A few good times in my life
Without further ado, here are some of the songs released this week.
1967: Jimi Hendrix
1967: Nancy & Frank Sinatra
1967: The Who
1977: The Clash
1985: Tears For Fears
1971: Richie Havens
1973: Jim Croce
1969: Simon and Garfunkel
1970: Guess Who
1977: Peter Gabriel
Today's post is number 3,000 in a blog that has been running since I started it in September 2012. Inspired by other blogs, I thought that I could do the same and that someone might be interested in what I have to say. Over the years, I've joined a community that now means a lot to me. One of the highlights was certainly the meeting of several bloggers in Glasgow a few years ago and hopefully it will be the same in Bristol in June.
I thought long and hard about what to post today and went for the beginning. The name of the blog is borrowed from a song by the Fellow Travellers. The Fellow Travellers and their singer Jey Loy Nichols appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the year and didn't let us go for a summer.
They brought us a previously unheard-of combination of folk, country, reggae and dub that had never been seen before or since. The music exudes serenity and in the best moments everything is reduced to wishes for a few good times. Jeb Loy's voice certainly takes some getting used to, but it suits these songs like no other. The music was written about at the time: The Fellow Travellers' songs are folk and country songs in dub. They speak of loneliness, loss and sadness, of melancholy states, pleasurable and on the verge of cheerfulness. They hit that sweet spot more precisely than any other music I've heard so far. There is nothing more to add.
The Fellow Travellers - A Few Good Times
The Fellow Travellers - Train Of Tears / Blue Train
The Fellow Travellers - Blues For Texas / Dub For Texass
The Fellow Travellers - Just A Visitor
From time to time, it makes sense for musicians to rummage through their own archives. Nina Walsh has been doing this for some time now, opening up her treasure chest of previously unreleased music.
Last week, she dug up and released three electronic excursions again, of which Ridintg The Mistral stands out. A song in which she recalls the early days of New Order with a bubbling bass line and a metronome rhythm and breathes the spirit of Neu! into it with fine guitar picking.
With Danny Lee Blackwell's project Night Beats a new band appeared on my radar. The Texas born guitarist with Indian roots is since 15 years on duty searching for the right combination of psych and R&B. It seems that he now found it. Behind The Green Door is a hypnotic, psyche influenced song with great soul vocals and a twangy guitar. All in all an artist worth to be explored more.
When the short series ended last week, the question was asked whether Def Leppard had not found a place. The only reason why Sheffield's best didn't appear was because I didn't find two other songs with Saturday in the title that should appear.
And here is High 'N' Dry probably the typical song by them. Formed in the post-glam days they were the spearhead of new British heavy metal. Their music was often played at biker meetings and was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, they became less important later when they drifted into simple hard rock.
Have a good weekend.
1966: The Bobby Fuller Four was a short time existing rock and roll band. Their legacy is that they first brought Sonny Curtis song to the charts.
1970: CSN&Y released Joni Mitchel's Woodstock a swan song to an era
1965: For me, Donovan always seemed to be poor man's Dylan, but this song is beautiful.
1985: Dream Academy, a small one hit wonder appeared with a with a melancholy tribute to their youth.
1966: The Byrds got success with a cover by Bob Dylan.
1974: Steve Wonder released on of his best records.
1983: David Bowie's album Let's Dance when me and a couple of friends made a short trip to France.
1986: Robert Palmer - just because of the video.
1889: Heart made probably the best song about a one night stand.
Today's song leads us back into the mid seventies and to a band that got critical acclaim but less success. I featured them once before and will do it once again whilst I listened to their live album from 1977 during last weekend. The band was formed in 1972 and was inspired by glam-rock and early David Bowie. After their first album Nelson replaced the whole band with new musicians who, in his opinion, could interpret his songs better. He expanded his sounds with elements of art rock, prog rock and to the end with new wave. Nothing is better to dive into their music as the live version of Shine. A pumping bass over a funky rhythm is the perfect ground for Nelson's guitar excursions.
Be Bop Deluxe - Shine
Regular visitors to these pages will know that I have a high regard for Kerala Dust. The band, formed nine years ago in London and now based alternately in Berlin and Zurich, have always aimed to bridge the gap between electronic music and traditional songwriting.
And this time, too, they manage it very well. A hypnotic beat unites Americana and blues with lush guitar passages. Let it roll.
Last round for this little series about Saturday. We start with Sam Cooke, who sadly died far too early and had a good number of hit singles before his murder. The next one was written by CCR's John Fogerty and covered years later by Dave Edmunds. Finally one of my favorite songs by Tom Waits. Seldom was a cruising through a Saturday night on the search for solution better described as by him.
Dublin based DJ and producer Mike Wilson is back with his project 100 Poems and released a new new album today. He continued his journey of taking tunes from the past and give them a new dress of Balearic, psyche or house. Now he has discovered the blues and shows us what can be made of ancient songs when acoustic instruments such as fiddle or harmonica merge into a cosmic sound. All proceeds of this album will go to two mental charities.
Regular visitors will know that I have a great affection to Cari Cari, one of my favorite band from Austria. Cari Cari is an Austrian indie rock duo founded by drummer and singer Stephanie Widmer and guitarist and singer Alexander Koeck. This began when I first saw them live a couple of years back in a small venue close to my former workplace. Only about 50 visitors wanted to see this unknown band live and they missed something great. Right from the start, they created a warm and cosy atmosphere with their spartan equipment. Every song felt familiar. Years later, I saw them again at a festival, but this time in front of a few thousand people. They had perfected their sound and for many, this concert was the highlight of the weekend.
Now they announced the release of their third album and it seems that it has the same level as their predecessors. Cari Cari make desert rock. It sounds classically bluesy, sometimes psychedelic, but mostly with a pinch of Ennio Morricone, and their songs always sound a little bit like the Wild West. Like dried, rolling tumbleweed bushes, circling vultures and a siesta at the hottest hour of the day.
When I started this series, I didn't really have any great expectations as to which songs would appear on these pages. In the meantime, I really enjoy listening to these songs again after many years or even just watching the videos.
1972: At the height of glam rock, you can't get past Gary Glitter and I thought long and hard about whether I should give a pederast a forum.
Dieter Meier, a Swiss conceptual artist, musician and entrepreneur, turns eighty today. Reason enough to honor his work, especially with Yello, a band formed in 1977 by Boris Blank and Carlos Peron.
Legend has it that the two met in a car test lab to record engine noises to create songs. In their search for a voice to accompany their songs, they came across the professional gambler, painter and performance artist Dieter Meier, who was still playing in a band called The Assholes at the time.
They released several songs on a Swiss indie label and Bostiche went through the roof in the United States in the early 80's and was played in many discotheques. On the following albums, they released classics of early electro-pop that became unmistakable thanks to Meier's spoken vocals.
Happy birthday, Dieter
Yello - Bostich
Yello - The Race
Yello - Oh Yeah
In 2013, one of krautrock's most underrated bands returned with a new album. Agitation Free was founded in Berlin in 1967 and their instrumental improvisations were unusually long for the time. With an independent mixture of improvised rock paired with electro, ethno and trance elements, they found a large fan base.
After splitting up in the seventies, they released a new album, Momentum, 24 years later. Even after these years, the album is characterised by guitars that shimmer through time and space. Momentum is no longer as experimental as it once was, but it is still powerful and full of rhythmic and melodic beauty. Sometimes the songs are reminiscent of the best times of Steve Hillage and Kraan, which can't be a bad thing.
Agitation Free - InDaJungle
This week didn't show much of new releases that are worth to be featured at this place. I listened a lot to Dub Syndicate's latest releases the recent days and to Antoine Harispuru's latest release as Golden Bug. It is a new collaboration with In Fields (sadly I couldn't find more information that it is another electronic musician). It's a combination of Golden Bug's electronic adventures in electronic house and In Fields dark sounds. A pulsating piece of music with many twists and turns.
This week's bundle of songs starts with a classic by the early Elton John and shows how great he was in these days and had more to give than weird outfits.
Graham Parker is another artist I loved in my younger days until punk and new wave changed everything.
We finish with a pop song by Chicago when they were already on the decline musically.
No, this not about the song with the same name by Siouxsie and the Banshees. It is my favorite track from the new album by Pretty Lightning, a band from Saarbrücken, Germany. Christian Berghoff and Sebastian Haas built the duo that moves since a couple of years between psychedelic blues, fuzz and jangle pop.
Now they released their second instrumental album. They describe the album as an imaginary walk through a dark and mysterious wood where can hear the sound of 60's psyche, krautrock, delta-blues and drone. Sometimes the beauty of the soundtrack from Paris, Texas and Ry Cooder shimmers through their songs.
Another look back at remarkable publications from the last few decades.
1996 Bob Dylan's son Jakob appeared on the scene with his band The Wallflowers. His song were massive influenced by Springsteen and Tom Petty and rather successful.
Yesterday George Thorogood turned 75 and this is an occasion to take another look at his musical work. Born in the small state of Delaware on the east coast of the USA, he experienced his musical aha moment in the spring of 1965 when he saw the Rolling Stones together with Howlin' Wolf on television.
After that, his career was set, focussing on the blues and playing in small clubs or on the streets on the West Coast. His heyday came just as punk and new wave were turning music upside down. Someone has the chupza to release an album on which he cements his concept of the blues. Hard rhythms, phenomenal guitar playing and a bluesy voice were what set them apart from many other blues bands at the time.
A German music magazine described his music like this: If Mark Knopfler is the sultan of swing, George Thorogood must be the Satan of slide. There is nothing more to add.
Belated birthday greetings George
George Thorogood & The Destroyers - You Gotta Lose
George Thorogood & The Destroyers - Delaware Slide
George Thorogood & The Destroyers - John Hardy
Terry Callier was a Chicago born folk-jazz-soul guitarist, singer and songwriter. Long time forgotten and rediscovered by the acid-jazz scene in the early noughties. Raised in several doo-wop groups and the friendship of Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott-Heron he became also a remarkable voice of the liberation of black music in the early seventies. 1972 he released Dancing Girl a perfect symbiosis between folk, soul and jazz with critical lyrics about the situation of the black population in America. The song begins with a folk guitar and you expect Nick Drake to start singing. But Callier himself takes over with his soft soul voice, which reaches falsetto before falling into soul towards the end of the song. A forgotten masterpiece.
Terry Callier - Dancing Girl
Belfast based DJ and Producer Phil Kieran reanimated his project Le Carousel from 2013 with a new release last week. Billowing synths and a straight electronic beat form the foundation on which Kieran gives free rein to his pulsating rhythms. A song with a hypnotic pull.
Another week has passed and we are ready for the weekend. So let's start with a couple of songs who have immortalized Saturday in the title.
First a song from the debut album by The Cure. An album that only featured a floor lamp, a fridge and a hoover on the cover and didn't reveal any other information. For those who listened to the album, it was a musical revelation.
Ben Hunt is a DJ and producer from Brighton who wasn't on my radar until recently and only came to my attention by chance when I was browsing Leeds Paisley Dark Label's Bandcamp page. Shimmering Lights was released at the end of last year alongside several remixes. A song that could pass for a lost work by the Chemical Brothers or Underworld. It may sound old school, but this trippy spaced out sound would have been hailed as great in other times.
Earlier this month Maps, a collaboration between Swiss electronic duo Sinner DC and Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom. Originally conceived as a live performance for a festival twelve years ago the result is now available. This performance brought together Sinner DC's ambient electronica and Sonic Boom's dazzled guitar sound. Waves of spliced guitar distortion drift over a steady electronic kick drum, pounding the song into oblivion until a voice that sounds dangerously close to Lou Reed’s begins speaking at a loud volume over the rest of the mix. The consistent development of Kember's typical guitar sound meets the ambient and psychedelic excursions of Sinner DC and makes this album an early highlight of the year.
At the end of last year Sonic Boom remixed another song by Sinner DC, also worth a listen.
Another journey through releases of songs that made me fun listening again.
1970: Detroit rock and blues band Rare Earth released a cover version of Temptations hit Get Ready. Although the single is pretty good I prefer their long version.
1981: Vince Clarke prepared the sound of electronic pop music with Depeche Mode. I Just Can't Enough was the first of many upcoming melodic hymns.
1987: Prince released his best album for me with a statement of what was going on these days.
1991: REM release Losing My Religion, not their best song but the one that made them super stars.
1984: Bananarama was probably the first British girl band that brought us in the 80'sna lot of classic pop songs like this.
1980: Squeeze should be named if someone asks for a band formed in the post-punk days and later turned into pop-rock hymns.
1973: Bruce Springsteen released his debut and Blinded By The Light was one of his early highlights of the great storyteller.
1979: From the ashes of the latest pub-rock band The Motors Bram Tchaikovsky showed how great power-pop could be.
1979: It takes a lot of chutzpah to record cover versions of soul classics at a time when music was in upheaval. But the two comedians Aykroyd and Belushi did it very well.
1980: Atomic by Blondie is too good to remain unmentioned here.
If you read the title of this post and you think about The Doobie Brothers you are right. But it is not the original country rock song, it's the rework by Flying Mojito Bros, two American disco/house DJ probably from California. Since a couple of years they take their inspirations from classic songs from the 60's/70's and rework them for the dancefloor. They self describe their sound like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young playing at the Hacienda or The Orb playing at Woodstock. And I think this could work well at any club to move people to the dancefloor.
For no great reason I stumbled across Felt, a forgotten band from the Birmingham area, at the weekend. Felt were active in the mid-eighties and released several albums and singles that unfortunately never had much commercial success.
Maybe it's because they couldn't write catchy songs and their jangly guitar sound didn't really fit into the era of post-punk and emerging electronic music. Their often long songs with sparkling guitar passages were clearly modelled on Tom Verlaine and Television, without adding their own touch to the sound. Or is it really because, as Lawrence, the band's leader, once said, John Peel didn't like the band? Be that as it may, they made their musical mark with their first two albums in those years.
Felt - The Optimist And The Poet
A few days ago I met a longtime friend of mine for a couple of pints and we talked a lot about everything possible. Among other things, I asked why there are no good soul groups these days. His answer was that they exist and you just have to find them. As an example, he mentioned two bands from California, Thee Sacred Souls and The Altons.
Last Friday The Altons released their first full length album Heartache In Room 14 and they describe their music as retro indie soul. That doesn't do her great songs justice. In addition to the great voice of Adriana Flores, they expand their sound with surf guitars and a flair of spaghetti western. It sounds strange at first, but it doesn't detract from the songs. It looks as if soul is still alive, only it has evolved.
A guest posting by The (New) Vinyl Villain
1. Come Saturday – The Pains Of The Being Pure At Heart
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart are from NYC, forming in 2007, breaking up in 2019 and then
announcing late last year that they were getting back together again. I’m off to see them when they
hit Glasgow this coming November.
This single, from 2009, is a wonderfully catchy number and I defy anyone to listen and not want to
start dancing.
2. The Saturday Boy – Billy Bragg
If anyone ever mentions that they don’t like Billy cos he is a one-trick pony only capable of singing
protest songs then this is my way of coming back at them. A stunning tale of love and rejection. And
a reminder of what exactly la la la la la la la la la la means when used in a song (most of the time
anyway).
3. Saturday’s Kids – The Jam
It’s now a ridiculous 46 years since The Jam released ‘Setting Sons’. A song about growing up in a
working-class community that resonated with me so much back then….I may have moved onwards
and upwards (and I can hardly claim these days to be working-class!) but that part of the lyric about
hating the system still resonates.
Walter adds: Thank you JC for your excellent contribution to this little series
Another week and another foray through the releases of new songs from the last 60 years. There wasn't much of note, but enough to fill this post.
1977 - David Bowie released Low, probably his best album from this decade and Sound and Vision was one of the highlights from this album.
1966 - From his album Blonde On Blonde Bob Dylan released One Of Us Must Know one of the best songs from this album.
1967 - A classic pop song by The Turtles was released.
1972 - Dr. Hook appeared on the scene with a one of the best songs about lost love.
1966 - The Walker Brothers released their masterpiece. Scott Walker's voice is still thrilling.
1980 - Talking Heads released Fear Of Music and showed on this song why they were one of the best bands from this time.
It's simply not possible to know all the bands and records and so it takes a coincidence if you discover a band that you've never had on your radar. That's what happened to me recently when I was looking for Scandinavian guitar bands on the internet.
One of the results was a band that simply calls itself Studio. It is a band that was founded almost twenty years ago by two art students, Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, in Gothenburg, Sweden. They have only recorded one album, West Coast, which has been unjustly overlooked.
The two Swedes seem to love herbaceous trance states, which they play themselves into in extremely long sessions. On the one hand, the songs, carried by guitar licks, are strongly orientated towards krautrock, but leave enough room for meandering rhythms, borrowings from new wave and meditative scenes. In better times, their songs would have been remixed and much better known.
Studio - Life's A Beach
Last week Orion Belte, a three piece band from Bergen, Norway, released their last album Mint. It's an album that seems disturbing at first, because you're tempted to believe that old wine is once again being served in new bottles.
Orion Belte play familiar music that was played several decades ago, only that they play a retro sound that can be considered contemporary due to their fresh style. It doesn't matter whether they play a flawless blues with reverberated guitars like on Joe Frazier or take a much more dynamic trip into the atmosphere with a driving beat and swirling riffs in Atlantik Surfing. All in all, one of the better new releases this year.
Another round with songs that have Saturday in the title. We start with the Leyton Buzzards, a former pub rock band that adapted new wave in 1979, Sadly they were a one-hit wonder but their second single Saturday Night (Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees) a paean to the first wave of skin and ska culture in late 60's Britain made them unforgetable.
The Limiñanas, a neo-psychedelic band from the south of France, are back with a new album, which is due to be released in a fortnight. As usual, they manage to span the musical spectrum from Velvet Underground to Serge Gainsbourg to Jesus and Mary Jane.
In addition to Jon Spencer, Bobbie Gillespie was also invited as a guest this time, whose voice fits perfectly with the sound underpinned by distorted guitars.
Their homage to the YéYé sound of the sixties is also very beautiful, as they cover a song by Francoise Hardy and transform its sound perfectly into the here and now.
If he were still alive, Bob Marley would be 80 years old today. Much has been written about his life, his music and his political stance, and better than I can. For me, his music was the ticket to another musical dimension and I probably couldn't have delved so deeply into reggae and dub.
Bob Marley - Small Axe
In 1975 we were on a school trip to London. For me, this city was impressive because everything was so much bigger and different than I was used to. A lot of the music was also different and reggae was played in many places. If my teachers had allowed it, I would have bought tickets for a Bob Marley concert and listened to his album Live while chatting away.
Bob Marley and The Wailers - Burnin' & Lootin'
How great he could be shows this little footage, when he played together with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh.
A broad review of notable publications without a contextual link.
1967 - Buffalo Springfield released their only chart success. For What It's Worth became an anthem of the opponents of the Vietnam war.
1977 - Boz Scaggs is an musician which has never been mentioned in this blog before. He is well known in America but he was never the big thing with his honest rhythm & blues. His album Silk Degrees reached the top ten at the time, was pleasant to listen to and very similar to the sound of Graham Parker.
1978 - American Girl was the last song on Tom Petty's debut album and shows his ability to write catchy songs that have lost none of their class even after decades.
1965 - Martha Reeves & the Vandellas are one example, why you should dive into 60's soul from time to time.
1982 - ABC released their their debut album The Lexicon Of Love. One that you can either hate or love, because their completely arranged songs are very close to kitsch. But there are some damn good songs on the album.
1956 - Hard to believe that this song by Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps is almost 70 years old. For me is this song more rock and roll than from other artists of this era.
1981 - The Jam. Just another great song from them.
15 years ago, Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnson founded the club series A Love From Outer Space, which quickly developed into a British institution, expanded and reached an international audience. ALFOS took a slower, more sustained approach at a maximum tempo of 122 bpm and became known for his eclectic and hypnotic sound, blending everything from cosmic and house to dub and post-punk.
Sean Johnson has now put together an anniversary sampler that reflects the music of ALFOS over the last 15 years, which stands for unforgettable club nights that I was unfortunately never able to attend. Sean Johnson has now put together an anniversary sampler that reflects the music of ALFOS over the last 15 years, which stands for unforgettable club nights that I was unfortunately never able to attend. The double album contains numerous tracks that are sometimes lost or only available at horrendous prices. The album will be released on Valentine's Day.
In 2016, I was at a festival in Mannheim and was already tired after a long day on my feet. Nevertheless, I really wanted to see the last act of the day, as I couldn't imagine anything specific about their music. Meute were announced as a techno-marching band and I had to say it worked well. The band rearranges techno, house and deep house works by well-known DJ's and realiezed the electro beats with wind instruments. The hypnotic monotony of techno remains intact and are complemented by the warm brass sections. Back then, they played in front of around 100 listeners, but they are now booked at major festivals. Slip is from their second album Puls from 2020, which is highly recommended in its entirety.
Meute - Slip
It's always good to see that there are new bands that still take a relaxed and simple approach to writing songs. Lovehead is a three-piece all-female indie band from Burgenland in Austria. They recently released their first single, which I loved with its indie charm. A low-fi guitar, a relaxed bass and not embarrassing lyrics about a love gone by makes this song great. If it had been released thirty years ago, the song would have been a hit.
A few weeks ago I was looking for a topic for a new series for this blog. I couldn't think of anything inspiring until songs with the word Saturday in the title were played twice in succession via shuffle mode. I'll take that as a sign and start a little series.
Let's start with a song by The Specials. Friday Night, Saturday Morning was the b-side of Ghost Town and Terry Hall described beautifully a mundane night out in Coventry.
Earlier this morning I read in the newspaper that Marianne Faithfull died yesterday at the age of 78. Convent schoolgirl, Jagger friend, 60's icon, high-class groupie, drug addict, actress, ageing diva: the career of Marianne Faithfull had many faces. She made her first musical appearance in 1965 when she turned the song As Tears Go By, composed by Jagger/Richards, into a veritable hit.
