Music for Anoraks: Storm Damage

Just when you thought it was safe.

OK so it's been awhile since any of us could be bothered but one of our number has pulled his finger out and knocked up a CD of what he's been listening to lately. The culprit this time is Neil who has lovingly crafted a 15 track trawl through his record collection called Storm Damage.

As is our way reviews will possibly (but most likely not) appear on the forum as the CD makes its peripatetic journey around the office. Its release was delayed for a few days as the first burning suffered from skipping on the last two tracks (the second attempt plays A-OK however). 

Music for Anoraks: Big Wave

Inspired somewhat by Stu's last offering, admittedly if only in a "what the hell, I've not knocked up a compilation CD for awhile" kind of way, young Paul has cogitated over his record collection to bring us Big Wave. 

As the man himself says, "It's lean, only 11 tracks and around 42 minutes long, so there's no excuse not to give it a quick listen!". It's doing the rounds of the office, reviews will appear on the forum (if people can be bothered) with the tracklisting appearing here later on. 

Possibly. 

Music for Anoraks: Transcendental Cheese Meditation

Disco Stu has pillaged his record collection to bring us his latest offering, it's 18 tracks of goodness with an Emmental-tastic name (and this is despite him continually telling me that cheese is not my friend).

As for the guy playing the cheese drums on the cover, his name is Hans Bennink (isn't Google great?) and you can see more photos of him using his Gouda drumkit in action here.

Music for Anoraks: Cracked and Broken

Barely have I got my third CD back after its long journey do I release compilation number four, Cracked and Broken, into the internal post. It's a bit of a long one (ooer missus), eighteen tracks in all (over an hour of sonic goodness). As usual it's rammed to the gills with things I've listened to a lot lately (well, over the past few months).



To be honest, it's probably a bit too long, and could do with at least three or four tracks being cut. Never mind eh? 
 

Music for Anoraks: Boo Hoo

It's hard to believe that I knocked up my last compilation, Tears Before Bedtime, way back in October. It's taken nearly 6 months to make it around the circulation list, though it did seem to languish on (or in) a few desks as it did the rounds. When I sent it out into the internal post it was full of stuff that, at the time, I'd been listening to a lot. Such as...

01 'Cheney Lane' by Nostalgia 77
Scenestars had a track from the new Nostalgia 77 album available. In best Victor Kiam tradition, I liked it so much I bought the album.

02 'Stockholm Doesn't Belong To Me' by Most Valuable Players
I found this on Swedesplease, an excellent blog full of excellent Swedish music, and just couldn't stop playing it. Typically I only discovered that the Most Valuable Player's album was available AFTER I returned from a trip to Sweden. It wouldn't have helped me anyway though, the only decent record shop I found was shut every time I went anywhere near it.

03 'Sound and Vision' by David Bowie
It's Bowie. Nuff said.

04 'Disconnect The Dots' by of Montreal
of Montreal are (yet another) band that I have Banto to thank for. He sent me a link to the of Montreal website and suggested I peruse the large amount of downloadable MP3s there. So that's just what I did. They're a bit 'out there' but repeated listening brings rewards.

05 'Set You Free' by The Black Keys
I used to hear this a lot on WOXY (back when I could listen to streamed audio at work). Apparently they played The Wedgewood Rooms awhile back.. doh!

06 'Hate To Say I Told You So' by The Flu
A cover version I found on Swedesplease, and what a cracking cover it is too. I don't really know much about The Flu, but I like what I've heard.

07 'No Children' by The Mountain Goats
Another Victor Kiam moment. This was posted on an MP3 blog, I forget which, and I liked it so much I had to buy the album from whence it came. I think, if I had it on vinyl, I'd have worn it out.

08 'Gigantic' by Pixies
It's (the) Pixies. Nuff said.

09 'Glósóli' by Sigur Ros
I've recently read a couple of Icelandic detective novels, Tainted Blood and Silence Of The Grave, by Arnaldur Indridason, and Reykjavik comes across as being a very drab and miserable place (OK, so I know it's just a novel, but it's supposed to be one of the party capitals of Europe). Maybe Sigur Ros are from the lovely weird bit that nobody wants to write about.

10 'Sugar' by Ladytron
Fantastic. A sub three minute chunk of dirty electro pop. Why can't Goldfrapp do stuff like this? [shakes head ruefully].

11 'The Zookeeper's Boy' by Mew
Arguably the best track on the new album, this will be Mew's next single. The CD single of Special featured an alternate take on this song, called Animals Of Many Kinds, which is worth checking out.

12 'Graffiti' by Maximo Park
Fantastic album with some cracking singles but, honestly, what's with the lead singers haircut? Can he not afford a proper barber? Does the guitarist cut it for him?

13 'See America Right' by The Mountain Goats
It's a dark slice of driving angst. Fantastic. Play loud. No, louder than that.

14 'Mexican Standoff' by Elbow
The new Elbow CD is really very good indeed. I was really looking forward to seeing them at the Pyramids but, unfortunately, I had to spend the weekend in Prague. It's a tough life, no really it is.

15 'Finally' by Corinna Repp
I was on Messenger one day when up popped somebody from America who wanted to chat. They suggested I might like Corrina Repp. And they were right.

16 'Nickee Coco and the Invisible Tree' by of Montreal
OK, so it's quite an eccentric slice of indie pop, but I can't get enough of it.

17 'Kelly Wash The Cars' by Air vs Missy vs Stakka Bo
When done right mash-ups can be very entertaining. Whatever happened to Stakka Bo anyway?

18 'Din Daa Daa' by George Kranz
A long long time ago, before I sold off most of my 12" singles to fund a festival ticket, I had (one of the many re-releases of) this in my collection. Time hasn't really been all that kind to it but, given that it was bonkers from the get go, I don't think that matters much.

19 'So Here We Are (Four Tet Remix)' by Bloc Party
I saw these live at the Guildhall last year and they absolutely [insert choice expletive] rocked. They didn't rely on fancy lighting, or back projection, and weren't half as miserable as the NME would have you believe.

Well, that's the third down and out. I suppose I'd best knock up my next offering.

Introducing the Gigwatcher

For several months now I've been poring over the back pages of the NME, noting down local gigs of interest, and forwarding them on via email to an ever-growing list of recipients.

Why have I been doing this you may ask?

Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm a bit of a gig-whore. If there's someone playing a guitar somewhere and I can drink beer whilst watching them play then chances are I'm there. This is all well and good until you start mentioning to chums and colleagues that you saw The Next Big Thing the night before only for them to wonder why you never mentioned it to them beforehand.

Chances are I did but, to be on the safe side, I thought I'd be helpful and email what looks good to me (or not so good, I'm not picky) to them. That way they're in the loop, I don't get moaned at and we all get to see The Next Big Thing (so we can crap on about how good they used to be when they become HUGE and we don't like them any more).

So, to get somewhere in the vicinity of the point, from next week I'll be blogging the Gigwatchers (as my missives are known) here on the Son of Music Club blog. Umm. Because I can. So there.

;o)

Music for Anoraks: Fun?

Young Frank has braved a hangover to rifle through his record collection and concocted the first compilation of 2006.

Apparently there's something that everyone will dislike. 

Nice. 

It's doing the rounds at the mo' so reviews should appear on the forum presently.
 

Music for Anoraks: Tears Before Bedtime

After a bit of a break, it's onto number three. It's called Tears Before Bedtime and, given that I hadn't punted one out for awhile, is a wee bit longer than previously as I've been listening to so much good stuff (IMHO) lately.

Music for Anoraks: Hung Up

My second compilation, On A Rope, has made it safely around the distribution route and back to my desk. Huzzah! Again a mixture of stuff I'd been listening to a lot at the time, this effort was mostly powered by my getting hooked on MP3 Blogs, hence the following:

01 'Battle of the Planets' by Hoyt Curtin
It was my birthday in May and, thanks to some Amazon vouchers, I bought myself the BotP DVD boxset.

02 'Blood On Our Hands' by Death From Above 1979
Play this very loud. No, louder than that. This is a raucous tune, and was even better when they played it live at The Wedgewood Rooms recently (yeh yeh, I'm a gig whore).

03 'The Gymnast, High Above The Ground' by The Decemberists
I really like The Decemberists. I mean, really really. This track is taken from their second long player, "Her Majesty.." which is, IMHO, rammed to gills with suptuous tunes.

04 'Somedays' by Regina Spektor
I'd never heard of Regina Spektor before, but thankfully someone on the interweb had. Yes, this was posted up on an MP3 Blog for all to enjoy.

05 'Afrolicious' by The Dining Rooms
I know nada about this lot, but I just couldn't stop playing the tune; again, as found on an MP3 Blog.

06 'A Friend Like You' by Aberfeldy
It was on an MP3 Blog, the name rang a bell, the rest writes itself. This is just lovely.

07 'Apocalypso' by Mew
New Mew. Nuff said.

08 'Treat Me Mean, I Need The Reputation' by Xploding Plastix
Another track discovered on an MP3 Blog; this is mad, like instruments getting kicked downstairs, but the tune fair bounces along.

09 'Dead Disco' by Metric
Another band "as heard on WOXY", it was a cracking surprise when they turned up as support for DFA1979 at The Wedgewood Rooms (and an excellent set they turned in too).

10 'Imperial March' by Hedrock Valley Beats
It's got Star Wars. It's got beats. What's not to like?

11 'Casserole Efeillaid' by Datblygu
Much like the Ween offering on my last compo, this is bonkers. It's all the fault of the TUBE (RIP) which, ages ago, had a feature on Welsh indie bands (must be at least 15 years ago now I guess). Included was a clip of Datblygu performing this track. Of course, being lazy I never bothered to track the tune down; thankfully the Super Furry Animals included it on their recent Under The Influence CD.

12 'Too Drunk To Fuck' by Nouvelle Vague
Every morning I get a lift to work from Kay. Most of the time we spend the journey chatting about this and that, occasionally Terry Wogan makes an appearance, but once in awhile she'll have a CD on. One day it was this lot; I'd heard some of Nouvelle Vague before on WOXY but there's no way they'd play this track.

13 'The Melting Moon' by VHS or Beta
Apparently these were "doing the 80s" thing long before the current vogue for classy synth-pop. It'd quite happily sit on the Donnie Darko soundtrack and not look out of place that's for sure.

14 'A View Of The City From An Airplane' by Oranger
Not strictly from an MP3 Blog this; Chris Onstad's excellent Achewood strip has its own radio station (sort of). Result.

15 'BMFA' by Martha Wainwright
This slice of Father-bashing-acoustism was downloadable from Ms Wainwright's website. Nice.

16 'On The Bus Mall' by The Decemberists
The Decemberists have a new CD out and, personally speaking, I think it's fantastic. I was tempted to wrap things up with The Mariner's Revenge Song but I think that might have blown the wheels off some members (and not, I'm afraid, in a good way).

17 'Girlfriend In The Tulips' by Tony Hawks
This was a last minute add-on to the compilation. I'm a member of the Wedgeweb Yahoo group and, as such, received an email pointing me in the direction of this Smiths cover version, performed by the guy who travelled around Ireland with a fridge. It made me laugh anyway.

So that was On A Rope. I think I'll rest a wee bit before deciding what to put on the next one.

Music for Anoraks: On A Rope

Seconds out, round two. My second compilation, On A Rope, is now out in the wilds.

Music for Anoraks: A Thousand Long Things

My debut Son of Music Club compilation, Hora, Sem Bon!, has done the rounds and, like the faithful collie at the end of every Lassie film I can think of, come back to me. As the members have, where applicable, passed judgement I can let slip the track-listing.

It was simply a selection of stuff I'd been listening to; so no concept or anally retentive obscurism like the last time around, honest guv...

01 'Any Minute Now' by Soulwax
Despite what Q (and a lot of the rest of the music press) thought, I really enjoyed Any Minute Now as an album. It's not Much Against Eveyone's Advice Part 2, which is kind of the point. Anyway, it was bloody difficult to pick just one tune to represent it. NY Excuse might have been a tad obvious, E Talking was 'the one' right up until the last minute, then the second track just snuck on in there for my opener.

02 'Robot' by The Futureheads
Again, it was hard to pick just the one track. I didn't want to go for anything too obvious, I think I failed in that respect. Then again, who cares? It's a top tune and deserves to be played as loud as possible.

03 'Such Great Heights' by The Postal Service
When I'm sat at my desk at work I often plug myself into the internet and tune Windows Media Player (yes, I know) into WOXY.com. A friend hooked me into this great radio station awhile ago and, since listening, I've found I've had to ration my enjoyment as it has a detrimental effect on my bank account (all those lovely obscure CDs I have to order). The Postal Service is just one of many many bands that I discovered courtesy of WOXY.

04 'Mushaboom' by Feist
And so is this wee gem, a slice of French-Canadian indie that is mesmerising in its quirkiness. The rest of the album is a cracker too.

05 'Disco Infiltrator' by LCD Soundsystem
It was either this or Daft Punk Is Playing At My House (waaaay to obvious). Is it just me or does he sound like Mark E Smith?

06 'Rejected Burger King radio ad' by Ween
It's short, it's mad, it's Ween. This was a freebie download on their website and I just couldn't stop playing it. Yup, they're a bit bonkers are Ween.

07 'Bucky Done Gone' by M.I.A.
Another tune "as heard on WOXY"; I heard it and immediately wondered what the hell it was. I really like it but, having read the reviews on the forum, I think I'm alone in my opinion.

08 'It's For You' by The Wedding Present
The Boy Gedge is back, and he's done good with a cracking album full of angst-ridden-guitar-jangling-indie-pop.

09 '24' by Jem
Them would've been too obivous; most of the rest of the album, though good, is a bit too light and fluffy.

10 'Lonely As Can Be' by The Concretes
The album this comes from is such a lovely thing to listen to. I urge anyone who reads this inane banter to immediately buy it (that's if you haven't already).

11 'Lost In The Plot' by The Dears
I saw these live recently, pretty much on the strength of the one track (this one) available from their website and a mate's enthusing of the album. If you read reviews on the web then they'll say how excellent The Dears are live (in their homeland of Canada they've released a live CD already). Obviously I must be missing something as I really didn't think they were all that live. Conversely, the CD is as good as they say and this is one of my favourite tracks on it. Weird.

12 'Nowhere Again' by Secret Machines
Prog is back, believe it.

13 'Obsession' by Animotion
I'm really enjoying this vogue for the 80s, especially the CD boxsets featuring all the excellent 12" singles I bought (only to later sell when skint). OK, so this probably isn't the best 12" of the 80s, nor the most representative of what I was listening to, but it's a bloody good tune all the same.

14 'The Good That Won't Come Out' by Rilo Kiley
And I finished up with the opening track of the Rilo's sophomore release, an album I played near constantly when I was lucky enough to get my grubby mitts on it (all hail the internet and its many fine record shops). Of course, it's now available in Blighty, natch.

The name of the compilation, "Hora, sem bon!", is (according to my old Manga magazines) Japanese for "Look, a thousand long things!". What that has to do with the price of cheese is anyone's guess. Still, that's one down; I can start on my next one now.

Music for Anoraks: Hora, sem bon!

OK chaps, I've pieced together my first Son of Music Club offering, Hora, Sem Bon! Iit's 14 tracks of goodness (well, 13 plus a weird thing) and it's headed Andy's way first.

Who we are and how we came to be..

Once upon a time there was a group of guys who worked for the same company. They all liked music, loved it, all different kinds and flavours. One day, over a beer, they came up with the idea for the Music Club. The plan was that each of them, in turn, would punt round a CD of what they'd been listening to for the others to enjoy.

All concerned thought this was a lovely super smashing idea, and they all set about making compilations of what they'd been listening to. Witty names were thought up, covers were laboured over, record collections were plundered. Soon enough a raft of CDs were meandering through the internal post, arriving on people's desks, sometimes battered by the journey.

Sadly though, the wheels soon started to come off this charming enterprise; CDs went missing in the internal post, or remained static on certain member's desks. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, the reaction the compilations could cause when listened to often incurred the umbrage of their creators.

It's a given that no-one likes their taste insulted, or even questioned, and a flurry of emails usually followed. No-one had time to read the spam; people soon got bored of their inboxes filling up with more than the usual rubbish. Coupled to that was the increasing obscurity of the compilations (I've got to put my hand up on that one) and the speed at which they were appearing.

Like a badly run brewery tour, the Music Club soon collapsed. No tears were shed, and it had a good send-off. It was a good idea though. And good ideas often need a second (or third) chance in order to work. And we'd learnt from our mistakes, so we'd not repeat them.

So, after a goodly time, the idea was raised again. This time though, there'd be rules. And regulations. No more would CDs linger long on desks unlistened, or disappear on their journey, or arrive all at once. Most of all, there would be no spam and no "spitting of the dummy" when people passed comment. Thus the Son of Music Club was born.

Now, you may wonder why we don't have a proper MP3 blog, or some such. That'd ruin the mystery (and we're lazy). We don't know what's on the CDs when they land on our desks, hence we (ahem) 'listen without prejudice' (for the first few bars anyway). Will this grand enterprise succeed? Who knows. Will we end up buying more music anyway? Most definitely.