Let The Machine Decide (live)

Another round of Sony Walkman picked tracks today. Not the first four that came up, I have to say, but because the first two songs by different artists were live tracks, I thought I’d follow that particular line of enquiry.

So, to start with, ‘Devil’s Roof’ by Throwing Muses. There’s plenty of official live material out there if you are so inclined (and plenty of bootlegs too at the likes of www.archive.org) but this version is taken from the first official Muses live release, ‘The Curse’. Released back in 1992 it documents a London show by the power trio line-up of Kristin Hersh, Dave Narcizo and Bernard Georges. It seems to be long deleted now but you can still get ‘The Curse’ here. More Kristin and TM live recordings here.

Throwing Muses – ‘Devil’s Roof’ from ‘The Curse’ [Download it]

Next up is a fantastic live version of ‘All I Want’ by Echo & The Bunnymen. Originally the closing track on the mighty ‘Heaven Up Here’ this is a much more wired version than the LP one. You can compare the two though quite easily since this version is taken from the 25th anniversary remastered ‘Heaven Up Here’ which is available at an extremely reasonable price here.

‘Echo & The Bunnymen – ‘All I Want’ (from ‘Heaven Up Here’ remastered) [Buy it]

Next up is a track you can’t buy since it’s taken from a bootleg. It’s by the Triffids from early 1984 and from a fantastic radio recording of less well known Triffids’ material (and covers). It’s a real treasure not least because it features two separate songs which ended up combined as ‘Field of Glass’. One is an early version of FOG but the other is called ‘Pleasure Slide’. And this is it.

The Triffids – ‘Pleasure Slide’ (from ‘Caught In The Act 3PBS FM’ bootleg)

The Triffids’ reissue programme is available here.

The final track is also Domino related since it comes from a live set by Pavement, given away if you signed up for their mailing list last year. The Pavement re-issue programme has been as lavish as the Triffids one and with loads of extra material these 2 CD sets are well worth investigating. ‘Stop Breathing’ was originally on the ‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’. Enjoy. Buy the Pavement reissues here. Curiously I haven’t featured Pavement on here before, even though I have all the LPs. Fixed.

Pavement – ‘Stop Breathing’ (live) (from ‘Live at the Palace, Hollywood’)

Artefacts

One thing that has surprised me about eMusic is just how many of the LPs that I’ve downloaded that I’ve gone on to buy. So far it’s 8 out of 21 and I suspect that number will increase closer to a half shortly. Yes, I’m the sort of guy that still likes to own the physical artefacts.

I mention this because the good news is that the first two LPs that I downloaded from eMusic (indeed my principle motivation for signing up) are available on CD again. They are the first two discs by Saturation Point and you can get them from here. I’ve got them both now and when they arrived there was a wee note saying that they’re written not one, not even two, but THREE new LPs which should appear this year! That’s really quite exciting.

Saturation Point – One Point Four (from ‘One’) [Buy it!] [Download it]

If you like this, please go and buy the CDs – you really won’t be disappointed.

I’m now waiting on Mr Postman to deliver me the new LPs from Malcolm Middleton and the Big Sleep. More on these soon (hopefully).

PS Been messing about with my Myspace this evening and I’ve found out how to add a tune. First one up is the new single from ‘dEUS’. Check it out.

Not Recommended

I don’t generally use this platform to slag anyone off, I’d much rather promote the stuff I do like, but this post is one of the rare exceptions. If a subscription to eMusic has resulted in me discovering some great music, inevitably the converse is also true.

Recently I’ve had the misfortune to listen to a couple of real turkeys, both of which have their origins in the worst kind of 70s rock. Particularly in the case of the second record below, I feel I should at least try to stop anyone else making the same mistake that I’ve made.

Disappointingly the first mistake was ‘Drain’d Boner’ by Julian Cope’s heavy metal trio Brain Donor. This was something of a surprise because, whilst I’m not a huge fan of Copey’s recent outings, I have a lot of time for the Donor debut ‘Love, Peace and F***’. Sadly the six tracks on ‘Drain’d Boner’ are not only bereft of any of Cope’s melodic gift but are also devoid of the excitement that LP&F had. [Download it]

Worse than that though is Black Mountain’s hugely ironically titled ‘In The Future’. Somebody please tell me that this horrible record isn’t actually serious that it’s actually a parody of the worst excesses of 70s rock. Because Black Mountain are so in thrall to their influences, it’s embarrassing. Frankly, people died in the punk wars to stop this sort of thing but here we are 30 years on and it seems that their sacrifice was in vain.

Feel free, however, to disagree on the following evidence:

Black Mountain – Stormy High (from ‘In The Future’) [Buy it] [Download it]

More positive thoughts next time.

History Repeating

A second outing for a couple of the most popular songs of the last couple of months.

Wah! Heat’s ‘Seven Minutes To Midnight’ was the most popular song in December (with the exception of That Petrol Emotion’s ‘It’s A Good Thing’ which itself was a repeat.) I confess to being torn between picking ‘Seven Minutes …’ and ‘Better Scream as my favourite Wah! Track. Both (and their equally fabulous B-sides) are available on the compilation ‘The Handy Wah! Whole’ (ouch!).

Wah! Heat – Seven Minutes to Midnight (from ‘The Handy Wah! Whole’)

Not sure where you can get that at the moment – try eBay.

January’s top tune was a rather heartwarming one for me – ‘Bad Timing’ by the Triffids. Taken from the wonderful 7” singles collection which charts the flourishing talent of David McComb as a song-writer, remarkably some of these artefacts are still available from Domino records.

The Triffids – Bad Timing (from ‘Early Singles Boxset’) [Buy it]

The next installment of the Triffids’ reissue programme comes along on 8th April when ‘Treeless Plain’, ‘Beautiful Waste and other songs’ (featuring the ‘Raining Pleasure’, ‘Field of Glass’ and ‘Lawson Square Infirmary’ EPs) and an expanded ‘The Black Swan’ are all released. Pre-order them here.

Growing Old (But I’ll Deny I’m Growing Up)

This slot was ear-marked for a review of Thursday’s night’s De Rosa performance at the Is This Music? Show at the 13^th Note. I’ve no reason to think that it would have been anything other than magnificent but, in the end, I didn’t go.

I spent all day persuading myself that I was up for trailing across the country to Glasgow on a school night but decided against going after discovering that the show wasn’t starting until 8.30, which would have meant not getting home until after 1am. An example of old age? Quite probably. Common sense? Nah – that’s taking things too far.

Missing this one was a double blow given that I’m not going to be able to go to the Malcolm Middleton LP launch at Mono on 2^nd March, which also features De Rosa, due to family commitments. So I guess I’ll have to live with not seeing De Rosa until the LP comes out. Which at the moment seems an awful, awful long time away.

To cheer me up though, Appendix 3 is just over a week away. For those who haven’t heard Appendix 2, here it is – in all its not inconsiderable glory:

De Rosa – Ore

You can buy De Rosa’s debut LP ‘Mend’ here.

Another downside to missing the Middleton LP launch is that author Alan Bissett is on the bill. Alan was thoroughly entertaining as part of the De Rosa acoustic bill in Dundee back in October and I’ve just finished his second novel ‘The Incredible Adam Spark.’ It’s a funny, poignant and sometimes scary read and it is highly recommended. Get it here.

Don’t Step Off The Pavement

Ed over at 17 Seconds has been posting a lot of Peel stuff recently and once of these tracks reminded me of a 12″ single I own.

‘This Is Motortown’ by the Very Things came out in, I think 1986 or 1987 and I like it a lot but, as so often is the case, I never followed it up beyond, perhaps a further 12″. I’ll have to check.

The Very Things – This Is Motortown (Overdrive) (12″ single)

You can download a compilation containing several versions of the song here. You may be able to track down a CD on eBay.