I'm doing this early this week which is a suprise to both you and me, whoever you may be. And by early I mean on the actual day it's meant to be done on. After the lengthy trek through My Life In Music, we get back to normal business with the friday 7, well sort of as this week we plug in the headphones for a trip through the last week's playlist of Dave. One track a day from the mp3 player of life.
Friday
Mansun: Being A Girl
I used to really hate Mansun, but over the years I've warmed to them like broad beans. Being a Girl is them at their best, and any song that comes in two parts, an two so very different parts is alright by me. It's not great, and it won't change the world, but it's intersting and I'd rather have something interesting rather than something average. The video featured a young Danny Mockney Twat Dyer, but don't hold that against them, and instead of giving space to him, here's a live version instead
Saturday
The Saturdays: If This Is Love
Is that Yazoo being sampled there by the latest new Girls Aloud? I think it is, and if it's not it's pretty damn close. Here's both to listen to and compare. Even so, it's a blinking good piece of pop and the nubile young lady singers make it better than it probably is. Two of them were in S Club Juniors. God I feel old.
Sunday
Stereolab: French Disco
This always reminds me of better times, of summers spent by the res drinking cider and dancing like a loon in dodgy clubs in Bradford. Pan European Electroindie that made me think of being an astronaut and heading off into space, even though I was in my twenties lived in Lancashire, existed off of egg and chips and booze, and stood no bloody chance. Still we can dream.
Monday
Richard X vs Liberty X: Being Nobody
I love bastard pop, and I really thought Liberty X were underrated in the pop stakes. This was one of the first commercially successful bastard pop mash ups, with the X's cover of the Chaka Kahn classic mixed in with Human League's Being Boiled to great effect. Not too sure about the afro though...
Tuesday
The Kaiser Chiefs: Never Miss A Beat
The album is rank, the single is a bit Kaisers by numbers and the record label have disabled the video on Youtube so you'll have to watch it to decide for yourself. God I want to kill Mark Ronson.
Wednesday
Prince & Sheena Easton: U Got The Look
Was doing the Dj thing last night when this girl came up with requests.
"Got any Metalica?"
"No"
"Got any Slipknot?"
"Yeah, play you some. Anything else?"
"Got any Prince?"
It was this or either Purple Rain or Sign O' The Times. This is much better. I'd forgotten how good Prince was.
Thursday
Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames: Somebody Stole My Thunder
Georgie was one of those artist who you knew by music and not by name. I remember hearing bits and pieces of his growing up, and found this on a bizarre compilation disk. Big style 60s arrangement horns and bass, and Georgies trademark laid back, understated vocal. It's one of those get up and dance songs that I absolutely love
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Sunday, 12 October 2008
My Life In Music: The Contenders
Once I had finished the odyssey through my life in music I looked over the list and found some glaring omissions. Albums I had a fling with rather than a love affair. Long Players that made a short term impression on me that come back into my life every so often then go back into storage or stuff that meant so much to me at a point in time but have faded into the background for years. There were even a few that had missed out only on a couple of plays because I had a massive obsession with an attractive lady singer or two and played them to death.
Here are the seven that could have been contenders. Could have been top of the world, ma.
1978: Specials - Specials
Although growing up I was well into my 2Tone I only got into Specials a couple of years ago. This debut album, which is made up of a lot of covers as well as original tracks has been on my playlist pretty much weekly for the last year. Being in the Midlands I've manged to catch Neville Staples Specials many a time, but here's Gangsters for your skanking pleasure.
1979: The B52s - The B52s
Apparently John Lennon claimed this to be his favourite album of all time.Which would normally make me hate it, but it's aces The Athens New Wavers eponymous debut, it's a marmite album from a marmite band, but I still play the odd track here and there, most notably 52 Girls which Fatboy Slim nicked, sorry sampled
1987: Strangeways Here We Come - The Smiths
The final nail in the coffin and The Smiths' greatest album. This was the toughest choice to make, and excluding it was tough. This is the sound of friends and bands splitting up, the sound of cynicism and spite. And I love it, however under the rules they would always be beaten by Debbie Gibson.
1999: A Tune A Day - The Supernaturals
The last album I became really obsessed with, and it's still playing even though I love the follow up album. There's something about Art Brut that I really love, it could be the tales of still being in love with your first teenage girlfriend or the hatred of buying albums in Tesco. It might even be the self referential thing about the way Eddie Argos sings or the obsession with Top Of The Pops, whatever it is it's stuck with me for the best part of three years and I love it. Even the eyebrows and the pencil tache that sport Eddies face. A contender for album of the decade, but we'll just have to see what comes along in the next couple of years.
Here are the seven that could have been contenders. Could have been top of the world, ma.
1978: Specials - Specials
Although growing up I was well into my 2Tone I only got into Specials a couple of years ago. This debut album, which is made up of a lot of covers as well as original tracks has been on my playlist pretty much weekly for the last year. Being in the Midlands I've manged to catch Neville Staples Specials many a time, but here's Gangsters for your skanking pleasure.
1979: The B52s - The B52s
Apparently John Lennon claimed this to be his favourite album of all time.Which would normally make me hate it, but it's aces The Athens New Wavers eponymous debut, it's a marmite album from a marmite band, but I still play the odd track here and there, most notably 52 Girls which Fatboy Slim nicked, sorry sampled
1987: Strangeways Here We Come - The Smiths
The final nail in the coffin and The Smiths' greatest album. This was the toughest choice to make, and excluding it was tough. This is the sound of friends and bands splitting up, the sound of cynicism and spite. And I love it, however under the rules they would always be beaten by Debbie Gibson.
1999: A Tune A Day - The Supernaturals
One of the bands that every one's heard of but nobody seems to know, The Supernaturals were one of the forgotten bands of Britpop. After their first album It Doesn't Matter Anymore was Mobyd and practically on every advert going I thought they'd be dropped and resigned to doing a mix and match second album, but ATAD may have carried the sound of the first album, but was very much different. Country Music, their tribute to the genre was an upbeat pop classic, and album closer Everest is a ballad of epic proportions that even makes cynical men shed a tear. One more album followed before the band split.
The last album I became really obsessed with, and it's still playing even though I love the follow up album. There's something about Art Brut that I really love, it could be the tales of still being in love with your first teenage girlfriend or the hatred of buying albums in Tesco. It might even be the self referential thing about the way Eddie Argos sings or the obsession with Top Of The Pops, whatever it is it's stuck with me for the best part of three years and I love it. Even the eyebrows and the pencil tache that sport Eddies face. A contender for album of the decade, but we'll just have to see what comes along in the next couple of years.
Friday, 10 October 2008
My Life In Music: 2000 - 2007
And so we come to the end of the trawl through the wreckage of my life in music, where I have revealed that I have very little taste and what taste I do have is terrible. We've had crusty, indie, gay pop, and, according to some people (well, Rol) an unnatural liking for New Order.
And here we are, a new millennium. I'm living the student life in Sheffield, and the Y2K bug is scaring people. Will planes drop out of the sky? Will all our computerised systems crash at midnight 31st December 1999 as the chimes of Big Ben finish? Will I lose all my essays on the structure of gender in some daft film by some stroppy young maverick? Will I get some to see in the new year, or will everything just carry on as normal answering a big no to all these questions? Lets find out...
2000: Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia - Dandy Warhols
It should have been The Magic Treehouse by Ooberman as I listened to the tape of that for most of the year, but that had been released the previous year, and as ever I was slightly late getting into something I loved. However when I got into them I hit the Warhols with a passion. I loved the second album, and this their third made me love them even more. A year later I would be in a dank cellar dressing room interviewing them while the Courtney Taylor scratched his balls all way through. This had only two singles on it, including their multi-ad featured Bohemian Like You, but also has the much better Get Off on it. Resentful at times and at others gloriously up beat.
In the spring I get elected to run the Student Union magazine. Apparently it's a part time job with a bit of extra meeting time. However I also end up designing and writing a lot of it so I spend the summer of 2000 in a windowless office in the middle of Sheffield city centre. I also start to gig massively for free, including at one point doing three gigs in one night at different venues. All for my art. I'm a martyr. I'm doing the best part of sixty hours a week in various jobs and 8 at uni. No wonder I fail my video production unit with a record 3% and spend a week redoing everything and resitting an exam. Through the mode of doing as little as necessary to scrape through I pass half my year. I really should have put the effort in.
2001: Gorillaz - Gorillaz
I had loved Blur, and I was a massive Jamie Hewlett fan. Combine them and I was in heaven. This was the first time in years I got really excited about multi media stuff, where imagery and music were as important as each other and I fell hook line and sinker. I wanted more Blur, I wanted more Modern Life Is Rubbish and Great Escape era Blur. I wasn't going to get it and I was happy because of the glory of Gorrillaz.
I meet Mo Mowlam and she gives me cheese and branston sandwiches. I end up with pickle down my tie. She was great, funny and sincere. I miss her.
2002: The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree - Polyphonic Spree
Once in a while something so different comes along and you just have to watch, like rubbernecking at a car wreck. The Spree were one of those acts. I saw them about three times in a month and each time I was embroiled in a show. How the hell they managed it I don't know, but the almost cult like sway of Tim De Laughter and co grabbed me. The album is a whole broken down into bits, the tracks are labelled as sections and is a big uplifting pop call for positivity and revelling in the glory of life, and I revelled.
Uni ends, I finish with a 3rd as I had been downgraded. My work on the magazine is awarded with Guardian Media Award nominations, but we lose out to Nottingham all the time. I meet June Sarpong and ask her how she became successful when she is annoying and talentless. I also meet Charles Kennedy and think he's actually very funny.
2003: Elephant - The White Stripes
Dur Du Du Du Du Dur Dur. That bassline on the opening track 7 Nation Army got me hooked. I wasn't really a fan, but Elephant got me, and the lead single had me held in a state of good old rock'n'roll ecstasy. Nothing they'd done before or after had the same place in my heart or on my turntable.
I'm bumming about doing gig security. I see Def Leppard at The Doncaster Dome and I'm struck by how much I enjoy it. My indie credentials are blown so I do Download and Creamfields that year and find I'm actually liking it. I'm still in the same job.
2004: You Are The Quarry - Morrissey
How do I get my indie credentials back? Am I doomed to Def Leppard and Timo Mass? God saw me struggle and he sent my saviour back to me. This was what we needed, The Mozfather back with a new album and it's a belter. A mature comparison to the old days, with a stomping attitude and a stomping sound. I see him live in Bradford at St George's Hall with Mr Rol and even though I miss the coach, have to pay for the train and then wait an hour and a half for a coach home I don't care. I've seen Moz playing like he wants to, performing only how he can and he is truly great. I'd seen him several times before including a few years before at the much missed Leeds T&C and this was by far the greatest gig I'd been to in yonks.
I move back home and start working in Leeds as a graphic designer for a small printer. It's quite an archaic set up and is almost Dickensian. I love it, but not the commute.
2005: The Alternative to Love - Brendan Benson
A find by Mr Hirst, Brendan Benson is like Tanya Donnely, one minute calm and sensitive, the next chugging his guitar and making you want to wig out. His role in The Raconteurs is as vital as Jack White's but his solo stuff is genius. Cold Hands Warm Heart is a perfect pop song with great lyrics performed over a simple melody and a strange hook.
I end the year by moving to Birmingham to design adverts for Yellow Pages. I'm still in Birmingham, but the job lasts a few months before downsizing puts most of us out of a job. I get depressed and play XBox a lot to relieve the frustration.
2006: The Life Pursuit - Belle and Sebastian
I was always in two minds about B&S, either art school whiney bollocks or genius pop makers. I found them to be a band who can make even the most ardent of their fans turn away for a bit, but with TLP I finally found an album of theirs I liked all the way through and could stomach putting on repeat. It seemed they had decided that they didn't have to be a cool band anymore and were happy to bash out really good song after really good pop song. And they were all the much better for it.
2007: Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
So we finish off with a suprise, and it was a suprise to me too. The most listened to album of last year at Chez Dave wasn't one I expected to have even bought, let alone listened to loads. Then I looked at what I'd got, and most of it was shit, so the award goes to LCD Soundsystem, a band I'd previously only known though Daft Punk Are Playing At My House, which was an aces single, but could they do it with an album? Well, yes they could, and they could pull it off like a one armed fluffer. Download North American Scum or watch it here and you'll see why. And I was the only one of the guys at work who watched them live and thought "You know what? They're actually rather good..."
In real life I became adjusted to who I was, where I was in life and where I was going to. It din't look too good for a while, but I pulled it back and got on with it.
And here we are, a new millennium. I'm living the student life in Sheffield, and the Y2K bug is scaring people. Will planes drop out of the sky? Will all our computerised systems crash at midnight 31st December 1999 as the chimes of Big Ben finish? Will I lose all my essays on the structure of gender in some daft film by some stroppy young maverick? Will I get some to see in the new year, or will everything just carry on as normal answering a big no to all these questions? Lets find out...
2000: Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia - Dandy Warhols
It should have been The Magic Treehouse by Ooberman as I listened to the tape of that for most of the year, but that had been released the previous year, and as ever I was slightly late getting into something I loved. However when I got into them I hit the Warhols with a passion. I loved the second album, and this their third made me love them even more. A year later I would be in a dank cellar dressing room interviewing them while the Courtney Taylor scratched his balls all way through. This had only two singles on it, including their multi-ad featured Bohemian Like You, but also has the much better Get Off on it. Resentful at times and at others gloriously up beat.
In the spring I get elected to run the Student Union magazine. Apparently it's a part time job with a bit of extra meeting time. However I also end up designing and writing a lot of it so I spend the summer of 2000 in a windowless office in the middle of Sheffield city centre. I also start to gig massively for free, including at one point doing three gigs in one night at different venues. All for my art. I'm a martyr. I'm doing the best part of sixty hours a week in various jobs and 8 at uni. No wonder I fail my video production unit with a record 3% and spend a week redoing everything and resitting an exam. Through the mode of doing as little as necessary to scrape through I pass half my year. I really should have put the effort in.
2001: Gorillaz - Gorillaz
I had loved Blur, and I was a massive Jamie Hewlett fan. Combine them and I was in heaven. This was the first time in years I got really excited about multi media stuff, where imagery and music were as important as each other and I fell hook line and sinker. I wanted more Blur, I wanted more Modern Life Is Rubbish and Great Escape era Blur. I wasn't going to get it and I was happy because of the glory of Gorrillaz.
I meet Mo Mowlam and she gives me cheese and branston sandwiches. I end up with pickle down my tie. She was great, funny and sincere. I miss her.
2002: The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree - Polyphonic Spree
Once in a while something so different comes along and you just have to watch, like rubbernecking at a car wreck. The Spree were one of those acts. I saw them about three times in a month and each time I was embroiled in a show. How the hell they managed it I don't know, but the almost cult like sway of Tim De Laughter and co grabbed me. The album is a whole broken down into bits, the tracks are labelled as sections and is a big uplifting pop call for positivity and revelling in the glory of life, and I revelled.
Uni ends, I finish with a 3rd as I had been downgraded. My work on the magazine is awarded with Guardian Media Award nominations, but we lose out to Nottingham all the time. I meet June Sarpong and ask her how she became successful when she is annoying and talentless. I also meet Charles Kennedy and think he's actually very funny.
2003: Elephant - The White Stripes
Dur Du Du Du Du Dur Dur. That bassline on the opening track 7 Nation Army got me hooked. I wasn't really a fan, but Elephant got me, and the lead single had me held in a state of good old rock'n'roll ecstasy. Nothing they'd done before or after had the same place in my heart or on my turntable.
I'm bumming about doing gig security. I see Def Leppard at The Doncaster Dome and I'm struck by how much I enjoy it. My indie credentials are blown so I do Download and Creamfields that year and find I'm actually liking it. I'm still in the same job.
2004: You Are The Quarry - Morrissey
How do I get my indie credentials back? Am I doomed to Def Leppard and Timo Mass? God saw me struggle and he sent my saviour back to me. This was what we needed, The Mozfather back with a new album and it's a belter. A mature comparison to the old days, with a stomping attitude and a stomping sound. I see him live in Bradford at St George's Hall with Mr Rol and even though I miss the coach, have to pay for the train and then wait an hour and a half for a coach home I don't care. I've seen Moz playing like he wants to, performing only how he can and he is truly great. I'd seen him several times before including a few years before at the much missed Leeds T&C and this was by far the greatest gig I'd been to in yonks.
I move back home and start working in Leeds as a graphic designer for a small printer. It's quite an archaic set up and is almost Dickensian. I love it, but not the commute.
2005: The Alternative to Love - Brendan Benson
A find by Mr Hirst, Brendan Benson is like Tanya Donnely, one minute calm and sensitive, the next chugging his guitar and making you want to wig out. His role in The Raconteurs is as vital as Jack White's but his solo stuff is genius. Cold Hands Warm Heart is a perfect pop song with great lyrics performed over a simple melody and a strange hook.
I end the year by moving to Birmingham to design adverts for Yellow Pages. I'm still in Birmingham, but the job lasts a few months before downsizing puts most of us out of a job. I get depressed and play XBox a lot to relieve the frustration.
2006: The Life Pursuit - Belle and Sebastian
I was always in two minds about B&S, either art school whiney bollocks or genius pop makers. I found them to be a band who can make even the most ardent of their fans turn away for a bit, but with TLP I finally found an album of theirs I liked all the way through and could stomach putting on repeat. It seemed they had decided that they didn't have to be a cool band anymore and were happy to bash out really good song after really good pop song. And they were all the much better for it.
2007: Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
So we finish off with a suprise, and it was a suprise to me too. The most listened to album of last year at Chez Dave wasn't one I expected to have even bought, let alone listened to loads. Then I looked at what I'd got, and most of it was shit, so the award goes to LCD Soundsystem, a band I'd previously only known though Daft Punk Are Playing At My House, which was an aces single, but could they do it with an album? Well, yes they could, and they could pull it off like a one armed fluffer. Download North American Scum or watch it here and you'll see why. And I was the only one of the guys at work who watched them live and thought "You know what? They're actually rather good..."
In real life I became adjusted to who I was, where I was in life and where I was going to. It din't look too good for a while, but I pulled it back and got on with it.
And so we come to the end of My Life In Music. It's probably only been of any interest to three people in the world, but I've enjoyed the trip through memory lane. And I also wonder what would come about if the rules allowed compilations and best ofs to be in there. It's been great, and normal service will be resumed next week. Hopefully.
But what about 2008? That's for another 7 years time, but at the minute I'm guessing it's the latest Kings Of Leon album.
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