I've been on a bit of a Microdisney fix after watching the recent documentary about them. How the hell did they miss out on having hits with stuff like this?
I tried picking up a compilation album on CD from eBay earlier this week but it went for...wait for it...£50 with postage and packing. Good grief. Still, CDs aren't worth anything are they eh? Ha!
PS: I've noticed that charity shops seem to have started picking up on the CD collecting boom with some ramping up their prices by 100% overnight. At £2 - £3 some CDs are still cheap but expect these prices to carry on rising, as happened with vinyl.
Been meaning to post this up for a while, especially after reading volume 2 of Moby's autobiography. Good grief, how is that dude still alive? Happily he stopped trying to kill himself through drink, drugs and shagging everyone in sight and he's still around to produce grooves like this beauty.
Newly signed to the legendary Sub Pop label here's The Bug Club's latest release. Not sure if you're up for a quality pint (or two) on a Monday but I could murder one right now. Mine's a scrumpy. Cheers!
Been meaning to post this for a while now, just in case you've not heard it yet. Yannis from Foals meets Tony Allen (RIP). Imagine what these dudes could have done if they'd hooked up years ago...
After a couple of great opening sets from Pet Insurance
and Scrounge Big Special took to the stage in cowboy hats, perhaps a nod to their
country roots…Black Country that is.
Just a few days after the release of hotly
tipped debut album, Post Industrial Hometown Blues (number 15 in the midweek charts apparently, they're coming for you Taylor Swift), the Spesh play the whole bostin' shebang end to end kicking off with a particularly propulsive (and ever so slightly krautrockish in places, to my ears at least...but then again my ears are a bit fucked) Black Country Gothic.
We're soon into a trio of the band’s finest with Desperate Breakfast, Shithouse
(surely a shoe-in for the theme song of the forthcoming Peaky Blinders film) and
This Here Ain’t Water all making the most of punk poet preacher Joe’s unique way with
words and drummer Callum’s way with, well, beating three flavours of shit out
his kit (what the hell are his sticks made from? Australian Buloke?).
It’s a powerfully potent mix, calling to mind a little Sleaford Mods, Idles and (for those of us
in the know) The Courtesy Group who they share their distinctive and self-deprecating Black
Country spirit with. Between song banter keeps the mood lighter than you might imagine and a set climaxing wander into the crowd almost prompts a little mild moshing (it was a Sunday night though and given that a lot of the audience were 6Music dads of a certain age they probably thought better of it...now that I'm 54 I can get away with saying shit like that).
Judging by the healthy number of people in the audience already
sporting Big Special t-shirts they were clearly preaching to the converted but
it’s easy to see ‘em going down an absolute storm during festival season, the perfect
soundtrack to a country and, let’s face it, world that’s slowly but ever so surely
going down the pan. They’re already special, now watch ‘em go big.
Shit. 61! That's no age is it? Well, maybe it is but when you've just celebrated your own 54th birthday (on the day that Steve died as well) it sort of puts everything into perspective.
Reading the many tributes to one of the most prolific and important record producers of our time it's pretty clear that Albini knew his own mind and if you didn't like that, tough titties. So, rather than pop up another video by Nirvana, Pixies or PJ and Duncan...hang on...no that can't be right...Harvey...I've plumped for an equally straightforward no crap taking legend Miles Hunt and his short lived, underrated Vent 414 band whose debut album Steve produced back in 1996. Pure class.
How good is this? David Byrne covers Paramore's classic Hard Times! If this doesn't send you into the Bank Holiday weekend with an extra spring in your step then nothing will.
Just about to head out on tour with Big Special here's what they call an absolute banger in the trade from new Brum two piece GANS. If that floats yer boat try this one too, bonus points for the outfits and filming the video at the Botanical Gardens in Brum. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.
