Tag Archives: review

I went to Toronto at the weekend for a business trip, I spent most of the time in a hotel and in meetings, as you do. I did manage to do two things I do on every big city trip, explore by going for a run and hit up a couple of vinyl stores. I had not been to Toronnuh really before, technically I had once before, but we literally flew in, had 2 meetings and flew back to New York. I will talk more about my thoughts and impressions in Monday’s ‘Gones for Good’. I killed a good hour rack flicking but picked up a Stones Bootleg ‘Bright Lights, Big City’, which is an interesting footnote to my last choice “Get Your Yaya’s Out”, as it’s the original Stones with Brian Jones doing studio demos of blues songs and then 4 songs from the 1973 tour rehearsal in Montreux from mixing desk. I also got the re-release over a double album of White Stripes’ “Elephant” and “Countdown to Ecstasy”, which per my thoughts on the Dan last week features the ‘guitar’ band incarnation before Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter leaves. The Canadian Dollar is a friend to all visitors so I left a happy man. We are over the halfway mark, so there are some seriously great works of art ahead, as well as those albums that just get under your skin even if they never sold a ton. Let’s roll:

Number 50: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “Only Run” 2014. Alec Ounsworth continues to this day touring as CYHSY but started the band with 3 friends in Philly in 2004. He has what could be disparagingly be called a slightly whiny voice, but so does Eric Johnson of Fruit Bats, Izaak Brock of Modest Mouse and Jordan Dreyer of La Dispute and those are all fine bands. Like them, Alec sings about the absurdity of day to day life in Modern America, like them, he gets shouty and angry at times and soft and caressing at others. The Clappers as a band were successful for a while, the kind of band that NPR’s Bob Boilen would come in his pants over, the band that Cheryl Waters would introduce them by saying their album was the best of the year. That type of accolade makes them popular but doesn’t necessarily translate into fame and fortune, so Alec still making music and taking it around is cool. I met him once and had a beer with him after a show at the Independent, nice guy. Their first album features the gloriously titled “By the Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth”, great album, as was “Some Loud Thunder”. This album, the 4th, was released after that short moment of fame had mainly passed but is to me peak Ounsworth, all big songs and a big setting, Matt Berninger kind of big, and he actually adds vocals on ‘Coming Down’. 

As WordPress does not want to embed the playlist it can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5yvtYVRjFrLqTuxHo9heiE?si=a950e3d8e75446f2

Number 49: B-52s “The B-52s” 1979. The B-52s are almost national treasures in the way that Springteen or Madonna is and Taylor Swift will be, yet back in the late 70’s they were a dance punk band from Athens, GA. They wrote funny and ironic songs and made a fun if kitchy dance sound, they had two singers with bee-hive hair and managed to channel all that was great about life in the 1950’s without the systemic misogyny. They became bigger than life with ‘Love Shack’ from the ‘“Cosmic Thing” album, which to this day will pack any wedding dance floor, but I love their early stuff when Ricky Wilson was still alive and his strange Twilight Zone guitar sound. This contains the fabulous first single ‘Rock Lobster’ which I have on 7” vinyl and bought when it came out just on the title alone.

Number 48: Car Seat Headrest “ Twin Fantasy” 2018. Talking of whiny young men Will Barnes, aka Will Toledo is the mouth and brain behind the Headrest, he released his own stuff on Bandcamp and then when fame came knocking he released some of it again. It’s noisier than typical teenage boy bedroom rock, and it’s happily not even close to Emo. His songs have the conceit of a good education in a let’s break the 4th wall kind of knowingness. As much as he started on his own and his stuff has typical touches of the loop and double tracked vocals that is almost a trope, he actually writes big hooks in a Replacements, Swiss Family Orbison, Big Star way. This album started life as a self-penned college kid piece in 2011 but this release, sometimes shown as ‘In The Mirror’ version, is re-recorded with the full touring band. It builds on the ‘Teens of Style’ and ‘Teens of Denial’ albums with the band in 2015 and 2016, bigger, more flourishes and rocks out.

Number 47: Richard and Linda Thompson “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight” 1974. Richard Thompson was part of the great Fairport line up and got bored of doing straight folk so left in 1972 just as they were getting famous. He recorded his first solo album “Henry The Fly” which got panned, although it now is seen as a gem. He met on this album the singer Linda Peters who soon became his wife, muse and lead singer. They released 3 albums, this and two others before giving up on music completely and becoming Sufi Muslim in a community in the boonies. Let’s be kind and say they were on a journey and Richard is a practicing Muslim to this day, they produced 3 albums which were faith driven and not well received. They came back with “Shoot Out The Lights” just as Thompson left the pregnant Linda for a US tour promoter. It was a big hit in the US, and they toured to promote it, but the enmity between them was visible to the audience and that was the end. Thompson has produced tons of solo stuff since and is an accomplished guitarist able to play in any style. I am not a massive fan of his voice and the work as a couple is in my mind much better, this album has the glorious mix of influences with Linda’s voice and Richard’s guitar touches pulling it together.

Number 46: Radiohead “Ok Computer” 1997. I bought “Bends” while working briefly back in the UK and loved ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and ‘Iron Lung’ and was really into their odd strung out sound as it was a contrast to the grunge that dominated mainstream rock in the US. This album if not their masterpiece is the highlight of their early years. The middle period of “Kid A” and “Amnesiac” went all a bit introspective and synth driven but they got back to writing songs with “Moon Shaped Pool” and the fabulous “In Rainbows”, which I came close to nominating. This was recorded near Bath at St Catherine’s Court, which was owned at the time by Jane Seymour, New Order also recorded “Waiting for the Siren’s Call” there. The dub reggae version of this album, “Radiodread” by the marvelous Easy Star All-Stars, shows how great the songs are on this in terms of melodies. The other interesting thing about this album even though it sounds so dense is that it was mostly recorded live which shows how much they were in-synch musically at the time.

Number 45: Roxy Music “For Your Pleasure” 1973. When they appeared on the scene as part of the Glam pop explosion Roxy were always a bit more serious, a bit more studied, a bit more elaborately coiffed than the others. They became major pop stars and Brain Ferry became a global sex symbol and as much as they drifted off into AOR pop rock in the later years the first three albums are amazing. I would argue when Brian Eno left to do his marvelous stuff elsewhere they were inevitably sliding downwards to that smooth fate. There is always a bit of lounge lizard croon to Ferry’s stylings but together with the scent of Naugahyde, whisky and cheap perfume this album creates another world in a dark club somewhere in Eastern Europe before the wall came down. “ Ta ra, ta ra” indeed.

Number 44: Yves Tumor “Heaven To A Tortured Mind” 2020. Yves Tumor channels Roxy Music as much as he channels Prince and ‘Maggot Brain’ era Funkadelic. A multi-instrumentalist, he has been making music outside the normal R&B or rap scene since 2010 but is super productive and not stuck into one groove or genre. The end result is that interesting blend of funk, guitar rock and pop, he has been quoted as saying he is inspired by Genesis P. Orridge which you can hear in the bass lines, but this is much more varied and less drony. Sean Bowie, who records as Tumor, is helped on this album by the insanely talented Diane Gordon, who also lights up Lil Yachty’s “Let’s Start Here”, and the guitarist Chris Greatti. Bowie is a name already taken in music or at least carries too much freight, so I understand the need for his/their own identity. Originally from Knoxville, TN, he has been based in Turin for a while and channelling his own inner Herman Miller has designed and made furniture as well as this fun collection.

Number 43: School of Seven Bells “Disconnect from Desire” 2010. Dream pop that follows a line back to Cocteau Twins via Slowdive and the other shoe-gaze bands, but that is very bright lit and New York rather than some gloomy northern English steel town. I liked Secret Machines which was Benjamin Curtis’ prior band and this guitar and synth dreamy pop with the twin Deheza sisters vocals was always intriguing and driven by a strong groove. They sing all the songs on the album together, rather than taking turns, and their complex vocal interplay resides at the heart of the band’s sound. The “Alpinisms” album was great but this was their peak. They had a short-lived space in the public conscience as firstly Claudia left the band, while this album was being promoted, for the ubiquitous “personal reasons” and in Feb 2013 Ben Curtis was diagnosed with a lymphoma that he succumbed to 10 months later, and then school was down and out.

Number 42: Gang of Four “Entertainment” 1977. The sound of Leeds, 1970’s angst and cheap guitars. I saw them live a couple of times in the late 70’s while at Uni and they were unique in how they mixed the political polemic and shouty, spitting punk rock. I have the “Damaged Goods” original 7” mainly because I loved the B-side ‘Armalite Rifle’ and that was their opening shot. Over several years they evolved into an odd mix of funk and punk and saw them in the early 80’s with Sara Lee on bass when they toured with ‘“Songs of The Free”. This the first album and has their classics that still stand up today, ‘Love Like Anthrax’, ‘I Found That Essence Rare’ and the brilliant ‘At Home He’s A Tourist”. Spiky anthems and lots of feedback jerky guitar from the wonderful Andy Gill.

Number 41: T Rex “Electric Warrior” 1971. Talking of glam rock, Mark Bolan and side kick Peregrine Took ( not his real name) had been playing fey folk rock and singing about elves and maidens as Tyrannosaurus Rex but then wisely, trimmed the name, went electric and with some eyeliner, a silver sparkly velvet suit and big heels they were away. They kept some of the cosmic bullshit, but now with technically their 5th album it was much more pop with Tony Visconti producing and sprinkling his special own pixie dust over it all. One of the additions was the fabulous Flo and Eddie on backing vocals, this is the same period as the “Mother’s Live At The Fillmore” but less obscenities.

The Tidal version of the playlist is here.