photo, singular

so it seems, on inspection, that most of the photographs from this month's bottle rocket are bobbins. apart from this one:

no radio show tomorrow alas, but there are plenty in the archives to explore!

october playlist

well that was fun. if we ignore the usual wave of peculiar no-hope requests from the more deluded attendees (black eyed peas, dubstep, 'put your hands up for detroit'), we're left with a smashing eve.

1. the very best - yalira
2. belle and sebastian - i'm a cuckoo (avalanches mix)
3. vampire weekend - oxford comma
4. the hold steady - chips ahoy!
5. husker du - these important years
6. the replacements - i will dare
7. shonen knife - flying jelly attack
8. wild beasts - all the king's men
9. the shins - know your onion
10. weezer - el scorcho
11. the flaming lips - the yeah yeah yeah song
12. asobi seksu - transparence
13. bmx bandits - i wanna fall in love
14. raveonettes - suicide
15. au revoir simone - anywhere you looked
16. aberfeldy - something i must tell you
17. guided by voices - my kind of soldier
18. the kills - cat claw
19. starfucker - girls just wanna have fun
20. helen love - beat him up
21. the drums - let's go surfing
22. the cure - inbetween days
23. rem - gardening at night
24. the flatmates - trust me
25. danny and the juniors - at the hop
26. lloyd cole - rattlesnakes
27. le tigre - let's run
28. the primitives - through the flowers
29. hall & oates - you make my dreams come true
30. barrett strong - money
31. the white stripes - blue orchid
32. the futureheads - walking backwards
33. pixies - into the white
34. bloc party - positive tension
35. the strokes - 12:51
36. sam cooke - accentuate the positive
37. the clash - rock the casbah
38. buzzcocks - running free
39. eddie and the hotrods - do anything you wanna do
40. martha reeves - i'm ready for love
41. blondie - 11:59
42. the smiths - handsome devil
43. wolf parade - shine a light
44. the rezillos - top of the pops
45. elastica - stutter
46. the housemartins - me and the farm
47. prefab sprout - king of rock n roll
48. thin lizzy - jailbreak
49. mc5 - tutti frutti
50. the four tops - i can't help myself
51. the small faces - all or nothing
52. yeah yeah yeahs - date with the night
53. super furry animals - something for the weekend
54. pavement - gold soundz
55. mansun - being a girl
56. prince - let's go crazy
57. david bowie - sufragette city
58. graham coxon - freaking out
59. you say party we say die - the gap
60. the decemberists - o valencia
61. the libertines - don't look back into the sun
62. fleetwood mac - go your own way
63. the pretenders - don't get me wrong
64. pains of being pure at heart - the pains of being pure at heart
65. genesis - jesus he knows me
66.pulp - do you remember the first time?
67. kirsty maccoll - new england
68. patti smith - because the night
69. hank williams - i'm so lonesome i could cry

thanks to everyone who smiled and danced etc. no thanks to the guy who stood on the plug, turning of jailbreak midway through, and then continued to stand there while we frantically tried to restore sound, trying to request songs the whole time! well, how bout we request you MOVE AWAY FROM THE DECKS. sheeesh.

a few photos of the night will follow...

tonight tonight tonight

Q. dance?
A. yes please.

second hand wonders

here's what i squeezed into the radio show yesterday, available to listen again here.

- pavement - carrot rope
- califone - giving away the bride
- efterklang and the danish national chamber orchestra - mirador
- mc5 - tutti frutti
- kraftwerk - the model
- osso - enjoy your rabbit
- sister jet - la la dance
- the four tops - i can't help myself
- super furry animals - something from the weekend
- colin macintyre - stalker
- james yorkston and the big eyes family players - mary connaught & james o'donnell
- brendan benson - metarie
- yeasayer - sunrise
- sam cooke - accentuate the positive

x

oh my baby baby baby baby baby babe

so, pavement are reforming. oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh your god, oh his god etc.

malkmus and co will therefore definitely feature in tomorrow's radio show, as will efterklang, super furry animals and kraftwerk. oh, and there'll probably also be a mention or seven of this saturday's bottle rocket dancing party at nice n sleazys!

radio: thursday 12-1pm, subcity.org

x

review: jonathan richman @ oran mor, 10th october

Rock 'n' roll idolatry has effects both positive and negative. Blinkered dedication to onstage heroes can electrify a gig, but it also means every mediocre inter-song wisecrack uttered from the stage tends to be answered by sycophantic cackles. Since such exaggerated fawning is usually as prevalent at a concert as beer and body odour, a performer as genuinely funny as Jonathan Richman takes some getting used to, the hubbub of humoured crowd noise threatening to run riot over the Spartan set-up of nylon-string acoustic guitar and lightly-brushed drums. Not to worry: the arrangements may be minimal and the tone ad hoc, but the quality of songwriting comes through loud and clear, as does Richman's almost child-like perspective, which transforms any topic - springtime, sorrow, affected accents, Keith Richards - into a series of sweetly comic vignettes. The mirth Richman generates is anything but forced, steering the occasion well away from the call and response trappings of hero worship.

sparrow and the workshop + kill it kid @ captains rest, 8th october

here's another gig review of mine, copied and pasted from the skinny for your pleasure:

When it comes to observational banter, “you know when you swallow a load of lip gloss and it’s all scratchy?” isn’t the most universal bugbear. Said scratchiness luckily has no discernible effect upon Kill It Kid’s Steph Ward, her smooth voice equally effective at the forefront of the band’s bluesy rock-n-roll compositions as it is providing harmonic support to fellow lead vocalist Chris Turpin. The latter’s style is less conventional - like Eddie Vedder auditioning as Nina Simone for Stars in their Eyes - but no less successful, viscerally if not quite enunciatively.

Sparrow and the Workshop’s Jill O’Sullivan deserves similar acclaim for her flexible timbre and tone, her powerful vocals nestled at the heart of the three-piece’s dark, folksy balladry. However, Gregor Donaldson (drums) and Nick Parker (alternating between prominent bass and textural electric guitar) ensure there’s no mistaking the band for a “Cat Power + backing”-style solo affair, all three displaying a strong unity and close humour which makes their set all the more welcoming. Last Chance and The Gun are the pick of their more morose material, but Devil Song is the highlight, its whip-crack rhythm injecting tonight’s set with a welcome dose of vitality.

don't expect me to die for thee, yeah?

another bottle rocket radio is put in the digital 'listen again' cell, waiting for a plucky web-wanderer to click on it and release its contents into the air once more. will you be that web-wanderer? these are the riches that await you...

- the very best - yalira
- paper planes - restless
- gummy stumps - restless
- mudhoney - touch me i'm sick
- the vaselines - jesus wants me for a sunbeam
- the sparrow and the workshop - last chance
- j tillman - though i have wronged you
- eddie and the hotrods - do anything you wanna do
- envy - shield of selflessness
- jonathan richman and the modern lovers - hey there little insect
- meursault - nothing broke
- james blackshaw - fix
- adam green - pay the toll
- the slits - love und romance
- girls - solitude

click here to turn words into sounds!

x

pixies @ secc, 4th october

what a cracking gig... here's the review i wrote for the skinny:

Last time Pixies played the SECC, punters got Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits and Cud as support before the stage belligerently collapsed. There’s only one support tonight, but Sons and Daughters’ punchy introductions more than suffice. Racing through brittle voodoo-rock thrills, their energy is unsapped by the cavernous surroundings – and, more importantly, the stage stays sturdy as they depart.

Opening images of slicin’ up eyeballs has the crowd craving Debaser’s piercing riff, but first come Doolittle-era B-sides (including a violently unhinged Bailey’s Walk) which collectively threaten to outshine the main set, a complete run through the seminal Boston quartet's aforementioned second LP. An encore concludes the period’s rarities with the night’s second version of Wave of Mutilation and Into the White’s taut squall of furious noise and deadpan vocals. And that, based on setlists for previous nights of the tour, should be that…except, gloriously, it isn’t, and anyone who smugly skipped out early to dodge crowds should weep. “Last time we came here the stage buckled…here’s the rest” smiles Deal, before racing through much of Come On Pilgrim and concluding with a soaring Where Is My Mind? Though their reunion has been criticised as a cash-in, the Pixies leave with smiles mirroring those of their dazed and grateful audience.

Fanfarlo, First Aid Kit, Woodenbox With A Fistful of Fivers @ King Tuts, 30th September

my review of the fanfarlo/first aid kit show is up on the skinny's website now, but if you're a lazybones here it is below:

Resembling slap-dash Texan carnies, Woodenbox With A Fistful of Fivers immediately appeal. They’ll possibly balk at the comparison, but imagine the Rumble Strips with less Dexy’s, more Morricone and a touch of Rawhide and you’re close to the essence of their rootin’ tootin’ sound.

Midway through their set, First Aid Kit thank the audience for being “so quiet and peaceful”, before hastily adding “we don’t mean that ironically!” Sarcasm would have been understandable, but despite a rowdy bar occasionally encroaching upon their subtle instrumentation their anything-but-delicate voices ring affectingly clear throughout. A cover of Donavan’s Universal Soldier succinctly encapsulates their charms, its naïve sentiment and winsome melody underscoring the Swedish duo’s wide-eyed allure while emphasising their crystalline vocals. A muted miniature freak-out from Johanna at the end, meanwhile, foregrounds the playfulness just beneath their surface earnestness.

Fanfarlo are less successful at dissipating their own cloud of earnestness, though there’s plenty else to enjoy. Despite several members jostling for space, their ambitious compositions - topped with singer Simon Balthazar’s emotively reedy vocals - are remarkably cohesive and cogent. But there’s the rub: for long stretches, Fanfarlo rest on plateaus rather than scaling the peaks their multi-instrumental ‘epic-indie’ sub-genre offers, pleasant rather than proselytising. But though they may not climb as high as might have been hoped tonight, they share the same widescreen vistas as their contemporaries without succumbing to self-importance, and songs like Luna have a tuneful vibrancy that more than makes up for lulls elsewhere.

reviews: califone, paper planes, efterklang

some more reviews from the skinny, reproduced here for your reading pleasure...



Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers (****)

Such a vast variety of instruments crop up on Califone’s sixth album that to list them all would fill this review’s entire word count, leaving no space to eulogise the way its multifarious and ambitious ingredients are weaved into an incessantly inventive whole. Sweetly simple and Elliott Smith-like one moment, murky and abstract another, and like Four Tet playing Wilco covers at another still, there’s a rewarding inquisitiveness at work throughout. Lyrically, occasional high-cultural allusions and mysterious plotlines add charm rather than pomposity, while purposeful melodies display a keen pop nous that plays off against their more unorthodox tendencies superbly. Intriguingly, the album is only half the story: ringleader Tim Ritili has also been working on a feature film of the same name, incorporating many of the record’s themes and characters and aiming to premiere in 2010. The promise of equally evocative images accompanying this record’s sizable charms is tantalising indeed.

out 5th October


Paper Planes - Doris Day (****)

The multinational Paper Planes are three quarters Scottish, one quarter American. One listen to Doris Day and you’ll probably have a hunch as to which member hails from across the Atlantic, Jennifer Paley’s rawk-yelps closely redolent of Karen O’s. Paley isn’t the bands’ only import, however, with the Scottish contingent making a fair old racket packed with rockabilly swagger and rollicking rock 'n' roll thrills, which sound more like the product of fifties-style diners and road trips to the coast than drizzle and grey skies. This is an exciting, eye-opening debut from a band already displaying vast promise.

Out 12th October


Efterklang & the Danish National Chamber Orchestra - Performing Parades (****)

When orchestras and pop (in the loosest sense) collide, the results tend to be either peculiarly misjudged (say, Metallica’s S&M) or pleasant-but-pointless (any earnest attempt to dodge ennui with strings). Efterklang’s Performing Parades pleasingly falls into the elusive third category, in which the instrumental depth only found in a roomful of top class musicians enriches the songs. A reworking of Parades arranged in collaboration with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, this is music from another star, bubbling with complementary refrains and topped with charming eccentricities. Moreover, an accompanying DVD offers promos, a making-of, and best of all, the full concert film: what impressed on CD astonishes when combined with the sight of fifty artists resembling constituents of Much Ado’s enchanted forest, in conical hats and dabbed face paint. The DVD pushes the package from curio to essential for existing Efterklang fans, and marks them an overdue discovery for anyone else.

Out 19th October

girlie so groovy ah ha ha ho

note to self: if you plan to play songs from your ipod on the radio show, remember to charge it first... that way you don't have to frantically flick through cd wallets looking for replacements.

luckily, i'm an incredibly calm and fantastic professional, able to adapt to any problems thrown my way. which is why the show came together beautifully and sounded like this:

- the human league - together in electric dreams
- allo darlin' - dear stephen hawking
- damon & naomi - judah and the maccabees
- why - these hands
- mountain goats - genesis 3:23
- vladislav delay - musta planeetta
- andersens - i am so tired
- joan as policewoman - the ride
- pixies - motorway to roswell
- pixies - debaser
- king khan and his shrines - welfare bread
- sons and daughters - johnny cash
- sky larkin - fossil, i
- malcolm middleton - fight like the night
- the raveonettes - suicide

listen again here. you just have to press the big button. the red one. the one that says 'listen again'. it's all very straightforward really.

x