What’s worse than not going to the Camden Crawl? Answer: Not going and unknowingly giving them your mobile number. There’s nothing like an hourly text message telling you the length of queues at the various venues to remind you just what you’re missing.
Fortunately London offers plenty of alternatives to the £50 Crawl, Rough Trade celebrated World Record Store day with over a dozen acts performing in their East End store, and the mighty Superimposers put on a night in Kings Cross. Total cost = Nowt.
More importantly no trip to Rough Trade is complete without stumbling across a release the existence of which would otherwise have passed you by. Visits have to be strictly rationed as its impossible to leave without £50 quids worth of music you had no intention of buying when you went in.
JOHN FAIRHURST
Humble Soul is not a label with a huge release schedule, but you can guarantee that everything they put out is just that little bit special. Last year, they produced a meagre 500 copies of Denis Jones’s “Humdrum Virtue” album, but 500 people will not have heard much that surpassed it in 2007.
Despite all this I failed to notice their latest release “Joys of Spring” by John Fairhurst until idly passing time on a Rough Trade listening post while waiting for Lykke Li to come on stage.
Its the sound of the spirit of Django Reinhardt, Ravi Shanker, Bukka White, and Nick Drake all channeled through the body of a humble soul from Wigan. Thanks must go to John’s dad who introduced him to slide blues at an early age, while he was obviously a late comer to indian classical music, getting in K.Sridhar at the age of 8 (an age at which my tastes were more Shaky than Sridar).
Instrumental guitar albums can flag over the course of a dozen tracks, but John takes his broad musical upbringing and mixes it with years of travelling the world and South East Asia in particular. His website says he “worked alongside Maori gangsters, played slide guitar in a Bangkok blues bar, wrote for a traditional Thai dancer, and was tattooed with protective blessings by monks.”
No track on the album sounds the same, yet it all gels perfectly together like a wondrous journey around the globe. The Blues bar romp of “Obnox Stomp”, the plucking English folk harp on “Passing Time” and the slide blues of “Yew Tree Blues”. That Indian classical influence is very much in effect on several tracks, so much so that one listener subjected to me playing the album for the umpteenth time penned her own mini review… “Jesus Christ…thank god thats over I thought I was trapped in a bloody Indian Restaurant!“ Not a review that musiclikedirt would of course endorse… buy this record!
Lykke Li (along with Billy Bragg) was one of the main draws for Rough Trades all day celebration of Record Store day. She’s been likened to both Robyn and Bjork, and both hold true as she combines a lovely quirkiness with a definite pop sensibility.
She’s destined for huge things, having progressed from bloggers favourite to Jools Holland in the last week alone. This short set contained most of the future hits from her debut album Youth Novels, produced by the Bjorn from Peter, Bjorn and John (”Young Folks”).
While it wasnt a performance that will stay long in the mind, the quality of the songs and hints of her inventive full show were on display.
The Superimposers are putting on a free night every 6 weeks or so at The Duke in Kings Cross. Last weekend I caught them live for the second time in a month, and in the Duke’s tiny basement room you can’t help but be sucked in by their charming sound (which I’ve already raved about on this blog quite enough).
Soon to be released single “Northern Song” is an undoubted highlight but in truth there’s not a duff track all evening. On top of that they always invite along a favourite band to support them, in this case The Occasional String Band featuring Mick Talbot on Keys (but I cant find anything on the internet about them?).
Check The Superimposers site below for news of the next freebie gig, and a release date for the single.
The Superimposers are guests on Jonny Trunk’s OST Resonance FM show this weekend. OST is two hours of radio dedicated to the soundtrack - this includes film music, TV music, library music, film music cover versions, advertising sounds, film stars singing, anything that can be placed under the broad banner of soundtrack music.
Saturday 26th April 4:30pm - 6:30pm LIVE
Wednesday 30th April 3:00pm - 5:00pm REPEAT
Heading off on a slight tangent can I recommend Jonny Trunks, Trunk records website. Its a great way to lose a few hours with his incredibly off the wall taste in music, sex and nostalgia!
Ranging from Dirty Fan Male (the letters blokes sent to glamour girls), the shortest and catchiest ever hit single 36 seconds of “Ladies Bra’s“ (youtube), to gems from The Radiophonic Workshop. There’s also Dereks dishes featuring themed collections of 60’s and 70’s nude and semi nudes organised under headings such as “Making tea”. Very kitsch!
It’s like stumbling into the craziest most fascinating second hand shop, finding bizarre new oddities with every click. 1970’s celebrity cook books anyone!
“As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from desiccation.” Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton, a true great of British Jazz & comedy “died peacefully with his family and friends around him on April 25th at 7.00pm following surgery“.
These are serious times for Archway. First Quasar closed down, depriving Londoners of one the few chances to run around shooting your mates on the roof of a Co-op superstore. More importantly Puregroove Records, an institution on Holloway Road for as long as I can remember has announced it’ll be closing its doors at the end of the month and moving to a place where the haircuts are more angular.
As a thank you, Puregroove are holding a final wave goodbye festival in some of the areas less well strummed locations. The glorious Rumble Strips are playing the island in the middle of Archway swimming pool while their fans twirl in formation around them, and saxophonist Tom Gorbutt wistfully dreams of recreating Madness video’s.
For this gig, Noah and The Whale - purveyors of fine uplifting indie folk - have set up stage in the children’s book section of Archway Library. With 15 minutes to go it looks like the kids will be part of the show. One group intently plays a computer game just below the keyboards, others read, some run amok, and one ambles upto Puregroove staff-er Ben to ask if he can look after his Transformers DVD while he gets his mum! Meanwhile I discovered what may just be the best pre-gig entertainment ever. In all seriouslness venues should really think about providing a collection of Asterix books for those awkward lulls between bands!
Dressed in bright primary colours as if ready to look through the round window, they avoided library late fees and kicked off just after 6.30 with a rousing “Give a little love“.
“In that perfect moment I nearly ruined it, by saying I love and nearly meaning it”
With room for only 50 people there’s a lovely intimacy to the gig, a perfect setting for tracks like “Mary” with its violins and mid west sound, although as it breaks into almost a hoe down at the end attempts to get a library dancing proved tricky.
Former member Laura Marling may be off to solo stardom, but The Slow Club’sRebecca Taylor stepped in with her own beautiful vocals, working particularly well on the almost obscenely upbeat and joyful last single “5 years time“. It’s mix of whistling, sunshine, ukuleles, violins, zoo’s and even elephants bursting with love is pretty much engineered to put smiles on audiences, and this gig is no exception.
They even segued it into a cover of “Sweets for my Sweet” made famous by The Searchers in the UK (although I have a soft spot for a rough reggae version i’ll post below).
Any disappointment in finding out new single (May 5th) “Shape of my heart” isnt a Backstreet Boys cover is tempered by its fantastic horn sounds, military drum, and perfect bitter sweet chorus.
Ending the short set with “Rocks and Daggers” this is a band on top form in an inspired setting. Stage right of the A-Z of Jamiacan heritage the brass burst forth, by picture books the Harmonium was glorious, in front of “Wibbly Pig’s Silly Big Bear” Rebecca sung her heart out, by a picture history of the 1950’s the violin player excelled, and Winnie the pooh can rarely of witnessed better drumming. In the center of it all lead singer Charlie Fink couldn’t look happier.
Now can anyone tell me what happens at the end of Asterix & Cleopatra, some band interrupted my reading!?
Setlist:
Give a little love
Peaceful/Jocasta?
Mary
Shape of my heart
Five tears time
Rocks and daggers
In a bid to save my vinyl from physical assault by a stylus as old and wonky as a rusty nail I’ve avoided using my record decks for months now. Thankfully I’m now 50 quid lighter but in possession of two pristine needles, and a one huge backlog of lovely plastic to indulge in. (I realise I have posted at length about waving goodbye to analogue for ever… I lied).
First up direct from Finland the wonderfully named Mighty Mo & The Winchester Seven turn out a phenomenally good deep funk cover of Melle Mel’s “The Message” (YouTube). Mighty Mo is rumoured to be someone well known (anyone?). Big name or not this monster drags the track forward 30 years to the present day only to send it back 40 (or who knows maybe Flash covered this?)!
The B side features a version excursion where the percussion and breaks are let loose to romp around the track.
“Some call it Marijuana, some of dem call it ganja”
Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It” has been the stoners clarion call for 30 years now (youtube brief history), and this double A 12″ well and truly updates it for this generation.
With the 6blocc East Coast mix on one side, Dave Q takes it to the West Coast on the flip, with a bassline and cracking drum that’ll have the noise abatement team round your place before the track finishes (although quite how it translates in crushed MP3 is another matter). Synths glower, dub step rhythms clatter, and Peter Tosh floats in and out of the echo chamber. This is the definitive version as far as I’m concerned.
Black Moth Super Rainbow have a new single “Zodiac Girl” due in May, but some of us are still catching up with the bands offshoots. Featuring one of BMSR, Tobacco have just posted a new track “Dirt” with Aesop Rock on vocal duties (Myspace). Somehow I missed the glorious “Hairy Candy” and its associated filthy but fun video.
Although apparently banned from YouTube it doesnt actually contain any nudity save for a brief nipple, but the faces saved from long forgotten VHS’s say it all.
My inability to resist anything with Rodney Smith aka Roots Manuva’s name on it has landed me with some shockingly bad, half baked bootlegs over the years but thankfully Drums Of Death offer strictly top shelf material. Formerly based in Glasgow under the name Kid Twist, Shoreditch is now home to the Drums Of Death (or so it says on the net so it must be true). On the Aside, the touch it at your peril “Witness” gets a radical makeover featuring harps and comes out sounding marvelously wonky (but for me at least Witness isnt Witness without that acid squelch).
On the B, the sumptuous tones of Challi 2na joins the dots with Mr Manuva eschewing the obvious bootleg sounds, instead heading firmly leftwards. Drums of Death are signed to Hot Chip’s Greco-Roman International Sonic Wrestling label so expect big things… can he do a Manuva remix LP first though?
The basement walls of 100 Oxford Street have reverberated to the sounds of every possible musical genre in its 60+ years as a music venue. From its roots in the Jazz of Humphrey Lyttelton, through Punk and the Pistols, Indie, Afro, and R&B. Ornate frames decorate throughout with signed pictures of past performers - some long forgotten, others now icons - giving the place the feel of a musical version of “Sal’s Famous Pizzeria” from Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing.
Tonight “Lo-Fi Electronica” can be added to the genre list along with that modern day phenomena the “Blog band”. Only the all conquering Radiohead can currently compete with Toronto’s Holy Fuck for the title of “most blogged about” band in the last year or so.
At either side of the drums sit two trestle tables groaning under the weight of ancient gizmo’s, gadgets, and keyboards all held together with gaffa tape. The unaware could wander in and mistakenly enquire if they’d take 50p for that old bit of a washing machine before realising it wasn’t actually a car boot sale. This is electronic music without the electronics, the ubiquitous glowing apple logo is no where to be seen, replaced instead with the vintage or the homemade.
In between tracks Brian Borcherd & Graham Walsh pull out plugs and switch toys as new gadgets appear fighting for space on the tables. Out with the bontempi keyboard in with the phaser gun, or in the case of Graham pulling strips of film through an old cine editing block (see pic from Nicole Blommers). What part the film strips play in the glorious noise whipped up is beyond me, but it’s a damn site more fun than someone hunched over a laptop.
A few songs in and both audience and band are working up a fine sweat. Bizarrely only the drummer remains dry despite laying down a relentless back beat almost the equal of the masters of the BIG drum sound, Battles (musically they have much in common too).
The highlight of the night is unsurprisingly “Lovely Allen” a track so grand and epic in scale that an online campaign has been launched to declare it as the new official Canadian national anthem.* Its one of those songs that soars to incredible heights only to explode into a cacophony of drum fills, violins, bleeps and whoosh’s.
If there is a fault then some mid set songs don’t stand out, blending into each other, but mostly tracks like “Super Inuit” will stay in the memory of all those present for many a year (or until they rush back next time the fuck visit these shores).
Support act Free Blood devide opinion between those that consider a band pressing go on a backing track no better than glorified karaoke, and those that don’t give two hoots how the music is made as long as its this funky.
At first I felt I’d made a terrible mistake and gatecrashed some art students recreating that “K-rrazzy” youtube clip they’d posted last week, only this time they’ve got microphones in place of hair brushes. Wait for the machine to start the beat… now arch your back, over act and screech.
Its hard to be that harsh for long though as the sheer energy former !!!’er John Pugh puts into his performance wins you over. His mic lead’s so long you half expect him to wander up the stairs mid set and start serenading startled shoppers. As it is he’s content to explore the venue, collapse on the floor, or find the nearest table to clamber on and sing.
At one point he made good use of the pillar oddly placed right in front of the stage, wrapping his lead round and round any unsuspecting audience members leaning on it. There’s nothing like being tied to a post and personally serenaded by a large bearded man to leave a special traumatised look!
Their track “Grumpy” is a particular favourite, although the Found remix that someone kindly sent me has the slight edge on the live version. Found strip the track completely down, accentuate the cello and achieve a sparseness that’s chillingly good.
Last month marked three years since musiclikedirt.com first stumbled into the world of musical blogging. So self congratulations to myself for keeping going that long, or alternatively self flagellation for not “getting a life” in all that time! Either way, thanks to anyone who has ever read and especially commented on the music here, and most importantly to the musicians featured, who have been kind enough not to sue me when “featuring” the wonderful music they’ve created.
On with the March highlights…
THE CHART
Double click on any track above to listen, and click on the names below to visit.
Sitting pretty at the top is “Follow Him” taken from Example’s album of bootlegs and b-sides “What We Almost Made” (8 quid for 16 tracks here). It features Example & Scroobius Pip comparing tales of stalker fans. Pip gets a nazi while Example goes to sign a fans dress only for her to whip out her breast:
“I stared at her tit and then froze…
she had a tattoo of my face with her nipple in the middle as my nose”.
Marc Mac from 4Hero has compiled a totally FREE 24 track Daru Spirit / Soul Hop sampler, packed with nu-soul delights.
The Fugees classic “Ready Or Not” is re-invented as a downbeat beauty, while the track below could be mistaken for the finest of Jill Scott’s work.
As ever there were lots of ridiculously good mixes about last month. A bit of self publicity first, although not technically a mix, my first podcast is available to download. This version here comes with added clips from the months news, The Daily Show and lots of Elliot Spitzer jokes, enhancing or getting in the way of the music depending on your view. Stuart James, Spank Rock, Julian Cope, Pip, Gonzales and many more feature.
In February’s round up I had Kelpe’s new LP as one of the definate highlights (buy it here), and since then he’s been kind enough to send over his own monthly mix to share. The likes of Shuggie Otis, Porn Sword Tobacco, Fugazi, and Caribou are blended together in a wonderfully horizontal chilled out selection. Cut down the peppermint tea and Valium and relax with Kelpe instead.
Greg Wilson seems to pop up more and more frequently on this blog of late, but what can I do if he keeps posting mixes of such brilliance. This month The Cosmic Boogie Collective are hosting three mixes from his return to DJing in 2005.
The Stylus 1 mix was recorded direct onto minidisc at the Music Box in Manchester, and it can’t be recommended highly enough. Parliament, James Brown, Eric B & Rakim, its pure 70’s/80’s nostalgia but whats wrong with a bit of that.
After four years of applying I finally got tickets to Later with Jools Holland last week. Unfortunately Gnarls Barkley cancelled their appearance and gig the day before for family reasons and flew back to the states.
Estelle stepped in, setting up a potentially awkward meeting with Adele who was also featuring. Here’s Estelle in the Guardian last weekend :”Adele ain’t soul. She sounds like she heard some Aretha records once, and she’s got a deeper voice - that don’t mean she’s soul“.
To be fair to Estelle she was pointing out a very valid point about how there’s never been so much “soul” on the radio but its only ever white people playing it… Ronson, Winehouse, Duffy, Adele. It wasn’t a personal attack on Adele (well not quite), but the racism of the UK record industry.
Thankfully Adele didnt bless Estelle with her cold shoulder, not did girl fights ensue (although James Taylor almost broke his neck tripping over Estelle’s cables), both were excellent on the night. Estelle with a track that pilfers from George Michael, and Adele with a heart breaking version of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love“, plus personal favourite “Hometown Glory“.
I’ve been unnecessarily sarcastic about Jools and his boogie woogie piano in the past but the guys a total pro, an amazing player, and whats more had the audience eating out of his hand… a charming man. Which is more than can be said for the worst warm up bloke in history. It was as if they’d dragged a passing cabbie in to try and get the crown going. Members of the audience looked at each other in horror as he ran through his repertoire of “cor you nervous theyll be tight sphincters in here tonight (shakes leg).. oh I think I just shat myself“… “youve got 5 minutes what can you do in that time, perhaps just have a piss or knock one off hehehe“.
Everytime Jools arrived in the nick of time and dragged the audience back from scatological hell.
As is often the case the show was stolen by the unheralded act, in this case The Neil Cowley Trio, otherwise known as “the token jazz band, time to put the kettle on“.
They only played one track, but then they probably get through a piano per song on the basis of the pounding given to the thing during “His Nibs”. On the strength of this performance i’ll be buying the album, and Im viewers across the country will be doing the same (if they weren’t in the kitchen at the time).
BBC iplayer: Watch the live 30 minute “Later..Live” here (until 8th April) - worth it for Adele’s brilliant take on Bob Dylan with Jools on piano.
The full 60 minute programme is available here for the next six days (featuring Neil Cowley Trio, Adele, Estelle, James Taylor, Black Kids and me in the background).
JOHN FAIRHURST
Former member Laura Marling may be off to solo stardom, but 
