Saturday 15 September 2012

The Paradox of Abattoir Blues

Saturday was a busy day. I started out with a trip to King Bee Records (www.vinylnet.co.uk) where I bought two seven inch singles: A Place Called Home / Kick It to the Ground by PJ Harvey and Happy House / Drop Dead/Celebration by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Last stop was Age Concern where I swapped a brown piece of paper for a white book case. On Returning someone was shouting my name in the street. It was Tom Long of the band Easter and his girlfriend Laurn Bolger of the band Sea Man. Synchronously they were looking for a happy house, or more literally a place called home. Lauren told me I should make sure I check out the band Cherry Pip at her Paradox gig at Fuel in Mithington that evening, as she thought they bore some similarity to the music of the lovely Ms Harvey. They were well worth sticking around for after Songs for Walter and Sea Man had played, and their piano driven cover of Gary Numan's Are Friends Electric was nice.

Later I zoomed into the centre of the city on wheels and raided the Vinyl Exchange 50p bin. There wer also a couple of grea three quid promos that some cloth eared ignoramous at the eNMEy hadn't bothered to listen to:

"Formerly Extinct" by Rangda on www.dragcity.com
"Black Mesa" by Jon Porras on www.thrilljockey.com

However my primary reason for hitting the city was an all day free gig in the Castle Hotel and Gullivers just across the road of Oldham Street. There I witnessed eight great bands or solo musicians hopped up on the blues: The Bourbon Words, Rag and Bone, Hopper Propelled Electric, My Red Balloon, Cactus Knife, Bones Shake, Euchrid Eucrow and Jim Adama. The best of them was the highly Birthday Party influenced trio Bones Shake, whose frontman was akin to some apstate preacher delivering a hellfire rock'roll sermon.
I liked the skeletal art on the flyer done by this lady
www.emmabrownowl.com

Then I headed to Fuel where I made new friends with my lucky dip carry bag full of CDs I never want to listen to again.

Monday 3 September 2012

Wodecults and Bootleggers

Baptists and Bootleggers are a record label who give away all releases for free. They gave everyone at Fat Out Fest a free tape featuring Mugstar, Charles Hayward and ten other bands who played that weekend. I grabbed a couple of extras upon my exit so if anyone needs one, ask me when you see me and I might give you one. The also compiled a five song LP or CDR with Go Lebanon (who played), VEI (who was there but didn't play), Borland, Stagger and Dafydd Jones all soundtracking the same clip from a 1930s film of Dante's Inferno. www.baptistsandbootleggers.com

Wode slaughtered all the other angry shouting man combos at Fat Out and were flogging a mighty barrage of a four song CDR for a mere two quid. If they have any left a couple of these is much better value than almost being able to afford a bottle of Weston's fine organic cider at the Night and Day. Findout more at
www.wodecult.tmblr.com

NASDAQ's two (very long instrumental) songs on their CDR released by www.carnageclub.co.uk are well worth more than a cider in one of Manchester's grossly overpriced venues (Lincoln Engine Shed and Leeds Brudenell charge £2.80 for cider), but only a little more. Buy copies for all your friends so that Ed and Dan can invest in food commodities trading in order to starve African children so that all the angry men have something worth shouting about at next year's Fat Out Fest.
www.nasdaq.bandcamp.com

Saturday 1 September 2012

Summer Fun

Over the summer these were my new music acquisitions on heavy rotation:

Swans - The Seer (despite helicopter glitch) promo
Swans - We Rose from your Bed with the Sun in Our Heads double live CD
Bob Mould - Silver Age (released October 1st) promo CDR
Plank! - Animalism LP
Can - The Lost Tapes triple CD in nice tape reel box
Lee Ranaldo - Between the Times and the Tides demos LP
Mark Stewart - The Politics of Envy CD
Kogumaza LP
Killing Joke - In Cythera / Penny Drops red vinyl 12"
Ministry - Relapse CD
Bailter Space - Strobosphere promo CD
XXL - Dude CD
Guided By Voices - Class Clown Spots a UFO promo CDR sold by eNMEy for five cigs?
Zaimph - Imagine Yourself Here LP
Plus Instruments - Feb-April 81 reissue LP

Some older releases I've been enjoying:

Enablers - Now You Can Answer My Prayers 10"
Jarboe - Mahakali CD
Office of Future Plans CD (ex Channels / Jawbox dude)
Ministry - Rio Grande Blood CD (Raven RIP)
Larsen and Friends - ABECEDA CD
Kimmo Pohjonen and Kronos Quartet - Uniko CD
Sunn O))) - Oracle double CD
Dumitrescu / Avram - Live in Israel CD
Joe Crow - Coincidence CD
REM - Reckoning double CD remastered reissue
The Jam - All Mod Cons remastered reissue CD

These new releases I liked but have only played once so far:

Seaming CD
Pontiak - Echo Ono CD
Malka Spigel - Every Day is like the first Day promo CD
Beauty Pagaent - tape in an bogroll tube from gig supporting Warm Widow
Jeffrey Lewis - A Turn in the Dream Songs promo CDR for a quid!
Guns or Knives - Can't Beat Him Can't Join Him CDR
Dan Sartain - Too Tough to Live promo Cd for a quid!
Gnarwolves - History is Bunk 6 song orange vinyl 7"
The Big Eyes Family Players and Friends - Folk Songs II CD
Barry Adamson - I Will Set You Free CD

The most recent thing I've been listening to is Evan Camaniti's ambient album on Thrill Jockey which is very nice.