day, but there I was, getting drunk and being miserable because "E" was having a good time to this band I'd never heard of with her friends but who were kinda funky and "I" was doing her best to keep me from being too miserable.

Anyway the band was The Toxic Garden Gnomes and as the set progressed I loosened up and had a bit of fun. They came to their last song, which turned out to be a bit of signature piece. They did this awesome version of Talking Heads' Life During Wartime. I think that cover single handedly got me over the girl (at least for that night) and out of a big blue funk. All thanks to a bunch of ragged hippies playing an obscure Talking Heads song with funk and soul.

Off the top of my head my current top five fave recorded covers in no particular order:

1. The Amboy Dukes - Baby Please Don't Go (orig. Van Morrison)
   
2. Mudhoney - Halloween (orig. Sonic Youth)
3. Guns of Brixton - Nouvelle Vague (orig. The Clash)
4. Bring it to Jerome - The Nuggets (orig. Bo Diddley)
5. Lets Get it On - Jack Black (orig. Marvin Gaye)

This will of course have changed by tomorrow.

I'd picked up Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne on eBay and it arrived on the same day I bought the disappointing Bellrays album. There are some very fine country rock sounds from this 1993 release. It wears alt-country and Neil Young proudly on its sleeve and is full of beautiful slow songs. Very highly recommended and will get a lot of play for quite a while.

I came to Uncle Tupelo via Son Volt and Will Farrar. Can anyone recommend Wilco? Is it worth the listen?

Ever had one of those experiences?

I heard the first track on this album, Tell The Lie,  on the radio twice on a recent road trip and it absolutely kicks arse. Its a fantastic piece of bassy soul and funk and it absolutely made my road trip.

So I did that thing where you are so enthused about a song that you just say stuff it. I'm going to go and buy the album. Which I did. I told friends about how excited I was. About how much this song went off and the album was going to be just as awesome.

You can see where this going right?

Now this has happened to me before and I have bought some wonderful music. Heck I've bought stuff based on album covers and come away with gems. It doesn't always happen that way.

I popped the CD in to my computer the other night. Tell The Lie kicked in and I was in music heaven. Awesome. The second track comes on and its this odd departure. Its rockier but kind of like a real FM rock sound. OK. We can accept a dodgy track or two. The next track sounds like Nashville Pussy doing jazz. Uh-huh. With soul vocals. Its just wrong.

In fact a lot of the album is like that. It's very dissapointing. Oh and the lyrics are awful. Just woeful. Buy Tell The Lie off iTunes. Don't buy this album.

Oh by the way, Nashville Pussy rock!