Sometimes it only takes a little note to remember a band that you have already forgotten. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart have reunited and will be playing several concerts in Spain and Portugal early next year.
TPOBPAH released their debut album in 2009 and set new standards with their version of indie-pop. Although they are from New York, they sound very British. On the one hand, they fuse the melancholy lyricism of The Smiths with the pop of My Bloody Valentine hidden behind powerful walls of guitars.
What remains of them are softly noisy, incredibly catchy three-minute songs with their boy-girl vocals about the worries of young people. And still worth playing again from time to time.
Last Friday Nina Walsh released Retrospective a new four-track EP with songs from her long lasting career. Walsh is a British composer, performer, producer and engineer and well known for her long time collaboration with Andrew Weatherall and The Woodleigh Research Fascility. These four track show how different her style is and where she got the influences. Lover Teacher, is driven by a vintage `60s Vox Invader. Its distorted, fuzzed, freaked-out, mutant rockabilly riffing, recalling The Smiths and Johnny Marr from the times when they madeHand In Glove and What Difference Does it make. Great stuff.
A lot of courage already is necessary to seize one of the best songs of the early 80's and to play in a cover version which deals generally nothing more with the original. Schneider TM if is an experimental solo project of Dirk Dresselhaus which devotes itself to the electric and electronic music. When I first listened to this version of The Smiths song There Was A Light That Never Goes Out I couldn't believe that this was possible and I asked myself several time if this version was good or not. Finally this version made me curious to this kind of music and I got deeper and deeper to electronic sounds and music.
All things come to an end and so is this little series. It made a lot of fun to me crawling back into the days British independent music made it marks in history. Following the chronology of this kind of music development shows that I still stuck deep into this music.
Happy Birthday Morrissey. You're as old as me and I wish you the all the best. He's exactly as old as I am For ages I am addicted to him and The Smiths for ages. It is 56 years that I'm on this planet. Had me a lot of great times around. I raise my glass to you all of my friends. Have a great time and give me a toast.
As well as it looks the FIFA World Championship developed itself to an internationally reinforced Copa Sudamericana. Great and likeable teams had to home. Spain and England failed on team like Chile, Uruguay and Costa Rica; teams from the African continent and the Asian participants don't have the abilities to reach the final rounds. What has the rest of the participants still to muster to break the dominance the South and Central American? The Netherlands and France of course - and Italy and Germany as well. But it's my opinion that the next champion will come from South America. Until then, let's watch some great games like Switzerland against France last Friday.
Today song is by Metronomy and it's from their new album released this spring. For me this album is one of the best and most interesting ones which were published this year. It is full of good ideas and good songs filled with references to the best of the last 40 years. Imagine a sound that combines 80s David Bowie with some West-Coast harmonies or some Doo-Wop. And sometimes you can hear The Smiths shimmering through the songs (Month of Sundays).
Occupational change at the office. In addition to my general tasks they added new obligations to me. Now I have to switch to the customers to serve and to conclude contracts with them. That was exactly the thing I never wanted to. But I had no opportunity to refuse this job if I wanted to keep my job. And I was to lazy to look for a new job because I was integrated in my social life and the big advantage to have a job in my hometown. After weighing all the pros and cons I bit the bullet and did my best, knowing that this will be my final job. Therefore me and Susanne decided to take a longer time for vacation this year. In summer we went for a four-week vacation to the coast of the Algarve in Portugal by car. It was 1.300 miles one way from our town to the final destination of Albufeira. As we go by car we decided to take not the shortest way and visit some other places on our way. So we first drove through France towards Marseille and from there up to Barcelona. We also stayed a couple of days in the beauty Camargue. It was an easy and free time to travel and to stop and stay if ever we had the feeling inside that this place needs to stay for longer. All in all we had a great time, not knowing that this was the best moments in our both life so far. Looking back to this trip I ask myself how I could manage driving this distance. Maybe you can do this when you are younger - today it would be too much for me.
This year's records that are worth to remember again:
The Triffids - Calenture: Another great record by a underrated band
Public Enemy - Yo! Bum rush the show: A monument of rap
U2 - The Joshua Tree: You couldn't ignore because it was played everywhere
Gary Moore Wild Frontier: Blues rock with Irish influences
Deacon Blue - Raintown: Perfect pop about life in Glasgow
The Cure - Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me: Back again with an more optimistic mind
John Hiatt - Bring the Family: A perfect combination of Blues, Country and rock
Terance Trent D'Arby - Introducing the Hardline According to ...: The return of soul inspired songs
The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come: Their legacy and final highlight
Nyah Fearties - A Tasty Heidfu: Minimal Irish Punk Folk; short songs - great fun
The Jesus and Mary Jane - Darklands: Gigantic
39 Clocks - 13 more Protest Songs: German New Wave goes Psychedelic
The Sister of Mercy - Floodland: Andrew Eldrich turnes into bombast
Aztec Camera - Love: One more great record from one of the finest Scottish bands
Aretha Franklin - One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism: The mighty voice goes back to the roots
Some songs that was played very often this years and others they should have been played more:
What was on the movies this year:
Good Morning Saigon: Robbie Williams as a radio DJ in Vietnam - awesome
The Untouchables: Fantastic movie about how to get Al Capone in jail
Dirty Dancing: Patrick Swayce tried to teach us how to dance
Dragnet: Dan Aycroyd's homage to the 50s cop series
La Bamba: Good biopic about the life of Richie Valens
Moonstruck: Nice movie about relationship in the family. Great: Cher
Angel Heart: Maybe the best movie about the devil ever. Fantastic: Robert De Niro as Lou Zeyfer (especially peeling the boiled egg)
The Big Easy. Corruption in the police department of New Orleans with great Cajoun music
Full Metal Jacket: Great idea to show military education on Paris Island and the reality fighting houses
Radio Days: Woody Allen takes us back to the times before television
Wall Street: Oliver Stone shows us how trading business works.
When I remember this year there are a few things that touched me personally:
The so called Unabomer Ted Kaczynski strikes another time in Salt Lake City with his bombing campaign against modern technologies // The Iran-Contra affair continues and blaming Ronald Reagan for not controlling his administration // The first appearance of the Simpsons in the Tracey Ullman show // Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II // Nineteen year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet air defenses and lands a private plan on Red Square in Moscow // Through a visit in Berlin Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet prime minister Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall // 400 Iranian pilgrims are killed in clashes with Saudi Arabian security forces in Mecca // Black Monday: Stock market levels fall sharply at Wall Street and around the world // English jockey Lester Piggot is jailed for three years after being convicted of tax evasion //worker rebel against the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausesco in Romania // King's Cross fire in London Underground kills 31 people - after that the historic wooden lift was replaced // Barschel-affair in Germany: One day before the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein, reports the mirror, Prime Minister Barschel have let spy on the SPD's top candidate Björn Engholm // Rudolf Heß kills himself in Spandau prison // Zeebrugge disaster: Roll-on/Roll-off cross-channel ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes off Zeebrugge Harbour in Belgium; more than 180 people die.
A year of very good music and essential records were released. Most of them I copied on tape listening to them on our vacation to Portugal and it was again very hard to decide what record I will show up for this year. Finally it was Prince with his monumental record 'Sign 'O' The Times'. Why? Because it shows Prince on the highest level he ever reached. He was full of ideas and combined his influences from R&B, Dance, Funk, Soul, Jazz, Rock and Pop to an extraordinary mixture that stands the test of time. No song is like the other and the title track was a veritable chart breaker. His class was also recognized by the great producer Quincey Jones who asked him for a duet with Michael Jackson on 'Bad'. But he denied because 'he doesn't do things like that anymore'.
Congratulations to his 54th birthday. I like him from the first recordings with The Smiths till his latest works. Less singers can express their feelings with their voices like he can. That's one of the reasons I will ever like him - the other is, that he is exactly on the day as old as I am. Morrissey - This is not your country
A couple of days ago Drew from across the kitchen table published in his blog a a nice story where he described his feelings and thoughts about watching a football game from a VIP-box at Villa Park Birmingham. The circumstance of the evolution in how to watch football is running around my head since I've read the post.
I am addicted to this game from my youngest days. I still remember the first time my Dad took me to a game of our local team by the age of four or five. At that time I knew football only from our black and white TV set and was surprised that the players wore colored jerseys. From that day I was infected to the game.
Playing several years in the promising teams I quit playing because I turned into puberty and got other Interests than playing football. This was the time I turned into a spectator for football and I gave my heart to a team. Although Cologne is a long way from my place I support the 1.FC Cologne since then and tried to see them play when they played against VfB Stuttgart. And that's why I also support them.
My Dad's heart belonged to Stuttgart and we often visited their games. Since the mid 70s we visited lots of games but every time we went there we didn't lost any idea to take a seat - we always been out on the terraces. Talking to strangers about situations in the game - sometimes ironically and
sometimes
abusively- that what made fun at that time. In this time most people were not interested into football and when they joined our discussion the blamed us as proles. And we were happy that way because it was our own little world.
But since the mid 90s the world in football began to change. All the major clubs all over Europe began to reduce the terraces to a minimum and tried to make it suitable for mass. More and more people came to the playground because it was hip to go there. And it ended watching the games by public viewing. We'll never have the days the proles had their own game. It is sad but this will be the way the world goes.
This is a congenial version of a classical tune from The Smiths
Enjoy and have a good weekend.
No, I didn't lost my love - but the last days I was in mood to listen to one of the best bands ever. Actual most songs of The Smiths tell us about feelings when you lost your love, feeling lonely and you couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. Most of the times I felt sad, the songs of The Smiths helped me finding my way back in a brighter life. Although knowing, that there is someone who felt the same way.
