25.9.11

My Top Ten Albums (well, almost)...

Well, my special guests are going to have to be much more restrained than me when it comes to identifying their Top Ten Albums. Even when I cheated, allowing myself a Joy Division compilation, I still failed to narrow it down past 12, er 13... I wouldn't say that they're in any particular order , apart from the #1 slot.


1 The Clash - London Calling (1979) I think that this is the best LP of all time. The release of London Calling was the high point in my life as a consumer of music- everything being perfectly right at the time - the eager anticipation, the discussion of the songs on the schoolyard, the sense of belonging to some huge gang whose members were spread across space and time.

2
The Specials - Specials (1979) The fact that I find this record  as invigorating now as it was 32 years ago says it all...

3 Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever (1982) The blueprint for indie music for the eighties and beyond- literate,  nostalgic, funky.

4 The Gun Club -  Fire of Love (1981) Sex and death- according to Freud (who's theories I detest) these were everything. Everything in it's place. A scintillating punk blues hybrid.

5 The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow (1984) Strictly speaking I suppose this is a compilation. This record saved my life.

Happy Mondays-Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile(White Out) (1987) A toss up between this and Bummed. I chose this one because it's more raw and the music is quirkier. Love the bass on this LP.

Pixies- Doolittle (1989) Memories of vainly trying to convince all those lads who were raving about Nirvana that this was by far the superior model (those same lads had been listening to Guns n Roses when this came out).

8 The Monochrome Set - Strange Boutique (1980) Overlooked, literate... as I have written before the Monochrome Set's lack of success will astound me until the day i die.

Joy Division- Substance (1977-1980) Ok, I cheated here, I could have picked everything by Joy Division (and even one or two of New Order's earlier LPs). It's a compilation and it's absolutely brilliant.

10 The White Stripes - Elephant (2003)   When I first heard this I was 38 and didn't expect to get blown away by a record in the way that I had been as a young teen.

11.The Birthday Party-Prayers on Fire (1981) I think that this was the first LP that made me realise that pop music could be serious art and that songs were poems.

12.Buzzcocks- Another Music in A Different Kitchen (1978)  Punk rock and the DIY ethos in practice. Listening to this you could believe that you and your mates could form a band with instruments from the Marshall Ward catalogue and that you could make it onto the radio or even TV.


oh, and Kilimanjaro by the Teardrop Explodes (1980)...  because it's lovely and it transports me back to a time when life seemed full of promise.

So, an epic fail on my part. When I get back from my vacation we'll have some special guests telling us about their Top Ten Albums...

22.9.11

The Birthday Party - Prayers on Fire (1981)


This album made me want to write...


Nick Cave - vocals, saxophone, drums
Rowland S. Howard - guitar, vocals, saxophone
Mick Harvey - organ, piano, guitar, vocals
Tracy Pew - bass, clarinet, double bass
Phill Calvert - drums

With:
Phillip Jackson - trumpet
Mick Hauser - tenor saxophone
Stephen Ewart - trombone


16.9.11

John Peel's Top 20 Albums...

In  1997 John Peel  identified his personal top 20 Lps for The Guardian newspaper.
Whereas most of us would struggle to do this, for Peel it must have been virtually impossible.Striking omissions? Nothing from The Fall. No early rock n roll. Here's the list, along with links to blogs where you can sample the sounds.























1. Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (1969)
2. Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)
3. Ramones: The Ramones (1976)
4. Pulp: Different Class (1995)
5. Misty In Roots: Live At Counter Eurovision 79 (1979)
6. Nirvana: Nevermind (1991)
7. Smiths: The Smiths (1984)
8. Neil Young: Arc Weld (1991)
9. Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced? (1967)
10. Wawali Bonané: Enzenzé  amazingly there don't appear to be any rips or torrents of this record out there- but apparently you can buy it for 11 Euros- other writers on this topic have similarly failed to locate it. Phone up Andy Kershaw...
11. Pink Floyd: Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967)
12. Dreadzone: Second Light (1995)
13. Four Brothers: Makorokoto (1988)
14. Dave Clarke: Dave Archive One (1996)
15. Big Black: Songs About Fucking (1987)
16. PJ Harvey: Dry (1992)
17. Richard and Linda Thompson: I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974)
18. Elastica: Elastica (1995)
19. Hole: Live Through This (1994)
20. Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones (1964)

Burning Aquarium isn't as generous as The Guardian, and we'll soon be kicking off an occasional feature in which 'guests' select their Top Ten LPs.

13.9.11

Hole- Live Through This (1994)






















Eric Erlandson - lead guitar
Courtney Love - vocals, rhythm guitar
Kristen Pfaff - bass, piano, backing vocals
Patty Schemel - drums
Dana Kletter — additional vocals
Kurt Cobain - backing vocals on Asking For It and Softer, Softest

Hole's album Live Through This expresses a standpoint that may articulate a third-wave feminist consciousness. However, as a work that critiques the masculine discourses of our society through an ironic performance of gender, it has the potential for reinscribing the very hegemonic ideology it seeks to resist. This analysis leads me to question epistemic privilege and argue that third wave feminism's tenet of individualism represents an appropriation of feminism under the regime of late capitalism.
 Matthew Morris (2009). "Writing (Courtney) Love into the History of Rhetoric: Articulation of a Feminist Consciousness in Live Through This"




9.9.11

Гражданская Оборона-Игра в бисер перед свиньями (1986)



September 10th marks the birthday of the late Yegor Letov (1964-2008).
Playing The Game of Pearls Before Swine is an acoustic punk set recorded at The University of Omsk June 1st 1986. 
Egor Letov - vocal, guitars, bass, drums
Evgeny Filatov - bongos, harmonica, recorder




All totalitarians- left, right, of all colours and stripes- fuck you.


7.9.11

The Bard of Ely- You're A Liar, Nicky Wire (200?)

I came across this when reading about The Bard of Ely on Anthony Brockway's excellent Babylon Wales blog. Steve Andrews  (the first man to grow a pineapple in Wales) has a dig at the food and booze prices at a Manics gig- the resultant record was banned by a leading Cardiff record store (taking the piss out of superannuated sixth form socialists The Manics in Cardiff is a bit like trying to sell cartoons of the Prophet at Mecca). All good fun.


Bard of Ely - You're a Liar, Nicky Wire
Found at Genius MP3 Music Search Engine






Green-bearded ageing hippie (in his own words).












Nicholas Allen Jones.

5.9.11

Orange Juice- You Can't Hide Your Love Forever (1982)


One of my very favourite Lps of all time, consistently in my ever changing list. Hugely influential on all 'indie' music, and four years before C86. Wistfully lyrical, gorgeous fractured funk. These qualities might just emerge from this rip of a rather worn old vinyl.



Mona- I think it was you who was looking for The Orange Juice- there's a big selection here:
http://killingmoonmusic.blogspot.com/2011/05/orange-juice-coals-to-newcastle-2010.html

And a contemporary article from Zig Zag courtesy of Highlander here: http://cactusmouthinformer.blogspot.com/2011/09/zig-zag-feb-1982-orange-juice-general.html

3.9.11

The Three Johns- Atom Drum Bop (1984)

A repost, lossless vinyl rip.