sound of the suburbs

Two cover versions today with in common the word teenage. Following on from yesterday's TPE post a version that maybe you don't know of the Undertones main claim for fame 'Teenage Kicks', which is one of they great songs that I find you never get tired of, even at the tender age of 46 those opening chords still send a shiver down my backbone as Johhny Kidd would have said. The song is interpeted by French artist Dominiqe A with a little bit of help from Francoiz Berut, and in a dreamy way it's not bad with an introspective forlorn touch.

How can you cover a Sonic Youth song with out seeming foolish? Well I found the answer in my mail box this week signed by Ruby Isle, who take on 'Teenage Riot', that can can found on their recently released 'Into The Black EP'. Kindercore founder and member of I Am The World Trade Center, Dan Geller has teamed up with old school friend Mark Mallman, author and performer of rock's longest song performed in 2004 and lasting over 52 hours! They describe themselves as being the rock band predicted by Nostradamus, their press agent describes them as being the merge of alcohol and sweat drenched Mallman glam with a dance pop production, I'm not quite sure what they mean but regardless on the evidence of the three songs thay should be destined for great things, or at least an NME front page. Their piano led cover has been running arround my head for the last few days and for good reason as they have managed to keep the menace of the original while adding a child like feeling of optimism, in a fair world this would be a hit, as they used to say. The other two tracks are equally good and can be heard a their my space.

I know I missed the Monday rendez-vous, but believe me I am having big problems with my work load at the moment and since the beginning of the week I've been on 10 hour plus working days. So as they say better late than never, and with next to no text as time is really not on my side, but I'll catch up with the writing side next week and by way of bonus another Session from the same band.
That Petrol Emotion were of course the band that raised itself from the ashes of the Undertones, while Fergal Sharkey was off chasing fame and fortune, That Petrol Emotion, formed by the O'Neill brothers with American Steve Mack handling the vocal duties, were doing what real bands do. It should come as no surprise that they quickly earned the patronage of Peel and as such got round to laying down three sessions, the first of which from June 1985 is up for grabs today.

1. 'V2'
2. 'Lettuce'
3. 'Blind Spot'
4. 'Can't Stop'

I stumbled across this photo in a French music mag the other day, it was being used to advertise Eurostar, I must admit I had to look at it twice to realise that it was a fresh new take on the tired old image of the Beatles Abbey Road cover. So why not some Beatles covers for the week-end? Booker T & The MGs with 'I Want you (She's So Heavy)', I've always been a sucker for the organ heavy hands of Booker and the slashing chords from Steve Crooper's Telecaster, a match made in musical heaven. With their take on this song from their 1970 album 'McLeone Avenue' they do the song proud taking it to new majestic heights. Having been their in '77 I have always had a soft spot for Siouxsie, especially those first four albums, I can remember waiting outside the door of my local record shop to get my hand on 'Scream' on the day it was released, the sort of thing no one does now as Amazon gets it to the letter box. It is on the Banshees first album that we find their version of 'Helter Skelter' a song they took and made their own in much the same way that Hendrix did with 'All Along The Watchtower' many years earlier. Siouxsie will be celebrating her 50th birthday this year, now that hurts! Puerto Muerto are a husband and wife duo hailing from the lone star state that make music about as far removed from the state's image as it is possible to get. They could be loosely described as punk folk using German cabaret and Spanish folk as their main pillars of support. Their 'With A Little Help From My Friends' was for me one of the stand out tracks on the recent Mojo Sgt Pepper cover versions album.

I was rather bemused the other day when I saw the adverts in the music press for the latest Trojan compilation 'Jonny Greenwood Is The Controller', is this the same person that strums away behind Thom Yorke making the most weird and beautiful noises? The answer was yes, so I pondered was this revenge for the Easy All Stars album 'Radiodread' from last year that covered the OK Computer album in reggae style. Apparently the studio wizard is a newcomer to reggae only really starting to explore it 3 or 4 years ago, one does wonder what took him so long! The album is the first of a series to be released to celebrate the labels 40th anniversary, where stars are being asked to compile a compilation from the labels massive and impressive vaults. Well worth checking out as are the numerous limited edition Trojan box sets that contain 50 tracks over their 3 discs and retailing at under the 20 euro mark are not just a good listen but a good deal as well, personal favorites 'Dub Rarities' and 'Rockers'.
Seeing as I am very much a product of the place and time that I spent my formative years reggae has never been to far from my ears. The golden age is of course long over and the best albums were probably all recorded in the seventies, this does not stop rasta legends from recording and touring to this day though it must be said that the ears of the nations youth would much rather listen to other forms of music such as ragga. A collection of four songs from the musics golden period :

Bad News : fileXoom don't like me any more or else I've been rattling someones' cage and been banned, as my account with them has totally disappeared and they don't recognise my e mail address either, can't complain really seeing as the account was free. What this does mean is that all files hosted there and posted before today are now dead, sorry! Amusingly enough I was able to sign up for a new account using the same e mail, let's see what happens. Some of you will have noticed that files hosted at My Data Bus are not always available, the reason is quite simple, I am restricted to 1 giga of band width per day and as demand is high I am easily passing this at the moment, don't worry I'll be spreading the files around other services so try again another day.
Last year I discovered a great festival, Primarvera that is held in one of my favorite towns, Barcelona, well the 2007 line up has just been announced and it's a scorcher : The Apples In Stereo, Barry Adamson, Billy Bragg, Black Mountain, Blonde Redhead, Buzzcocks, Dirty Three, DJ Yoda, The Durutti Column, Fennesz & Mike Patton, Girls Against Boys, Jonathan Richman, Klaxons, Long Blondes, Low, Patti Smith, Rakes, Slint, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Spiritualized, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Good The Bad And The Queen and Wilco, of course this list is not exhaustive and as with such events is liable to modifications. I've already bought my tickets that it must be said are a bit on the expensive side at 110 euros, and reserved my hotel, can't wait!


One of the big attractions is going to be Damon Albarn's new project, The Good The Bad and The Queen, who played a gig in Washington DC last week that was broadcast by NPR who amazingly enough considering the importance of the band have put the 60 minute concert up as a hefty one piece 55 mo download. The set was a straight run through of their album with an unreleased song 'Doghouse' and a single b side 'Mr Whippy' played as the encore. Mr whippy includes a Syrian called Eslam Jawaad, God knows how he managed to obtain an entry visa to land Uncle Sam. The song itself is a pleasing take on cod reggae that reminds me very much of Mark Perry and ATV doing 'Love Lies Limp', and that can't be a bad thing.

This should have been posted last Saturday but something went wrong, so rather wait 12 months for St Patrick's day to come around again I thought, why not, after all it's only four days late. The House of Pain were a white pop rap band that were more than keen to display their Irish heritage and took this to comic book levels of stupidity with their loutish behaviour, foul language and excessive consummation of beer, this of course worked fine at first in grabbing the medias attention, but was to latter backfire. Band leader, Everlast had been a member of Ice-Ts Rhyme Syndicate before forming the band with High School friends, Their first single provided them with a huge chart hit, that they were to find impossible to fellow up, the song was of course 'Jump Around' presented here in it's Pete Rock Mix. The song is a fine party number that comes over as a cross between early Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. Their second single, 'Shamrocks and Shenanigans' also got the remix treatment I've chosen the Butch Vig Mix, rounding up the music with their theme tune 'House Of Pain Anthem Master Mix' They released three albums in total each of which sold less than the previous did and by 1998 Everlast was recording under his own name releasing a pleasing album in 'Whitey Ford sings The Blues', that was well received by the critics.

Kevin Coyne was a die hard rock 'n' roll maverick who as Robert Chalmers correctly pointed out sung about subjects that failed to inspire the majority of the record buying public. Though fans he did a have, including John Lyndon, Sting and Jon Langford. There is another pair of Johns that we could add to that list, Peel and Walters. Peel was so taken with the demo tape that he received that he wasted no time in signing him to his Dandelion label, after the label folded Coyne started a fruitful relationship with the then hippy tinged label Virgin, It was in this same year that he recorded the first of his 10 Peel sessions, the last of which was laid down in 1990.

I have always had a soft spot for his work, loving his commanding voice over a folk rock 'n' roll with shades of left wing avant garde, the subject matter of his songs could be both challenging, pleasing and disturbing as he often used his experiences as a social worker for the basis for a song. The eighties would prove to be difficult as it would seem that struck by depression and alcoholism and a failing marriage he was living out his earlier lyrics. Thankfully he was to come through this with the help of a new relationship and a wise move to Germany. He continued recording and gigging despite being diagnosed with lung fibrosis that finally took his life in December 2004.

Regular readers will have already read about some of the concerts that I promoted between 1992 and 1999, when starting out we were looking for a name, something that would catch the eye, we came up with Luna Tick. A few days later I was listening to a Kevin Coyne album and stumbled across his song 'Lunatic', and ever since then I have not regretted the choice of name. The song comes from his 7th session recorded in February 1978 as does another of his songs that maybe sums up our experience 'That's Rock 'n' Roll'. Both of these tracks can be found on the long deleted but worth while tracking down 'Peel Sessions' album from 1990 on Strange Fruit where we can also find one of his touching love songs 'Marlene', that has always struck a chord with me.

What follows is a more or less complete list of gigs that Luna-Tick promoted during it's 7 years of existence, unless otherwise stated they took place at Le Rockstore, Montpellier. There might be some mistakes and some omissions as there definitely some black holes in my memory, feel free to correct me! The team that worked with me and myself had a great time and have some wonderful memories and tales to tell and regretted nothing except maybe the adventure ending. That's enough of blowing my own horn for one day!

As I Have Already mentioned, when I arrived in France in November 1987 I wasted no time in checking out the local music scene. Now French rock is a strange beast as some of it is more French than other, there are for example certain groups that sing in English, there are others that are fervent followers of Manchester, New York, London, Seattle or wherever and as such produce heavily derivative music. On the other hand there is a strand of musicians that with the help of protectionist legislation have breathed new life into that old beast la chanson. The late 80's and the early 90's were a boom period for what was labeled as "alternative" music in France with the most obvious examples being La Mano Negra and Les Negresses Vertes, one of the most annoying things about this scene was that it attracted a high percentage of dog on a string give us a pound/ a dollar/ a franc type of person. Another of the leading lights of this scene were Les VRP who mined la chanson and the spirit of inter war year cabaret as the influence for their humorous acoustic based numbers. They had a relatively short life span, 1988 - 1993, splitting live on stage in the 6000 capacity Zenth in Montpellier after headlining a festival there. Just in case the audience were not quite sure whether it was true or not the band trashed all their instruments before offering what was left to the stunned public. One of their songs that I spent many a stoned evening listening to and trying to decipher the lyrics was 'Le Roi De La Route' from their 1989 debut album 'Remords Et Tristes Pets' ( loosely translated as, remorse and sad farts). The song is in fact an early example of road rage with a motorist obsessed with overtaking another vehicle. From the same album comes 'Mardi Gras' more of a lounge number that pays it's respects to the great Serge. So enjoy the music and get your French dictionaries out!

As a youngster I was not as keen on my studies as I could have been and by the time I was 16 or 17 I was spending far too much of my free time on nocturnal outings to catch bands live. At this period, the mid to late seventies the East End of London was not the trendy inner suburb that it has become in recent years but more of a cultural desert as far as music venues were to go and so I became very familiar with the workings of the London tube as I would often be off to the town centre or even as far as West London, which at the time boasted a good selection of live venues, one of my favorites was The Nashville Rooms in West Kensington. This was a very large Victorian pub that had a room that must have contained somewhere in the region of 400 people and was equipped with a decent stage where they put on live music 7 nights a week. It was a bit of a hangover from the pub rock days though the venue was quick enough to grab the spirit of change that was in the air, one legendary gig, which I missed, was the Sex Pistols supporting the 101er's. I saw many a band and sunk many a good pint of Fullers inside it's smokey confines, most of the bands I saw were not to go on to mega stardom, but there was one that I saw there on at least three occasions ('77/'78) before turning up one cold winter night in 1978 to see them again only to find a great big line of faces waiting to pay their entrance fee, the night before the band had been on the Old Grey Whistle Test tv programme, I did not wait around as there was another gig just down the road at Hammersmith's more intimate Red Cow. The name of the band was the Police, I can remember at this period they made for a good night out with their mixture of fast punk inspired numbers and what was to become their trade mark, white reggae.
It was with much surprise and even amusement that I learnt the news of them reforming for a world tour, it was not that long ago that Sting was giving a big loud NO when journalists would pose the question of a possible get together, so what happened has Sting been stung by that vulgar disease called poverty? Is the up keep of his Tuscany life style proving too much? Who knows, who cares, the only thing that I am sure of is that I will not be sending off for tickets, in fact I somewhat doubt that if you were to offer me a place that I could be arsed to go. I can remember when the Sex Pistols got back together, the first time, I was tempted but finally decided that it was not a good idea. I saw the the reformed Buzzcocks who were older and fatter than the first time I saw them some twenty years previously and last year I caught the reformed Wedding Present and despite it being an enjoyable evening it was not a patch on the gig I saw them perform a decade before. This might sound a little mean but I almost consider that Joe Strummer did me a favour by passing away when he did a it has saved me the dilemma of deciding whether or not to see a reformed version of the Clash were it to have ever come about. On the subject of the Clash, Carbon Silicon, Mick Jones latest venture, have just posted four new tracks that can be found here.
I guess at the end of the day the hesitation on my part boils down to two factors, first the bands motivation, I loudly condemned the Pixies as it was more than evident it was just for the money as was also to be the case with the Pistols, the cynic in me also says the Police are looking forward to a good pension plan from the dates they'll be playing. Secondly I think I've got a nagging thought at the back of my head that I might just be disappointed, imagine seeing Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon once again on stage and them failing to deliver the goods, that would almost kill me!
Anyway enough of this rhetoric, after all this is a music blog. In their day I can vouch that the Police were one hell of a fine band on stage as you can hear from these two tracks taken from their box set 'Message In A Box' a fine (s)punky 'Next To You' recorded live in NYC and their live favorite 'Message In A Bottle'. If you are planning to go and see them don't let the musing of an aging punk rocker spoil your enjoyment.

The Jesus & Mary Chain, one of the greatest names for a group ever, and they knew it but this was not enough in the media obsessed eighties and so the band went out of their way to create the kind of headlines that Oasis would be proud of. The band came to surface at the tail end of 1984, I was to read of their exploits weeks after they took place thanks to the good old NME, as at the time I was living in Italy. It was with both a degree of surprise and pleasure that I consumed the stories of their twenty minute sets, their arrogant confrontation with their audience and the ensuing riots, now this sounded more like rock 'n' roll to me than some of synthetic music that the decade was to serve us. Unfortunately by the time the time I had moved back to London the rioting was over and the band were playing things by the rule book. It should come as no surprise that John Peel and John Walters wasted no time in inviting the Reid brothers in to lay down some session tracks, in total they graced those studios 6 times for the Peel show between 1984 and 1989. 'Just Like Honey' is taken from the February 1985 visit and included Bobby Gillespie bashing his drums in stand up fashion as if he was playing a session for the Crystals with Phil Spector in control, but the overall effect was much more menacing than a teen pop opera, the treble heavy guitar at times being the limit of acceptability and the vocals so far down in the mix that they are at times inaudible, but we loved it. By October the same year Gillespie had left to concentrate on Primal Scream, and the mood was, acoustic, but somehow they managed to retain a pleasing feel of menace as can be heard on 'Some Candy Talking' and what do you know we were all surprised to hear Jim's voice and above all how good it was. 'Sidewalking' comes from their penultimate session in May 1988 as does their rewarding cover of the Temptations 'My Girl'.
I finally caught up with the band in 1992 when they were touring 'Honey's Dead' at Le Rockstore, Montpellier. While I would not dispute that they were maybe past their prime in no way was their sell by date up. They were not the most visual of bands but this they more than made up for with both an impressive wall of sound and an equally amazing wall of lights. The menace was ever present and as for the volume it was probably the loudest gig I've ever attended, and I've seen Motorhead and next to the JAMC, Lemmy and the boys sound like a bunch of pussies, my ears were ringing for days afterwards! Thinking about it now I would say that the title of their 1988 B side and out takes compilation 'Barbed Wire Kisses' does a very good job of summing up the band, a bit like the sweet and sour of rock 'n' roll.

First up lets' get rid of the bad news which is that I am still having big problems with my Internet connection and neither Tiscali nor Telecom are competent enough to do anything else but cash my cheques. This has meant for the last week I have suffered the cyber indignity of being connected at speeds as low as 12kbit/s, is this a record? This is somewhat like pissing against the wind, necessary but not at all rewarding. Yesterday being Saturday, I was happy to pass the day with only one or two minor problems so who knows maybe I'm back to my normal speed of 44kbits/s ! On the subject of the Internet, my regular readers will know that I'm still battling away with a 56k dial up and as such am waiting with eager anticipation for the possibility of a high speed connection, I live in a town with a population in excess of 100 000, well I learnt this last week that this is very unlikely in the near future as Telecom are reluctant to invest for the benefit of other operators. Maybe I should move?
Good news, I noticed yesterday that fileXoom were at last back on line, this of course means that all of the files should now be available again, I guess they had problems as their three day estimation turned out to be more a case of eight days. Due to this problem I have been looking around and come up with a new service that we shall be trying out this week, myDataBus.
Another good point to my forced week of down time is that I have been able to spend more time listening to music for my own pleasure, this has led to the discovery and rediscovery of some new gems that I will be sharing with you over the weeks to come. The first of which is a live recording of the man they called the Godfather of Ska, Laurel Atken. Having been born in in Cuba, 1927 he was to move to Jamaica at the age of 15 and started performing in Calypso groups. 1957 saw his first record release and the following year he started recording for Chris Blackwell's newly formed Island Records, their first single together 'Little Sheila' was to be a massive hit in Jamaica and was also the first Jamaican record to be released in the UK. His records found a home in the UK, with it's large West Indian community a result of which was that Atken moved to England in 1960 and settled in Brixton. He signed to the legendary Blue Beat label for whom he was to record over 15 singles before returning to Jamaica three years later. From here on his output was often to feature the Skatalites as backing band and included his classic 'Skinhead Train'. The rise of reggae was to make Ska sound childlike and out of date and therefore redundant so along with other Ska artists the period until the Two Tone ska revival lead by the Specials was to be spent out of the limelight. This revival was to refire the boilers in the old beast and 1981 gave him his first UK chart hit 'Rudy Got Married'. Like many artists from his generation he was at home on a stage performing and as such was regularly to be seen playing live until his death in 2005 at the age of 87. Today's songs are taken from a concert somewhere in the South of France in the late 90's, just think when listening to these songs that the man was in his late seventies, early eighties when they were recorded! Bonus track from the same gig his cover of Prince Buster's 'Al Capone'.

I've still got problems with FileXoom, my file hosting service, this is the 5th day they are down, they estimated 3 days! To add to this, since Saturday I'm having great problems in staying connected for more than five minutes and my connection speed has dropped to a ridiculous 14kbits/s, is this a record Tiscalli or am I being given special treatment? So to say I'm pissed of would be the polite way to express my feelings.
So no wonderful text today as I no longer have the energy to battle with my computer, Just a handful of songs from the early XTC Peel Sessions, I loved them when they were churning out quirky angular leftfield pop songs, and liked them a lot less when they started to tread the Syd road of whimsical English psychedelic pop, sorry I know a lot of people like the later period, just my personal opinion.

1. 'I'm Bugged' (21/09/77)
2. 'Crosswires' (20/06/77)
3. 'Meccanic Dancing' (13/11/78)
4. 'The Rhythm' (13/11/78)

I will not be back until I've got my internet connection sorted out or have found another less painful way to post, today it has taken me over two hours and I don't think my patience is going to last for much longer. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about this but I've just discovered that fileXoom have started to change their servers or something else that is promised to give us better service, am I the only one that can remember how Ezarchive went rapidly down hill after changing everything for what should have been better. They say it's going to take about three days, looks like they are moving the files one by one. This means that the music I had prepared for today and tomorrow has been put on hold until they are up and working again. At the worst I shall be back next Monday using my emergency uploading service for our regular Peel Sessions rendez-vous.