Some More Midweek Treats

I couldn't resist a further dip into the pick'n' mix  selection that is the Treats sampler from Seattle's Barsuk Records.
It is from 2002 as Brian kindly informs us. He also features The Long Winters  so we don't have to.

This time around I thought I would concentrate on artists that I was less familiar with. I was familiar with the name Death Cab For Cutie (kindda hard not to be with a name like that) but not with the music.
If it all as good as A Movie Script Ending then some more exploration is clearly required.
I also plumped for a band I have never heard of All-Time Quarterback. Turns out that this is a side project of DCFC main man Ben Gibbard featuring some songs that didn't seem right for his main band.

Sadly on this occasion John Vanderslice, The Prom, Sunset Valley and the awfully named Kind of Like Spitting all failed to miss the cut

Death Cab For Cutie - A Movie Script Ending

All -Time Quarterback - Plans Get Complex

Guilty Pleasures Rise Again

I stumbled across a CD entitled Guilty Pleasures Rise Again in the darkest recesses of the shelves the other day.
On the premise that there is in fact no such thing as a guilty pleasure I ran my eye over the tracks and a couple of songs jumped to my attention.
 These involve artists and/or songs which have featured elsewhere around these parts recently.
I quite liked S-S-S-Single Bed by Fox on it's release in 1976 and still do now. Jamie at For Malcontents Only wrote a fascinating article on the band not so long ago

And hardly surprisingly Kim Carnes was the number one in Rol's top 10 Bette Davis Songs.
It is of course impossible to listen to this song without your mind wandering to Birkenhead's finest

Fox - S-S-S-Single Bed

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

Half Man Half Biscuit -Dickie Davies Eyes (Peel Session)

Lithium

At Saturday night 's Celtic Connections concert Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer covered Lithium. More of which later. It also features on their album Not Dark Yet.
All of which had me reaching for the original which I haven't played in a long while.

Our retired neighbours through the wall like to entertain often and loudly as was the case on Sunday afternoon. As a gesture of neighbourly goodwill I left the album playing at a reasonable volume as I went for a shower.

I like it, I'm not going to crack.

Nirvana - Lithium

Nirvana - Polly

A Sunday Single #4

The last of the four singles recently purchased in my local Charity shop and it is a cracker.
Ghost Town by the Specials in a 2 Tone sleeve for 50p. I may not get a better bargain this year.
Released on 12th June 1981 it spent 3 weeks at number 1 and a total of 10 weeks in the UK Top 40

I have a lot of admiration for the Specials but embarrassingly precious few records. Only The Peel Sessions EP and In the Studio by The Special A.K.A (if that counts) and the occasional track on compilations. Something I clearly need to rectify.
Talking of the Specials isn't it great to see Scott from the ever wonderful Spools Paradise back posting?

I revisited the charity shop recently but the good ones have now going and they are left with Cliff Richard and the likes.There are precious few vinyl singles in the Muso room although a job lot belonging to Mrs CC and her sister appeared when her mum moved house.
Depending on the quality and the condition of these records I will continue with this series meantime  and keep my eye out for some more bargains.

The Specials - Ghost Town

The Specials - Why?

The Specials -Friday Night, Saturday Morning

Covered By Cash - Solitary Man

Johnny was comprehensively routed last week by Roberta Flack with her definitive version of First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
From a seemingly unassailable position The Man in Black's lead has been severely clawed back after three straight defeats in a row to make the score now Cash 7 The Rest 6.

Can he stop the rot this week?
This week we have Solitary Man the title track to American III up against the original from Neil Diamond another veteran artist who had his career resurrected by Rick Rubin. Just received the sad news that Neil has reluctantly retired having being diagnosed with Parkinsons.My mum had that and it is not pleasant.

I think that the rot may have well and truly been stopped this week. It's Johnny for me by a distance. He gives the song some gravitas.

Others, of course, may choose to disagree but they would be wrong there


Johnny Cash -Solitary Man

Neil Diamond - Solitary Man

Celtic Connections - Allison Moorer and Shelby Lynne

The first of this years two Celtic Connections concerts tomorrow night at Glasgow's City Halls and I'm fair excited about it.
Americana royalty in the shape of sisters Allison Moorer and Shelby Lynne showcasing their recently released collaborative record Not Dark Yet (primarily covers with one original song). It is not on the shelves yet but I suspect that will be remedied in the not to distant future.
There is solo stuff from both of them there which regularly get dusted down.
We saw Allison a couple of years ago and she was excellent. It will be our first sighting of Shelby.

As  if that wasn't enough as an added bonus the producer of their album some boy called Teddy Thompson will be the support act!
Full match report to follow.

Allison Moorer - The One That Got Away (Got Away With My Heart)

Shelby Lynne - Breakfast in Bed

Teddy Thompson - Looking For a Girl

Always Different, Always The Same

A guest contribution from George

The Fall were a bloody brilliant band. Or maybe I should say they were a series of bloody brilliant bands given the line-up changes.  “If it’s Mark E Smith and your granny on bongos, it’s the Fall”, but I never got to hear that particular version of the band, although it would have been great to see my Nanna, who would outsmoke Mark E Smith, on stage with her packs of Silk Cut and a glass of sherry, on the bongos whilst Smith had his back turned to the audience.

Repetitive Fall

The Fall -O.F.Y.C. Showcase

The records kept coming, for almost 40 years, at times great (The Unutterable, Your Future Our Clutter) and at times a bit less so, but that run of albums from Live At The Witch Trials, in 1979, to The Infotainment Scan in 1993 rarely had a duff track on them. And you couldn’t ask for much more from a band. For me it's the music, the lyrics are always secondary, which is just as well given that at best only half the time  can I make out what the hell Mark E Smith is shouting about. And even when I can make it out, say on Garden (Perverted by Language), I've no idea what the hell it's about. And sometimes, when I'm lucky, it can always make me smile,

 "Make joke records, hang out with Gary Bushell,
Join round table. "I like your single yer great!"" on C'n'C-S Mithering (Grotesque).

 But it's the music, always that relentless relentless relentless repetition, on O.F.Y.C Showcase (Your Future Our Clutter), or Pacifying Joint (Fall Heads Roll), or No Bulbs, a song it is impossible and it should be illegal to not PLAY LOUD,  or, or, or,...Repetition (77-Early Years-79), it's always the music for me.

Early and Amusing Fall

C 'n C's Mithering

You don’t have to like the personnel to like the music, which was just as well really, but I suppose there comes a point when the person’s actions go too far for us to listen to the records anymore. Maybe. After all, I suspect I’m not the only one who still plays Phil Spector-produced records; R.L.Burnside killed someone in a dice game. And Mark E Smith seemed to have some nasty violent habits, and hold some distasteful views, but that’s not going to stop me playing Live At The Witch Trials and shouting along to Mother Sister, blasting out The Lay Of The Land, the first Fall song I ever heard, almost shiver with pleasure as Cyber Insekt vibrates the walls. Mark E Smith didn’t mean anything to me, I never met him, never wanted to, I didn’t even want to go see the band in concert after about 2007,  but I always wanted to buy his records.

"I can make out some lyrics but what the hell is this all about" Fall

The Fall -Oswald Defense Lawyer

Always different, always the same