covered inglory #3: ukulele orchestra of gb - 'wutherng heights'

no introduction necessary. gigging tonight at the oxford c***ing academy.



incidentally, hands up anybody who remembers the lumpy oi-punk version of this by mid-nineties brit-rock also-rans china drum? radio 1's evening session's novelty cover of 1995, no less. shite.

'97 mentality

1997 vs 2007

Exhibit S

Meet Tiger. In 1997 Tiger released a bunch of sparky, odd-shaped, buzzing pop, to mild acclaim. But NME hounded them out of town because they wore mullets, played 2-string bass and put weird naive artwork (courtesy of frontman Dan Laidler) on their records.

Tiger - 'Race' (from We Are Puppets)

If their debut album, We Are Puppets, had been released in 2007, it would be in most critics' end-of-year polls. Why? Because it sounds a lot like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's second record (which will be just outside a lot of polls), only better.

Tiger - 'On The Rose' (from We Are Puppets)

Tiger bio at Bar/none records

Exhibit T

Meet Ultrasound. In 1997 Ultrasound released a bunch of massive-sounding indie epics, filled with histrionic references to 'the kids' and the redemptive power of rock'n'roll. But NME hounded them out of town because their frontman was fat and half of their debut album, Everything Picture, was already available on various singles and EPs.

Ultrasound - 'Cross My Heart' (from Everything Picture)

If Everything Picture had been released in 2007, it would have topped most critics' end-of-year polls. Why? Because it sounds a lot like Arcade Fire's second record (which will be in the top 5 of a lot of polls), only better.

Ultrasound - 'Floodlit World' (from Everything Picture)

Previously on '97 mentality

covered inglory #2: richard hawley - 'some candy talking'

richard hawley doesn't really need cover versions - his recreation of a 'lost' sound somewhere between scott walker and duane eddy locates him obviously enough, the trick being that his original compositions are as good as most of the songs he loves.

hawley's cover of the jesus and mary chain's 'some candy talking' is fish-in-a-barrel stuff, but that doesn't detract from its power. the original already had the doomed romanticism, the spector nods, the layers of harsh and melodic guitar. hawley's deep voice merely adds gravity, while the sinister edge of the lyrics save it from pastiche.

richard hawley - 'some candy talking' (jesus and mary chain cover)

jesus & mary chain - 'some candy talking'

more hawley on galactic mystery solvers

covered inglory #1: easy star allstars, 'no surprises'

three factors ensured that the easy star allstars' radiodread: a reggae tribute to ok computer rose above the status of summer 2006 blog novelty.

first was the quality of the source material - ok computer was the last great radiohead album, the last one that felt human and that mined interesting tension between the human and the mechanical, the last one that you could enjoy without buying into the myth of radiohead as 'transcendant' artistic visionaries.

second was the quality of the allstars themselves - featuring accomplished musicians such as horace andy, toots & the maytals, and on 'no surprises', the meditations. all of whom contributed to giving the project a warm, joyful, cohesive feel that works against the bleak textures of the original. the allstars' previous album, dub side of the moon, recognised that the vast, booming spaces in pink floyd's music would appeal as much to a reggae fan as to a prog-happy audiophile. as johnny greenwood's work with trojan records attests, there's something in radiohead's studio wizardry, fractured compositions, and underlying soulfulness that translates just as well.

third was the wit and intelligence of the project. both dub side and radiodread took middle-class white complaint-rock and relocated it in a working class black context that most listeners (and most middle class white musicians) feel has much greater authenticity. just as pink floyd unexpectedly became the soundtrack of choice for iranian dissidents a few years back, so radiohead's fears of mechanised language, "jobs that slowly kill you", and politics as marketing took on more weight, purpose and irony than was present in the originals.

apparently easy star are working on a follow-up. i vote the soft bulletin.

easy star allstars - 'no surprises'

bonus covers

radiohead do pink floyd. isn't that clever?

radiohead & sparklehorse - 'wish you were here'

ska pink floyd!

bim skala bim - 'brain damage'

previously on covered inglory

berkeley place's covers of the century

Album review – Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – ‘This Is Somewhere’

Striking a blow for gender equality, Grace Potter leads her band of Nocturnals into the traditionally-male preserve of blue collar American bar-band rock. And, full marks: she proves that a woman can do chest-pounding choruses, earnest rootsy versifying and veiled political dissent just as effectively as the most macho of Tom Petty wannabes.

As the title suggests, This Is Somewhere is decided yet vague. Potter’s voice is strong, unwavering and compelling, while the band sounds entirely at home knocking out driving, soul-inflected rock that would be at home in a stadium or a dive. But the lyrics are allusive and elusive, aiming towards the universal and filled with conventional rock lingo. The clearest themes are patriotism (in the critical-of-government sense), “trouble”, life on the road, people called “babe”, and final judgement. Are the men on the front cover recreating the Iwo Jima flag-raising, or just struggling with a gazebo?

The performance is impressive – flawless, in a sense – but its single-mindedness and its wide-eyed homages to rock mythology sacrifices any sense of intimacy or self-doubt, qualities that would lift it out of self-imposed genre limitations. But once the 24-year-old Potter finds her own stories to match the voice, she could be Gillian Welch with powerballads. (This would be a good thing).

Artist homepage

Buy This Is Somewhere

The Oxford English Dictionary ... of ROCK: Part 3 - bass

"bass! ooooh-wa", as the furious five once sang. september 2007 saw some much-needed additions to our definition of bass, as the previous entry (1937) seemed to be referring to some sort of free-standing boogie-woogie machine. i used to pose as a four-string king. my bass had a sticker that said 'mean people suck', and i could play 'aneurysm' by nirvana and 'in the mouth, a desert' by pavement. there you have it.

bass, adj. and n.⁵ [DRAFT ADDITIONS SEPTEMBER 2007]

A bass guitar.
Although it is not certain exactly what instrument is referred to in quot. 1937, the contrast with the Bassoguitar (an upright bass) suggests it is prob. an electric bass guitar of the type now familiar, which became commercially available (on a very limited scale) at around this time.

1952 Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury 18 Oct. 20 (advt.) Fender Precision Bass. A new sensation for bass players. 2005 Uncut June 30/1 Romeo..plays guitar..while younger sister Michele plays bass and harmonises.

bass-heavy adj. (of music, sound, etc.) characterized by an abundance or excess of bass frequencies or by a prominent bass line.

2002 Time Out N.Y. 29 Aug. 143/4 The real centerpiece of Scarface's albums remains their bass-heavy beats.

that's convenient - magic numbers and scarface are both great! listen to their songs (especially the bass!), then buy their records.

scarface - 'in cold blood' (from the fix)

magic numbers - 'this is a song' (daytrotter session)

bonus

pavement - 'in the mouth, a desert' (live in cologne, 1996)

nirvana - 'aneurysm' (live at reading festival, 1992)

previously on the oed of ROCK

covered inglory

Ekko at Berkeley Place is running a poll to find the greatest cover versions of the 21^st century. Well done that man. Only time will tell if the results are interesting, or if they’re a Spoon-Postal Service-Death Cab-Feist-Bright Eyes blog-band clusterfuck, but I’m sure plenty of moral good will come of it either way. It’s certainly caused GMS to ruminate on the pros and cons, and on the popularity of covers, ironic or otherwise, in the blogosphere. I didn’t ruminate very much, mind, but below are a few thoughts, and a Pulp video that you ought to watch.

Thinking about it (a bit), it looks like GMS likes three sorts of cover version.

Firstly, there are ‘novelty’ covers of pop, rap or r’n’b songs by white indie types. Careful, though – these walk a fine line called irony, and only the ones that “cross boundaries of race and authenticity” and “ask searching questions about the creation and consumption of art” are any good: sorry, Travis’ ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, Electric Soft Parade’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’, the Vines’ ‘Ms Jackson’, Magic Numbers’ ‘Crazy In Love’ and Biffy Clyro’s ‘Umbrella’. Duran Duran, please leave the room. This genre reaches its apex along the Will Oldham-R. Kelly axis. A sexy axis indeed.

Secondly, there are old men and women getting down with the kids. This started with Johnny Cash, whose American Recordings stuff is sure to feature on Ekko’s list, and has since been taken up by all manner of ageing pop types. Mavis Staples, Charlie Louvin, Joan Baez, Solomon Burke – well done. Neil Diamond – just stick to ‘Sweet Caroline’, eh?

Thirdly, there are hip youngsters discovering / inventing / challenging their roots. By “roots”, we mostly mean Bruce Springsteen. And occasionally ‘Hallelujah’ or ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The front page of Elbows and the Hype Machine will be full of these, making a few choice covers an essential marketing tool for up-and-coming interweb faves. Hence the recent tributes-cum-hipster-feeding-frenzies in honour of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Pixies, John Fahey and (cut-and-paste style) Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian. None of those have made the grade, though the Dylan one sounds interesting.

Enough! Galactic Mystery Solvers will be posting and writing about its top twenty-something tracks over the next couple of weeks. Some of them may have been recorded before 2000 – the precise details are often hard to track down. In some cases, the originals are attributed to people like Elvis or Elton John, who didn’t write them, but made them famous.

In the meantime, watch Pulp – ‘Bad Cover Version’

ukulele updates

gms, for all your ukulele needs.

dizzee rascal's new video, for 'flex', has a slightly lame pop idol theme, and is one of the less remarkable tracks off maths and english. it's all about shaking one's bottom, and can't hold a candle to 'sirens' - as a song or as a video. but it does feature a ukulele played behind the head - a first for a rap video?

dizzee rascal - 'flex'


rude uk blogger f***ing dance alerted me to dent may and his magnificent ukulele, whose myspace page features the oxford (mississippi) native playing uke ditties that recall the magnetic fields and nellie mckay. there are also some nice photos of dent pretending that he lives in the golden age of motoring. head to his website to download A Brush With Velvet - his free 6-song ep.

bonus

dizzee rascal - 'sirens'



jake shimabukuro - 'while my ukulele gently weeps' (rza missed a trick not getting this guy on their 'interpolation' - i need to hear an inspectah deck sixteen over this action)


previous uke action

ian svenonius meets mark e. smith

former make-up / nation of ulysses / weird war frontman and pop-marxist ian svenonius is two episodes into his second vbs.tv soft focus interview series, which looks at british musicians. this week's kevin shields interview has caused a bit of a stir, as shields promises a new my bloody valentine album, and reckons it will sound like my bloody valentine. shields seems like a pretty normal, grounded bloke, which is interesting in itself, but that doesn't make the interview particularly thrilling.

soft focus works best when svenonius' interview technique - a mixture of louis theroux-style naivete and slightly-distracted ponderousness - comes up against someone equally odd, creating an unsettling, borderline hostile atmosphere that turns a muso chat into something altogether different.

will oldham was certainly up to the task in series one, but last week's mark e. smith interview took that 'ish to the next level. smith necks pints throughout, pulls his rubbery face into strange, childlike gurns, and airs his casual but sincere contempt for sonic youth, talking heads, bob dylan, neil young, all other manchester bands, british musicians, gene simmons, british tv, the irish, svenonius' teeth, clothes, private life and personal hygiene. he's like a weirdo in a pub who insists on sparking up a conversation and then seems to resent it. but he's also hilarious and generally spot-on. svenonius does a decent job of coaxing gems out of smith without getting outraged, intimidated or upset, though he cracks up when smith starts in on kurt cobain and courtney love.

the fall - 'a day in the life' (beatles cover)

part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4


buy the fall

i got the hook-up

not much "popping" at gms HQ this week, as i've been busy at a local school. was i selling drugs? you'll just have to make your own minds up. anyway, i can confirm that "gay" is still the choice insult du juor amongst the kids.

some links:

this review / assault on the awful new dj khaled video 'i'm so hood' is the funniest thing i've ever seen published on the smoking section.

lt. bunk moreland from the wire (aka wendell pierce) performs waiting for godot in new orleans' 9th ward, tells the grauniad all about it.

fat lace's crap graf feature is a good read. today they have a defaced picture of cliff richard, and a shout-out to darts legend 'big' cliff lazarenko. on that note, a quote from darts commentator, screenwriter and cambridge classicist sid waddell: "Big Cliff Lazarenko's idea of exercise is sitting in a room with the windows open taking the lid off something cool and fizzy." more here.

floodwatch writes on album tracks that shouldn't be forgotten (the flaming lips' 'oh my pregnant head' from the magical transmissions from the satellite heart) and some that really should.

poisonous paragraphs is counting down his hundred favourite cult films of the internet age. the quality might deteriorate significantly towards the end, but the first two instalments are full of good stuff (like 13 tzameti and brick), and some guy ritchie stuff.

jamie's runout groove on shine - the britpop-era compilation-album series. hopefully he'll run with this one - posting songs by bands like 60ft dolls and heavy stereo. lovely stuff.

’97 mentality

1997>2007

Exhibit R

Pete Rosenburg on the 1997 WWF Survivor Series screwjob - a decade ago this weekend. Never this heated - or this consistent - again (though the Cactus Jack-Triple H series in 2000 came close).

Sebadoh - 'Loose N Screw' (from Freed Man)

previously on ’97 mentality

"68 but she says she's 54"

unhemmed came through and cold rocked the spot last night - my ukulele gently wept. here's the signature tune done with slightly less panache:

uncle tupelo - 'maggie's farm' (live in missouri, 1988) [buy]

Live review – 65daysofstatic, Asobi Seksu @ Oxford C***ing Academy

Fittingly for Guy Fawkes’ Night, both of tonight’s bands – shoegaze revivalists Asobi Seksu and math-metal post-rockers 65daysofstatic – owe something to Explosions In The Sky.

Asobi Seksu draw their influences – as every other blogger has already pointed out – from late ‘80s British indie ‘gazers like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Lush. On record, Yuki Chikudate’s feather-light vocals blend into the band’s hazy dreampop. Live, the two components work in opposition – the airy melodies floating on top of swelling blasts of guitar noise. Their straightforward, accessible take on shoegaze recalls EITS’ version of post-rock – all instant gratification, the free noise tethered by a tight, propulsive rhythm section that owes more to power pop than to Sun Ra. They give a solid, but not stellar set: the band only shifts the template for a closing run through Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions' ‘Suzanne’, which sounds awkward, if appropriately strung out.

Asobi Seksu – ‘Stay Awake’ (from Adult Swim’s Warm And Scratchy sampler)

65daysofstatic would be entirely comfortable knocking out tunes that replicate EITS’ trademark wash-of-delay-pedals. But the addition of laptops, drum-n-bass loops, and the occasional glam metal riff signals that they’re more interested in heading towards Battles’ territory. They lack the celebratory grooves and the sense of in-the-round musicianship and that Battles create live, opting instead for well-worn rock posturing and moody laptop manipulation. Initially, they’re thrilling – like Klaxons but with the pedestrian indie replaced by bursting post-hardcore and crushing doom-metal riffs, and with the soggy dance-pop replaced by malevolent breakbeats. But as the onslaught wears on, there’s an increasing sense of dislocation between the beats and riffs, as if the band are throwing everything at the wall, seeing what sticks. With a little ironing-out, 65daysofstatic could be one of the UK’s best live bands. At the moment, they’re closer to a humourless version of the Rock Of Travolta.

65daysofstatic - 'don't go down to sorrow'

Live review - Will Haven @ Southampton Brook

GMS' down-south connect Sean Smith took a break from spike-piledriving opponents onto a concrete floor to file a report on Will Haven's latest tour. His appraisal of the local crowd also slots into our '97 mentality series as Exhibit Q.

It is a cold, crisp Sunday night with a tinge of menace, and cheap gunpowder imported from China, in the air. Maybe it was the fear of being assaulted by fireworks-brandishing chavs, or the fact that only the night before, the venue had been rocked to its very foundations by the Bon Jovi Experience (with a frontman so believable apparently even Chad Kroeger is unable tell the difference) - but something was keeping the general public away from the Brook for Will Haven's first performance in Southampton, like, evar. Which is a damn shame, as a band of their pedigree deserve more than this meagre crowd, that seems to be mostly comprised of hangers-on and pasty faced metal WAGS to the brace of piss-poor local support acts that open proceedings.



Not everyone is as ignorant as the local public, mind. "Without bands like Will Haven, we wouldn't have been able to make music like this", notes the drummer for main support The Mirimar Disaster. And thank fuck for that, as the Sheffield quartet lurch into a bold, wildly experimental set that combines post-rock soundscapes with crunching riffage and a thunderous, Mastodon-esque rhythm section. The band are currently without a vocalist, yet on this evidence it is hard to imagine them having one.



Vocals have been an issue for the headline act too, after losing founding member Grady Avenell for the second time earlier this year. A ready made replacement was at hand though in the form of long-time WHVN alumnus Jeff Jaworski, who has stepped into the fold impressively. Tonight he leads his gnats-arse tight troops through a decade of Haven classics with barely a pause for breath. Older material such as "Ego's Game" and the always well-received "I've Seen My Fate" sit well with the newer material, whilst a brutally delivered "Saga" is an undoubted highlight.

Will Haven - 'Hierophant' (live at the Troubadour 2007)

All good then if you are standing to one side, enjoying the band and trying to work out how you are going to review the fucker. But what of the Kids? Ten years ago you would not have been able to move for alpha male sports metallers slam dancing up in your face, small children in Ash t-shirts flying around like luchadores and jailbait, cider'd up goth tweens behaving histrionically at any metal gig in the locality. When you consider that Der Haven are on top form at present, with an exuberant new frontman and a superb, Chino Moreno/Shaun Lopez produced banger on the shelves, it is sad to see that about 40 nodding heads is the best show of respect we can afford them.

The Oxford English Dictionary … of ROCK Part 2: turntablism

turntablism, n. [added September 2007]

The action or practice of performing as a turntablist. Cf. TURNTABLIST n.

1996 Xmen vs ISP in alt.rap (Usenet newsgroup) 2 July, I know that both crews have mad respect for each other and I think battles like these keep pushing the art of turntablism into the future. 1999 Muzik Nov. 165/1 Anyone who says vinyl is dead now obviously has their head stuck up their arse... You only have to look around and see the amount of turntablism going on at this show. 2004 M. M. LEWIS Scars of Soul II. vi. 81 The beats from DJ Kayslay resuming his expert turntablism soon reverberate through the hall.

Better late than never – I was pioneering this ‘ish with my ma’s 7” Elvis singles in the early 80s. Apparently Kool Herc was doing the same thing a decade earlier, and Jimmy Savile thirty years before that. In 1998 I witnessed what I guess was turntablism in its highest form – the Invisibl Skratch Picklz supporting the Beastie Boys in Brixton. After a while it all sounded like birdsong, not that there’s much wrong with birdsong, but it wasn’t much to look at either.

I’m liking several things about the OED’s definition: the inclusion of the phrase “mad respect”, the attention to detail of mining an old-skool interweb discussion group, and the quality of writing on offer in Muzik magazine. But most of all I like the fact that shouty, beef-encouraging, pork-discouraging New York mixtape regular and “drama king” DJ Kayslay turns up. Here he comes now:

I was previously unaware that Kayslay, who is clearly excellent at fake reality shows and standing near Papoose, actually has skills as a turntablist. Initially, I assumed this was a clunky bit of authorial laziness, like when Funkmaster Flex and the ‘Aphex Twins’ make unconvincing cameos in Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama. But Bronx native Miles Marshall Lewis (who recently wrote on the making of Sly Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On for the 33 1/3 series), has hip-hop credentials. Well, he has a good blog.

Famous types only get into the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography once they’ve died, so we’ll have to make do with the wikipedia bio, which provides useful insights such as “Kayslay knew the meaning of gangster at a young age” and “Upon his return to the streets, Kayslay began living a new, drug-free life that was a real hustle.”

Anyway, here’s Kayslay’s incomprehensible fake reality show, plus some turntablist fun

Grandmaster Flash – ‘The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel’

Statik Selektah – ‘No Mistakes Allowed (feat. Doug E. Fresh, Tony Touch, Scram Jones, DP-One, DJ GI-JOE, DJ Revolution, Esoteric)’ (from Spell My Name Right)

Those “adorable” turntablist kids!

And finally, RZA, possibly under some influence or other, claiming he tried to patent a digital turntablism gizmo that he discovered “at the end of a rainbow”. See if you can keep up: