CHEESY WOTSITS
(Tracks not full lengths) Ke$ha – “We R Who We R” Ke$ha - “Backstabber” Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, "Round and Round" Rangers – “Golden Triangles” Rangers - “Deerfield Village” Die Antwoord, "Jou Ma Se Poes In 'n Fishpaste Jar" Far East Family, "Like A G6" Ariel Pink, “Menopause Man” Vampire Weekend, "Diplomat's Son" Oneohtrix Point Never, "Preyouandi" Ariel Pink, “Can’t See My Eyes” Ariel…
Quite some time ago, Glen Goetze asked me about sad songs, for which publication I cannot remember, 1. What are your earliest memories of music? The Beatles's "Yellow Submarine". The Hollies "The Air That I Breathe". Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Musicals like High Society and West Side Story. T.Rex, Gary Glitter, Sparks, The Sweet. 2. When was the last time music made you cry? I can't remember.…
And I am an ethereal boy... My faves of 1987 in the Melody Maker end-of-year Xmas edition
original Q - who's the Best Artist Since 2000.... No overall single figures springs to mind, I'd have to divide it up into categories and with multiple contenders jostling for the top spot * Pop Star as Public Figure - Kanye West versus Ke$ha versus Lady Gaga (with the proviso I've little appetite for the audio bar "Bad Romance") versus Drake * Performer / Vocal Presence - Future versus Ke$ha…
My Favorite Books Q/A done for Interview magazine Germany 2012 - What books are on your nightstand right now? I have something like 50 books lined up to read (seriously, I do -- I am a nut about buying books). But the ones I’m seriously focused on reading right now are: Tubes: A Journey To the Center of the Internet, by Andrew Blum, and Camille Paglia’s Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art…
F avourite Albums of 2010, submitted to some publication or other. 1. Rangers - Suburban Tours (Olde English Spelling Bee) 2. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today (4AD) 3. Vampire Weekend - Contra (XL) 4. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and A Killer (Warp) 5. Moon Wiring Club - A Spare Tabby At The Cat's Wedding (Gecophonic) 6. Jim Ferraro - On Air (Muscleworks Inc.) 7. Actress - Splazsh (Honest Jon's)…
Fifty fave tunes done for an Italian magazine, can’t remember when - just what struck me that day… The Eyes -- "When the Night Falls" The Beatles -- "Strawberry Fields Forever" John's Children -- "A Midsummer Night's Scene" We The People -- "You Burn Me Up and Down" The Byrds -- "Everybody's Been Burned" Pink Floyd -- "Paintbox" The Doors - "The Soft Parade" Love -- "You Set The Scene" The Stooges…
What is the first record you bought in your youth with your own money ? Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Do It Yourself , 1979 Your favorite way for listening to music ? (MP3, CD, vinyl, radio for example) ? Radio – London pirate stations in the 1990s, listening to rap or classic rock in the car in Los Angeles today. The last record you bought? Last vinyl was Some British Accents and Dialects (BBC,…
(done in 2010) Your first cultural memory? Probably The Beatles ("Yellow Submarine"). Unless we count British children's TV shows like Andy Pandy and Pogle's Wood . The song where you would like to inhabit? The second (subaquatic idyllic) section of John Martyn's "I'd Rather Be The Devil", but I'd need to have gills instead of lungs. A song you are listening obsessively on your iPod? (do you have…
I'm not sure what the logic was exactly but as tie-in to Shock and Awe , iD asked me to list my seven favorite / life-changing clubs / nights-out-dancing. No I don't quite understand either but a fun and easy exercise so why not? I included raves as essentially very large, roof-less clubs. Listed in chronological sequence rather than ranked according to life-changingness. 1. Progeny, Brixton…
(for an Italian publication, 2009) The Eyes -- "When the Night Falls" The Beatles -- "Strawberry Fields Forever" John's Children -- "A Midsummer Night's Scene" We The People -- "You Burn Me Up and Down" The Byrds -- "Everybody's Been Burned" Pink Floyd -- "Paintbox" The Doors - "The Soft Parade" Love -- "You Set The Scene" The Stooges - "Ann" Scott Walker -- "Boy Child" Miles Davis -- "Bitches…
Not actually my four absolute favorite riffs (Lord alone knows where I'd start with that) but four of my favorite riffs, commented on for The Wire's Greatest Riffs feature of 2004 KING SUNNY ADE -- “Eje Nlo Gba Ara Mi”, “365 Is My Number/The Message” (from Juju Music , Mango, 1982), “Synchro System” ( Synchro System , Mango, 1983) The riff so good they used it thrice. Actually, that’s an…
votes for the pitchfork ambient list (with my blurbs for charting albums below) 1/ brian eno - on land 2/ brian eno & harold budd - plateaux of mirrors 3/ aphex twin - selected ambient works vol 2 4/ seefeel - polyfusia 5/ laraaji - day of radiance 6/ Steve hillage - rainbow dome music 7/ cluster - II 8/ manuel göttsching - e2-e4 9/ brian eno - discreet music 10/ aphex twin - selected ambient…
Last year, for a change, I did "Atemporal Faves". The idea being to reflect the way that I'm more like a regular listener these days, a civilian, drifting across the archival space of streaming services, YouTube, and my own collection. As a result, what brings me delight in any given year will include some new records, as well as relatively recent releases (things from the year before, or the year…
This one is from earlier in the year - January 15 The Xavier doesn't ring any bell at all. Nor can I summon the tune of "Insecure Me" or "Dance Your Ass Off".
May 1983 to be precise - a snapshot of my listening as a 19-year old, via an old letter that came into my possession again recently Formative me... on the cusp of leaving behind the teenage years... discoveries and delights mostly indexed to critics I followed oh-so-closely.... but starting to scope out paths across the past all by myself: The Easybeats, reconceived as punk precursors; the…
from Sounds magazine, February 5, 1977 - the end bit of an interview with Vivien Goldman.
[written for somebody as part of an interview, like a bonus side-bar thing , can't remember who, can't remember when - the concept was "three music books you love that aren't that well known or are a bit forgotten" Starlust (1985) by Fred and Judy Vermorel has been out of print for years, but is just about to get reissued by my publisher as part of its Faber Finds imprint. Here’s how I blurbed it:…
I have no memory which foreign (I assume?) magazine this was written for, or why.... Maybe I should ask Kieran (NYC native now relocated to Bushwick) to do a 2023-update.... The High Line would be an obvious addition Love , 179 MacDougal Street , New York, NY 10011 Dark atmospheric club with possibly the best sound system in Manhattan; home to dubstep monthly night Dub War and drum & bass party…
Someone, somewhen, asked me what my desert island discs would be. (It wasn't Radio 4) This is either what I sent them, or a Long List to be winnowed down Actually, inspecting it closer, I appear to have drawn up two lists - absolute faves versus records chosen for functional reasons, the solace and spiritual-emotional sustenance they'd provide on an actual deserted island. List 1: Ab Favs John's…
A moment in time... juxtaposed with Melody Maker's American albums chart for that week, me and Stubbsy's current obsessive listens that midsummer o' '89. Note the soon-to-be Disney-embargoed original title of A.R. Kane's "i" .... and, in a relatively lean year compared to '88's bonanza, how the focus of both our listening is increasingly encroached upon by the past (Miles and Blue Orchids, Can…
An aeon ago, I was asked to do a thing on BBC Radio 6 and the preparatory stage involved filling in a questionnaire on "Good Day Bad Day" music Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 First Single You Bought: What was it, where, why? The Theme From ‘Sting’ aka ‘The Entertainer’ by Scott Joplin, as recorded by Marvin Hamlisch WH Smith in Berkhamsted Liked it! First…
Roland Barthes , The Pleasure of the Text is probably my favoritest. A joy to read, broken up in nice little aphoristic short sections, a mind rearranger for me aged whenever it was (21?). A Lover's Discourse is wonderful too - similar style and structure - but less applicable to other things as Pleasure , as it is so focused on romantic love. Then there's that hardy perennial, "The Grain of the…
11 of my fave s.f. novels (originally wrote this for purposes irrelevant to go into at this juncture) Keith Roberts, Pavane Alternative history/counterfactual set in England where the Reformation never happened, Roman Catholicism dominates the country, and science has been suppressed. Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee Alternative history in America where South won the Civil War, an unacknowledged…
(one side of a chat with Carl Neville aka the Impostume, done in the mid-2000s) FAVES Ian Dury Jim Morrison (but perhaps only his delivery could get away with some of that stuff) Robert Wyatt (king of bathos) Kevin Ayers (recently got into into him in a big way... "Decadence" and "Song from the Bottom of A Well", amazing words) Bryan Ferry (a genius of delivery also) Marc Bolan (best spangly pop…