Whoops. After caving in to repeated emails (and much spam, which has now changed from being mostly in Russian to being mostly in French), I caved in and tried to register this site as being a professional something-or-other, only to then having the registration rejected on the grounds of not being too serious in the registration process. This cheers me immensely.
That said, the appearance of these pages elsewhere on the internet (listed in the “Press” section, something which flatters and amuses me in equal measures) done up to look a lot nicer than they really are. So the dual bombshells of my hobby being read and redistributed by the various subjects of my postings (which I’m utterly chuffed to bits about) and people prodding me from all over the globe to take this all a bit more seriously has led to thoughts of a possible redesign. Which, given my technical ineptitude and artistic “unfortunateness”, may well remain as thoughts. Unless I get monumentally drunk one weekend and get the crayons out.
From "Revolver"
The Beatles – Love You To
The thing that amazes me about the Beatles is not so much the way that they changed popular music, but the speed that they did it. Revolver appeared just over three years after the debut LP, which is (if we’re lucky) the time current established artists take over one record nowadays. It’s also a lesson that the music industry still struggles to get to grips with: If a song is good, no matter how strange and unlike what has gone before (and Love You To definitely counts as a bit of a strange departure for a pop act), then it’s good and nothing else really matters. It would have been funny to have seen the look on the rest of the band’s faces when they were first confronted with this track, especially when George had given it the very English name of Granny Smith.
From the "Weights & Measures" EP
Dry The River – Thou Art Loosed
“What a thoroughly odd choice for a cover”, was my first thought upon hearing about this. Josh T. Pearson’s original (and the entire album it comes from) is such an utterly personal and fragile work that it couldn’t possibly have any sort of emotional punch when coming from anyone else, could it? So it’s a huge credit to these guys for having a go, and making something rather lovely and different of it. I have to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of the rest of the EP (it’s certainly good, but could do with a couple of layers of polish chipping away to these miserable ears), but this inclusive in-the-round rendition in a bit of a nod to White Winter Hymnal makes for a version that retains the haunted spirit of the original but adds a strange, positive spin.
From "Dreamboatsafari"
Duke Garwood – Jesus Got A Gun
It’s taken me a very long time indeed to get into this record. I’ve been really impressed by Duke’s various performances in support of Mark Lanegan (and look forward to hearing what the two have concocted together), but it’s probably not unfair to say that this album doesn’t exactly reflect those loud, reverb-heavy death ballads of the stage. What’s probably also unfair is me expecting that. ”Loose” doesn’t begin to describe what’s going on here, and it’s occasionally possible to discern a phrase here and there to place it at one of his shows, but now that those shows are a bit more distant in the memory, it’s easier to sit and soak up these jams and enjoy them.
From "A Winged Victory For The Sullen"
A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Requiem For The Static King Part One
From their staggeringly-beautiful self-titled debut, it’s so difficult to say what it is that’s so incredible about these guys. Pitched and played at a frequency and tempo that is guaranteed to both move and sooth the spirit with what initially sounds like a minimum of effort but a level of skill and patience that is staggering. As close to the musical equivalent of calm breathing (something we all do, but never think about the physical processes involved) that I think I have ever heard, and a beautiful tribute to the late Mark Linkous.
From "Tidings"
Wolf People – October Fires
By the time their next album comes out, hopefully people will have cottoned on that Wolf People are one of the best bands that the UK has at the moment. It’s possible that the fact that they sound – both in the songs that they play and the way that way that their recordings make them come across – as if they have been around since the mid-1960s that people don’t give them the contemporary respect that they should be commanding. Indeed, listening to this sounds like something that has been hidden away in an attic for several decades which lends the whole affair that extra patina of charm.
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