Because it's good to share...
Jason Collett - Pavement Puddle Stars (with George Harrison style guitar)
Jesus Jackson - Running on Sunshine
Nouvelle Vague - Teenage Kicks
Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me
Jem - Save Me
Recently in Music Category
Listening to the 'Gold' Album today whilst trying to kick start my working day.
I had forgotten what a wonderful album it is.
Currently listening to "La Ceinega Just Smiled" (track four) which is just a beautiful song - if I weren't writing this I'd probably be shedding a gentle tear or two at my desk - so thank goodness for blogging distractions!!!
Like everyone I'm saddened by the recent death of John Peel. I think it's the suddenness, his relative youth (a very young 65) and the loss of an inspirational creative talent.
You didn’t have to listen to Peel’s R1 show every week to recognise his passion for music and his ability to bring new bands and songs to a wider audience. Inevitably it was always a bit hit and miss, but the number of careers who benefited from this exposure is huge, and the number of other forums that did what Peel did are increasingly few and far between.
Not only was Peel passionate about music, he was a consummate broadcaster full stop. His mastery of Home Truths showed that. His ability to produce and deliver a wry and witty script week in week out showed there was more to the man than a passion for The Fall.
I saw him in the flesh twice. Once in Ozer, a Turkish restaurant by BBC Broadcasting House (where no doubt someone mistook him for Bob Harris - a regular occurence apparantly,) and then last Christmas at the Radio Academy Patrons lunch where he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
His interview with Victoria Derbyshire was by far the funniest (Tarrant at your heart out,) and the man’s ease and laid backness was perfectly summed up by the fact that he was wearing trainers with his smart suit. It seems an apt metaphor in many ways – professional to the last, but with a hint of being anti-establishment at the same time. It made for a great and memorable mix.
RIP John - you will be missed.
One of my favourite albums of the moment is, as always, one that Sean has introduced me to. The Sleepy Jackson debut album Lovers has barely left my CD player in months.
It's not especially original - heavily influenced (if not derivative to the point of deja vu,) of people like George Harrison, but it's catchy as hell - even on the first listening you are convinced that you have heard the whole thing before.
Morning Bird and Good Dancers are for me the stand out tracks, I won't even bother to describe them any further - but just advise you to go out and buy a copy.
You can of course, beg, steal, or copy it too - oh except that you can't - it comes with some clever copyright mechanism which means that it my minidisc player wont allow me to record it. So I either have to buy my own copy, or buy Sean a new one...
In the interim then the Minidisc player will continue to pump out Aha's grown-up comeback album from 2000, Major Earth, Minor Sky - it great catchy pop with an adult edge (or something like that).
I now do almost all of my radio listening on demand, listening to very little programming live Today and Today in Parliament being notable exceptions.
One of the meain reasons for this is the excellent audio on demand service from BBCi which offers most programmes for up to 7 days after their original transmission.
My listening typically makes the most of this, as my favourite radio shows are ones that I'm never in for, or which I would otherwsie sleep through - Bob Harris, The Blue Room and Stuart Maconie's Sunday Breakfast Show being just three examples...
Anyway - the Radio Player has now relaunched and is better than before - not only can you skip through programmes more easily, but they've also expanded the range of content on offer. I'm listening to a programme on Northern Soul from Radio Stoke, which obviously in normal circumstances I would never get to hear.
It's great - I like Northern Soul, and now I don't even have to move to Stoke to hear it. Phew!
Is it me - or is Toxic by far the best pop record of the year so far?
The video has got lots of attention, but the tune - with its Bondesque undertones is just fantastic. I seem to hear it everytime I turn on the radio (Radio 4 aside,) and everytime I wander into a shop, and I'm still to tire of it, in fact I like it more and more.
A welcome return to form for everybody's favourite virgin (sic)...
Having implied the other day that I typically read very little quality music journalism, (which doesn't mean it's not out there - just that I don't find it - or don't find it pertinent to me and my tastes,) I then stumbled across this in The Guardian....
It's one of those 'Where Are They Now' articles with two things I particularly noted:
Firstly - the admission by The Mock Turtles that aside from Can U Dig It? they didn't really set the charts alight - in fact they didn't have another Top 20 single - but are still jumping on the Vodafone bandwagon in order to release a Best Of album in time for Xmas... [at least it wasn't a Greatest Hits album - as that would have been a) a misnomer and b) a very short album viz. cd single] ... and secondly the recollections of Clive Jackson aka the Dr from Dr and the Medics.
I met the Dr at the OUP in February 1997 at the launch party for Oxygen - the now defunct FM radio station I helped launch whilst at Oxford. Guy Dennis - Oxygen's resident retro man (Green Flash trainer wearer and last seen at the Sunday Times) was trying to persuade me to give Clive a late night psychedelia show which he would ISDN in each week from a small cottage in rural Wales (is there any part of Wales which isn’t rural).
I listen to a demo, but decided against it – I didn’t think it had enough mileage or that we would get much publicity for the show aside from a few lines about Mr Jackson’s past (which if we had – might actually have swayed by editorial misgivings).
All I remember about the conversation was that the Dr was:
a) Very tall.
b) Liked to be called the Doctor – not Clive.
c) That he used eggs rather than hair gel to create the Kiss-like haircut shown below.
However if the lighting was too strong – it might melt – thus.
Lovely.
