The Streetlamp Doesn't Cast Her Shadow Anymore

~This Elegant Chaos~#10: A Trio Of Duos(well....almost!!)

2012-01-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

When Lou Barlow of Sebadoh hollered "Gimme Indie Rock" on the seminal single of the same title, it was a clarion call to the independently minded spirits who were creating some of the most thrilling and vital music of that era (the early 90s!) He couldn't possibly have known that within a few years, and for the next couple of decades, the term Indie Rock would come to be synonymous with the greyest, blandest, most emotionally repressed, joyless music imaginable. Pretty soon, any bunch of four, crap-haired, poorly-dressed oiks would bash out some turgid, major-chord piffle while belching some of the most lame-brained odious lyrics they could compile with a thesaurus and a speak and spell machine. Rubbish like Cast, The Wombats, Scouting For Girls, Embrace, Stereophonics, The Kooks, The Enemy and any tripe associated with the Gallagher brothers just dribbled out like vomited porridge, sounding every bit as appealing.
So, no tears were shed then when it was announced by publications like The Guardian and Q Magazine that Indie Rock was dead! But like so many of these proclamations, it was based as always on sales figures and chart positions. As if chart positions have ever been a barometer of quality!!
In an age when fresh new creative bands and artists are releasing their own music through their websites, or indeed giving the music away free....who really gives a fuck about chart positions or numerological success? Not we at the ~Streetlamp~ that's for sure! So, I'd like to write this week about three acts who go against the grain of Indie Rock in almost every way....three duos(okay,one is almost a duo - they have a drummer as well!!), all boy/girl, all of whom shimmer with sparkling creativity and who radiate beauty in a world of lumpen, hoary, artless twaddle.....

We start with the rather sultry and smoky Psychic Dancehall; a coming together of Chuck Rowell of San Diego noise-poppers Crocodiles, and Hollie Cook, daughter of Sex Pistols' drummer and all-round good egg Paul Cook.
Psychic Dancehall tap into that sleazy, neon soaked world of noir-jazz drinking hostelrys and 60s pulp kitsch; creating a chemically enhanced backdrop of musical menace in which (and this is purely for Griff) The Shangri-Las wrestle with Suicide in Joe Meek's studio under the approving gaze of Gary Clail....now surely THAT must have piqued your interest!!

The songs were written purely by soaking up the late night aura of San Diego's artier, more decadent culture spots and simply translating the ideas into song, recorded lo-fi style in a loft apartment in the very heart of the city. These experimental recordings were snapped up by Art Fag records (as beautifully apt a moniker as could be) and have been released as the couple's debut album 'Dreamers'; an instant classic possessing a few songs that I'm sure will already be jostling for space in our Festive 30 for this year....even if this is only January.
The album is available to buy, or indeed listen to for free at both Bandcamp and Soundcloud; and if you like your Pop music sexy, dark and dangerous, then why are you reading this and not heading over there??

Next up is the latest signing to All Tomorrow's Parties own record label; a trio featuring a boy/girl focal point, bearing the name of Tennis. Now, if you read my eulogy to All Tommorow's Parties a few weeks ago, you'll know that I champion their independent purist aesthetic, so you'll know that this band will probably be a bit special. And indeed they are!
Now, All Tomorrow's Parties may have a reputation for noisy, math-rock, guitar music and avant-garde, experimental electronica, but if you remember they were founded upon an original idea from Belle & Sebastian, so obviously there have to be Pop roots at the foundation of what they do. And certainly Tennis provide Pop in spades. Have a listen...

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://tennis.bandcamp.com/track/seafarer-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Seafarer by Tennis&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;
Admit it....that was pretty dreamy! And thankfully, that's what all their music is like. Created by husband and wife team Patrick Riley (guitar) and Aliana Moore (vocals), and with help from drummer friend James Barone; the idea for Tennis came after Patrick and Aliana acquired an old sailboat and spent 7 months on the eastern seaboard. Upon returning to land, they immediately began charting their voyage in song, the result being their debut album 'Cape Dory'.
As January grinds on in a puddle of grey rain, what better way to bolster your Vitamin D intake than by basking in the sun-dappled pure Pop of Tennis? Their newest track 'Origins' is a perfect Winter-blues buster with a rather seductive squelchy organ sound that's bound to incur some nostalgic shivers among some of you out there.
Their albums can be streamed at their Bandcamp page, and you can pick up some free downloads at their Facebook page.

And so to our third duo, an Anglo-American boy/girl coupling named Big Deal. Kacey Underwood and Alice Costelloe both play guitar and provide vocals, the two having met when Kacey taught Alice to play guitar, in particular how to sound like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr.

The fact that they both share vocal duties and that there is no drums or bass, or indeed any rhythm section at all, puts all the focus onto the delicate fuzziness of the music, and the Nancy-and-Lee-isms of the vocals, therefore condensing the very dramatic into the very intimate....

A lot of the thematic pull of the songs seems to build around the suffocating sexual longing that appears to exists between the two collaborators. This dynamism propels the music with both a sense of thrill of the new, with a more reflective sense of nostalgia....like the love affair at the centre of Betty Blue (only without the eye-gouging madness).
Big Deal have an album called 'Lights Out' available to stream once again through Soundcloud, and they have some other tracks available at their Soundcloud page.

Great stuff so early in the year! I'm guessing that all three of the bands will feature in 2012's Festive 30. And I can also predict that Griff will especially like Psychic Dancehall, Ray's favourite new band are Big Deal; which leaves me with Tennis....and I'll have that any day!!

Indie Rock is dead!! Let's all go piss on it's grave!!

~Gordon~

Second Degree Burns: Anne Briggs

2012-01-25T13:03:00.000-08:00

Aaahh....January!
Not the best loved of months, but certainly the only month of the year where I feel genuinely, and proudly Scottish. Hogmanay may, of course, occur in December, but it's that spilling over into New Year at midnight and that celebration of all things Caledonian that makes me feel just that little more Pictish....soaking up fine malt Whisky with shortbread, the firing of Mons Meg, the skirl and jig of the pipes and fiddles. Yep, I may only stomach it once a year, but it reminds me of where I'm from.
And, of course, January also sees the celebration of our national poet Robert Burns as we gather together, eat sheep's stomachs, act like alcoholics, and deliver poetry that sounds more Double Dutch than our native tongue....only joking. of course, I love Burns' Night as I get to have vegetarian haggis, neeps and tatties accompanied by a wee dram, and reflect on Burns who has been a huge influence on Scottish culture, including our own ~Sighrens~.
And just as last years Burn's Night where I celebrated the MacDonald Sisters, I've come along tonight to pay homage to the wonderful Anne Briggs.

Now, sceptics will immediately cry that Anne Briggs is NOT Scottish!! No, indeed she isn't....she was born in Nottinghamshire, but she has been a fine interpreter of Scottish folk songs and, indeed, the work of Burns, and was once romantically involved with the late Scottish acoustic guitar hero Bert Jansch.
I have to admit to being terribly shallow here, but I first became interested in Anne when I saw this picture in Record Collector some time in the late 1980s....
....I was immediately smitten and found it quite beguiling that someone could look so modern (I thought she looked like the kind of Breton shirt wearing cool Indie goddess I was waiting my whole life to meet), yet this was in a photograph that was taken in 1962!
Anne became one of the foundation stones of the British Folk boom of the early/mid-60s along with such contemporaries as the aforementioned Jansch, as well as June Tabor, Sandy Denny and Davy Graham. She gained almost immediate acclaim due to her startling unaccompanied delivery....literally standing up at open mikes and belting out well known (and some fairly obscure) ballads, without any guitar backing, in a voice of radiant clarity that stopped even the harshest critic in their tracks.
She became the cult draw of the Centre 42 tour of 1962, in which the trade unions, the Communist Party and the CND aligned to put on a travelling revue of folk music and leftist politics. It was on this tour that folk legend Ewan McColl took her under his wing and convinced her of her talents.

Throughout the 1960s, Anne cut a number of albums and toured constantly, but a propensity for wild living and heavy drinking, to combat severe nerves she suffered before performing, led to an erratic recording career and a potentially destructive private life in which she was often found blind drunk or even unconscious.
There was also the fact that Anne didn't like the sound of her recorded voice, and took more and more persuading to get into the recording studio, and in 1971 she recorded her last solo album. She appeared once more in 1973 backed by a folk-rock ensemble, but that was it! She retired a year shy of her 30th birthday and has not recorded since.
Yet Anne remains a huge influence on such modern artists as Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy and Beth Orton.
Like that other spectral folk enigma Mary Margaret O'Hara, Anne has received both constant plaudits, and perennial request to return either to the stage or to record but, aside form a one-off performance at a memorial concert for friend and British folk legend Bert Lloyd in 1990, and a one song performance on a TV tribute to Bert Jansch in 1993, there has been nothing. Her silence preserves both her legacy and her enigma.
Her 1960s original albums all fetch a huge price on sites like Ebay which is why it wasn't until 1999, when Topic records released what still remains the only collection of her songs, that I finally got to hear her voice.

So let's raise a dram to one of the finest, yet sadly little heard voices in British Folk....

Slàinte mhòr agaibh!

~Gordon~

Punk's Not Dead!!

2012-01-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

In these times of financial insecurity and much belt tightening amongst the great unwashed, you'd expect rock stars or the music industry in general to act with a bit of tactful decorum; maybe to drop the prices of CDs and downloads, maybe to offer free tracks from their websites....you know, civilised, good natured understanding of the people whose cash lined their nests.
But NO....it appears this is not to be the case, for it appears every multi-millionaire rock goblin feels it necessary to release 'lavish' box-sets of material virtually all of their fandom already owns many times over. And it appears that it's the same old whores fleecing their fans as it always has been; The Who re-re-re-releasing 'Quadrophenia' (why don't they all fade way?), whilst The Rolling Stones reissue deluxe boxes of albums that their fans didn't even like much the first time around ('Some Girls').

Then there's Pink Floyd! A bunch of torn-faced millionaires whose propensity for greed simply shows no sign of abating. Albums which have been reissued and remastered many times before are now available in 'Immersion Editions' which allow the listener to experience the whole sensurround involvement of albums they've probably heard thousands of times in the last 40 years, and at ludicrously extravagant prices! Floyd fans have been writing to Record Collector magazine in disgust that they cannot obtain any new mixes or extra tracks without having to fork out for the most expensive version of the box. Funny that, eh? Still, what do you expect from a band who allegedly want to stop I-Tunes and Amazon from 'unlocking' their albums; meaning that people can no longer buy individual tracks if they want them, they have to buy the whole album. Seems your 79p isn't good enough, not when they can strongarm you into paying the whole £11:99. Of course they'll say it's to protect the integrity of the album, but I say it's being a bunch of greedy chancers. I mean, exactly how much money do these greedy bastards actually need?? They've been multi-millionaires since flared trousers and casual racism were fashionable! I used to think that John Lydon wore his iconic 'I Hate Pink Floyd' tee-shirt purely as a wind-up but now I see he was way ahead of the game.
Rock stars have always been seen as ostentatious of course, but there comes a time, especially amid a general financial meltdown, where common decency should be required. And I realise that I'm laying myself wide open to accusations of hypocrisy here as my own favourites The Smiths release a lavish box-set of their own ('The Complete Smiths')....so let me address that issue as well.

A couple of people have already asked me if I was going to write a Blog about Morrissey's 'controversial' comments equating Anders Breivik's crimes with the slaughter of animals by the fast food giants, and I was actually going to but I let the moment slip by too far and it no longer felt relevant. Griff also asked me to write a rant against the John Lewis chain of shops for using 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want' in their Christmas ads, but to be honest I didn't have a problem hearing the song several times over the Christmas period and seeing the song slip into the charts.
But I'm afraid the release of 'The Complete Smiths' really got my goat!!

Way back in 1987, on the last official Smiths studio album 'Strangeways, Here We Come' there is a track called 'Paint A Vulgar Picture'. Not The Smiths best song by a long way, but one of Morrissey's most personal attacks on the avarice of the music industry, with the stinging sideswipe of "Re-issue, Re-package, Re-package!" and remarks about such piddley selling points as "an extra track and a tacky badge".
And yet what have we had from both Morrissey and The Smiths since Morrissey's career temporarily hit the buffers around 1997? Re-issues by the score! Albums that didn't sell very well at the time RE-PACKAGED with (yes!) extra tracks, but thankfully NO tacky badges! And guess what? They still didn't sell very well, but longtime fans can now have two versions of a fair-to-middling album. What a joy!
But this box-set, I feel, really rips the piss!
The albums are all 're-mastered' by Johnny Marr. What EXACTLY does that mean? It's not a selling point for me in any guise. If I, in some moment of Proustian reflection, wish to recall the wonder The Smiths music wrapped around me as it soundtracked the most pertinent moments of my teenage revelry, what am I most likely to reach for? The versions of the songs I know and love and have every second of tattooed upon my soul, or some new poncified 5.1 Surround mix with the drums and bass moved further to the front and the heart and soul of the songs ripped asunder. Excuse me if I don't indulge in some gladioli grasping pirouette around the room with happiness that the very aural lifeblood that sustained me through adolescence has now been tampered with! Fuck off Johnny....you more than anyone should understand the importance of the how the music sounds.
And where's the extra tracks to persuade the longtime fan to part with their hard earned cash? There are NONE (so I'm guessing the tacky badge is out the window!) About 10 years ago there was a bit of a buzz about a proposed Smiths box-set purely of rarities. Fans speculated on the Internet about what treasures lay in store....heartbreaking original acoustic demos? Live soundcheck versions of songs that were never played live ('Unloveable' for example)? Or perhaps the jewel in every Smiths fan's crown, the full version of very early gem 'I Want A Boy For My Birthday' of which less than a minute exists out there in Internetland. Well, I suppose if they won't give you them, I may as well offer them up myself....

Recent years have seen Smiths and Morrissey Best-Ofs in abundance, some in quite shoddy packaging, some complete with erroneous song titles (for phux ache!!), and some in sleeves created by people who clearly have no idea what The Smiths were about, and I'm afraid we just have to accept that Morrissey and Marr, whilst hardly skint, are just another pair of money grabbing rock stars. Where did all that independent spirit and integrity go? I find it heartbreaking, and I'll probably continue buying the new stuff, but I'm not shelling out any more hard earned cash for stuff I've already got many fold. Now, I fully realise that apologists for this behaviour can simply dismiss this rant by saying "You don't HAVE to buy it!", but the point is there was a time where I would have purchased Morrissey's bottled breath if it had been for sale, but enough is enough, and if Morrissey and Marr want to alter their fan's perceptions of them, then that's up to them.

And I feel that it must also alter our Blog!
For, as of today, I am no longer going to write about greedy rock stars. From now on I intend only to cover new or unsigned bands, or artists who generally go out of their way to buck the money-grabbing trend, hold maverick opinions on the whole music industry carbuncle, or who embody a whole anti-capitalist, non-conformist idea of music and art.
It's like 1975 again out there, and we may have said that Punk can never happen again, but it can, in spirit at least if not in music, within the confines of our Blog....Griff already only writes about new music or artists who issue their songs for free, and Ray's contempt for pampered affluent rock star arseholes grows more virulent every day. As such I expect our Blog will become less like The Guardian and more like Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism (the paper of the Revolutionary Communist Party).....SO BE IT!

Punk's Not Dead!

¡No pasarán!

~Gordon~

Griff says; Stephen Harrison - true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow

2012-01-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

Those of you with very good memories may recall that I first wrote about Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Stephen Harrison (pictured) way back in November 2010 (see 'here' if you need to catch up on the biographical details). At that time I was so enamoured of his song 'The Colour of Black is Black' that it went on to feature in our 2010 Streetlamp Festive Thirty. What really attracted me to Stephen's music was undoubtedly the timbre of his voice; pitched somewhere between Richard Hawley and David Bowie (not a bad place to be) it has a rich but weary quality that provides an authentic tang of melancholia to his lyrics. Stephen's musical history stretches back to the punk days of yore and it would be fair to say that, despite shifting somewhat across the guitar-based rock spectrum over the years, his music has remained fixed within that milieu. That is why I was surprised recently when Stephen got in touch to announce the release of his latest recording, 'Today Tomorrow' and provided the additional information that he had eschewed the electric guitar to record a 10-song album of acoustic-based, contemporary folk songs.

Having now had a week or so to fully acquaint myself with his new style I can genuinely report that the change has proved to be an unqualified success. Those of you who read these 'Griff says' pieces to keep up-to-date with the best in broken-hearted, reflective, confidential song-writing performed in a spare, intimate and unembelished acoustic style are going to lap this up. Here are Stephen's own videos of two of my favourite songs from the album to whet your appetite. First up is the magnificent and moody 'Sphinx City', which, with its sombre lyric, wistful minor key and unexpected chord changes gives it an air of a French chanson or even (praise of praise) a lost Leonard Cohen classic;

Next up is the equally dignified and accomplished 'And If';

I hope you enjoyed those. There are eight more tracks on the album and I suggest that you take your time to sit down, turn out the lights, and really listen to it from start to finish to get the best from the hushed and almost private nature of the songs.
As usual, Stephen is making the CD available from his own Close Up Records site. The album can be downloaded for free in digital form from his bandcamp site and from his last.fm page. The latter also has much of his earlier work available if this latest album piques your interest. Stephen also has his own fine little website 'here', which is well worth a look.

Griff
xx

Wir könnten Helden werden: Barry Hogan and Deborah Kee Higgins

2012-01-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

Inspiration for these Blogs often comes from the most unexpected places. And occasionally an idea will spring from an encounter with something we dislike, rather than something we are actually fond of. Take this Blog for example. The seeds of this Blog were sown as I drove into work, my first day back after the Festive break. As I listened to the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, I found that Zane Lowe was sitting in for Chris Moyles. Now....I don't have a problem with Zane at all, I actually admire his energetic enthusiasm for music, especially new and often left-field cutting edge music. He is loved by Radio 1's Indie listeners, and repeatedly wins the NME's DJ Of The Year award. Squint hard enough and you can almost see Zane becoming the John Peel of his generation (though I'm sure he'd baulk at the very suggestion!).
So why did Mr Lowe annoy on this particularly bleak morn?
Because his guest was the very Chartered Accountant Of Beige, Noel Gallagher. And to hear Zane simper, fawn and try not to upset such an anti-music figure as Gallagher was rather dispiriting. I refuse to let my dignity slip and plunge into a tirade about how much I dislike this man's music and how he's done nothing of any worth since 1996 (and even that was shoddy), yet still he lords it over everyone like he's some Lennon/Townshend/Hendrix hybrid; but to hear someone like Zane pamper his bereft-of-an-original-idea arse was just depressing. Yet it reminded me of how Radio 1, the NME, and indeed most of the media are always 1, 2 or even 5 steps behind what really counts as musical innovation, the cutting edge, and the genuinely talented.
And it led me to think of Barry Hogan.....
Now, Barry Hogan is not a musician, but he is most definitely a music lover, and one who, unlike Zane Lowe, would never pander to any Tom, Dick or Gobshite. Since the turn of the millennium, Barry Hogan has been the co-organiser( along with Deborah Kee Higgins) of the All Tomorrow's Parties series of festivals; festivals that literally seethe with outre talents in a fields of musical diversity would give the editor of the NME a reality check, and the controller of Radio 1 a seizure.
So let's take a look at this magnificent series of festivals, and let's ponder how ATP gets it SO right that even Glastonbury looks like a pale and shabby imitation of it's myriad splendour.
All Tomorrow's Parties began as 'The Bowlie Weekender'; a one-off festival curated by Belle & Sebastian and held in the Camber Sands Holiday Camp is Sussex in April of 1999. Named after the curious haircut sported by Indie-kids of the time, the line-up included The Pastels, Camera Obscura, The Divine Comedy, Sleater-Kinney, Teenage Fanclub (~Streetlamp~ favourites all) to name but a few, as well as DJ sets by Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp) and Tim Gane (of Stereolab).

Inspired by the success and unique atmosphere of the festival, Barry Hogan took it upon himself to continue the good work, setting up the All Tomorrow's Parties concept, based pretty much upon the Bowlie Weekender blueprint.
Barry's first major idea was not to choose the line-up himself, but to have a band or artist as a curator and have them choose the line-up and create, in Barry's words, 'an excellent mixtape'.
The first ATP Festival was again held at Camber Sands and was curated by Mogwai who chose artists as divers as Sonic Youth, Arab Strap, Super Furry Animals, Aphex Twin, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Shellac and Wire.
Further festivals would be curated by Tortoise, Shellac, actor Vincent Gallo, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, My Bloody Valentine, Thurston Moore, The Breeders, Pitchfork Media, Autechre and Portishead (among many others). In 2005 Barry Hogan asked his favourite band of all time, Slint, to curate the festival. Not only did they do this, but they reformed for a one-off performance of their landmark album 'Spiderland'.

As the success of the festival grew, it spread over into a two weekend affair with the second part taking place at Butlin's Holiday Camp in Minehead. The branded festival has also branched out, thanks to major involvement from US Indie music champions Pitchfork Media with festivals being held in Long Beach California which have seen performances from Lou Reed, The Cramps, Daniel Johnston, Deerhoof, Iggy & The Stooges, !!!, Built To Spill, Smog and Television (again amongst MANY others).
In recent years the Festival has also taken place in New York, Barcelona, Australia and Tokyo.

In the early days of the Festival, Barry would issue his own missives as little introductions to the festivals, taking potshots at chancers of the time like The Vines, The Hives, The Cooper Temple Clause (and Oasis) while gushing longingly about The Breeders, Nina Nastasia, Mark E Smith and Threnody Ensemble. It was these messages that elevated Barry to the status of HERO for me; that in one sentence he could eulogise passionately about acts like Bad Wizard, Gang Gang Dance or The Mars Volta, then instruct people to go home and set fire to their Bloc Party CDs (who at the time were probably on the cover of the NME and in session for Zane Lowe) made him a man after my own heart.
I wish I could say more about Deborah Kee Higgins as his trusty cohort, but unfortunately she doesn't tend to release many utterances so I'm afraid my info is a little stymied.
Of course there's no way I could hope to successfully capture the whole essence of 12 years of incredible festivals and cutting edge music in one single Blog, so I must point you in the direction of the usual sources; you'll find plenty of info on their Wikipedia page which lists the entire line-up of every festival; there's their own official website where you'll find videos and also the fact that ATP is now a record label on it's own; but most importantly I must bring to your attention 'All Tomorrow's Parties' - The Movie!

Filmed over the whole duration of all the festivals by the curators, the musicians, and the public alike, the footage has been collated and edited by Jonathan Caouette who made the hallucinatory, melancholic Ode-To-Boy 'Tarnation'.
Like that movie, 'All Tomorrow's Parties' has a woozy dreamlike air, like binging on Mescal jellies; a chewy, intoxicating patchwork of mind-altering visions. Cut together with old footage of the holiday camps in their heyday, we see the probability that a festival goer may end up occupying a chalet right next door to Nick Cave....or Iggy Pop....or Mark E Smith....or Daniel Johnston, and yes, that's every bit as wonderful or frightening as you can imagine. That's one of the things the movie brings across, and one of the factors that makes the ATP festivals so special; there is no 'Superstar' us-and-them mentality....everyone shares the same space, everyone is on the same level (in every sense). Somehow I can't envisage Mr Gallagher so far out of his comfort zone.

The film rattles with sparkling visceral performances from the likes of Battles, Fuck Buttons, Lightning Bolt and Grinderman, then offers moments of early morning reflective troubadouring from Daniel Johnston, Grizzly Bear or Micah P Hinson. Genuine legends like Patti Smith and John Cooper Clarke are seen clearly enjoying themselves and letting loose and you find yourself chanting "What the fucking hell is Glastonbury?".

And that's the whole point of this Blog, my Friends....the BBC and the NME (and all their respective ilk) offer us this version of alternative music, alternative festivals, and out-there left-field art, but they offer nothing! The emperors are undressed and playing songs that sound like old Beatles riffs.
Bollocks!!!
So here's to Barry and Deborah; true independent spirits, purveyors of genuine musical thrills, and above all....HEROES!!
Salut!
"The sun will come out tomorrow..."

~Gordon~

Griff says; Mykonos Flame - setting the world on fire!

2012-01-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

You may remember that back in November (see 'here') I got very excited about a band, Mykonos Flame (pictured), who were gradually releasing their eponymous debut album, track by track, on their soundcloud page. At the time of writing that first piece, they had only posted four songs, but these were so intriguing, and seemed to promise so much, that I couldn't hold back in writing about them. I'm now pleased to inform you that the completed album, as of 18th December 2011, is now officially released. The finished article contains eleven tracks in total and I'm delighted to say that the early promise suggested by the initial tracks has now been wholly fulfilled.

For those of you who missed out originally, Mykonos Flame emerged in 2010 between Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro, and is formed by Johnny Kao (vocals, ukulele and banjo), Daniel Schmidt (backing vocals, guitar and piano), Daniel Hawk (drums, backing vocals), André Falcão (guitar), Danilo Moura (bass, baixolão) and Alex Little Roach (trumpet). I initially described the band's sound as being characterized by a merging of international and Brazilian folk-styles and rhythms; a cross-pollination of MPB, pop, indie-folk, samba and the dance music of Eastern Europe and suggested a similarity to the likes of Beirut or DeVotchKa. Having had a good opportunity to now listen to the whole of the album I'd say that the tracks we first showcased on the blog, 'Jeanne D'Arc' and 'Tutti', are at the more folky end of the Mykonos Flame sound spectrum and that this extends into guitar-based indie-rock, very successfully too, when the spirit moves them.

I'm going to embed three excellent songs from the album (below) to demonstrate the versatility of the band's sound.
First up is Wolfmother Lover, which rather reminds this listener of Gomez:

Wolfmother Lover (official album version) by Mykonos Flame

Next is Joe Doe, which has the ghost of Franz Ferdinand flitting about it:

Joe Doe (official album version) by Mykonos Flame

Finally, here's the bouncy, pyschedelic folk of Sally Joint:

Sally Joint (official album version) by Mykonos Flame

Not unsurprisingly, given that they're too good to stay a secret for long, the band have just signed to the Astronauta Discos label in Brazil. You can order the new CD from their or from the band's Facebook page. In the meantime, the tracks are sstill all available as free digital downloads from their soundcloud page. Mykonos Flame are currently looking for a UK/European distributor so if you're interested get in touch with me here at The Streetlamp or directly with the band.

If you're in Brazil this month you may be interested to know that Astronauta Discos is planning a launch event for Mykonos Flame. The event is part of the project 'Som em 4 Tempos' , and takes place in the Sidney Miller Hall, in Rio de Janeiro,on January 18th. The event kicks off at 18:30 there is free admission, with distribution of passwords an hour beforehand. See the Astronauta Discos site for more details.

Griff
xx

Griff says; It’s not vulgar, it’s vulva!

2012-01-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, we have another little foray into the wider world of art for you tonight. Specifically, I wanted to bring your attention to an extraordinary work of art which I chanced across last year but which I was unable to fit into the blog; I'd like to put that right now. The art in question is a sculpture produced by British artist Jamie McCartney and entitled 'The Great Wall of Vagina'. Intriguing, yes? Well, let me explain more.

The Great Wall of Vagina is an exploration of women's relationships with their genitals. The concept grew from an original piece called Design A Vagina, which was a single panel of 40 vulva plaster casts made in 2008. McCartney realised that the sculpture would need to be much bigger to have the impact he wanted and since then the work has grown to epic proportions; with the final piece now comprising 400 casts arranged in 10 panels of 40.

McCartney states that the impetus to create the piece was the realisation that many women have anxiety about their genital appearance. He says;

"It appalled me that our society has created yet one more way to make women feel bad about themselves. I decided that I was uniquely placed to do something about it."

McCartney hopes this sculpture will help to combat the exponential rise, seen in recent years, of cosmetic labial surgeries. This worrying trend to create 'perfect' vaginas is the Western equivalent of female genital mutilation and sets a worrying precedent for future generations of women. This work of art counters this desire for 'homogyny' and demonstrates powerfully that vulvas and labia are as different as faces. The realisation of this fact frees us up to appreciate each for its unique intrinsic beauty and leads us away from the misguided notion that one is better than another.

Included in the piece are identical twins (pictured above), mothers and daughters, and examples of male to female and female to male transsexuals. Ages range from 18 year old students to a grandmother of 76. McCartney wanted to include as many possibilities as he could.
The completed work of art is certainly compelling, impressive and, undeniably, beautiful. Perhaps surprisingly, 400 vulva casts arranged in this manner is in no way pornographic, as it might have been if photographs had been used. In conversation with my feminist friend Selina (whom I use as a sounding board of current feminist orthodox opinion) we both agreed that the piece is fascinatingly and provocatively tactile, inducing the desire to touch as well as stare, but is firmly, perhaps paradoxically, non-sexual. McCartney hopes that, through this piece, for the first time many women they will be able to see their own genitals in relation to other women's, and doing so, they may dispel many misconceptions they may have been carrying about what women look like 'down there'.

McCartney is currently seeking women from every country in the world to volunteer to have their vulva cast for a sculpture celebrating the women of the world. If you are from overseas and are representative of the ethnicity of that area and are traveling to the UK this year then he asks that you please get in touch with him if you would like to be involved.

Alternatively, you may be interested in becoming involved in the work of FORWARD (Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development). This is an African Diaspora women-led, UK-registered campaign and support charity dedicated to advancing and safeguarding the sexual and reproductive health and rights of African girls and women. They work in the UK, Europe and Africa to help change practices and policies that affect access, dignity and wellbeing. They tackle female genital mutilation, child marriage and related rights of girls and young women.

Now, what music to complement this article? I decided to go with some more feminist Euro-punk, always a great favourite with The Streetlamp team (see 'here' for instance). The band in question are a three-piece from Berlin called Ex Best Friends (pictured above) who have several fine songs available as free downloads on their last.fm page. I understand that the band were back in the studio at the end of last year so look out for some new releases soon. The song I've chosen to highlight is the appropriately named 'Don't Try To Talk About Art' and our Ray has put together a wee video for your pleasure featuring samples of the art of feminist collage artist Barbara Kruger, another artist who had lots to say about women's relationship to their body image.
Enjoy.

Griff
xx

~Kitten Wine#31~: An Outbreak Of Solo Asphyxiation

2012-01-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

If, as I claimed in a previous Blog, 1979 was a strange year for the Sex Pistols, then it was an even stranger, and infinitely more prolific year for The Stranglers. Not only did they release what many consider to be the best album from the original line up, 'The Raven', there were also albums from both front men, Hugh Cornwell and Jean Jacques Burnel; both quite different from each other, and both a million miles from The Stranglers.

So let's take a look at those two solo albums, both out of step and under appreciated at the time, yet now strangely modern and even relevant....

'The Raven' was a widescreen technicolour vista housed in a 3D sleeve which dealt with subjects as widespread as Nordic sagas, American imperialism, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, Mishima, alien abduction, the chinless wonders of the upper classes, human genetics, nuclear weapons, whores and heroin. The two solo albums were both, in a sense, concept albums; Hugh's 'Nosferatu' had a theme of horror movies and olde worlde freak shows running through it, whilst JJ's 'Euroman Cometh' was celebration and critique of his own European-ness and of modern Europe in general.

'Euroman Cometh' is an odd album which flummoxed a lot of people, including Stranglers fans, at the time because it sounded so removed from what was occurring within music at the time, and indeed from the music his parent band were creating. One of the most instantly noticeable elements of the soundscape is the use of what sounds like the most primitive drum machine imaginable. This is quite odd given that The Stranglers had been blessed with one of the most reliable drummers of the Punk/New Wave era in Jet Black whose laser guided precision rhythms were a major facet of their sound. The drum machine hisses, clicks and pops with an almost amateurish lack of subtlety.
Also removed from the mix is the driving top-heavy bass sound that really propels The Stranglers' early records. The bass is mixed well into the background with scratchy, scribbly guitars and skronking keyboards giving the album a very trebley sound; unusual for such a thundering bass player.
Vocally, JJ seems a little recalcitrant and unsure of his voice's qualities, seemingly employing a different vocal technique on each song, even using vocoders to distort his voice on certain tracks.
This may make it sound like I'm being overly critical of the album, but all of this makes the album sound better these 30 years down the line than it probably did at the time. The album has a lo-fi, Post-Punk, Artrock vibe that chimes more cohesively today.
And the subject matter of some of the songs is incredibly relevant in 2012; take for instance 'Euromess' or 'Euroman' both of which could apply to the dissolving European Union or the current financial cataclysm Europe has gotten itself into. Then there's 'Freddie Laker(Concorde & Eurobus)' which could easily appertain to the lack of people travelling abroad and the collapse of travel firms all over the world. And being half French and half English, JJ has always had his suspicions of the Germans; in the film 'Punk In London'(a documentary filmed in 1977 by a German film crew), JJ snubs an impromptu interview with the crew before lambasting their arrogance and getting in a dig at their Germanic attitudes....this also comes across in the track 'Deutchsland Nicht Uber Alles'.

Of course, this being a Stranglers related album, there are moments of masculinist machismo thrown in that are often misinterpreted as sexism or misogyny, like for example 'Pretty Face' or the quite preposterous(though almost certainly humorous) 'Crabs'.

The album was housed in a sleeve that set out JJ's agenda pretty broadly, being a shot of him posing black-leather-clad-rock-god style in front of the Pompidou Center. It's an odd, sometimes too experimental work that clearly jarred against other contemporary music of the time, but which now sounds more in tune with today's lo-fi electronica and indeed with the thinking of our messy Eurocentric times....

Hugh Cornwell's 'Nosferatu' is a different beast entirely.
Not so much a solo album, more of a collaboration with Captain Beefheart percussionist Robert Williams, and with the Mothersbaugh brothers from the band Devo. William's jazz inflected offbeat time signatures and Devo's jerkiness combine to create an off-kilter bedrock upon which Hugh builds his discordant soundscapes.
Unlike JJ's album which dealt with contemporary issues of the times, Hugh sculpts an album built around old folklore, expressionist horror, giant monster movies, and freakshows. The album is dedicated to the actor Max Schreck who portrayed Count Orlok in the titular German horror masterpiece, and it's a fantastic shot of Schreck/Orlok that houses the album.
The title track opener also lets us know that this is no Stranglers album; over a hurricane of pattering drums and seething synths, Hugh delivers a frantic guttural vocal far removed from his Stranglers growl.

That growl does return for some of the songs but the music is an eccentric deviation from that which usually accompanied it, and again is quite incongruous with other music of the era.
Tracks like 'Big Bug' and 'Mothra' move in unfamiliar rhythm patterns, whilst 'Wired' and 'Rhythmic Itch' have more in common with the New York No Wave scene than with British Punk inflected New Wave.

We can forgive unwelcome Cream cover versions('White Room') when doomy atmospheric pieces like 'Losers In A Lost Land' sound so majestic, but it's the last two tracks on the album that are it's two strongest moments; 'Puppets' moves like a typical Stranglers composition fed through a broken calliope and makes a rather broad comparison about people who can't think or do things for themselves with the tangled string operated creations of a puppet show. And final track 'Wrong Way Round' takes us into a Victorian freakshow to gawp at a girl who has been created entirely back to front. The track features a splendid cameo from Ian Dury(under the alias of Duncan Poundcake) as a fairground barker which gives the track a wheezy carnival authenticity.

Despite 'The Raven' reaching number 4 in the British charts, neither solo album sold in a great quantity; 'Euroman Cometh' scraping to number 40, whilst 'Nosferatu' simply didn't chart. Clearly out of sync with the music of the times, and too offbeat for their casual Stranglers fans, the albums have actually dated well. I liked them both at the time anyway, but now find them satisfying and challenging curios from a band more talented than their critics at the time would admit. Contrary to the popular belief, The Stranglers didn't jump on Punk's bandwagon looking for fame, they were simply adopted by punks who found their aggressive playing and bullshit-free stance welcoming in the wasteland of the mid-70s.

I would have liked to have offered both albums as free downloads but The Stranglers appear to take such actions pretty seriously so I don't want to get the Blog into bother, but if this article has piqued your attention then I'm sure both albums are out there in cyberspace somewhere.

~Gordon~

~Winter Wassailing~#24: 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians'

2011-12-24T04:25:00.000-08:00

It's all Pia Zadora's fault!
All of it!
Everything....my all encompassing obsession with 'Trash Cinema' and all it entails; all the hours spent ruining my eyesight and sanity, all the money I've spent (Griff: surely you mean 'wasted'?), all the days spent scouring small ads and records fairs (in the days before Amazon, or even the internet)....just looking for that elusive gem of cinematic cat-litter to add to my ever expanding collection.
It all began with Pia Zadora....on Christmas Eve 1983, and the first ever showing on British TV of 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians'. What clouds fell across my eyes that night that I would never see clearly again?
Let's go back and take a look.....
So it was Christmas Eve 1983, which was a Saturday, and Ray and I decided to go to Edinburgh that day for a bit of shopping. I had only been up to Edinburgh on my own once before but knew where the main shopping area was. This was in the days before I ever even thought of going to Glasgow. I had my first ever Christmas pay-packet (of sorts) and knew exactly what I was going up there for; an album by Jean-Jacques Burnel and Dave Greenfield (I was still in my 'Stranglers' phase) called 'Fire And Water', a book on Horror Movies back in the day when Horror films were still respectable and not the 'torture-porn' franchises we have nowadays, and a book which Barry Norman had talked about on Film 83 called 'The Golden Turkey Awards' which dealt with the very worst of Hollywood. Barry had even showed a couple of clips from 'Godzilla vs The Smog Monster' and 'Rat Pfink A Boo Boo' so my interest was immediately piqued.
We had been looking forward to this visit to Edinburgh for weeks, so I won't embarrass Ray here by revealing how he spoiled the entire day (and didn't even make it to the last train stop!!) and how I had to condense my whole day in Edinburgh to about 15 minutes, but in which time I still got the three items I had been after.
So I got home that afternoon, listened to my new album, read through my Horror Films book, but decided to leave my Golden Turkeys book till later that night as Channel 4 were about to start running a series of films called 'The Worst Of Hollywood', presented by Michael Medved who was one of the co-writers of the Golden Turkeys book.

The rest of my family went along to the midnight Carol service that night, leaving me with the film 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians' and my new book about bad movies. To say it was one of the most pivotal moments in my life is a bit of a massive understatement. To read about all of those bizarre, ludicrous movies whilst actually being able to watch one of them as it played out sent something adrift in my psyche. For the rest of my life I would become obsessed with the most terrible, most outlandish, most mindbending, most outre surreal movies imaginable; not just watching them (which sometimes, admittedly, is a chore in itself), but reading all about them, studying them almost.
That's not to say that 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians' is all that bad a movie. You usually find that, that the films with the worst reputations turn out to be nowhere near as bad as you are led to believe. Take 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' for example; that used to have the mantle of 'Worst Film Of All Time', but to be honest it's not even the worst Ed Wood film, and in actual fact is quite entertaining.

The basic plot of 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians' has the children of Mars feeling pretty down as there's not much fun to be had so, after viewing the happiness of children on Earth at Christmastime, they decide to kidnap Santa Claus and bring him to their home planet where, hopefully, they think he'll dispense the same good cheer.
The kids (one played by Pia Zadora, actually acting more capably than in the ridiculous career her sugar daddy bought for her) are overjoyed by Santa, as is friendly adult Martian Dropo, but evil Martian Volgar captures Santa and holds him to ransom etc etc. Cue Kids and Dropo overpowering Volgar and releasing Santa back to Earth while back on Mars Dropo becomes a Santa-like figure to the children. Earth rejoices as the real Santa returns.
Sure the acting is ropey at best, and the costumes and make-up are awful, but the Mars sets now look very retro-chic and there is a genuine sense of joy in the film-makers intentions, so it's not all bad. To be honest, I can think of far worse children's films than this; 'The Wonderful Land Of Oz' or 'Jimmy The Boy Wonder' for example.
So that was it!
From that night onwards I would be obsessed by the worst and weirdest of Hollywood; be it giant monster movies, Spaghetti Westerns, 60's 42nd Street Grindhouse Exploitation, Drug Movies, Sexploitation, Mexican Horror movies, ultra low budget genre pictures....you name it. The worse its reputation, the bigger my desire to check it out.
We here at the ~Streetlamp~ all have our own default settings when it comes to movies; Griff can barely even watch B-Movies preferring 'decent' films, Ray likes a fair amount of Sci-fi, Horror and genre movies and will tolerate some of the shite I let him see.
But me....I'm like a moth to a crap movie flame; tell me it's the most tawdry, badly acted, badly scripted, special-effects-by-glue-and-string rubbish about a giant Italian cowboy terrorising a spaceship full of 60s burlesque strippers, and starring Julian Sands and Danny Dyer....and I'll be first in the queue.

And all because of a Christmas Eve, 28 years ago today, spent with Pia Zadora!
Eeeewwwww!!!

~Gordon~

The 2011 Streetlamp Festive Thirty

2011-12-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

Your attention, please! This is Ray speaking, which means that it's that time of the year again; that's right, the Streetlamp Festive Thirty! As is now customary, this gives me the chance to temporarily take over the blog and present to you the thirty outstanding tracks featured on the blog this year. Before I do so, I'd also like to give a short 'state of the nation' address:

"Seasons Greetings to all the readers and musicians who have made The Streetlamp blog what it is today. It's because of all of you, that we here at The Streetlamp are encouraged and inspired to keep this blog going, and hopefully to give something back in return to the music that we love, and which continues to shape our lives.

I was thinking to myself at the beginning of the year that, if we as blog writers were to encounter the same difficulties that bands go through in their own creative process, i.e. the creation of the 'difficult second album', then this would manifest as the 'difficult second year blog' for us.
Thankfully, we were in safe hands with those twin professors of obscure pop trivia, Gordon and Griff. Not only have they continued to delight and surprise me in scouring the globe and the annals of history to provide us with even more truly amazing music than they did last year, but, in addition to this, this year has seen an expansion of the blog in new and unpredictable directions. Last year, The Streetlamp was merely a music blog, this year Gordon and Griff have delved deeper into their own expansive hinterlands and covered visual arts, poetry, sculpture, film, and, of course, politics (although admittedly at times it's been like reading 'Marxism Today'!). I would personally like to thank both of them for bringing to light all the wondrous cultural phenomena that have not only expanded the blog but also my own knowledge. I look forward to further enlightenment next year."

OK, that's quite enough praise for those two for the time being, let's proceed to the issue at hand. The Streetlamp Festive Thirty presented its usual problems this year, i.e. so much good music, so few spaces available on the final list. As always, it has been a terrific struggle to settle on our final 30 songs. Without doubt, a few excellent bands had to be left out, which either Gordon or Griff would ideally have loved to have seen included, but I am a strict taskmaster and insist that only the very cream of the crop make the final list.

So, without any further preamble or self-congratulation, ladies and gentlemen,..it is my pleasure to finally present to you

- in alphabetical order -

The 2011 Streetlamp Festive Thirty

A Love Song To Evelyn McHale - Anton Rothschild

A Woman's Worth - ZuKrewe

Apples & Oranges - Olympic Swimmers

Baby's Fine - Alice Martineau

birds in a supermarket - Palms on Fire

Both Sides, Now – Syd Lane

Bouffant Headbutt - Shampoo

Don't Destroy Me - Golden

Don’t Look At Me (I Don’t Like It) - The Lovely Eggs

Dos Policías - Los Punsetes

Dream for Julie - Kaleidoscope

Farewell - Soda Shop

George & Tracy - Gaffa

Guadalajara - Doble Pletina

Hallam - The Spook School

Horo Bhodachain - The MacDonald Sisters

I Am (If You Are) - Murder Mystery

I Heard You Say - Vivian Girls

Let Her Go - Birdie

Lights In The Sky - The Moth & The Mirror

Love in December - Club 8

My Darling Grace - Berlinist

My Lonesome - Two Wounded Birds

Myself - Columbus and Crusoe

No Boys No Girls - First Fatal Kiss

Sorrow - Life Without Buildings

Strongmen & Acrobats - Laura Hocking & The Long Goodbye

Você Só Corre - Parallèles

Winter of Discontent - Stanley Odd

Year of the V-Neck - Elizabeth City State

Looking at that list what strikes me most is its sheer eclecticism. Gaelic girl singers from the 60s rub shoulders with modern, US, street, hip-hop; sensitive singer-songwriters vie with garage bands. All life is here, and pleasingly, there is a good strong Scottish contingent on the list too.

Now all that remains for me to say is; 'Have a very Merry Christmas, and see you in 2012.'

Ray

Gordon writes: Personally, I found this to be quite a strange year. I felt that we moved away from music to an extent and found ourselves writing and commenting on political issues and Socialist culture, but this was more through necessity of the times, rather than any pre-ordained plan that we had. Who knows what next year will bring and where we'll find the heart of the ~Streetlamp~ resting.
But this was still a good year for music, and I'm hoping for even better next year.
Have a good Christmas.
~Gordon~

~Winter Wassailing~#23: Christmastime - Cocteaus & Wine

2011-12-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

It has to be said that, for me, the Cocteau Twins are probably the most paradoxical band that I can think of. You see, while on one hand they are these purveyors of ethereal, dreamlike, otherworldly slices of achingly beautiful perfect alt-pop, topped of with one of the most enchanting and headspinning vocalists of all time; there's also the fact that they come from Grangemouth!
Now this may mean absolutely NOTHING to the majority of our readers, but Grangemouth is an industrial shit-hole of a town, a mere nine miles from where I live. Sometimes it's hard to equate such cultural beauty could ever have sprung from such a dreary and soulless place.
Also, because they come from so near by, it was also commonplace to see them around. This kind of de-mystifies things a tad. Surely creators of such captivating spectral musical alchemy should live in golden palaces on Mars and only visit our sphere once in a while to drop off gems of radiant wonder? But no....there's guitarist and sonic innovator Robin Guthrie sitting in The Barrelhouse on the Graham's Road in Falkirk in 1989, trying to enjoy a pint whilst all around him have gathered a rum bunch of overly keen teen/early 20-somethings (of which I was one), pestering him with questions as ludicrous as "What's Nick Cave like?" or "What's Jim Reid like?" and then with one almighty penny-dropping moment of realisation all voices chime "Have you met Morrissey?? Have you met Morrissey??". To say he looked pissed off would be an understatement.
The Cocteau Twins, of course, have now become a kind of by-word for Eighties Indie Music; like The Smiths, The Cure or New Order they just ooze 'Eighties Indie'. Darlings of the NME, especially in their formative years, it's very safe to say that the Cocteaus delivered some of the greatest records of that much maligned decade, and in their unique sound and equally idiosyncratic sleeve artwork and videos, created a world of their own, something only the very best bands can ever achieve.
I have planned to write about their main body of work at some later date but, as this is a Wassail, I'm going to take a look at their Festive release from December 1993.
I have to confess that when I first heard that the Cocteaus were releasing a version of 'Frosty The Snowman' I though it was another of the NME's jokes, something along the lines of when they announced that Morrissey and Jimmy Somerville were to release a duet entitled 'Away With You, Laddie'. And yet there it was, on Radio 1, on the daytime playlist (I'm sure it was Simon Mayo who championed it), something their entire previous output had failed to muster.
As you would imagine, it's not a carbon copy of all previous interpretations, it's most definitely a Cocteau Twins song; instantly recognisable by both the production and, of course, Elizabeth Fraser's extraordinary vocal performance....

Before we discuss the flipside (another seasonal treat), let's talk about THAT voice. Nothing prepares you for the impact of hearing Elizabeth Fraser's singing for the first time; at times it doesn't even sound human, like some swirling cumulus of angels and aliens, leaping octaves in a single breath and making you feel like Heaven is holding a fireworks display inside your head. I find it really sickening that people fall over themselves to proclaim that singers like the late Amy Winehouse, or Duffy or Adele have these incredible voices, lazily comparing them to Aretha Franklin or Dusty Springfield, while Liz Fraser is genuinely gifted in a way comparable to Asha Bhosle, Ofra Haza, Shahin Badar or even Bjork. Even voice specialist Tona de Brett claimed Liz had one of the greatest voices she had ever heard, so how come she's not hailed as one of our greatest ever vocalists except by us here at the ~Streetlamp~?
So, now that I've gotten that off my chest we can have a listen to the other side of the record and we find another Cocteau-esque interpretation of a Christmas classic, 'Winter Wonderland'....

Interestingly, and with true Independent stance, the Cocteaus deleted the single as soon as it hit the national charts; something that in this age of Cowell-saturated demeaning of the Christmas spirit , I find rather satisfying!

These days all that seems to emanate from Grangemouth is over-priced fuel and clouds of suspicious gas. Oh for the halcyon days when Heaven could be found within the Central Belt.

~Gordon~

~Winter Wassailing~#22: A Damned Fine Christmas

2011-12-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

''Here comes Uncle Nick// Let's give him some stick''

Aaaah....The Damned!
That most under appreciated of bands!
Never given the Punk kudos dished out to The Sex Pistols or The Clash, and totally underrated as purveyors of fine pop/rock singles in the early 80s. Indeed, most people probably only know them for their superb cover of Barry Ryan's 'Eloise', but The Damned were always favourites of us here at the ~Streetlamp~, a fact that you can read about at length in my previous Blog about them.
So, as has been previously determined, The Damned (along with Crass) were pretty much the sound of High School for me and, as this is a Christmas Blog, we should take a look at their contributions to the canon of Festive ditties, beginning with their 1980 single 'Their Ain't No Sanity Clause'.
Released on November of 1980, '...Sanity Clause' was yet another classic recording by arguably the band's greatest line-up; Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible, Rat Scabies and Paul Gray. At this point the band were signed to Chiswick Records for whom fans reckon they recorded their greatest work, and '...Sanity Clause' came in a run of superb singles that included 'White Rabbit', 'The History Of The World (prt 1)', 'The Friday The 13th E.P', 'Generals', 'Dozen Girls' and 'Thanks For The Night'....magnificent singles all!
'...Sanity Clause' is a fairly raucous old wheeze complete with (probably ironic) sleigh bells and Ho-Ho-Ho-ing. What always makes me smile listening to it these days is the ''Here comes Uncle Nick// Let's give him some stick'' backing vocals that run through the second and third choruses. I'm guessing it was Sensible who came up with this as it seems like his sense of humour....

And speaking of the good Captain, it's hard to think of anyone whose career has seemed so schizophrenic! In The Damned he was a complete madman who took to the stage in tu-tus, nurse uniforms, or even completely naked. Yet running concurrent, he also had a bizarre solo career that saw him release show-songs, pop songs and (dare one even say it) children's songs! He pretty much became a light entertainer, even recording the theme tune to cringingly, God-awful, Jim Davidson-starring, TV snooker bollocks 'Big Break'....how embarrassing! Mind you, I suppose it pays the mortgage....but still!!!
Despite all that though, his solo career is still littered with some sublime songs; his debut solo album is a sounds-like-nothing-else-in-1982 bonkers classic, he made a brilliant single with Crass, he released the superb anti-war pop song 'Glad It's All Over', a fantastic serious Psychedelic double album entitled 'Revolution Now', and a rather fine Christmas single 'One Christmas Catalogue'.
Released in November 1984, the single sadly paled in the shadow of that same month's behemoth 'Band Aid' charity fest, and failed to even chart despite his previous single reaching Number 6. Even the comedy fluffy beard that bedecked the sleeve failed to lure the punters....

Given the endless rehashing of Christmas songs, both on the radio and on the music satellite channels, at this time of year, I'm always surprised that neither of these songs get much (or even any) airplay. It's always just the same old crap, year in year out....much like Christmas itself, eh cynics?

And to finish off, as a vegetarian, here's a little something for all you meat eaters out there....

~Gordon~

Griff says; Bring a Torch (for Bradley Manning)

2011-12-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Exactly a year ago today (see 'here') the whistle-blowing organisation Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange were all over the news and I took the opportunity to remind you all of the fate of Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of leaking; a video of the Granai airstrike, around 260,000 US diplomatic cables and the notorious "Collateral Murder" video.

When I last wrote of this, 17th december 2010, Manning was 'celebrating' his 23rd birthday at the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico where he had been held in solitary confinement since July 29, 2010. Today, 17th December 2011, on his 24th birthday, he is once again back in the news. Yesterday, after 17 months of pre-trial imprisonment, Manning finally got to see the inside of a courtroom, at the preliminary stage of his military trial at an army base in Maryland.
Since his arrest, Manning has been treated as one of America's most heinous traitors. He faces 23 charges, the most serious of which is that Manning knowingly gave "intelligence to the enemy, though indirect means".

The sadistic conditions to which he was subjected for 10 months at Quantico, which Amnesty International condemned as 'inhumane', are well-documented and provoked an international scandal. Even so, PJ Crowley, a US state department spokesman, was forced to resign after denouncing Manning's treatment. In April 2011, 295 legal scholars and philosophers signed a letter stating that the conditions he experienced amounted to a violation of the U.S. Constitution; later that month the Pentagon transferred him to the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, a new medium-security facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The attempts to crush Manning, and with him conscientious objection to government venality, are not yet over, however. One of the stranger aspects of the pre-trial is that it begins on a Friday and will run throughout this weekend. The military authorities have indicated that each day's proceedings could be extended late into the night. Jeff Patterson of the Bradley Manning support network has explained this decision thus;

"To run the hearing through a weekend right before the Christmas vacation is clearly designed to minimise both media coverage and public protests,"

It seems that, though it is Manning who is nominally on trial, these proceedings reveal the US government's fixation with extreme secrecy, covering up its own crimes, and intimidating future whistleblowers.

Today, I wanted to bring you a beautiful artistic response to Bradley Manning's treatment at the hands of the authorities, and at the same time, to remind you all that each of us, every one of us,is responsible for keeping the flame of liberty alive during our lives. Below I've embedded the video of the song 'Bring a Torch (for Bradley Manning)' by Cabin of Love.

I think that's truly beautiful. A free MP3 of the song can be downloaded from 'here'. Cabin of Love is Julia and Nathan Bloom, an acoustic duo from Owatonna, Minnesota. They have been making music together since 1988 and the best place to keep up with them is probably their Youtube channel. Julia also has a fine site of her own 'here' where you can read her thought on various issues. 'Bring a Torch (for Bradley Manning)' is based on the 16th. century French Christmas Carol 'Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle' (Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella). To this day, in the Provence region of France, children dressed up as shepherds and milkmaids, carry torches and candles to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, while singing the carol. The wonderful chiaroscuro painter Georges de La Tour was inspired by the carol to paint this exquisite nativity scene.

As I look on those tender and gentle faces looking on the vulnerable yet peaceful child, I am reminded of the hope that must attend all births; the hope of a better and brighter future. This year, 2011, has seen the advent of a spirit of change and optimism throughout the world. The Arab Spring, The Occcupy movement, Los Indignados in Spain, the White Ribbon movement in Russia, and the Europe wide anti-austerity protests have all spoken of the re-birth of old and noble human ideals. The young people involved in these protests are the midwives of that rebirth. They hold in their hands the hopes of humanity; freedom of speech, the freedom to participate in free and open elections, the right to a fair trial, social justice, an end to acquisitive wars. These are the ideals I think of over the weekend of Bradley Manning's pre-trial. These are the ideals that, I believe, prompted Manning to release the material that so damned his own government. In doing so, this 24 year old man lost his liberty but took his place, along with so many of his generation, to endeavour to ensure that the fragile arrival of hope in the world is not crushed by those who would see us live under the weight of fear and hate.
Now is the time to ask yourself,where do you stand? Are you prepared to carry the hope born in 2011 forward and into 2012? Ask yourself, what will you bring into the world? Will it be darkness or light? Are you prepared, as Bradley Manning was, to bring a torch into the darkness and light up the world with hope?

Griff

Griff says; A purrfect excuse for some kitten art

2011-12-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling a little tense recently and I think it has been reflected in my blogs. Christmas always makes me feel grumpy; it really seems to exacerbate my alienation from consumer society. Gordon, on the other hand, as regular readers will know, loves Christmas and feels full of joy and peace and goodwill to all men etc etc, which , quite frankly, just makes me grumpier. So, I was looking through my recent posts and realised that, rather than giving you my usual fare, i.e. something about undemocratic corporate oligarchies, or suicide, or homelessness in Russia, I'd reveal a little of my sweeter, more gentle side. If you think you can take it, that is.

What many of you may not realise is that The Streetlamp team are very much cat lovers. Is that a surprise? I suspect not - if you've thought about it you'll have twigged that dogs are too slavishly obedient to inspire our love. No, it's feisty and independent cats for us all the way; all three of us too, particularly Gordon who is practically Egyptian in his adoration of felines. That being the case, I came across something very cute recently and wanted to share it with Gordon and Ray, but then thought; what the hell, I'll stick it on the blog and cheer everyone up at the same time.
My find was a blog called the kitten covers, which has a very simple but effective premise. Basically, it takes iconic pop and rock album covers, mainly from the 70s and 80s, and faithfully reproduces them but with the crucial introduction of kittens into the image. OK, I know what you're thinking; 'How, very internet. How very lightweight'. Yes, that's true but in my defence all I can say is... look at them, they're soooo cute!

Here are my favourites so far:

Aren't they brilliant? There are loads more on the kitten covers site, so please do pay it a visit.

Now, as you know, I never leave you empty-handed on your Streetlamp visits so I racked my brain for a song to accompany this and had an inspiration. I'm embedding 'One Kitten' by Julia Vorontsova (pictured) below. This charming, slightly eccentric song, features the sombre and melancholic Russian poet/chanteuse both purring and meowing throughout to startling effect.

One Kitten - Julia Vorontsova by SadPanda

Here's a translation of the lyric:

Yawning cavities of the soul
This fluffy snow has covered.
And through this floury powder
An eager and scary morning rushed in.
Where’s heaven for little kitties ? Where is it?
January. Everyone is asleep and I lean to the cold walls.
Why the silence torments today?
So dreadful… At least someone meow!
Where, where did you get lost?
Amused me and enough, come out!
Let’s play! Let’s go to the basement, it’s so dark there!
I’ll teach you to run up and down the stairs.
Please come! I’ll wash you up, I’ll lick you clean!
Something taps in my chest, someone restless is tapping.
You’ll come and you can bite my tail or my paws
And you can sleep on my rug and you can scratch anywhere!..
Oh, I see, that brother you called it!
Once I’m offended you can meow for an hour even
I’ll walk away and sit alone and show you my back,
So that you’ll know how to get a sister upset!
Where’s heaven for little kitties ? Where is it?
January. Everyone is asleep and I lean to the cold walls.
Come back, right away I’ll follow
Come back at once, after all there’s two of us…
Where’s heaven? Where’s paradise for little kittens , where is it?...

Isn't that amazing? I totally love Julia's output, it is by turns solemn and exuberant, but always dramatic. That particular song is from her 2004 debut CD 'From St. Petersburg With Love'. This can be downloaded online at the usual places, or the physical CD can be purchased from Abaton Book Company and includes a 12-page booklet of English commentary and drawings by the artist. Julia is originally from St. Petersburg (a city I featured in a blog just last week) but has lived a markedly peripatetic life and is currently resident in Paris, where she is working on new material and starting to collaborate with other musicians.

Julia's music falls within the Russian бард (bard) tradition. This term came into being in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s/early 1960s, and continues to be used in Russia today to refer to singer-songwriters who write poetic songs, accompanying themselves with fairly simple guitar arrangements so that the emphasis is very much on the lyric. It is a very direct, powerful and emotionally profound style when done well and Julia is a wonderfully talented modern exponent of the genre.

As the бард tradition puts a heavy emphasis on its commerce-free nature; with the songs written to be sung and not to be sold, I'm hoping that Julia won't mind me making a free MP3 of the above track available 'here'. This track, from my own collection, of course, is provided purely for promotional reasons and I do hope that you will come to love it as much as I do and go on to investigate the rest of Julia's output.

Griff
xx

~Winter Wassailing~#21: December Will Be Magic Again

2011-12-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

The idea of a magical looking December goes hand in hand with the whole Christmas package, yet somehow this particular year it isn't living up to much. In the last few days alone we've had 95mph winds, blizzards, severe ice and torrential rain. Where's the enchanting white vistas we so long for to add some seasonal spice to our festivities?
Well, this year, thanks in part to Mojo Magazine, the bewitching depictions of a Winter Wonderland come courtesy of the artist Lisa Evans, whose stunning evocation of a rather odd Christmas scene adorned Mojo's review of the new Kate Bush album '50 Words For Snow'. As soon as as I saw the illustration(see below), I was hooked and immediately set out to try and find more images by this gifted artist.
What I love about the image above is that it has that otherworldly allure that only something as magical as Christmastime would allow us to fall for. The foreboding palette of grey blues and shimmering whites creates a chilly fairytale effect, but like the best fairytales it is shot through with a little sinister surrealism. Take for instance the snowman that seems to hover above the trees, or that rather ominous shadow on the far right hand corner that threatens the Winter idyll that surrounds the children; is it a monster, is it some disreputable adult, or is it a parent following on to make sure the the two children are safe? Also, the eyes of the moon give the whole scene a storybook feel that assures us we are in the realms of fantasy.
If we look at the close-up detail above we can see that the female character could almost pass for the young Kate Bush herself (I'm guessing that's the whole point!), and that both have a wide-eyed innocence coupled with a rather eerie detached look that suggests their faces have been Photo-shopped on, creating further unease.
This is why the image works so well for a songwriter like Kate whose entire oeuvre is enshrouded in that whole blurring of a highly sensualised reality with a child's dreamlike fantasy. And who other than Ms Bush could ever reassure us, in her own inimitable way, that December WILL be magic again?

Both Kate's songs and Lisa's artwork manage to convey that sense of spectral unease that lies within children's fantasies, nursery rhymes and fairytales. There's that sense that children haven't really worked our what 'evil' is yet, so anything threatening or potentially dangerous is viewed by the child as something unknown and slightly peculiar, rather than downright sinister.
Take this next painting of Lisa's; we can see the happiness that the rocking horse and the glove puppet should bring to the child, but the blank look on her face coupled with the overall sense of disquiet brought on by the mute colours suggests all is not as it should be.
Or then there's this beautiful creation in which everything looks rosy, everything is bright and the child is surrounded by her toys and animal friends, yet the sad look on her face and the concerned look of her playmates, not to mention that all furniture is covered in ice, allows a sense of unease to permeate through the scene.
It's not the first time that Lisa has had her wonderful artwork accompany reviews in Mojo magazine; this beautiful and haunting image below was used to illustrate an album by the equally Wintry and sepulchral Bon Iver. Possibly making Lisa Mojo's Winter illustrator of choice!
As you may know, we here at the ~Streetlamp~ worship at the altar of the blessed Kate Bush, although special mention should go out to Ray who has burned the candle longest, seeing the beauty and the mystery of Kate's breathtaking body of work long before Griff or I ever managed to get our heads round it. And so it makes perfect sense that it was Ray who e-mailed me all aglow to inform me that Kate had a whole new album of original material out this month. I don't think Kate sees her new album as a 'Christmas Album' as such, more a celebration of Winter, that most maligned of seasons.
So to round off this Blog I thought I'd finish with a track from that new album, and the video that Ray chose for inclusion in the Blog. Plus an illustration of Lisa's that I think conveys the same feel and essence of the song:

And finally, a portrait of the artist:

You can view more of Lisa's incredible and beautiful artwork here

And you can follow her own Blog here

December IS Magic!!

~Gordon~

~Winter Wassailing~#20: 'Silent Night' by The Dickies

2011-12-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

Despite being one of the first Punk bands (formed in 1977) to emerge from the L.A. Punk scene, San Fernando Valley's The Dickies have never really achieved the kudos that many lesser, and certainly much less talented bands have attained. A large part of this probably is down to the fact the band are often seen as cartoonish and a bit of a joke. Something I'm here to hopefully reverse!
For me, The Dickies were always exceptional musicians. Just listening to the musicianship on their recordings; the drumming, the guitars, the Farfisa style keyboards, the incredible speed at which they played (and played well), and their remarkable ability to stop/start on a sixpence belied their much negated reputation.
Also, I think, what worked against them was their geek-chic look, with its shiny plastic jackets and wraparound plastic shades, and the fact that all their records came on coloured vinyl, which added to the contrived New Wave image the band seemed lumbered with, something that more earnest Punks and the NME seemed to take umbrage with.
The Dickies are best remembered among the Punk fraternity for their 1000mph cover versions of Rock Music's sacred cows; everything from Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' to Simon & Garfunkel's 'The Sound Of Silence' to The Moody Blues' 'Nights In White Satin' were covered at blistering, helium-voiced, velocity. This was both a blessing and a curse for the band, as it was the cover versions that gave them their hits, but they also detracted from their own compositions. And some of those, like 'Fan Mail' were rather superb slices of ironic Punk energy.

In Britain, at least, The Dickies are probably most well known for their speedfreak cover of the theme to 'The Banana Splits' TV show which gained them their highest positioned chart hit in the UK (No 7), and which was the only song I danced to (or rather pogoed to) at our school disco that year.
The song has had fresh life breathed into it by it's inclusion in one of the best scenes from the recent movie 'Kick-Ass':

And, as this is a Christmas Blog, it's only right that I should feature their Festive favourite, their cover of the traditional song 'Silent Night' (pressed on white vinyl for those who wish to know), which was released in December 1978 and actually charted in Britain a whole six months before the Banana Splits single. As usual, the playing is immense and the counter-melodic second guitar is something of a joy:

The B-side to the single was the already mentioned cover of the 'Sound Of Silence'; I'm guessing a 'silence' theme was at play here:

After 1980, the hits pretty much dried up on both sides of the pond but the band continued onwards, regularly being featured in the U.S's 'Maximum Rock'n'Roll' magazine (which took a pretty serious look at the American Punk scene), and were still playing in the early 2000s, albeit with a radically altered line-up, the band having suffered a rather tragic spate of deaths (drug related and suicide).

A fine band then, and one, like The Monkees, who deserve a bit more credit than they are usually given. And, as if it was all planned, here they are covering The Monkees!

See, not thrown together at all!!

~Gordon~

Griff says: A Russia and a push and the land is ours

2011-12-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

I don't think that anyone can have failed to notice events in Russia this week. An estimated 50,000 people have gathered in Moscow, with a further 10,000 in St Petersburg (pictured), to protest against what appears to be widespread fraud in last Sunday's elections. The authorities have responded in typical fashion and the media reports that there have been more than 1,000 arrests. Undaunted by this, the protestors have pledged to take to the streets again on December 24 and continue to insist that the election results should be annulled. They also want; the resignation of the head of the election commission, an official investigation into vote fraud, democratic and open elections and registration of opposition parties. The Streetlamp salutes them and wishes them success!

Thus, while our eyes are turned to the East in hope and admiration, now seems a good time to bring a couple of Russian cultural artefacts to your attention.

The first sees the Streetlamp take another of its very occasional forays into the interface between the worlds of gaming and art (see 'here' for previous) in the shape of stark, homeless-themed game Ulitsa Dimitrova.
Designed by German game designer Lea Schonfelder, Ulitsa Dimitrova is really more of a political, arts-project than a game. The central character, whom the player controls, is Pjotr - a chain-smoking street-child in St. Petersburg. Pjotr steals glue and trades it to his glue-sniffing friend for cigarettes. His mother is a prostitute, who in exchange for stolen vodka gives him money, which he also uses to buy cigarettes. The player soon finds himself trapped in a world of ever-dimishing returns; he can beg for money, steal, vandalize Mercedes cars and trade their emblems (for cigarettes, naturally) but any sense of achievement or hope is soon inexorably reduced to zero.

You see, Ulitsa Dimitrova has been deliberately designed to ensure that progress isn't an option. Pjotr is condemned to endlessly repeat the daily soul-sapping grind or to lie down in the street and be gradually covered by the falling snow. Thus, if the player stops playing, Pjotr will freeze to death. As harsh as that sounds, it is, unfortunately, real life for millions of street children. When you play this beautifully illustrated game you are placed, for just a very short time, into Pjotr's shoes, and the experiences you have, and the emotions you experience through him, will live with you for considerably longer. Do then, please, go ahead and experience this paradoxically simple and sophisticated game for yourself, as this is gaming constructed to be both art and social commentary. The game can be downloaded for free 'here'.

If you need further convincing, then have a look at this short youtube presentation:

Rather serendipitously, I've also recently come across an indie-pop band from St. Petersburg, Russia who seem to have the theme of childhood running through their work. Called ЧАЙЛДИШ (Childish) the line-up is as follows:

Andy Rozberg: voice, guitar, harmonica
Alexei Belyaev: bass guitar, double bass
Nikolai Novikov: guitar
Andrew Heller: drums, glockenspiel

They've just released their first recording, in the shape of a gentle and wistful five-song EP (also called ЧАЙЛДИШ), which can be freely downloaded from their bandcamp page. They say (if my translation is correct) that the songs are:

"for those who still believe in those things we were taught in the books that we read in childhood, and who like the music that we listened to in our youth. These are the delicate hymns to our fears and dreams. This is our quiet manifesto."

I'm embedding the first track, Свидетели (Witnesses), below for your listening pleasure.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://childishmusic.bandcamp.com/track/-"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Свидетели by ЧАЙЛДИШ&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Enjoy,

Griff
xx

~Winter Wassailing~#19: 'Santa, If You Do Exist'

2011-12-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid it's a bit of a short Wassail tonight, not because of any lack of quality in the music, but purely down to there not being much for me to go on, nor indeed much to share with you. Tonight we feature another song that was sent to our e-mail address, and once again, rather surprisingly, we REALLY enjoyed it. So....despite a lack of info to impart with you tonight, I'm still going to crack on with it.....

Tonight's Christmas song is called 'Santa, If You Do Exist' and is by a Brooklyn based composer called Jeremy Coleman who plies his trade under the moniker of Jmo. The song in question is a rather jaunty little Indie-pop ditty with rather a touching message. It's all about the negativity and crushing disappointment of adult life, yet how at this time of year the belief in Santa Claus and therefore the Christmas spirit in general can break through all the pessimism and broken dreams. Jeremy admits himself that the song is shot through with a certain 'Jewish cynicism', but I still think it's one of the best Festive songs I've heard in a long time, and one whose message I give in to.

Sadly, no video accompanies the song, neither can it be downloaded; but you can stream the song here

Looking further into Jeremy's musical output, I discovered that he is a member of an Indiepop quartet called Murder Mystery who have some rather splendid tunes out there.
Take for example this fine song called 'I Am(If You Are)' which, if you liked our Blogs on 8-Bit Music, Kraftwerk or Evening Lights then I'm sure you're going to love this:

Murder Mystery have a really cool website where you can download the song featured above for free, as well as a whole raft of other songs if that's piqued your interest. You can find their website http://www.murdermysterymusic.com/
It's one of the cool things I love doing about this Blog; you set out to write about a particular song or artist and you stumble upon a new favourite band complete with a whole caboodle of free songs.
Hurrah!!

The Christmas spirit is most definitely alive!!

~Gordon~

Griff says: The transmission of affect - Mellow Dramatic Avenue

2011-12-05T10:29:00.000-08:00

Just over a year ago you may remember me writing about 'Through the woods, divided', the sixth album by melancholic, Swedish, post-rockers Mellow Dramatic Avenue (see 'here'). If you do, you'll also remember me praising this band for their introspective, down-tempo style, which I described as, "perfect listening for a dark, rainy evening". Well, tonight it's snowing here in Scotland rather than raining, but you'll still be pleased to hear that Mellow Dramatic Avenue have released a new suite of moody and nocturnal songs, just in time to play us through those long, dark winter's nights ahead.

Named Transmission, it is the seventh album from the band and, as usual, it's released on their own Kakadua Partnership label . It contains ten songs and was recorded during 2011 in Studio Rönnehill in the countryside in the South of Sweden. Large parts of the songs were recorded live in the studio, a technique the band adopted to try to capture and preserve feeling and atmosphere within the music. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the songs were recorded in the exact order that they can be heard on the record.

Transmission will be officially released in January 2012, but is now pre-released for your immediate listening pleasure. As with all their output, the band have made the album available as a free MP3 download on;
bandcamp
soundcloud, and
last.fm

To give you a little taster, I'm embedding Track 1, 'You Called The Light' and Track 10, 'Broken Down Nightingale' below:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://mellowdramaticavenue.bandcamp.com/track/you-called-the-light"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;You called the light by Mellow Dramatic Avenue&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://mellowdramaticavenue.bandcamp.com/track/broken-down-nightingale"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Broken down nightingale by Mellow Dramatic Avenue&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Enjoy.

Griff
xx

~Winter Wassailing~#18: The Greedy Bastards

2011-12-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

1979 was a weird year for the Sex Pistols, or at least what remained of the Sex Pistols. Glen Matlock was long gone, John Lydon had quit, and Sid Vicious recorded some Eddie Cochran covers with Steve Jones and Paul Cook before he succumbed to his own squalid death in rather unpleasant circumstances.
Cook and Jones were left to carry the weight of the name and of the reputation of the band. In 1979 they found themselves performing with some rather odd lead vocalists, which included Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, and Eddie Tudorpole who would later find success with his own Tenpole Tudor, as well as becoming a successful actor and presenter of TV's The Crystal Maze.

1979 also saw Cook and Jones become embroiled in the recording of the soundtrack for 'The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle' (in which they also appeared), Malcolm McLaren's bizarre vision of the Sex Pistols story, which included copious nudity, images of domination and bondage, and under-age girls. They found themselves re-recording guitar and drum parts for old Pistols demos (with Lydon on vocals) so that they could be used in the film, as well as recording all new songs like the title track, Silly Thing, Lonely Boy and erm, Frigging In The Rigging.
After becoming disillusioned with the rotting corpse that the Sex Pistols had become, Paul and Steve began looking for other projects. They would eventually form their own band The Professionals and in turn would join with Paul Simonon of The Clash to appear in the movie 'Ladies & Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains'.
In between all that though they linked up with leather kecked rock god Phil Lynott, of Thin Lizzy, who was a fan of the Pistols.
On the 29th of July 1978, Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Phil Lynott, Gary Moore, Chris Downey, Scott Gorham (the last three all of Thin Lizzy), Jimmy Bain (of Rainbow), and Chris Spedding (long time Pistols cohort) took to the stage of the Electric Ballroom to play a set of Pistols and Lizzy songs under the moniker of The Greedy Bastards.
The Greedy Bastards would return in December of that year without Bain and Spedding, but this time featuring one Bob Geldof!
A year later, in December of 1979, the only fruits of the Pistols/Lizzy concoction were released; a Christmas song under the title of a 'A Merry Jingle', which charted but only reached the disappointing position of Number 28, surprising when you consider the fanbase for both the Pistols and Thin Lizzy!
On the 20th of December 1979, the band, now tastefully re-dubbed The Greedies appeared on Top Of The Pops:

And then, on New Year's Eve, they turned up on Kenny Everett's Hogmanay show:

Paul Cook and Steve Jones were probably wise, and relieved, to leave behind the baggage of the Sex Pistols at that rather crazy and unsavoury time in the band's history, and nearly everything they did immediately post-Pistols is worth checking out.
The late, great Phil Lynott was one of the few pre-Punk rock stars that the Punks actually adopted as a hero figure, and he and his fine band certainly brighten up those mawkish 1976 Top Of The Pops that are being re-shown at the moment.
Not the greatest Christmas song of all time then by any stretch, but an intriguing time capsule of when two of the best bands of the late 1970s collided.

~Gordon~

~Winter Wassailing~#17: 'Christmas Eve For Two' by Summer Fiction

2011-12-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

Despite being the ~Streetlamp~'s most unshakable Atheist, it seem that, once again, within the merest few hours of December I find myself donning the tinsel and mistletoe, binging on port and mince pies and sitting down to eulogise yet again on that most lamentable of genres, Christmas music.
Even though I managed to cover most of my favourite Festive tunes last year, there's no shortage of songs to cover this year, especially as quite a few bands and artists have sent us some of their own to check out. Now, I have to confess, and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but we actually get sent a fair amount of material from bands, artists and record labels over the year, but unfortunately most of them appear to be sent by people who have simply NEVER read our Blog, or seem to have no general idea of the music we write about. Thankfully though, this year we got a couple of belters in the Festive section and it's one of these I've come to write about tonight.

The band I am covering tonight have the aptly seasonal name of Summer Fiction, and they are a project based around Philadelphia singer/songwriter Bill Ricchini. Now, I have to admit that until we received his Christmas song, I had never personally heard of him or any of his previous bands. However, he has been featured in such publications as New York Magazine, Vogue and Magnet, as well as having his music used on the soundtrack to 'Grey's Anatomy'.
So what propelled me to write about someone so seemingly mainstream? Well, the quality of the song for a start!
'Christmas Eve For Two' is simply an exquisitely fine piece of Festive Pop Music. The music is a mix of Spectorish cavernous echo and Sinatra-esque piano, creating a heady Brill Building soundscape. Throw into the mix some rather superb Four Freshmen style backing vocals and already you have an engaging and instantly warm and nostalgic feel. When Bill's vocals cut in they are world weary and knowingly melancholic, with just the right amount of acidic undertone to stop the whole confection being too sugary. The production is both retro and modernist at the same time, creating that wonderful air of arch aloofness that él Records used to specialise in. This is probably the hook that reeled me in.
'Christmas Eve For Two' manages to convey that rather wonderful feeling of being away from all the madness, the commerciality and the stress of family Christmasses by suggesting a scenario in which you can just spend time with your loved one. Whilst others crash and bang about, driving themselves to the point of insanity by TRYING to have a happy Christmas, you can just pour some Festive cheer, sit beside the Christmas tree and spend some quality time with your better half. Of course this is hardly anything new, but you'll probably find, if you look hard enough, that all the best Christmas songs seem to have this as their theme.

Summer Fiction have made the song available to download completely freely from their Bandcamp page, and you can listen to it below....
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://summerfiction.bandcamp.com/album/christmas-eve-for-two-single"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Christmas Eve for Two (Single) by Summer Fiction&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a video to accompany the song so I've chosen another of their songs, 'Chandeliers' to play out with. Purely because the video that has been created for it features the actor Lou Castel who appeared in two of the greatest Spaghetti Westerns of all time, 'Requiescant' and 'A Bullet For The General', the latter in which he plays a 'blonde Gringo' named Bill.
See how it all comes together?

~Gordon~

I Misplaced It At The Movies: The Decline Of Western Civilization(prt 1)

2011-11-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the only true cinematic representation of the early (U.S.) Punk scene, Penelope 'Waynes World' Spheeris' 'The Decline Of Western Civilization' may not be anything like a definitive word on the subject but it remains a fascinating, funny, and sometimes horrifying, look at the earliest days of Punk music in America.

Shot in and around Los Angeles in 1979, and mostly on handheld cameras, the movie has a certain Cinema Verité quality that really takes you in amongst the audience, and the bands when at home or rehearsing. The film was heavily criticised when first released for appearing to be shooting at sitting ducks; many fans are interviewed as talking heads under a single lightbulb, often spouting nonsense or incomprehensible drivel. As we often don't hear the questions asked, this shows the interviewees in a bad light and could be deemed subjective editing. However, as we now know that Spheeris was a fan of the music and the scene, this seems unlikely and we should just accept that this is what those interviewed were generally like.

And what of the music?
Well some of the music featured isn't very good at all to be honest, although it's energy and anticonformism makes it really refreshing. The bands featured include The Germs, Fear, X, Circle Jerks and a pre-Henry Rollins Black Flag.
Black Flag are shown living in a grimy squat where they rehearse, as well as live and sleep. The music hasn't quite reached the levels of quickfire intensity that would burst out when Henry joined them, but there's still a scratchy, nervous energy about them that must have really stood out in the blissed-out, coke-heavy, LA music scene.

The Germs provide the most interesting section of the film, all for the wrong reasons. The band onstage are AWFUL, mostly due to vocalist Darby Crash being completely out of it. Virtually unable to stand upright, Crash continually falls on his backside, slurring gibberish into the mic and allowing people in the crowd to scrawl all over him in black marker.

We later cut to him at home as he prepares breakfast, and he comes across as a nice-but-dim goofball, all softly spoken and wide-eyed innocent but with occasional flickers that lead you to suppose he may be a little damaged.

Tragically, Darby died before the movie was even released. What is known is that, shortly after the live footage of him was shot, he went to London, following in the footsteps of his idol Sid Vicious. While in London, Darby allegedly saw the pre-fame Adam & The Ants with whom he became quite smitten. Back in LA, Darby changed his look and image and came out as gay, something he had always tried to hide, always leaving clubs with girls etc. It's believed by those who knew him that he was never able to accept fully that he was gay and that this led to his suicide. When the movie was released, the poster featured Crash lying on his back, eyes shut, and with the mic cable in his mouth. This was seen as absolute bad taste by some, but it was pointed out that the poster had been designed before Darby had died, and that his family and friends had okayed the decision.

Next, we drop in on the creators of Slash fanzine, one of the first Punkzines in the U.S. Edited by Frenchman Claude Bessy, we see how a fanzine was put together in the days before mobile phones, the internet or even word processors. There seems to be a real vibrant energy about the staff collating the info, but you get the impression that Claude may well be just a little long in the tooth and is merely a 60s burnout trying for a second youth.
Claude also sings in the band Catholic Discipline who are actually very good (if already drifting into what we would call New Wave), and feature on guitar Phranc, who would later become a major voice in Lesbian music and who was much beloved of Morrissey, even opening for The Smiths on one of their American tours.

Aside from Black Flag, X are probably the most well known of all the bands who appear in the movie. Led by Exene Cervenka and John Doe, who have both had long careers in music as well as films, they are almost without doubt the best of the bands featured in the movie. And while being interviewed they also come across as more sussed and savvy than any of the others featured, although you do get the feeling that maybe they are underplaying their music slightly for the Punk audiences and that they can't wait for Post-Punk to happen so that they can make the music they truly want to make.

And then Fear come to town!
I don't really know much about Fear, and I don't think they really caught on much beyond the Californian Punk scene, but it's obvious that the audience have been waiting for them; not to cheer and support them, but to indulge in bad tempered badinage. I have never seen audience/band interaction so nihilistically aggressive as when Fear take to the stage. Spitting, insults, fistfights (including girls being punched and kicked) all breakout before the band have even played a note. But it appears the band's reputation goes before them, or certainly before their music, for once they eventually start playing, the end result is quite disappointing. Straight (almost Pub-)Rock played by ill tempered men who are clearly older than they are pretending to be, you can't help feeling that Fear are mere fakes.

And this is the overall problem with the whole movie. Obviously, nobody at the time knew that Punk would have such a lasting influence over music or culture, that there is a dismissive attitude by almost evetyone involved, on either side of the camera, or even on or off stage. Punk is seen as a cipher for bored teens to let out all their rage and bitterness, but not against society or authority, but upon each other. It's obvious, to me at least, that Americans saw Punk in an entirely different light to that which we in Britain did. That's why the energy of the early (American) Punks led not to such things as Post-Punk, Two-Tone, Industrial Music, the New Romantics or BIG Pop, but instead became bogged down in self indulgent Art-rock, or humourless one-dimensional hardcore. Instead of using Punk's energy to propel itself forward, it imploded into self-loathing and vitriol.

Sadly, the movie doesn't exist on DVD at the moment, but bootleg copies are fairly easy to track down, the home-made quality often adding to it's scuzzy appeal.
Not exactly a movie for music lovers then, but a fascinating document of a movement in it's genesis.

~Gordon~

I Misplaced It At The Movies: Of Pasta & Politics - Face To Face

2011-11-27T11:19:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my Blog regarding the Spaghetti Western 'Little Rita Of The West' (see here), Italian Westerns tend to fall into three categories; The Stylish, The Political and The Weird (some even manage to be all three). So, I'd like to share some Blogs on the more Political of these movies, as these tend to be the more interesting, and the more involving.
Let's start with a look at Sergio Sollima's 'Face To Face' from 1967.

If there is one thing that Sergio Sollima is fond of, it is the Political allegory, and 'Face To Face' is no exception, being seen by critics as an analogy on the rise of European Fascism. More importantly, how Fascism seemed to flourish, in Europe especially, amongst those who had actively taken part in Socialist Politics but had become unenamoured with it's apparently motiveless priorative actions. The point being, when one ceases to believe in Socialism, one doesn't gradually adopt Right Wing practices, but in fact swings violently to the Far Right.
'Face To Face' is a movie of silly haircuts and even sillier character names; Professor Brad Fletcher, Solomon Beauregard Bennet, Zachary Shot, Maximillion De Winton, Charlie Sirringo to name but a few. The film stars Italian method actor Gian Maria Volonté, famous for his roles as the bad guy in both 'A Fistful Of Dollars' and 'For A Few Dollars More'; and Cuban actor Tomás Milian who appeared in many Spaghetti Westerns and who is still acting today, sometimes in big productions like 'JFK' and 'Traffic'.
Volonté was a blacklisted Communist and Left Wing activist, and it was Sergio Leone who defied the blacklist and gave him the roles he is most famous for. He would later appear in the Italian movie 'Sacco é Vanzetti', a film about the unfair Political trial of two anarchists which led to their much contested execution. The different acting styles of the two leads gives the movie it's dynamism; Volonté's slow-burning intensity colliding with Milian's twitchy, deliberately hammy over-enthusing.

In 'Face To Face', Volonté plays Brad Fletcher, a consumptive professor who quits his job and heads West for the cleaner air and warmer climate. Upon his travels he is attacked by bandit Beauregard Bennet (played by Tomás Milian), a long haired thug who travels with an (equally long haired) commune of rogues. The long hair and communal living, coupled with the Robin Hood-esque nature of their banditry, is clearly both a depiction of the long haired youth of the time, and a way of engaging with the hippy audience.
Fletcher is a Professor of social history, and while recovering from his attack within the very group who mugged him, he begins teaching Bennet about social upheaval, the injustices of the class system, and how force can sometimes be used for good. Bennet somehow falls under Fletcher's spell, reading Fletcher's books on history and politics and deciding to use his gang for proto-revolutionary purposes. Fletcher on the other hand begins to enjoy the the rush of the violence and becomes more and more maniacally aggressive, even taking over the gang, much to Bennet's now passive indifference.
As I'm sure you can imagine this leads to flashpoint where both men have gone from enemies to comrades and now back to enemies again, but this time on different sides of the (moral) law.
And as the two men come face to face (there's your title) for the final showdown, it is obvious that both men have become both sides of the same coin. They now also so resemble each other that director Sollima blurs some of the final shots to deliberately cause confusion and drum home the point that both men have become as one. This echoes the previous year's film 'The Shooting', Monte Hellman's existential Western starring a young Jack Nicholson in his first manic role, and Warren Oates as a gunman who appears to be stalking himself, until a last minute reveal leaves the audience quizzing "Who, exactly, shot whom?". And this being 1967, Sollima throws in some trippy acid spangle effects to the final showdown which add further confusion but probably found favour with the hip audiences of the time.

Critics have always been very sniffy about Spaghetti Westerns, complaining about them being formulaic, violent and incomprehensible, but 'Face To Face' is a prime example of how good the genre can be when it's in the hands of good actors and even better directors. Even if it is only a smokescreen for a politically motivated director to hide his message behind!

~Gordon~

Playing catch-up with The Streetlamp - No. 2

2011-11-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that I will be involved in strike action at work next Wednesday, along with several million other UK public sector workers. You will also not be surprised to learn further that I am, right now, up to my ears in producing leaflets, painting banners and making placards in preparation for our showdown with the government. As a result, I have had to cancel a good few blogs which I've not had time to sit down and write. To make up for this, I'm making tonight's blog one of my 'Playing catch-up with The Streetlamp' pieces in a vain attempt to shoe-horn several bands, songs and pieces of information into one manageable, easily-digested form. Apologies to the artists involved for not giving you my usual fulsome coverage, but I'm sure you understand that the political struggle must always come first.

So, first up is a piece of news that I promised you back in October at the release of Stanley Odd's 'The Day I Went Deaf' EP (see 'here'). In that piece I hinted that a major show was in the offing for Stanley Odd in January but could not yet be confirmed. I can now confirm that they are playing in the O2 ABC in Glasgow on January 29th with the Peatbog Faeries as part of the Celtic Connections festival. If you're surprised at that bill and the union of what seems rather a strange mix of styles, then you're not alone. When I asked Stanley Odd frontman Solareye about it, he told me:

"Yup , we're playing O2 ABC with Peatbog Faeries. I agree it's quite an unorthodox lineup but we're really looking forward to it.

We actually played Solas Festival last year just before the Peatbog Faeries and it was a brilliant gig, so hopefully peeps will be kind to us as ABC."

I, for one, am certainly looking forward to it and I'm thankful to the eclectic nature of Celtic Connections that it can throw this sort of night up. See you there!

And staying with Scottish hip-hop for a bit, the next item I want to bring to your attention is the release of '...Escape The Network' by Vizual Pupil & Th!nK. You will, hopefully, remember me writing previously about the smart and righteous taster track 'Madness' (see 'here'). Well, now the complete 7-track album is available as a free download on their bandcamp page, and is well worth checking out. Have a listen to the excellent 'Blade Running':

Blade Running by uncon

At the beginning of November, Gordon gave us a frank and honest article about his own, long-time struggle with depression (see 'here'), which like many sufferers he characterises as 'the black dog'. Coincidentally, at about the same time, Kevin P. Gilday , the knowing and witty, Glaswegian poet and musician (previously on The Streetlamp 'here'), released a fine, spoken-word track called 'Black Dog Days' . As usual, this is available as a free download from his soundcloud site. Have a listen:

Black Dog Days by Kevin P. Gilday

And speaking of poetic, introspective, spoken-word songs, there is a new album available from New Orleans Swim Team; the solo project of Alberta based, self-taught, multi-instrumentalist Jacob Ulickij ('here' previously on The Streetlamp). This latest work is called 'To be Something, to be Anything' and is available as a free download from the bandcamp page. Here's a track to get you in the mood:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://neworleansswimteam.bandcamp.com/track/to-be-something-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;To be Something by New Orleans Swim Team&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Last, but not least, I'm delighted to say that the fine, young, Edinburgh-based indie-pop band The Spook School (see 'here' previously on The Streetlamp) have, at last, released some new material. A two-track, home-demo single 'Are You Who You Think You Are?' is now available as a free download from their bandcamp page. I think it's really rather good and find myself drawn to the rough-hewn nature of the songs in their demo form. Have a listen:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thespookschool.bandcamp.com/track/are-you-who-you-think-you-are"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Are You Who You Think You Are? by The Spook School&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Well, I'm afraid that'll have to do for the time being, some of us have a class war to win, you know. Apologies to the artists involved in this roundup for my enforced brevity. I'll make it up to you in the future.

Griff
xx

Songs in the Key of Griff; Both Sides, Now

2011-11-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the latest installment in the 'Songs in the Key of Griff' series, in which I attempt to provide meaningful analysis to the lyrics of a song which has come to have a very special meaning for me (see 'here' and 'here'for previously featured songs). Tonight's song is 'Both Sides, Now' one of the best-known songs written by the Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Most of you will be familiar with this track, as it was written way back in 1967. Shortly thereafter, in 1968, and before Mitchell had even released it herself, Judy Collins' recording of the song reached Number 8 on the U.S. pop singles charts. That same year, Collins' recording reached Number 3 on Billboard's Easy Listening survey and, sadly, that has often been the story of the song since; killed by the dead hand of mainstream music. Just think of an 'easy listening' artist from the last 30 years and then Google to see if they've released a cover version of this song. Yep,they're all there; Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Roger Whittaker, Clannad & Paul Young (in the ultimate double whammy of blandness), Doris Day, Ronan Keating and (Oh, the Horror!) Susan Boyle. So, why on earth am I mentioning this song on 'The Streetlamp'; I mean it's hardly our usual fare, is it?

Well, actually, I like to think that it is. 'Both Sides, Now' is truly a magnificent song, and that's evident when you hear Mitchell's own versions. However, most artists cover it like it's a facile ballad from a West End musical when, in my opinion, it's nothing of the sort.And when you hear the right artist perform it in the right way, then the subtleties of meaning can be teased out and the song can be truly special again, as you will hear; but more of that later.
Firstly, let's have a look at the lyric.

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall.
I really don't know love at all.

Tears and fears and feeling proud to say "I love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I’ve looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say
I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life at all.

On the surface, this is a song, as so many of Mitchell's are, about loss - loss of innocence, loss of love, loss of self. But there's something deeper at work here too and a good interpretation can tease it out. When I hear this song; or any song with an often missed 'deeper' theme, like Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen; properly interpreted I'm always reminded of this passage from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis;

"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation."

So, what am I talking about, and why an I quoting C.S. Lewis, and more importantly, what do I think is going on in this song? My feeling is that Mitchell is taking us here on a trip into the world of the mystic. In particular, she seems to be invoking the concept of Maya (illusion), an idea central to many Indian religions. While Maya has multiple meanings, its basic premise is centered on the fact that we do not experience the environment itself but rather a projection of it, created by us; the universe as a dream, if you will. Now have a look at the lyric above again. I love the central conceit of this; the comparison between the nebulous, intangible clouds and life and love. This along with the realisation at the end of the song that our perception of things, both emotional and physical, must always be a less than perfect conception of an unattainable ideal make this, for me, a song of true depth and artfulness, and Joni Mitchell's finest song in a career of fine songs.

Now, I want you to hear a version of this song from an artist whom we've previously lionised here as writing songs which are "profound dense, implicative and pregnant with myth and meaning... (whose songs) bear repeated listenings as slowly and magically the full hidden treasure of each is revealed."

I am referring, of course, to long-time Streetlamp favourite Syd Lane (see 'here'). If you're not familiar with Syd (where have you been?) you should know that she is a prolific, Dublin-based writer of pyschedelic-flavoured dream-pop songs and that she releases all of her material for free on her bandcamp site. The good news is that Syd has just released her latest album 'With Your Shield Or On It', and that, as usual, it is chock-full of wonderful, fragile pop nuggets. The really, really good news is that the final track on the album is a cover of...yep, you guessed it, 'Both Sides, Now'. Talk about the right singer and the right song; this is a marriage made in Heaven. I embed it below, for your pleasure, with only this for comment about Syd's version;

She has looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she has read there a different incantation.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://sydlane.bandcamp.com/track/both-sides-now"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Both Sides Now by Syd Lane&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Griff
xx

No More Heroes: The Old Order Changeth...

2011-11-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

It was the Autumn/Winter of 1984 and the Miners Strike was in full effect. In those days I used to work at the shop until 12:30 on a Saturday, and on this particular Saturday I finished on time and walked across the road to get the bus home. As I stood waiting, I could hear music and chanting, and then from the corner of Port Street emerged a march of hundreds, maybe even thousands, in support of the miners. And as they marched up to where I was standing, I could see at the head of the procession the man who was then, and who remains my political hero, Tony Benn. As he passed in his grey raincoat, pipe in mouth, he looked directly at me and I raised my fist in a show of support. He nodded and gently clapped his hands together a couple of times in acknowledgement. It's not often in life I ever get starstruck, but that was certainly one time.
In my own humble opinion Tony Benn is the greatest politician of the last 50 or 60 years. A purist Socialist, he fights tirelessly for human rights, freedom and democracy. He is the very embodiment of 'old' Labour, and quite possibly the greatest Prime Minister that this country never had. He represented the soft spoken, overcoat wearing 'warm' Socialism in a similar vein to Harold Wilson, and appeared the antithesis of Tory bully-boy slugs like Norman Tebbit or Michael Heseltine.
He once said "The Conservative Party is the enemy of Democracy", and protested loudly against the Falklands war, the war in Kosovo and, in railing against *spit* 'New Labour' he decried the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as 'imperialist wars'. A thorn in the side of Tony Blair, Benn lambasted his own party's decision to become a mere lapdog to America, stating "Britain is now in effect, an American colony, seen in Washington as an unsinkable aircraft carrier".
Over the years, I have read his books on political theory as well as his series of Diaries, and have always believed in his views on democracy, the power of the working classes, and shared his opposition to war's class-based injustices. Indeed it is probably because of Tony Benn that I have clung so long to the belief that the Labour Party is still the party of the people and the only political system I would give my life to defend....much to Griff's chagrin it should be added.
The Labour Party now, under Blair, Brown and Miliband does not represent the the views or beliefs of Tony Benn which is probably why he retired from the party in 2001, but he remains an impassioned campaigner on many anti-war, human rights and freedom of speech issues.

As I glumly continue ticking the box for Labour at elections, I know full well that my views and beliefs are not being met the party I 'support', but often I feel that I have no option as there never appears to be any full-on Socialist alternative to the Tories.
I often feel depressed that there are no political heroes any more. In these gruesome 'X-Factor' worshipping days it seems almost ridiculous to have such things as political heroes; but whither this generation's Clement Attlee, Nai Bevan or even Arthur Scargill? Those revolutionary, reactionary days of yore when radical politics were all the rage seem to belong with the dinosaurs.
There are NO political heroes today!!!

Well, except maybe one.....

If the Middle East is currently experiencing an Arab Spring then it could be argued that Latin America is in the throes of a Chilean Winter. The youth of Chile are beginning to find a new political voice having become disillusioned with La Concertación, the coalition which oversaw the removal of the corrupt government of General Augusto 'dinner-guest-of-Thatcher' Pinochet. And that voice belongs to the president of Chile's leading student body, the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile (aka FECH), Camila Vallejo.
A mere 23 years old, Camila has already been seen as a new, major political force in Latin American politics, having led demonstrations calling for better and cheaper education for the masses, and for taking part in televised debates on the state of democracy and government within Chile and its surrounding neighbours.
In less than a year, Camila has gone from anonymous Geography student to something of a Latin American folk hero, followed by hundreds of thousands of Chilean teens, adopted by the students of Brazil as figurehead for their own demonstrations, had glowing tributes paid by Bolivian vice-President Álvaro García Linera, and is the recipient of a multitude of songs, odes and visual tributes on Youtube. There's almost no getting away from it, Camila Vallejo is the darling of the politically aware in South America.
And we may as well address the elephant in the room, for there is almost no doubt that a major part in Camila's popularity is that she is unquestionably beautiful. It seems almost ludicrously patronising to suggest that her popularity is the purely down to her attractiveness, but this seems to something that Camila herself is totally at ease with, going as far to comment "You have to recognise that beauty can be a hook. It can be a compliment, they come to listen to me because of my appearance, but then I explain the ideas. A movement as historical as this cannot be summarised in such superficial terms".
And this is exactly the point; Camila's looks are the Wooden Horse in which she hides her (metaphorical) political hand-grenades, by catching the eye of Chile's youth she can spread her message much more quickly and easily.
This is not an uncommon occurrence in left-wing politics of course; take for example the Baader-Meinhof Gang whose very photogeneticity gained them massive support among Germany's radicalised young. Likewise, look at Ché....the very embodiment of sexualised political icon. Would all those red teeshirts bearing his image, those posters in every student bedsit, and all those berets have been sold if he'd looked like Boris Johnston? Methinks not!
Camila's own politicisation no doubt stems from the fact that both her parents were members of the Chilean Communist Party who vehemently opposed Pinochet's dictatorship, becoming involved in the Chilean Resistance. When Camila was 18, she enrolled at the University Of Chile, quickly becoming involved in leftist politics and joining the Communist Youth of Chile whose ideals include better living conditions for those in the poorer regions, as well as strengthening the welfare of students and lowering the cost of further education.
Camila's support among the youth of Chile, and her part in the organising of protests against the government have almost predictably led to threats against her life, yet she remains upbeat and focused and never shirks from public or televised appearances. Her popularity has led to an number of songs devoted to her, as well as video pieces like this charming montage of images set to English-born Spanish language singer Jeanette's early 70s track 'Soy Rebelde'.

In an age of massive worldwide political upheaval there appear to be very few genuine heroes at the forefront, certainly none to rival the likes of Zapata or Ché, or even Attlee, Bevan, Benn or Jimmy Reid. So we look on with eyes of anticipation towards this new voice of the left, this TRUE hero (heroine?), and we hope that Camila is the first of many!
¡No Pasarán!

~Gordon~

For further reading on Tony Benn, a rather superb unofficial website can be accessed here

And you can follow Camila Vallejo's own personal Blog here

Griff & Ray say; Join the bicycle revolution!

2011-11-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

We have a bit of a novelty for you on The Streetlamp tonight in the shape of a joint blog by both Griff and Ray. Keen readers will recognise this duo as the lycra-clad cycle warriors of The Streetlamp revolutionary army (see 'here'). You know those cyclists who smugly scoot past the endless line of stationary traffic and who like to continually evangelise about their healthy and sustainable mode of transport? Well that's us!

So, tonight we wanted to tell you about the clever and energetic UK cycling campaign iPayRoadTax.com and use that as an excuse to point you in the direction of some lovely, free, cycling-related music.

Let's start with the lowdown on iPayRoadTax.com. This is the brainchild of Carlton Reid, a cycling journalist and author who, like every cyclist in the country, has heard more than once that familiar motorists' refrain: "You don't pay road tax – why are you on the roads?"
Unlike most of us, however, Carlton didn't limit his response to a bellowed, "Fuck you, dickhead!" or rude gesture but decided to set up a web campaign to educate cyclists and motorists alike to the truth of the matter. So, what is the truth? Read this from the iPayRoadTax.com site:

"Road tax was abolished 74 years ago. Road tax doesn't exist. Vehicle owners pay Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), which is a tax on the vehicle, not a pot for collecting monies to be spent on road building or road maintenance. The distinction between ‘road tax’ and VED is very important, much more important than most people think. It’s possible that lives have been lost because of the use of an antique phrase. Some motorists believe ‘road tax’ pays for roads so cyclists, as freeloaders at best, tax-dodgers at worst, shouldn’t really be on “their” roads at all. This sometimes leads to ugly and dangerous aggression against cyclists, with some motorists taking the ownership of the roads fallacy a little too literally.

Many motorists – perhaps even the majority? – still believe that ‘road tax’ exists, and demand that the duties paid by motorists should be ploughed into fixing potholes, widening dual carriageways and adding to the UK’s motorway network. In reality, everybody pays for Britain’s roads via general taxation.

Motorists do not pay for use of the roads, motorists are taxed on buying and using their vehicles. VED is not a tax on roads, it’s now a tax on emissions: cars which spew the most CO2 pay the most Vehicle Excise Duty. Cars which spew less CO2, pay less VED. Cars in VED band A pay zero duty. VED is based on amount of CO2 emitted so, if a fee had to be paid, cyclists would pay £0."

Seems pretty clear, right? Well, unfortunately, as both of us, along with all Britain's other cyclists can testify, not simple enough for the average UK motorist to understand. Have a look at this video by one of Ray's heroes; well-known, Glasgow-based cyclist Magnatom, who films his daily commute to work on his 'helmetcam' and posts any incidents on his Youtube page. In the video below, a woman motorist, who has been sitting in bumper-to-bumper congestion, is seen to tell him, in a rather rude fashion, “Go and pay some road tax, you’re holding everyone up!”

Unbelievable, right? Well it happens every day, as any cyclist will tell you.
So, what can we do about it? Easy, just spread the word about the ironically-named iPayRoadTax.com site or, if you're feeling flush, helps spread the message by purchasing one of their eye-catching, sloganeering cycle jerseys.

Now, for some music. Ray has made a couple of videos for two acts that Griff selected as representative of The Streetlamp's musical spectrum; one with a mellow, acoustic, folky vibe and one with an upbeat, boisterous, poppy vibe. Both songs are available as free downloads too.

The first song is Lets Ride Our Bikes!! by Feel It Robot who, sadly, seem to be no longer with us but who specialised in slightly subversive electro-pop songs about robots and cycling, some of which are still available as free downloads on their last.fm page.

The next song is The Bicycle Song by David Rovics. This rather fine chap is an indie singer/songwriter and grassroots political protestor from the United States. Like us, he is also fond of his bike. His music is most accurately described as protest-folk and concerns topical subjects such as anti-globalisation and social justice issues. Some of these can be freely downloaded from his last.fm page and many, many more are available on his own site.

Keep cycling!

Griff and Ray

Griff says; Burn, baby, burn! It's Mykonos Flame.

2011-11-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

I may be junping the gun a bit here, as tonight's band seem to be in the process of gradually releasing a debut album in dribs and drabs and have, up until now, only released four songs from it. However, I decided to write about them anyway as;
Firstly, as regular readers will know, I love to write about mysterious, unknown bands who have very little presence on the internet.
Secondly, I'm proud of The Streetlamp's reputation for sniffing out a quality band and giving our readers the chance to get into their stride before other blogs are even out of the starting blocks.
And third, this band are too good to sit on any longer, I just have to tell you about them.

The band is called Mykonos Flame and what follows is absolutely all I know about them. The band members are: Kao Kazlauckas (known to his friends as Kao Johnny), Daniel Schimdt, Daniel Falcão, André Falcão, Alex Baratinha and Danilo Mouragrandson

Kao appears to be the main song-writer and frontman and is originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, although his family is of Eastern European extraction. He has since relocated to The Netherlands, and that is presumably where he picked up the rest of the band. Due to his family background and nomadic lifestyle Kao's musical heritage is rich and eclectic, as is immediately obvious from his own sound. He grew up with influences from MPB (Música Popular Brasileira), as well as from more avant-garde artists, such as respected left-wing political activist and composer Caetano Veloso (The Streetlamp salutes you!). As a teenager, Kao was influenced by the freak-folk and new weird America movements. At 26, while living in the Netherlands, he discovered the ukulele, banjo and the folk music of Eastern Europe, thus bringing his story back to its beginnings.

So, how would I describe the music of Mykonos Flame? As you should have gathered from the above, their style is characterized by a merging of international and Brazilian folk-styles and rhythms (in this, the influence of Veloso is apparent).The way they cross-pollinate their numerous influences, including MPB, pop, indie-folk, samba and the dance music of Eastern Europe is quite delightful and I genuinely believe that The Streetlamp readership will be just as smitten as I am. In fact, I sincerely believe this band could go on to have substantial crossover appeal. Think of other recent musical hybridisation successes like Beirut, DeVotchKa or Andrew Bird to get where I'm coming from. Anyway, just remember, you heard them on The Streetlamp first. Below are a couple of tracks, available as free downloads from their soundcloud page, to give you a flavour of their style. Check out their page for more tracks and more free downloads.

Jeanne D'Arc (official album version) by Mykonos Flame

Tutti (official album version) by Mykonos Flame

Griff
xx

~Kitten Wine#30~: The Incident In The Smoking Carriage

2011-11-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

One of the strange things about pop music is the way it attaches itself, limpet like, to specific memories; the way notes, lyrical phrases, or chord structures can trigger off all kinds of long dormant reminiscences. I suppose if, like me, you thrive on the romantic pull of music coupled with hazy rose tinted views of your own past, then the combination is often lethal. There are many songs, as you would imagine, that I cling to like a lifebuoy of nostalgia, and tonight we're going to look at one particular song, by The Pastels, and how I can simply NEVER listen to it without it causing flashbacks to the incident in the smoking compartment of the Glasgow to Aberdeen train, some 20 odd years ago.

So strap yourself in, it's going to be a bumpy ride.....
I was probably somewhere between 20 and 22 at the time, and it was during a period when I used to get every second Tuesday off work. I used these days to go up to Glasgow on the train, mostly to buy records, or sometimes books, comics, or shirts that screamed "Look at me! I'm pretentious!!".
So, on this particular Tuesday afternoon, I had gotten everything I was after pretty quickly so I was able to head back for the train that went to Aberdeen, which meant there was only one stop before Stirling and it only took about 35 minutes.
Back then I, rather embarrassingly, used to smoke and was going through a Gitanes phase, purely for no other reason than to be poncey! So, I got a seat in the smoking carriage (quite easily as this train was unusually quiet) and began sifting through the myriad purchases I had made. I sparked up a cigarette, put my coffee in it's Styrofoam cup on the table, and clicked on my Walkman.
And it was then that she walked into the carriage....

She was petite, quite mousy, and was wearing one of those Tweed jacket and skirt combos that women going to church, or bygone age schoolteachers used to wear. She looked mature, probably late 20s, or maybe even a coffin-dodging 30....but there was something about her!
The boy who followed her in I, at first, assumed was her son. He wasn't mousy....he was about 6' 2", looked like he was around 17-18 years old and had the whole James Dean thing going on; greased blonde quiff, black leather jacket, white tee-shirt, black 501s. And when they started kissing, it was obvious they weren't mother and son. The kisses were long, passionate and hungry, and I felt a little embarrassed by this graphic public show of affection. Except of course that it wasn't too public as there weren't all that many people in the carriage, and I appeared to be the only one who was facing them. I used the headrest of the seat in front of me to obscure any view that they might have of me, and found I couldn't stop looking at them, my eyes drawn to their obvious differences, and to the fire that was raging between them.
Side One of my cassette finished and the machine went into Autoreverse to begin playing Side Two. It was during the silence of the changeover that I heard the guard blow his whistle to alert all passengers that the train would be leaving any second now....

As the first song on Side Two began, the boy stood up.
The scuzzy, scratchy guitar intro of The Pastels' rather inappropriately titled 'Sit On It Mother' kicked in, lacerating itself like a knife wound across the inside of my head. As they kissed one final time, the Velvets style drumming pounded like a second heartbeat, and he walked out of the carriage. "I knew some girls from round my way// Burn me up with their evil stares". He stood outside the carriage and placed his hand against the window...."They're jokers but I'm not laughing// Only mention it in the passing"....she did the same, placing her hand against his, parted only by the glass...."I don't want in but open your gate// And let me get to the bottom of it"....rogue drum beats explode through the cavernous production....As the train slowly pulled away they held this pose, looking unflinchingly at each other, until it became impossible and he turned away with a wave...."Laura Lovett went in orbit// Just to get her an astronaut"....the woman turned back facing into the cabin, her hands by her sides; I studied the icy, quizzical yet contented look on her face...."She keeps her hand in her pocket// Saving up for a big blue rocket"....as I began to puzzle out the relationship whose brief extract I had just paid witness to (were they teacher and student, was the affair illicit and behind some husband's back, why was some young buck so clearly obsessed with such an older woman?), she suddenly looked straight at me...."She's always one planet ahead// Looks real cute in her pink spacesuit"....I felt like I had been shot! It was like an electric shock had ripped through my chest...."Hope she gets that astronaut!"....she looked, at that moment like the most beautiful woman in the world. She turned her gaze away from mine and looked forward into the carriage. I sucked in some Gitanes smoke to try and calm the pounding in my chest....."I know a girl from NYC// Walked on out on her baby"....I couldn't take my eyes off her, it was like she had become the sexiest, most desirable woman on the planet and I had fallen under her spell. I swigged some caffeine but all it did was pump my adrenal glands...."Hitched a ride with her lover// A shit-kickin' Momma, female trucker"....my mind was racing, wondering if she had this affect on all young men. The unnaturalness of the situation fuelled the suffocating feeling I was experiencing in my chest. It made me wonder if the boy she'd left back at Queen St station was just one of many conquests she enjoyed, or if she really was as demure and sweet natured as she appeared...."They're close like a pair of pros// And I don't need any more of those"....as the tape spooled on I was becoming self conscious that I was staring at her, even though I was partially hidden behind the headrest. As I tried looking out the window I was already fantasising about her suddenly coming over and sitting beside me, talking to me, luring me into her web of desire....a mad harmonica was filling my head with starry, blued-eyed wonder, "Trudi Bell from Rocky Springs// Has a certain way with things"....but, of course, she didn't. OF COURSE, SHE DIDN'T!!...."She's freewheeling, open dealing// S-s-say it once, and once with feeling"....when the train arrived at its first stop, Falkirk, she looked me straight in the eyes again, but probably only to see if I was one of those getting off at this stop...."Sit on it Mother, I ain't no witch// Working me up to a fever pitch"....as the train crawled, as it always did between Falkirk and Stirling, I looked at her again, knowing I was coming to the end of the road...."Now, some girls are quite obscure//And some boys don't get the truth"....as we arrived in Stirling I was surprised to see that she got up from her seat too. I waited until she'd left the carriage before making my own way out...."They see each smile as an emblem// A promise of sex on a sunny day"....as I stepped from the carriage I saw her small figure stroll confidently among the throng of people milling about on the platform. And then she was gone, vanished into the crowd, and I never saw her again...."I'm trying to make a connection// But don't look up when the sun comes down..."

The bus journey back home was spectacularly uneventful as you would imagine. And as I retreated to the solitude of my room with the intention of playing my newly acquired records, there was something niggling at the back of mind; a deep rooted desire to hear just one song in all of my collection. As I slipped the 7" single onto the Dansette, my head and heart were already clattering ahead of me....a scuzzy, scratchy guitar, Velvet's style drumming, "I knew some girls from round my way"....I could taste the Gitanes, I could feel the caffeine pounding through my bloodstream, and I could see into they eyes of a woman who had me completely under her spell, if even for less than half an hour, and I imagined her life with this inexplicably lucky teenage boy who I was now green-eyed to the point of madness with.
And then the record stopped....
And I laughed out loud at my own foolishness.

And that's what certain songs or records can mean to me; emotional and physical snapshots of a time, place, and state of mind where the music becomes an ever self-replicating canvass of memory. And some twenty odd years later that same song can still elicit carbon copies of all those long-savoured reminiscences.
But it's still only a song, right?

Hope she gets that astronaut!

~Gordon~

Griff says; Get in touch with your feminist side

2011-11-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

Some of you may recall that during the Summer, at the height of the fatuous absurdity that was the Royal Wedding (spit), Gordon lamented at the lack of positive role models for young women within music, or indeed culture itself, these days (see 'here'). He then went on to pose the question;
'Where have all the strong feminist Pop/Rock icons gone?"

After running through the best of feminist-inspired music from the past, his article finished with this plea;
"We really hope that readers will get in touch and tell us of some Radical Feminist bands that we are unaware of. Hell, we even hope some of the said bands will get in touch so we can write about them and enjoy their music".

Well, he's been eagerly awaiting the deluge ever since. But, sorry to say, it hasn't come. So that's why I'm so pleased to announce that I'm about to blow his socks off with, not just one but two, excellent all-girl, punk-pop trios with outstanding feminist credentials.

First up is Gaffa (pictured) from Tábor in the Czech Republic. Yes, that's right, they're real-life Bohemians. Anyway, the band line-up is;
Petra Podlahova - voice, keyboard,
Marie Adamkova - guitar, voice,
Silvie Zelenkova - drums, voice
and they play a brand of guitar-driven, pop-punk much reminiscent of uber-influential, Swiss, post-punk legends Kleenex/LiLiPUT. Have a listen to the brash and bouncy 'george'n'tracy'.

That song is track number 8 on their newly-released album Na Značky (this appears to translate as 'The Brand'), which is available as a free download on their bandcamp page. Unfortunately, there seems to be a slight problem with the download from there at the moment unless you download each of the tracks individually, so the Streetlamp is also providing an alternative free download 'here'. We strongly suggest you do so, as this band, as well as abounding with fine poppy hooks, also furnish their songs with smart, sassy lyrics, many containing a strong feminist message. Have a listen to track 9 'Dilettante's Delight' with its subtly acerbic list of modern roles for women:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://gaffa3.bandcamp.com/track/dilettantes-delight"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;dilettante's delight by Gaffa&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Fine stuff indeed. In 2009 Gaffa also released a 7" single which they split with tonight's other band, First fatal Kiss. For this venture, Gaffa provided the songs Otevřeno and Prstík. These can be downloaded from bandcamp or, alternatively, the whole EP is available as a free download 'here' courtesy of The Streetlamp.

First Fatal Kiss (pictured) from Vienna, Austria, are also a three-piece and describe themselves as 'queer! kitsch! punk!'. The current line-up is;

Birgit Michlmayr (drums, violin, keyboard, vocals)
Maria Reisinger (bass, drums, vocals)
Renée Winter (keyboard, bass, drums, vocals)
They also have been known to throw in a bit of kazoo and recorder into the mix when the spirit takes them. Their sound is not as guitar driven as Gaffa's and the tunes are mainly built on the framework provided by a 1980's keyboard, giving them a less rocky and more retro post-punk vibe, which is rather pleasing to these ears.
They provided the catchy sloganeering tracks;'No Boys! No Girls!' and 'No Government!' to the 7" split with Gaffa. Have a listen:

7" split with Gaffa (2009) by first fatal kiss

Since then, First fatal Kiss have released an album 'Danke Gut'(2010), which you can purchase on the Zach Records site.

They also released this amusing video 'How To Play A Very Good Punk Song', which should be required viewing for all 16 year olds in our opinion. Ray and I were also pleased to see in the video that they turn up for rehearsals on their bikes. Just as it should be!

I hope you enjoyed both these fine feminist bands, and remember if you know of any others who you think we should be covering get in touch.

Griff
xx

Winter, Come She Will: Laura Watling

2011-11-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Saturday the 5th of November, saw yet another ~Streetlamp~ expedition to Scotland's REAL capital, Glasgow. We found ourselves skittering about in the East End this time, walking around the People's Palace, an extraordinary building on Glasgow Green, right in the shadow of The Gorbals (where my Grandfather was born and raised!). After that it was visit to Trongate 103 for another viewing of Griff's favourite, the Sharmanka Theatre (see previous blog). Then it was the customary Guinness and spicy chips in the 13th Note, and it was as we left there and made our way back along London Road, against the flow of people heading towards the Green for the fireworks display, that we really noticed that Winter is "Icumen In".
The thin hazy sunlight of earlier was now replaced with that icy crystal clear blackness, plumes of breath filling the air like a freezing fog....
And it was as we felt Winter take its first grip that I pondered on the music of Winter, and how there weren't that many artists whose music seems to capture the very essence of that season. Of course Summer has it's minstrels in abundance from the Beach Boys to virtually any happy-clappy rave tune that holidaymakers adopt when visiting sunnier climes. And it could be argued that artists such as Simon & Garfunkel or The Mamas & Papas had an Autumnal quality, but no one really seems to capture that pure embodiment of the Winter months...

Except maybe Laura Watling!
It may seem odd that someone who hails from the sunbaked swelter of South California could ever encapsulate the coldest season, but take a listen, for starters, to 'Barney & Me' below....

Well? Did you hear it? Doesn't it have a Winter vibe? Couldn't you hear the snow falling, or the trudge of boots on compacted ice? Not only does the music have a chilly vibe to it, but Laura's voice just has such an icy resonance to it. Whether it's intentional or not, I really don't know, but I can think of no other artist whose music captures such a frosty feel without sounding Christmassy.

Laura's musical career started back in 1996 when she was part of So Cal's Indiepop cult legends The Autocollants who specialised in an American take on Sarah Records blueprint with some considerable artistic success. The band only lasted a little over a year, releasing a handful of fine EPs, some tracks of which can be downloaded for free at their Last.fm page.

The Autocollants music may have a slightly warmer vibe to their sound, but you can already hear a 'sweet but distant' tone in Laura's vocals.
It was around the year 2000 that Laura first began releasing her own solo recordings through the wonderful Shelflife Records, home of such ~Streetlamp~ favourites as Evening Lights, Days, The Proctors and A Smile And A Ribbon.
I find her songs so uplifting, yet in a strange way so detached. Her songs sound like what I hoped to hear every time I bought a new Sarah release, or whenever I purchased a 7" single in a wrap-around sleeve from the records shops on the Byres Road in Glasgow.

Perhaps the best example of Laura's 'Wintry' music is her mini album '25', which unfortunately I cannot bring you any examples of tonight as none appear to be available in either video or Soundcloud form, but which you can download here.
I find this album to be the pinnacle of her solo songwriting; the glacial sound of 'Under The Ice' capturing a frozen white vista in it purest form; the almost too aching melancholy of 'Cleaning', tambourine tinkling like snowdrops; the spectral ambiance of 'This River Will Never Run Dry' wrapping you up like a warm jumper and a mug of hot soup. Of course all of this is meaningless if you haven't heard the songs, so I urge you to download the album and give it a listen.

Here's a couple of others just to give you a taster.

Laura Watling - One More Way To Amuse Myself by Sebastian Johann

You can also download her 'When You Didn't Come' EP here

And if you visit her Last.fm page there are some full tracks to listen to, and a couple of Free Downloads as well.
So, with meteorologists predicting a 'Siberian Winter' hitting Scotland in a couple of weeks, I guess the best thing we can do is snuggle up with Laura Watling!

Well, we can but dream!

~Gordon~

Who's Afraid Of The Big Black Dog? Me!!!

2011-11-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

This month, November, finds me celebrating a rather unhappy anniversary. For it was 20 years ago this month that I first came face to face with the Black Dog. It happened completely out of the blue and totally turned my world upside down. No...more than that, it changed me and my life forever....

It may seem like stating the bleeding obvious, but depression is a truly horrible thing to go through, and in turn to have to live with. It changes everything, including your life, your personality, and your view of the world. A lot of people who suffer from depression actually attempt or even commit suicide during the first attack, because they cannot comprehend what is happening to them , nor do they know if it will ever end. I guess, therefore, that I was 'lucky'....I got through that first bout and sought help. But it would recur several times over the years, sometimes in minor attacks, sometimes a full blown savaging in the jaws of the Dog.
And on many of those occasions I did nothing about it....just suffered in silence while all around me nobody knew a thing about it. I became very adept at hiding and masking the depression, something which most specialists will tell you is both foolish and dangerous.

When the Dog came sniffing around the last time, September 2009, it came ravenous and with its teeth and claws sharpened. It was one of the worst I had ever experienced. It became too difficult to hide. It became too dark to avoid. In a fit of desperation I joined up with an online OCD forum, which did genuinely help. I should point out that I am not talking about the 'comedy' OCD that characters like Monica from Friends suffers from, but a more debilitating and harmful strain that dominates your every waking moment.

So....this online Help Forum really worked for me, but I promised myself that if (and indeed WHEN) the Black Dog comes a calling once more, next time I will not only use the Online forums, but also seek full medical and psychiatric help, no matter who knows about it. It really isn't worth disguising all that turmoil.
And so it was that I was gladdened to hear about the Mental Health charity SANE's 'Black Dog Campaign'. Backed by celebrities such as Rory Bremner and Stephen Fry, the campaign aims to give a physical embodiment to the 'Black Dog' and therefore to try and help reduce the stigma that has become attached to depression, and indeed all mental health issues. The campaign also hopes to raise awareness, especially to the families of those afflicted and create a greater understanding of the illness.
To read more about the campaign, or indeed to get involved in any way, please visit their website here and, as you would expect, The Guardian have a splendid article about the capaign here
On a similar note, can I please direct you to The Black Dog Project; this is an Australian based website that encourages those who suffer from depression, or even just those currently experiencing a bad time, to express their thoughts and feelings through art, stories and poetry. Again, I cannot recommend this site highly enough, even if you are luck enough to never have been afflicted, as some of the poems, writing and artwork are just extraordinary.
And remember, a Black Dog is for life.....unfortunately!!

~Gordon~

Griff says: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'

2011-11-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

I've a nice little Scottish hip-hop track for you tonight that combines fine beats with social commentary - and it's not from Stanley Odd! The track in question is Madness("Escape The Network") by the Edinburgh-based duo of Vizual Pupil, of whom I know almost nothing, and Th!nk - who is a producer/MC also from Auld Reekie. The track is available now as a free download on bandcamp and serves as a preview of what's to be expected from their debut EP 'Escape The Network', which comes out on the 11th of November. The EP will also be the first release on the Unconscious Collective imprint, and is available 'here' from 11/11/11.

Madness by Vizual Pupil & Th!nK

I hope you enjoyed that. Stay tuned to the Streetlamp for more information on the duo as it becomes available to us. I must admit, one of the reasons the song appeals to me is the sample of Peter Finch as newscaster 'Howard Beale' from the 1976 film Network; a darkly comic satire of dumb infotainment TV, which has become more and more relevant with each passing year. If you've never seen the film, and the youngsters among you probably haven't, you can find the most famous scene embedded below. In a 5 minute frenzy of scenery-chewing madness, the Howard Beale character starts a rant on the general awfulness of modern life before finally concluding his tirade by admonishing his viewers to;

"Stand up wherever you are, go to the nearest window and yell as loud as you can, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore".

As the discredited neoliberal project collapses in ruins around our ears and the intellectual midgets who form our government solemnly prescribe 'more austerity', we have one essential piece of advice for our readers who are sick of being taken for fools by a lying, self-serving, hypocritical, millionaire elite:

"Stand up wherever you are, go to the nearest window and yell as loud as you can, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore".

Griff
xx

Lord Gnome's Organ: 50 Years Of Ripping The Piss

2011-10-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

One of the greater things about living in a democracy with a free Press is that you can hold that so called free Press up to the light for proper and thorough scrutiny. The British Press, and we include both sides of the Political coin here, have aligned themselves with the Political Parties of their choice and thus, our daily newspapers are a quagmire of tittle-tattle, scandal, political name calling and, on occasions, all out lying. So it's a blessed relief then that we also have Private Eye magazine. And this week sees that trusted organ reach it's half century of publication.
So to celebrate, let's have a little light reflection....

Private Eye started out purely as a satirical periodical, founded by Christopher Brooker, Andrew Osmond, Richard Ingrams and Willie Rushton. Quickly, however, it also became a source of investigative journalism when the great Paul Foot became involved. Legendary satirist and comedian Peter Cook also became a major contributor both in funding and material. Other early contributors, many who stayed for the course, included Barry Humphries, Gerald Scarfe, Auberon Waugh, John Bird, Barry Fantoni, John Wells, and Sir John Betjeman who wrote the first few 'Nooks And Corners' columns which attacked the ugliness of modern architecture.

The magazine became instantly recognisable for it's notorious 'speech bubble' covers; some, like the infamous Lady Diana memorial edition causing much public offence.
Very quickly the magazine took on the mantle of media scrutineer; picking holes in media broadcasts, highlighting hypocrisy and untrue reportage in the newspapers, hounding tax-evaders, ridiculing media and financial fat-cats, questioning MP's expenses, investigating dodgy deals between politicians and arms dealers or between shady businesses and the police, and generally just being a thorn in the side of the corrupt and the corrupting.

Of course it's not all politics at the Eye; many regular columns investigate a myriad of other social discrepancies; 'Rotten Boroughs' investigates corruption in local councils, 'The Agri Brigade' takes a (metaphorical) scythe to all things farm and farm produce related, 'Signal Failures' looks at the problems and scandals affecting the rail networks, 'Square Basher' covers all things to do with the army, and 'Medicine Balls', possibly the most alarming column in the magazine, investigates the troubles related to the NHS, often relying on whistle-blowers whose information on how badly the NHS is being handled, and how the current Government are desperate to get rid of this unspeakably essential institution, makes for very troubling reading.

But, of course, the magazine is also spectacularly funny! It's constant parodying of the cult of celebrity alone is unrelenting, as indeed are it's attacks on the pretensious('Pseud's Corner') and it's regular 'CommentatorBalls' feature, which spotlights hilarious gaffes by TV pundits.

As you would expect for a publication that doesn't flinch from naming and shaming, the Eye has made many enemies over the years, namely Robert Maxwell who repeatedly sued the magazine for libel(although clearly the Eye was vindicated in the end!), Rupert Murdoch, corrupt MP Johnathan Aitken, Tory MPs Neil Hamilton and Cecil Parkinson, and news reporter Andrew Marr who they revealed was behind a press gagging injunction whilst all the while preaching about freedom of speech.

Private Eye's investigating has often been years ahead of the game, and not without it's own controversy; the Eye was the first to suggest that John Profumo be taken to task over his relationship with Christine Keeler; it was the first to name the Kray twins as London's most feared gangsters( a report which led then editor Peter Cook to leave the country for a short while!); it suggested as far back as 1977 that Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles were more than friends; a month after the Lockerbie bombing, Paul Foot suggested that Libya was NOT responsible for the bombing, and that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was an innocent patsy.

Today, under the editorship of Ian Hislop, the magazine remains as thorough, as ruthless, as funny, and above all, as essential as it did 50 years ago.
We won't end by saying here's to another 50 years, we'll say "Here's to time when we won't need Private Eye because all corruption and political wrong-doing will be a thing of the past!"

Not likely is it?

Happy 50th Lord Gnome!!

~Gordon~

I Misplaced It At The Movies: Das Neue Babylon

2011-10-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

The trouble with being a bit of a film geek, especially one who seeks out the more bizarre and the more left-field cinema, is that it is very easy to become jaded. Having seen endless low budget exploitation films, or lofty, pretentious art-house confuse-athons, as well as surrealist extravaganzas like 'L'Age D'or', 'Le Sang d'un Poète', or even 'Eraserhead'; you just get to the point where nothing seems to surprise, shock or challenge you any more.
And then I saw 'Novyy Vavilon' aka 'The New Babylon'(or even 'Das Neue Babylon' as it was titled on the German DVD I have of it).
In 1929 Hollywood was embracing Talking Pictures as the new art form, seemingly unaware that the first examples of this new hoopla were braincrushingly awful! Terrible stagy melodramas with static camerawork and even more static performers.
Whilst Europe may not have grasped the 'Talkie' mantle yet, it continued to work within the Silent framework and was creating works of startling creativity e.g, lush, opulent adult(as in 'grown-up') dramas such as G.W. Pabst's 'Pandora's Box', or the dizzying works of Russian master Sergei Eisenstein.
Or indeed 'The New Babylon' by Russian directors Leonid Trauberg and Grigori Kozintsev....

'The New Babylon' tells the true tale of the Paris Commune of 1871, a Government led by the people for the people, formed from an uneasy alliance between the Marxists and the Anarchists. The film is set at the time of the Franco-Prussian war during which France suffered some devastating losses. This led to the gap between the rich and the poor not only become wider, but becoming glaringly obvious.
The Proletariat, refusing to take the barbaric working and living conditions anymore, rise up against the fat-cats who have sunk in to a cesspool of decadence, debauchery and debasement, and take control of the city.
Building a Socialist Government within the Commune of Paris, the workers(or Communards as they were now known) tried to quickly set up a manifesto of workers rights. Perhaps what they should have been doing was preparing for the onslaught of the Prussian army which was now heading towards the beleaguered capital. Acting in conjunction with it's invading aggressor, the Versailles government declared all Communards as enemies of the state and joined in the re-taking of the city. The Communards; men, women and children, were marched in their thousands to Versailles to await judgement, many facing public execution.

The film itself is a dizzying and dazzling swirl of images, and a masterpiece of subjective editing. Early scenes depicting the decadence enjoyed by the land owners and factory owners are utterly mindbending. A fat slobbering Champagne quaffing drunk sits in the foreground whilst all around there's a whirling sense of utter debauchery, often resembling moving Escher puzzles.

The rise of the Socialist Government is filmed like the Eisenstein montages of 'Strike!' or 'October', and there's a general sense of pulsating empathy that rivals ANY propaganda from any country.
The battle scenes are extraordinary and, possibly, were an influence on directors as varied as William Wellman or Sergio Leone. The scene in which the Communards are named in a torrential rainstorm is surely mirrored in Leone's 'A Fistful Of Dynamite', a movie which also deals with Marxist Revolution.
The final image of graffiti declaring the power of 'the Commune' leaves no-one in any doubt of the film makers objectives.

No, there's no getting away from it, the whole movie is an allegory of the Russian Revolution, showing it's viewers not only how a Socialist society can exist but also how to avoid the same fate as the Parisian Communards by being prepared to take arms against any aggressor.
Because of the film's politics, it obviously remained unseen for many years outside of the Soviet Union. And while many may obviously disagree with those politics, there can be no doubting the skills of the film makers involved. This is a staggering film; one which careers along at a frightening pace(belying the myth that Silent Movies are turgidly slow), and is full of breathtaking sequences that, as far as I am concerned, have never been equalled.
It may not be to easy to see the movie(I had to acquire a German DVD to get a chance to see it), but for anyone with an interest in Silent Movies, or for those interested in Political Cinema, or even for any film geek who just wants to see something a bit different.....this is HIGHLY recommended!
Vive La Revolucion!!

~Gordon~

Griff says; I'm a 99!

2011-10-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, the 22nd October, at 3.00pm in George Square, the Occupy Glasgow movement, plus their supporters, collectively agreed the initial statement below.

1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

2 We are of all ethnic backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3 We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis.

4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

6 We support the strike on 30 November and the student action on 9 November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

The Stretlamp was there to witness this (and added our 'jazz hands' to show approval) and we are delighted that the Occupy movement now has some local presence. We, ourselves, are too long in the tooth to be camping out in George Square over the Scottish winter but we will do whatever we can to support the occupiers. You can too, just check out 'here' to find out how you can become involved. Those of you who don't live near Glasgow can find out about the Occupy Movement near you by searching on-line.

You can also make donations for the movement by purchasing the single 'I'm a 99' by Nomadic Firs on bandcamp. All proceeds go to the cause. If you can't afford to donate then download the single for free 'here' and then post it on-line on your blogs, play it on your podcasts or send a copy to all your friends.

Nomadic Firs is the psychedelic bedroom-pop project of Ryan Boos. Based in Knoxville, US, Ryan garners inspiration from his home life. With his wife leading the way, they are faithfully building a sustainable Urban Farm.

As he says himself of 'I'm a 99':

"This song was recorded to offer some semblance of support to all the 99er folks protesting all over the world. Its not nearly enough, but I hope it can add a back drop to the fight!

Back Up Vocal By Ann Milner. In the photo (above) Tea Leigh, check out her music on soundcloud. Please Please DOWNLOAD FREE AND SPREAD THE WORD!"

Ray of The Streetlamp has made a little video (below) to accompany the song in the hope that it will help spread the word. Please feel free to embed the video in your blogs etc. Nomadic Firs music can be heard and freely downloaded 'here'.

---The Lyrics----
A shot wrung out in the middle of the square
Nobody was there
Nobody cared,
-They all came Round
to see what's where
to see whose fair
to see whose next

-Stop Them Now
the media dare
the media glared
the media dead

-Round them out
to kids with dreads
smoke whats left
then ditch their bags

-Its all us now
together again
wishing we were fed
from the 1 percent.

-Stop them cows
from taking our beds
and burning whats left
putting us in debt

-Not right now
laying in regret
pain they left
no second best

-What happens next?
no more livin' in the tents
the kids are pissed
its the end of congress

-Join together now
its hands in hands
everyone's here
doing their best

-Call them out
put them to the test
no more stress
shut the office

-It's all us now
together again
wishing we were fed
from the 1 percent.

-A shot wrung out in the middle of the square
Everybodys's there
Everybody cares

The Chorus
I'M A 99

OK, Streetlampers, spread the word, and remember;
We Are the 99%!

Griff
xx

Three Slices Of Pure Pop Confectionery

2011-10-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid my Blog tonight doesn't have any set theme to speak of....no matter how hard I tried, and how tenuous the links I tried to bind the songs together tonight, I came up empty handed. In the end, all I can say is that thing that the three artists I'm writing about tonight have in common is that they are all fine purveyors of sublime, dreamy Pop music. So here, for your delectation, are three slices of musical confectionery that just happen to sound wonderful when collated together.

Enjoy!

Club 8

On my recent sojourn to foreign shores, as I always do, I loaded up my MP3 player with a varied mix of groups, artists and styles. It wasn't until listening to the songs beneath the Corfu sun that I realised that the artists chosen had a rather dark and sour tone overall; Crass, Marc Almond(in the guise of Marc & The Mambas), The Passage, Jacques Brel, The Fall, plus some compilations of 60s Psychedelic music. I wasn't unduly unhappy with my choices but there was an overwhelming sense of dark eyed drama.
Then, like the sun appearing from behind some thunder clouds, came the silky, dreamy sounds of perfect, pure Pop! The track was 'Missing You' by a band called Club 8.
I had never heard the track before, and had only added the folder to which it belonged at the last minute to fill up space. The song came from a sampler album for the Swedish record label Labrador. The album/folder had been given to me a few years ago by a Polish friend of mine called Gosia who loved Twee and Indie music so much that she accrued the very moniker Tweepop! She'd given the album in amongst a bunch of other folders but I had never gotten around to listening to it. Now, as I sat by the swimming pool, glass of wine in hand, the sun beating down, the crapness of work a million miles away, this beautiful piece of dreampop played like life's own symphony....it was like experiencing love for the first time, it was like a warm rush of endorphins on a cold, grey November morning, it was like hearing MUSIC for the first time....

Club 8 are, of course, Swedish (and I know what you're thinking....fantastic Indie Pop? From Sweden? How unusual!!); they are a duo of Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergard, both of whom had played in previous Indiepop bands Acid House Kings and Poprace. The pair formed Club 8 back in 1995 and, despite often venturing on to other projects, they still keep Club 8 alive and as recently as last year were still creating music under the Club 8 name.
The other track that I had of theirs on my MP3 player was 'Love In December', and it is every bit as beautiful...

I for one will definitely by checking out more by this wonderful band, and I entrust that you, dear Reader, do the same. In the meanwhile you can download both songs mentioned here below:

Missing You

Love In December

Olympic Swimmers

One of the downsides of running a Blog like this and not living in Glasgow itself is that you tend to miss things, even little things, that would enhance and strengthen the Blog.
For example, last night (Saturday the 22nd of October) a band called Olympic Swimmers were playing in the Center For Contemporary Arts as part of the Document 9 Human Rights Festival. I know this because I read about in the accompanying brochure that I picked up in that very building last Saturday. Unfortunately neither I, nor the other two ~Streetlamp~ members were able to attend, which really bugs me as A)the CCA is a cracking place to visit at any time, and B) because Olympic Swimmers are a completely fantastic band!
Listen below and you'll hear what I mean...

See?
Olympic Swimmers hail from Glasgow (and I know what you're thinking...dreamy, life affirming Pop music? From Glasgow? How unusual!!), and capture all the best elements of fellow city dwellers Camera Obscura and The Delgados, whilst mixing in their own flashes of Shoegazing atmospherics, and widescreen musical palettes. And in Susie Liddell's mellifluous, heart breaking vocals they have yet another gifted Scottish female vocalist. The musicians themselves have all played in previous bands, namely with Emma Pollock, and with the band Bad Dancer.
This song, 'Apples And Pears' may well be my favourite song of the year so far...
At present Olympic Swimmers have two EPs on Soundcloud (not for free download though, unfortunately), but here are the other tracks not featured above:
A Curse Or A Blessing by olympicswimmers
I Won't Sleep by olympicswimmers
Father Said by olympicswimmers

Again, a band that MUST be investigated further, and I can only display my utter jealousy towards those of you caught them last night at the CCA....still, maybe next time.....

Cinnamon

The recent re-showing of old episodes of Top Of The Pops from 1976 proves one thing that I have always believed; that most huge chart hits (from any era!) are in fact, CRAP!! Most hit songs, especially in Britain, are really quite poor, or at very best, average. Some of the biggest selling records of all time, in fact, are the worst culprits....take for example that tripe by Bryan Adams which was at Number 1 for 16 weeks, or that gruesome 'Diana' version of Elton's already dreadful 'Candle In The Wind'!
Now you may be wondering what I'm getting at here, but my point is that the next song I'm featuring here is one of my favourite songs of all time, almost certainly in my Top 10 EVER Songs.....and it baffles me beyond comprehension how a song as beautiful, as catchy, as dreamy, as heart-stoppingly gorgeous in every way, can have failed to have been at Number 1 for 17 weeks, to be part of the British public's psyche, to be a regular fixture on karaoke tripefests like The X Factor, or to be repeatedly discussed and dissected on TV shows depicting the Greatest Songs Of All Time!
The song is 'Me As Helen Of Troy' by the Swedish band Cinnamon (and I know what you're thinking{That really is quite enough}:Griff & Ray....), which was released back in 1997 and which I have treasured and adored since the very first time I heard it.
But....even though I love the studio version to death, the wonderful thing about the Internet is that you discover such joys as that which I offer you below; a live version of the song from Japanese TV. I GENUINELY believe this interpretation to better even the official version, although much of that joy may of course stem from seeing the heartbreakingly beautiful Frida Diesen actually perform the song in the flesh.....

Cinnamon lasted until just after the millennium, although Frida still records as a solo artist. All of their stuff is available to listen to at all the usual online outlets, though it's pretty difficult to find any of the songs for free download. However, should anyone like an MP3 copy of the studio version then just e-mail the ~Streetlamp~ and I'll send you a copy.
The studio version can be heard below as well as another live performance from Japanese TV:

Well, like the best confectionery, I hope this selection has left you sated, satisfied and with a bit of a sugar rush. Now all you need is a fine glass of unoaked Chardonnay to wash it down and you're ready for the onset of Winter.
Only Pop Music can save us now....

~Gordon~

PS: that sound you hear is the sound of Griff and Ray packing their bags and setting off to try to emigrate to Sweden.......

Griff says; Evelyn McHale - the most beautiful suicide

2011-10-17T04:29:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write a bit about Evelyn McHale today. Her restless ghost seems to swirl eternally around the world of art and thus swims into my consciousness every 6 months or so. I wondered why that was, undeniably she looked serene and beautiful in death, but is that all there is to it? Has she merely, tragically, become the poster-girl for angst-ridden, teen suicide wannabes or is there something deeper at work here? So, rather than use the photograph of Evelyn's calm repose - perplexing and contradictory as it is to the violence of her death - as a hook to hang a couple of songs on, I wanted to think a little bit about the power of the image itself first.

For those of you who have never heard of Evelyn McHale, and for whom that first paragraph makes no sense, here (below) is a detail from the extraordinary image of Evelyn, which has inspired so many artists.

This photo by Robert C. Wiles, a student photographer, was published as a full-page image in the 12 May 1947 issue of Life Magazine. It ran with the caption:
“At the bottom of the Empire State Building the body of Evelyn McHale reposes calmly in grotesque bier, her falling body punched into the top of a car.”

The accompanying text read:

"On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. 'He is much better off without me ... I wouldn't make a good wife for anybody,' ... Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale's death Wiles got this picture of death's violence and its composure."

Death's violence and it's composure, is that what it's about? Is that what makes this image so striking, so seductive? This idea that we will find peace in death, no matter how grisly our end? It could be, but personally I'm not sure that she looks at peace. Yes, her face is calm, composed as though sleeping and her legs crossed at the ankles as though in an attitude of relaxation. But look at her hands, balled in to fists, betraying tension despite the almost studied insouciance elsewhere. Is it instead this juxtaposition that catches the attention?

Or is it the creepy, faux-glamorous intimacy conveyed by the composition? We watch, unseen, a beautiful girl; she is completely relaxed, unaware, her eyes closed, her shoes kicked off. This effect is heightened by the point of view of the witnesses in the background; the crumpled metal of the car shields Evelyn from their gaze. Our viewpoint alone provides association, sympathy, participation even; with Evelyn and through her with death?

Perhaps there is no humane reason and this image merely serves as the cardinal example of the cold visual logic of photography; its ability, supreme among the arts, to turn horror into beauty. I'm not sure. What is noticable is that this image arrests the attention even before one knows the melancholy back-story. For further details of that, Codex 99, a weblog about the history of the visual arts and graphic design, has a well-researched article 'here'.

Further to this, the following can be found on ancestry.com:

Evelyn Francis McHale was born in Berkeley California Sept 20, 1923. She was the next to the youngest of seven children, the first four children were spaced 1 year apart, the last three were spaced 2 years apart. Her father was a bank examiner, orig from Illinois, her mother orig from Pa, was a housewife. Around 1930, they moved to Washington, DC, where her father became an examiner for the Federal Land Bank. Also at this time the mother left, moving to an apartment in another part of Washington. The father retained custody of all seven children. Evelyn was 6. Whether the mother left voluntarily or was told to leave is unknown at his time. They appear to have moved a few years later to Tuckahoe NY, where Evelyn went to high school. After high school, in 1943, Evelyn became a WAC and was stationed down in Jefferson Mo. After she was discharged, she burned her uniform. At some point, she moved to NYC to work, and met and became engaged to a young man named Barry Rhodes, who was just out of the Air Force and attending Lafayette College in Easton Pa. They were to be married at his brother’s house in Troy, NY. A year before her death, Evelyn had been a bridesmaid at Barry’s younger brother’s wedding. After the wedding, she removed her bridesmaid gown, said “I never want to see this again” and burned it. On the day she jumped, Barry said she seemed happy and looking forward to the marriage when she boarded the train home. Barry’s birthday being April 30th, I assume Evelyn had gone to celebrate his birthday with him. There was a security guard less than twelve feet from where she jumped. She dropped her handkerchief over the ledge just prior to climbing over and leaping to her death. In her suicide note, she wrote the following: ” My fiance asked me to marry him in June, but I don’t think I would make a good wife for anyone. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies. I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family -don’t have any service or remembrance for me.”
She was cremated.

And so that should have been the end of the story of Evelyn McHale - a woman who pleaded not to be remembered. Yet remembered she most certainly continues to be, the compelling, iconic image of her dead body a seemingly irresistible lure to any passing artist. The first to do so appears to be the great hoodwinker himself, Andy Warhol, who used Wyle's original photograph as the basis for his abstract print, Suicide (Fallen Body) (below).

The image also inspired the cover art of the 1995 album Gilt by industrial rockers, Machines of Loving Grace (below):

Although this image fails to capture the power of the original in my opinion.

Musicians too have been inspired by Evelyn's story. Most famously, perhaps, excellent, Portland-based, experimental pop band Parenthetical Girls who released a track entitled Evelyn McHale on their 2010 release Privilege, pt. I: On Death & Endearments EP.
Here's a video of the song (below), an MP3 of which can be downloaded for free 'here'.

The other artist who swam into my ken via tragic Evelyn is bleak, melancholic UK song-writer Anton Rothschild whose thoughtful, introverted indie-pop is well worth seeking out. His track 'A Love Song to Evelyn McHale' is the superb opener to his 2009 album The Diffident, released on Dainty Records (…the world’s most fragile recording company). A visit to the latter's wonderful little site will enable you to freely download the aforementioned album, as well as the rather fine Bratislava EP, released earlier this year by Fire Island Pines, the band with whom he now plays.

Here's the track now:
A love song to Evelyn McHale by anton rothschild

I'll finish off by embedding (below) Beautiful Suicide, an experimental art-film submitted for his final-year thesis by Jordan Morris, a film student at Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia, US.

I hope that you have found this article, written in response to the art inspired by Evelyn McHale's death, thoughtful and sensitive and that it hasn't come off as tacky and exploitative; if so, then I do apologise. Please feel free to comment on your responses to the photograph in the comments box below and to let me know of any other Evelyn McHale inspired art that I may have overlooked.

Griff
xx

Reclaim The Eighties: The Imperfect List

2011-10-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

Here at the ~Streetlamp~ we've never really been ones to hide our political light under a Garry Bushell, and regular readers of our Blog will know us as Guardian-toting, Commie Pinko Marxist Stormers-Of-The-Winter-Palace....always have been, always will be. And yesterday as we sat supping Guinness in Glasgow's 13th Note bar, getting our copies of 'The Skinny' covered in grease from our spicy chips, I pondered why our Leftist leanings, and our fanatical hatred of the Right and all it stands for, were so passionate, and why we linked them so clearly to our love of music and culture.
I guess it's because we grew up in that most derided of decades, the 1980s.

The 1980's have rather annoyingly been thoroughly misrepresented in both the current media, and the history books. Buy any CD claiming to be 'The Ultimate 80s Album' and you'll suffer the tired old performances of Wham, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Nik Kershaw, The Thompson Twins, Howard Jones, Culture Club etc, and any TV retrospective will churn out the usual tirade of Thatcherism, Yuppies, big hair, shoulder pads, Armani suits, filofaxes, and the general sense of 'me me me', all the time portraying good men like Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn and Neil Kinnock as beaten down caricatures of the 'old Left'.
We here at the ~Streetlamp~ say BOLLOCKS TO ALL THAT!!!

The 80s for us weren't the awfulness mentioned above; they were The Smiths, Crass, New Order, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sarah Records, Creation Records, Rough Trade, the NME, joining the Miners Strike, campaigning for the CND and the women of Greehnam Common, generally doing everything to take a stand against Thatcher and all that she represented. Of course slimy, smug Right Wing apologists will argue that if it hadn't been for Thatcher then Leftist musicians, artists and writers would have had nothing to rail against....but we'd still have preferred NOT to have suffered her at all.
Being Scottish, we had even more reason to hate her than most; not only did she rupture the mining industry up here, she also closed the steel yards, and then tried the Poll Tax out on us like we were some single-cell guinea pig.
We HATED her!!!

And the only other people who despised the old witch as much as we Scots were the Scousers (that's people from Liverpool to our overseas readers!). And it's a fine release by good Scouser Pete Wylie that I am here to Blog about tonight.

Pete Wylie was of course the brains and talent behind the myriad Wah! projects that ran through the 80s, but my favourite release of his was under the strange moniker of Big Hard Excellent Fish. Their one and only release was 'The Imperfect List'; under Wylie's supervision, performance artist (and Wylie's girlfriend of the time) Josie Jones reads out a list of all things vile, mostly related to Thatcher and the 80s, over an ambient soundscape created by Robin Guthrie of The Cocteau Twins.

Here is the list in full as read:

Adolf Hitler

Mike Gatting

Terry & June

Fucking Bastard Thatcher

Insincere social climber of mixed origin

Overdose

Scouse impersonators

Macho dickhead

Bonnie Langford

Poll Tax

Neighbours

Lost keys

Phoney friend

The Royal Family

Stock Aitken & Waterman

Heartbreaking lying friend

Smiling Judas

Myra Hindley

Acid rain

Stinking rich female in furs

Disloyal lover

Wife & child beater

Drunken abuser

Racist

Bully

The Sun newspaper

AIDS inventor

Leon Brittan

All nonces

Massive massive oil slick

Loneliness

Cancer

Hard cold fish

Hunger

Greed

Imperfect list

Gut wrenching disappointment

Evil gossiping fashion bastard

Tasteless A&R wanker

Nurse Ratchett

The Tory invention of the non-working class

Cold Turkey

Mister Jesse Helms

Hillsborough

Weird British judges

Depression

Apartheid

J Edgar Hoover

John Lennon's murder

Hiroshima

Anyone's murder

Vietnam

The breakdown of the NHS

The Bomb

Heysel Stadium

Police harassment

The death of the rain forest

The troubles

Rednecks

The Klan

Rape

Imprisoned innocents

The all-American way

Red sock in the white washin'

Nancy's term

Tiananmen Square

Ronnie's term

Sexual harassment

Jimmy Tarbuck

Mile long check-out queue

Sick baby

Nelson Mandela's imprisonment

Miscarriage

Where were you?

The single was released in 1990 and was one of the first records to attack the 1980s as a whole, as though it were a product of Thatcherism itself. Despite it's ambient beauty, the track is still fairly savage and the hatred of the Right runs all the the way through it.
Unsurprisingly, the single wasn't a hit and wasn't played on many Radio stations either, whether for political or censorial reasons, who knows?
I feel though that it's time the 1980s were reclaimed by those of us whose view of the decade was forged by political activism and Left Wing art and culture; let's debase all these horrid notions of a synthetic, money burning, selfish, culturally vapid decade, and let's remember that among all the detritus, there was a generation who didn't just sit back and take it.....and we still wont!!

Unless we act now, this current decade will end up tainted and tarnished and in an even worse condition than Thatcher left us with back then!

You know what to do!

~Gordon~

You can download the track here

Griff says; Give it back to the Indians.

2011-10-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Readers on this side of the pond may not be aware of this, but tomorrow marks the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492. This event is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States and as Día de la Raza in many countries in Latin America. You may not be surprised to learn that The Streetlamp is of the opinion that the European colonisation of the American continent, with its accompanying genocidal campaigns against Native Americans, is not something that should be glossed over by the spinning of falsely-positive Columbus myths and empty celebrations.

Therefore, to mark the event in a proper fashion we are pleased to bring to your attention the documentary film, The Canary Effect (trailer embedded below). This sensitive and thought-provoking film takes an in-depth look at the devastating effect that US government policies have had, and continue to have, on the indigenous people of America.

The film was written and edited by Robin Davey and he also co-directed, along with his partner Yellow Thunder Woman. Now, if those names seem familiar to you it may be that the duo are, of course, better known as the mainstays of the alternative pop act, and internet phenomenon, The Bastard Fairies (pictured).

The Bastard Fairies began when singer Yellow Thunder Woman (the English translation of her birth name, Wakinyan Zi Win), a member of the Yankton Sioux, met English guitarist Robin Davey in Minneapolis in 2003. Soon after, they began to create their own music because; "there wasn't any music out there that they liked listening too."

The duo, working on a shoestring budget, soon wrote recorded and produced their debut album,Memento Mori, which they immediately made available as a free internet download. This free 12-track pop gem soon began to spread via word of mouth and to this day remains a favourite of The Streetlamp's own Ray.

The duo continue to make music, and please do have a look at their site. However, in 2006, they branched out into documentary film making and made the grim but compelling and essential film The Canary Effect, which is free to watch on-line 'here' and 'here', and which I'm urging you to watch tonight. As you do so I hope you will remember that the oppression and degradation of other races and cultures under the justification of 'opening them up to the West's civilising influence' is an old, perverse and pervasive excuse that must not be allowed to stand unchallenged any longer

Griff

A Nippy Sweeties/Musical Prozac Hybrid: A Decade Went Mad

2011-10-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing that sums up the 1960s more than anything relevant to any decade before or since, it's the complete sense of 'anything goes' that applied to virtually any artistic statement, be it cinema, literature or, especially, music. In the 1960s it was felt that you could release any mad nonsense and there was a definite chance that it could be a hit. With musical pioneers like Lennon & McCartney and Brian Wilson continually pushing the boundaries of music, many others joined in the experimental free for all, not always with satisfactory results.
These days, unless you already sound like the next winner of The X Factor, or are prepared to churn out bland karaoke friendly M.O.R tripe, then you have practically no chance of scoring a chart hit.
So let's look back at a more adventurous time when musicians genuinely strived to achieve something unpredictable and original, or at the very least just a little left of center of the norm.

Here are a few choice cuts:

Jan & Dean

Okay, so we're off to a rather safe start with the pasty skinned, whitebread, milquetoast purveyors of 'the whitest music imaginable' that is Jan & Dean, but beneath their all-things-cornbread exterior there lay an element of mischief, and at times all out blathering stupidity.
Let's start with the rather bizarre 'Bucket T'; a song that blends elements of the Benny Hill theme tune with some overplaying of the cowbells and a completely loony vocal. To add to clownage we have a random clip of Pan's People dancing unconvincingly to the track and, just when things can't get any sillier, Dave Lee Travis appears sprechen sie Deutch....no, seriously! Watch and learn....

Next up is their bonkers track 'The Anaheim, Azuza & Cucamonga Sewing Circle Book Review and Timing Association', and YES, they do manage to fit that whole phrase repeatedly into the chorus. It all gets a little strained and the brass section seem to be deliberately trying to faff their playing for comedic effect...as if it were needed!

Albert De Salvo & The Bugs

Filed in the bad taste section, our next entry is credited to 'Albert De Salvo & The Bugs'....now, for those who don't know, Albert De Salvo was the man who confessed to being The Boston Strangler, the notorious serial killer of the early 60s. Evidence points away from it being him, and he was never actually jailed for the crimes but for other offences. However that didn't stop some bright sparks from recording this rather distasteful gem....

The Jelly Bean Bandits

"Look to the skies//The flying saucers will always be there!" There's a common myth/belief that people started to take a lot of drugs in the late 60s. Suddenly 'the kids' were popping Aspirin, vegging out on Bi-carbonate of soda, and finding a shortcut to the mystical inner mind experience by dabbling in cough linctus. And one can only ponder which weapons grade anti-inflammatories cause The Jelly Bean Bandits to see flying saucers all day, but see them they did! This track, 'Generation', is a pretty wild track with lots of slashing guitars, pounding drums and the sound of someone hitting the P.A. system, over which an excitable young chap lists all the looks and quirks of the new hip generation; leather jackets, long side-burns and 'engineer boots'(?) among the ephemera mentioned. Far out!

The Driving Stupid

Perhaps Kings of the wild psychedelic garage, The Driving Stupid achieved immortality through the Pebbles series of compilation albums thanks to their two mindbending tracks 'Horror Asparagus Stories' and 'The Realities Of (Air) Fried Borsk'. I'm including only the former on the Blog tonight though, as the version of the latter on Youtube is a re-recording with all the foaming-at-the-mouth delirium removed. However, the track I'm featuring more than makes up for this, containing as it does the superb last couplet "My cousin was a kangaroo//And I, my friends, am the square root of two".

The Brain

A quick jaunt over the pond to England next, for a dollop of jabbering whimsy called 'Nightmares In Red'. Apparently this slice of musical anarchy and silly voices is all down to future King Crimson, Robert Fripp. Nobody does whimsy like the English....if only King Crimson had remembered this!

Oshun

Next up is the track 'Rattle Of Life' by Oshun which dates from July of 1967. It's pretty hard to describe this 'song' other than that it sounds like an attempt to convey exactly what it sounded like to be in Haight-Ashbury at the time of the Love-Ins. How much of the background noise is authentic, I'm not sure, and if anyone can tell me what on Earth is going on in the last 30 odd seconds, then good luck! This was released by Mercury Records(although I'm guessing not THE Mercury Records that still exists today), and it's pretty difficult to see what commercial potential they thought this had....

The Fee Fi Four Plus Two

"I'm outside the world and I can't find a way to get in// The cube I took just cut me a little too thin"; you have to admire their subtlety. I believe that hidden within the lyrics of this scorching Garage gem, 'I Wanna Come Back(From The World Of LSD)' are vague and obtuse lyrics about drug usage! Can't say I hear them myself, I've always believed this is a song predicting the decimalisation of British currency, hence I wanna come back from the world of pounds, shillings and pence. You really have to laugh at the naivety of people in the 60s....

(The) Jason Crest

There's a popular misconception that Heavy Metal originated in the West Midlands when A)a bunch of lank haired thugs called Earth changed their name to Black Sabbath and abandoned the psychedelic whimsy of their pop/rock for darker, doom laden material; and B)when golden haired, leather trewsed Rock God Robert Plant joined forces with Crowley worshipping guitar behemoth Jimmy Page to form Led Zeppelin. But, of course, we here at the ~Streetlamp~ say tish, pish and piddle to all that nonsense and suggest that people look back almost TWO years previous when a bunch called Jason Crest(sometimes referred to as THE Jason Crest) cut an alarming track called 'Black Mass'. Everything you associate with early Heavy Metal is present here; from the dodgy subject matter to the doomy atmosphere, from the backwards squalling guitars to the lead singers unbelievable caterwauling. All that AND the magnificent monastic chanting. None More Black indeed.....

The Unfolding

When Pebbles Vol. 3: The Acid Gallery was originally pressed, it contained a mysterious, unknown track on Side 2 which subsequently disappeared on later pressings. It turns out that the track was called 'Prana' and was the product of a band called The Unfolding. Like the Oshun track before, this seems to have no commercial worth whatsoever, but just as Oshun appeared to trying to capture the experience of Haight-Ashbury, so The Unfolding seem to trying to encapsulate that whole inner-mind psychedelic opening of the doors of perception. Or of course, it could just be a bunch of bored studio musicians faffing about and talking bollocks!!

Walham Green East Wapping Carpet Cleaning Rodent And Boggit Extermination Association

Crikey O'reilly!! As if Jan & Dean didn't appear to be taking the piss with their ridiculously convoluted song title, here come a bunch of rum English coves with the type of name that had all the commercial possibility of 'Glitter & King's Babysitting Services'!! Did they really expect to oust The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who with a foolish moniker like that? Probably not, all told. It's more than likely that this was a bunch of(possibly famous) session musicians larking about, BUT...what they did capture was rather a cute slice of semi-detached suburban English life. The song, 'Sorry Mr Green' has a bored office worker hoping to find sexual promise in the arms of his new secretary, away from the ogre-ish spectre of his battleaxe wife....aaahhh, they don't do sexism like they did in the 1960s!!

Friday's Keepers

Being a smug, I-know-everything-about-music bastard, there's nothing I like more than being proved right, especially in front of a bunch of philistines who THINK they know everything about music. Back in 1988/89, some of my more chemically enhanced friends had really gotten into the whole Spacemen 3-taking-drugs-to-make-music-to-take-drugs-to nonsense. However, I tried to point out that this was hardly a new thing and that there were songs released in the 1960s that seemed perfectly tailored to accompany the whole altered state mind-rot. As an example I proffered 'Take Me For A Ride' by Friday's Keepers, and sat back to enjoy the sound of jaws hitting the floor. 'Take Me For A Ride'(a VERY Spacemen 3 title) has woozy melodies, weird harmonies, backwards phased guitars, and an overall sense of chemical inbalance. But it's masterstroke comes exactly one minute in when a weird, subliminal noise starts working it's way through the song. Seeing my friends freaking out when this moment occurred still gives me goosebumps all these years later. Remember kids, Just Say No....if the doctor asks if your friend took anything suspicious before he passed out!

There....I rather enjoyed writing that Blog and delving into the weirder Sixties records in my collection. And the good news is that I have literally HUNDREDS more to dig up, so maybe there will be a few more of these down the pipe some time.

Remember....the flying saucers will ALWAYS be there!!

~Gordon~

Griff says: Strew palms where they advanceth

2011-10-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Back in February of this year I wrote a piece on Holiday Records (see 'here'), a US netlabel offering free downloads of some rather fine indie-pop music. In particular, they seemed to have cornered the market in exciting garagey surf-pop à la The Drums, but a little rougher. Unsurprisingly, really, as one of the co-founders of Holiday records is Jacob Graham, The Drums guitarist. In that article I wrote:
"I first came across Holiday Records in 2010 via the music of sublime Russian indie-surfpop band Palms On Fire (more of whom in a future blog)."

I intend to fulfill that promise tonight as Palms on Fire have lately released an excellent new single, 'Birds in a Supermarket'. This lovely little slice of indie-pop is backed by the equally appealing 'Simple Perfect Life'.

Both tracks are available as free downloads from the band's soundcloud and last.fm pages. At both of these sites, latecomers to the Palms on Fire experience can also freely download their two previous EP's. So what are you waiting for? Here are the two latest tracks to whet your appetite:

Excellent stuff, I hope you'll agree. The band line-up is;
Anna Kislova
Max Kislov
Konstantin Korolev, and
Anton Bochkarev.

Rather interestingly, for purveyors of a surf-pop influenced sound, they hail from Izhevsk, Russsia - hundreds of miles from the sea but home of the AK-47 rifle, fact fans.

I should also mention at this point that there are no links to the Holiday Records site in this article as my anti-virus has been refusing to download that page for over a week now. I'm not sure why, all I know is that I keep getting a severe-looking red-edged warning whenever I try to do so. I suggest you tread there with caution yourself.

Griff
xx

Griff says: Deaf Jam - Stanley Odd's new EP!

2011-10-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a recent blog, Scottish hip-hop outsiders, Stanley Odd, are set this month to release a brand new EP. 'The Day I Went Deaf' will be released on Monday 24th October 2011. The EP is the follow up to 'Pure Antihero Material' which came out in February this year, and marks the second of 3 EPs to be released this year.

I got the 'The Day I Went Deaf' preview CD a couple of weeks ago and I've been listening to it pretty much since I received it. The accompanying press release did say that this EP was 'showcasing a darker, more direct musical shift' but I'll admit the sound fairly took me by surprise. Don't worry, the CD is still chock-full of killer tracks. However, like me, you may be surprised at just how much the band's sound has developed from the pop/funk/hip-hop vibe of their debut album, 'Oddio'. Quite frankly, 'The Day I Went Deaf' is a brilliant and unexpected new change of direction from this band.

I suppose, looking back at 'Pure Antihero Material', the signposts were there (particularly in 'The Controller') and I should've been alerted to a shift in the band's sound but I think the poppier more straightforward grooves of 'The Oddyssey' and 'Winter of Discontent' eclipsed the stylistic shifts I should have noticed in the other songs.

On 'The Day I Went Deaf' the most obvious change in the sound is in the percussion. When 'By Way of Explanation' starts up with it's grimey sounding snare and electronically modulated bass sound I thought I could detect a dubstep influence, which I just wasn't expecting at all. In fact, the whole CD has a grimey dubstep sound to these ears. To see what I mean just have a listen to the intro of 'Broken Has Morning'. In fact, that whole track has a dirty, glitchy, electronica vibe with virtually no 'keeping to the groove' funk or hip-hop influence.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://stanleyodd.bandcamp.com/track/broken-has-morning"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Broken Has Morning by Stanley Odd&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

So where did that percussion sound come from? Where did Samson, the drummer, pull all these choppy/off-centre beats from? I asked Solareye, rap vocals, to fill me in on this new, irregular and gritty Stanley Odd sound. He told me;

"In terms of the drums and the dubstep sound, you are entirely correct to assume that Samson has a lot to do with this. Samson is also a bass-music and dubstep producer under the name of Dunt and I think his influence on the band's music is so evident from 'Pure Antihero' into 'Deaf' and beyond.
In addition, we have completely revised how we work in writing material. Basically me, Samson and T Lo demo beats and email them back and forth, then we go into the studio and replace the drums with Samson's kit, taking the wee musical idea and layering stuff on top of it. Samson is generally only allowed 2 passes through the song then we chop up the sections we like and bounce the multitracks as soon as possible - trying to force ourselves to make decisions early on."

This new song-writing style, eschewing the funky bass lines and rock guitar riffs all over the 90s style, live hip-hop sound of Oddio takes the band into places you could never imagine the Stanley Odd of 2010 going, and you can really hear the band stretching themself. For instance, the lurching, fractured rhythm on 'Get A Grip' is unexpected and almost jarring at first, yet marries so perfectly with the sentiment of the song that it just works beautifully. But the whole CD is full of such dark surprises.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://stanleyodd.bandcamp.com/track/get-a-grip"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Get a Grip by Stanley Odd&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

I mean just have a look at the cover art (above). The whole feel of the EP from the artwork onwards suggests something brooding, tense and anxious. These themes are heard in the overwhelmingly minor keys of the music and also within the lyrics. Stanley Odd has always traded on a Solareye's clever, sly humour and Veronica's smooth and catchy pop vocal input. These, virtually trademark, elements are almost completely absent on this EP. Just have a listen to Veronika's vocal on 'How To Sing The Blues Laughing'. Singing lower in her vocal register than normal, she imparts a real depth of solemn feeling into the lyric.Also, check out Solareye's humourless and cynical "Ha Ha Ha Ha" on that same track.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://stanleyodd.bandcamp.com/track/how-to-sing-the-blues-laughing"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;How to Sing the Blues Laughing by Stanley Odd&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

See what I mean about the sombre undertone? And that's just not something you'd normally associate with this band. Indeed, there's a lot of lines on this new EP that don't have the gallus, bouncy, Solareye feel about them.

"At late I've slipped between annoyed & depressed" By Way of Explanation

"I'm feeling less than human" By Way of Explanation

"gradually the world turned a darker shade of grey" The Day I Went Deaf

"I didn't go deaf, I just stopped listening" The Day I Went Deaf

I asked Solareye if that a deliberate ploy or whether 'something of the night' had subconsciously seeped into the music? He told me:

"As for the lyrics. I think sometimes in the past I felt like I was consciously trying to write something that would maintain rap credibility whilst also being accessible to people outside of hip-hop. Sometime that seemed to work and other times I felt it achieved neither. So this time I was just trying to write something with continuity and a bit of honesty. Some of the concepts are less focussed or finished maybe - like I wonder sometimes if you sit too long trying to start-to-finish tell a story then it might lose a bit of the impact in the process... not sure that I'm articulating that very well... there's definitely some darker stuff in there - I still hope to walk the fine line between actual sentiment and not taking myself too seriously but I'm not sure I always manage it."

Another obvious stylistic change is the incorporation of electronic chip-tune style sounds into the Stanley Odd mix. You'll hopefully recall that these were used on Pure Antihero Material's 'The Controller', where they sync well with the song topic. 'The Day I Went Deaf', however, sees them becoming an integral feature of the Stanley Odd sound ('Get A Grip' and 'Broken has Morning'). I asked Solareye where they had come from? He told me:

"In terms of the chip-tune orchestration, again we've just been trying to develop our sound and, as you say yourself, consciously move away from the 90s influenced live hip-hop vibe. The multi-layered part-structure of By Way of Explanation is an example of T Lo's contribution, building and swelling toward the verse section. Other parts, like the warbling choir section section in the outro of that tune were originally T Lo, then me and Samson ran it through some vinyl software and messed about with it on the record - just trying to create more interesting original parts."

Overall then, Stanley Odd have finished what they started on Pure Antihero Material and really burst out of their slightly-retro, 90s style hip-hop sound for something much more modern, serious and mature. Gone are the quirky cartoon characters of the Oddio cover (above) to be replaced by a monochrome sense of brooding, lonely alienation. I hope that, like me, you'll be surprised but impressed by the musical diversity on 'The Day I Went Deaf'. The band tell me that there are only 250 CD copies available, all of which have been handmade. You can pre-order your copy now 'here', and in doing so will be able to download the EP in full straight away. There you go, what are you waiting for?

There will also be an EP launch party, which will take place on Friday 21st October at the Liquid Room in Edinburgh. The show is open to over 14s, and tickets are available to buy now, or as part of a package with the EP, 'here'. The band will also be out on tour throughout October. These are the dates so far confirmed:

21 Oct EDINBURGH Liquid Room (14+)

22 Oct ABERDEEN Tunnels 2 (Oxjam Takeover)

27 Oct INVERNESS Mad Hatters

28 Oct STORNOWAY Jager Rooms

29 Oct AVIEMORE Old Bridge Inn

If you're wondering why there are no shows in Glasgow, or the West of Scotland, on this list and, like me, are pretty upset about that. Solareye had this to say:

"Oh yeah - the Glasgow gig thing is already causing quite a few queries and complaints - we're hoping to play a major show in Glasgow in January. But it hasn't been confirmed, so we can't announce it yet."

Roll on January 2012! Keep watching The Streetlamp for more details.

In the meantime Samson's EP of dubstep music,'Here Comes The Snake', released as 'Dunt' on abagarecords can be freely downloaded from 'here'.

Dunt, Solareye and Harvey Kartel also have a further new project called Downtimers, with a new EP to be released soon. For a wee taster of what to expect and a free download of the demo track 'Where's The Hook?' visit their bandcamp site.

Griff
xx

Baby's Fine: The Life Of Alice Martineau

2011-10-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

When the ~Streetlamp~ team enjoyed their much celebrated visit to Portencross back in July (see here), the events of the day out there in the real world were a little darker than usual. The day began with the news of the massacre in Norway, and then as we made our way home, we learned of the death of Amy Winehouse.
Amy's death was a strange thing in that nobody I know seemed in the least bit shocked or surprised by the news! Amy's music may not have been to the ~Streetlamp~'s personal taste, but you'd have to deaf or stupid to deny that she was a genuinely talented singer. Her life had become yet another tabloid-inflamed carcrash that the scummy redtops seem to exist purely to document these days, but I couldn't help but feel that all this Rock'n'Roll-leave-a-beautiful-corpse tripe really needs to be knocked on the head. Why should we just accept that rock stars MUST die young to preserve their 'outsider' image? Bullshit!
And what of those stars whose bright light is extinguished without the drink, drugs and Bacchanalian excesses? How should we feel about them? Well, when it comes to someone like the subject of tonight's Blog, then all I can feel is a powerful sense of melancholy, and desperate sadness that yet another mercurial talent never achieved it's full potential.
Welcome to the world of Alice Martineau......
Baby's fine inside....it's just it don't show...

Like most people who fell in love with the music of Alice Martineau, I first heard her through Radio1 DJ Jo Whiley who was an early champion of her songs. Alice's debut single 'If I Fall' was played constantly on Jo's show during the Winter of 2002, and although I was originally ambivalent towards it's charms, the infectious power of Alice's crystal clear voice somehow broke through my snobbish veneer.
Her debut album 'Daydreams', released in November that year, was one of the albums I received that Christmas and it practically soundtracked the whole Festive period of that year; the first Christmas spent in my new home.

I have to admit that I didn't know an awful lot about Alice, and she never seemed to appear in many of the music papers of that time, but I had somehow picked out from what Jo had said that Alice had some illness and was awaiting an operation.
And then in March of 2003, a couple of months after that Christmas, Jo Whiley announced on her show that Alice Martineau had died. She passed away on the 6th of March, a victim to the cystic fibrosis she had suffered from since birth. The phonecall she waited her whole life for, to tell her that a complete heart and lung transplant could be performed, simply never came. She had just passed her 30th birthday, yet she looked a decade younger.
That night I re-listened to the album and re-read the lyric booklet and from that moment the songs never meant the same again. I now knew that all the references to hurt and loss were not about some silly love affair or some mad crush, but were actually about standing up to a respiratory disease that she knew she only stood a small chance of beating.
Suddenly my favourite song of hers, 'Baby's Fine' took on a whole new meaning. I had always imagined it was about how she was coping with a broken heart, but reading the lyrics again I now saw that she was telling the world that she can't get on and enjoy her life if people keep asking how she is, constantly reminding her that she isn't well; "Danger grows in the mind// It's so hard when your life's one big lie"...

Another favourite track, 'Inside Of You'(which features a startlingly heart-wrenching vocal), I now know was written by Alice as if from beyond the grave, looking back and seeing her memory kept alive by the people who loved her. Quite how someone so young finds the strength and clarity of mind to approach such a lyrical view is beyond me....

Alice's record company, Sony, had planned to release a second single 'The Right Time' in the February of 2003 but had been made aware of her deteriorating condition and didn't want to put any undue pressure on her to perform and so withheld the release. This means that Alice's entire recorded output is TWO releases, one single and one album.
The only other artifact she left us with was a 60 minute documentary made for the BBC called 'The Nine Lives Of Alice Martineau'. Below is the opening segment of it:

The documentary goes on to show Alice as being feisty, funny and full of life. She admits to having spent her teenage years listening to The Smiths and The Cure, and reveals that it was her constant coughing when she was young that had strengthened her diaphragm which in turn gave her that powerful delivery. She is also shown singing live in some club, proving that she could cut it live too.
Just as before, the documentary only aired after Alice had died, and so yet again the programme takes on a different hue once the viewer knows the outcome of her short life.
This short piece shows a demo of 'If I Fall' with a brief interview at the end (apologies for the very poor quality):

Sadly, Alice remains a mere footnote in the history of music, except of course to those who fell under her spell in that short period in late 2002, but when people talk about it being better to burn brightly than to fade away (another hoary old Rock cliche), I think of Alice and how she'd probably mock the ridiculousness of the whole 'beautiful corpse' nonsense.
"I've got this chilling feeling//Coming over me//My mind's exposed//I know it shows//But I'm gaining sanity//And tomorrow you will understand//I'm not trying to be anything but me//Could it be too late now?"

Alice Martineau 8 June 1972 – 6 March 2003
R.I.P xx

~Gordon~

(I was going to post a Download of her album here, but at the risk of incurring the wrath of Sony, decided not to. However, the whole album is available to listen to on Youtube!)

Griff says; A remarkable shade of black humour.

2011-09-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Those of you who read my recent ZuKrewe review, or who have been chatting to me in person, will know how much I've been loving that album. One of the most appealing aspects of it was the spoken word raps, which, stripped as they were of any musical accompaniment, were intimately personal and emotionally raw.
For this reason, I've always enjoyed listening to spoken word poetry, whether it's political stuff like Linton Kwesi Johnson or The Last Poets, or more slyly humourous material, such as Ivor Cutler or David Shrigley.

The artist I'm featuring tonight is a little closer in tone to the latter two artists mentioned, although without their more obviously surreal qualities. What is more, he is a fellow Scot so it was particularly pleasing for me to come across him recently on soundcloud. The artist in question is Kevin P. Gilday who desribes his work as:

"Poetry, rants, spoken words, songs, field recordings and general self aggrandizement from one half of How Garbo Died."

How Garbo Died is an experimental electronic duo from Glasgow who can be found 'here' on bandcamp. Unsurprisingly, given a poet in their number, their lyrics are fairly abstruse and literate. It is, however, Kevin's solo spoken-word work that I find most interesting. I'm embedding a couple of tracks below to give you an idea of the substance of his output.

First up is 'The Polite Meeting of Two Well-Mannered Men', which is marked by a clever ironic humour. Kevin modestly describes this as:

"Basically a silly wee story inspired by me having one of those awkward moments when you bump into someone, you both try to let the other proceed…and you both just stand there. Surely one of the most strange and likeable quirks of humankind is politeness. This story takes place in a strange alternative universe where manners have been forgotten by the general population. Let it act as a warning! Let’s never lose these idiosyncratic little gestures, they define who we are."

The next is the shorter, slightly sardonic 'Mixed Up'. Kevin, in similar diffident fashion to the above description, introduces this as follows:

"This is a blatant rip-off of a Tim Key poem. All the hall marks are there - use of first names, an ironic distance, an absurd punchline. So why am I drawing your attention to this fact?"

Kevin has several more, similarly accomplished, spoken word recordings available on his soundcloud page, and gratifyingly these are all free to download. Please give his page a wee visit and support a local (to me anyway) talent.

Griff
xx