YouTube - Punk In Cleethorpes, 1976

Punk In Cleethorpes, 1976...

I know, the archive seems to be "down". Being too much of a dope to be able to fix it myself, i've contacted the cavalry so hopefully we can keep the marauders at bay until things can be rectified. Info still seems to be available via Googling so i'm hornswaggled if I know what's up. Thanks to everybody who let it be known though...

Thanks to all those who responded to last week's Dr. Feelgood post... Just located two more youtube links from the same TV show (1 & 2).

Anybody out there has similar material by the Count Bishops, Ducks Deluxe and their ilk?

So let’s see, before anything else there are a few things I’ve been meaning to mention here but for one reason and another never got around to.

A new “season” of Classic Scottish Albums started on BBC Radio Scotland this week with the subject of the first Proclaimers album. Reminded me of seeing them open for The Cateran at The Onion Cellar or whatever it was called in Edinburgh. Trying to get people to believe that these two bespectacled chaps were “a Scots Everly Brothers” fell on deaf ears at the time and the rest is history. As always the great David Scott Esq. is the glue that holds these things together and next weeks programme is about Alex Harvey. Tune in via the RS play it again feature, click the listen again link at the top RH and scroll to "Classic Scottish Albums". I’m sure you know the drill by now.

Brijitte West of the New York Loose has a new venture which those of you who are parents might like to check out. Cool Kids Music kicks off with an artist called Mr Ray. Whether or not he took his name from the Suicide song is not known. Incidentally, the NYL album has been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances that are frustrating for all of us. When Cargo have the problems ironed out then we’ll clue you in immediately.


Maia Hirasawa’s debut single on Razzia is out on March 7th entitled “And I Met This Boy”. It’s as sweet a pop nugget as you’re likely to find and serves as a taster for the album “Though, I’m Just Me” on April 4th. Have a listen at her myspace dovecot.

Got a “sneak” mp3 of the title track of Lucky Soul’s “The Great Unwanted” and now I remember who singer Ali Howard reminded me of, Aimee MacDonald. So I googled the Sixties comedy siren’s name and y’know? I couldn’t find more than one mention. And no photos. When you consider the obscure guff you can dig up on almost anything this is peculiar. But anyways, things got even weirder this morning when Janice Forsyth actually mentioned AM on the bloody wireless. Anyway, this is all concurrent to the music. The LS cut is a lush, husky affair of the first order. Somewhat retro-futuristic and (hopefully) headed for the airwaves soon. Meanwhile, why not have a toot around their site.

In a more rock’n’roll vein, today those fine Girl Trouble folks are hosting the following show in Tacoma…


The great Rich Stim has been instrumental in making my father’s album of Pipe tuneage available in itunes. Hopefully I’ve not made an arse of conveying the info and blurb to the cdbaby site to make it all go smoothly. To have had Davie Scott play and produce the thing and then have a member of MX80 whap it onto the internet isn’t something any of us foresaw.
Thanks guys.

And do you think I can find the scribbles with regard to the other stuff I meant to mention? Of course not but it’ll all come out in the, er, wash.

Whilst I'll never be mistaken for a teenager, I am frequently bored. And there'll be no waffling on from me tonight on account of me being the chairman, innit!? Might feel more like prattling on tomorrow, maybe's not. Catch you on the flipside...

And not related musically but keeping up the TV theme, the next instalment of Sounds Of Sweden is these two guys with televisions on their nappers ala Man or Astroman.

SOS (Sounds of Sweden) presents:
Sweden's answer to The Postal Service, TELEVISION KEEPS US APART and quirky Glasgow troubadours ZOEY VAN GOEY
Friday, March 23, 9PM, 4GBP entry - Bacchus, 80 Glassford Street, G1 1UR, 0141 572 0080

For our April outing, we're showcasing the freshest in fresh young talent!

Television Keeps Us Apart has been compared to The Postal Service, and justifiably so. They combine mechanical beats with backing tracks and poppy hooks to create some truly infectious tunes. Single 'Ticket out of here' is irresistibly catchy tender pop with upbeat electronics. Not much is known about the young duo of Carl Sunesson and Axel Yngvell, who met as students in Linköping, a university town south of Stockholm. They toured Sweden in autumn 2006, but have been hidden away in the studio recording their debut album, so this will be their first outing of 2007.

Zoey Van Goey is a band made up of Matt Brennan, Michael John McCarthy, and Kim Moore. Hailing from Canada, Ireland, and England respectively, they assembled rather accidentally in Glasgow and now happily make music together. Making their debut performance in September 2006, this band is brand new but already drawing favourable comparisons to adventurous trios like Yo La Tengo and Deerhoof. Packing out shows in Glasgow, Zoey Van Goey are quickly gaining a reputation for their beguiling live performances and onstage banter. Quirky, talented, and cheerfully subversive, the three multi-instrumentalist ragamuffins trio flirt with Casio keyboards, laptops, violas, and accordions, in addition to the more traditional fare of guitars, drums, and vocals.

Internet resources:

http://www.myspace.com/televisionkeepsusapart
http://www.myspace.com/zoeyvangoey
http://www.myspace.com/soundsofsweden
http://www.soundsofsweden.com

Forget the RRHOF corporate piffle and get The Dictators inducted/indicted into the White Castle Hall of Fame. After all, they put the company on the map way before Saturday Night Fever came along.

Slip, slyd and sign up for Mr Gene Suttle's campaign HERE!

There's only one thing better than this live Fleshtones DVD and that's to catch them in person. Where of course, you can pick up a copy of this fine momento of what is easily one of the greatest live acts on earth. They'll happily administer that super-rock jag that at the following venues...

24 March - Magnetic Fields, Brooklyn, NY
11 April - Grand Mix, Tourcoing, France
12 April - La Coope, Cleremont Ferrand, France
13 April - La Nef, Angouleme, France
14 April - Gagarine, Athens, Greece
15 April - L'ampli, Pau, France
17 April - Astrolabe, Orleans, France
18 April - Le Plan, Ris Orangis, Paris
19 April - L'autre Canal, Nancy, France

I quite literally just received this (Thanks Laura!). The long-awaited follow up to "Go Get Goo Goo" is "Five Steps Ahead" and it's gonna be walking all over us courtesy of Sounds of Subterranea in March!! More info as it becomes available...

Mr Helsing wishes it to be known that...

THE THANES - A NIGHT IN GREAT KING STREET 10" LP - LARSEN (LZ079) It's here...NOW! The new 10" live LP by Scottish garage-beat purveyors THE THANES - A NIGHT IN GREAT KING STREET - issued on fabulous French label Larsen (LZ079). Features never before issued tracks, such as the group's urgent cover of the Q65 nugget "I Despise You", plus many on-stage favourites, including "The Lovely Laura-Anne", "It's Just A Fear" and "The Next One". Start bugging your local record shoppe to order your copy, like now!"

Other news... Got an e-mail from Tony Blair this morning. Me and 1.8 million+ others. It had to be rescued from my junk mail. This was because I signed the road pricing petition that's been in the headlines. And actually, I'm not so much against road pricing as I am agin the tracking that it would allow the all-enveloping surveillance industry to undertake. Lord knows, is the mobile phone epidemic not hellish enough. Not that there's much to glean about my comings and goings but it's the principle. Actually, if there was a halfway decent public transport infrastructure then I wouldn't even have a bloody car. However, the likelihood of such a thing in this backwater is slimmer than a very slim thing on the proverbial slim-athon slimfast diet.

Taken to yon logical conclusion, if I didn't have to earn a crust then I'd seldom leave the house at all. But anyway, all this guff with carbon footprints, etc., until our co-habitees in burgeoning economies start screwing the napper then there's little or nothing our hapless attempts to restrict climate change can do. We're on the rocket people, but what you can do is resolve not to waste energy for your own self. Nobody else. Just you. I also had to listen to some bollocks about "ethical trading" from someone who gets printing done in China rather than here in the UK where the triple standard and creative accountancy reign supreme. Pity about my fellow travellers who are just trying to get by. Anyway, I guess Tony didn't catch any of the Hold Steady shows because there was no mention of them in his message. Or maybe they're not britpop enough. That could be it. I'm tempted to make a sinking shjips crack but I can't be arsed.

Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. says "hail to the chief" this week with a presidential performance worthy of William Henry Harrison -- all within the ever-stately confines of Otto's Shrunken Head, naturally!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22nd / (And the last Thursday of every month)

OTTO'S SHRUNKEN HEAD TIKI BAR & LOUNGE / http://www.OttosShrunkenHead.com /
538 East 14th Street (just west of Avenue B) in ol' Manhattan, NY / Two BIG shows, from 8:00 sharp until 10:00 / No cover! /
Yours in the oval office- Michael, Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co.
"Ballads, Boogies & Blues"
http://www.SITandDieCo.com

Lindsay's Alice Cooper ticket reminded me of this bizarre little item that was reprinted in a Dutch music mag way back in '71; a pet registration card from the Amsterdam Hilton...

For one reason and another, I don't have the energy or the inkling to rabbit on the keyboard tonight. Found some old ticket stubs yesterday and thought we'd go for a little nostalgia instead... Article #1 - my first REAL rock'n'roll concert... November 1972.

Article # 2 - In honour of the wee frisson that ran through J's YouTube post of last week...

And finally - Article #3 - a certified classic, another example of a CBGB's bill hitting up the UK.
Cheetah Chrome was toting Glen Buxton's guitar at the time...

Thankyou and Goodnight...

If it wasn’t for Mr H then christ knows how long it would have taken me to discover "Unknown Passages – The Dead Moon Story". Of course, I was aware of the band and the rabid passion with which people who had seen them had for this Northwest trio. Never having had the luck to catch their live thing, DM was something I appreciated from afar. For me, their recorded output never did them justice and was a factor i never considered re-addressing until I clocked this. Go ahead and disagree if you want to but there’s something about this documentary that adds that all important fourth dimension and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Dead Moon has achieved success far and beyond material sales or the conventional trappings of what passes for it day to day. Dead Moon Heads who have been baptised at one of their shows have every right to be protective because this combo was a real treasure.

If they’d ever made it to this part of the world there would be a faction of Deid Moon Heids here also but they didn’t and sadly the band is no more. This testament to them exists though and it will only help stoke the legend. As cool people go, I don’t think they come any more groovy than Fred and Toody Cole. And Andrew Loomis their drummer helps propel the whole thing with a singular abandon. A long-haired, often bevvied diplomat of the first water with quite the collection of Nomads t-shirts. It’s made me listen to the records with fresh ears. Now I can flesh it all out. If the people who program the Edinburgh Film Festival had been doing their job circa 2004/5 then I’d have seen this and maybe been able to rectify the fact that I never saw them before it was too late. Dead Moon is a singular example of something that will live on forever because the fire that fuelled it comes from deep within the souls of real believers. This film is the "It's A Wonderful Life" of rock docs. Maybe they could come back as the George Bailey Trio?

This is available in the UK from Volcanic Tongue and in the US from Magic Umbrella. If you come outta the end and you’re not a fan then there’s something wrong with you.

When it comes to stretching a cross-cultural pop canvas then nobody can extend it to the limits of the Pilot.

Taking in literary and musical landscapes of every imaginable type and blending them to come up with something like "Secrets From The Clockhouse" takes a specific ability. So step inside the world of Sushil K. Dade, a man that would seem to apply the laws of film direction to create cinematic music that will provide a soundtrack to your wellbeing. A concept? Not sure but it’s thematic heart beats with a collective spirit bound to a consciousness which covers as many bases as I’ve ever heard co-existing comfortably in one setting. From psychedelics through folk to free jazz. It's all part of the beat that belongs to Future Pilot AKA.

There’s a rendition of Sun Ra’s “Nuclear War” that brings together Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Davy Henderson from The Fire Engines, Mike Watt and wir ain Stewart Cruickshank. I didn’t believe it either until I heard the evidence. Sounds weird, right? Well it couldn’t be more un-weird if it tried. This is a deeply commercial exercise that’ll reward repeated visits. The skewed-ska of “Eyes of Love” should have been a hit already, being that it features Stuart Murdoch and Sarah Martin from Belle and Sebastian. Karine Polwart’s one-minute long “Lights Of The City” ushers in the recurring theme of the piece which acts as the cement between the various movements.

"Secrets from the Clockhouse" is on the Creeping Bent imprint. Distributed by Cargo.

The first festival of rock documentaries from former Yugoslavia

Jeffrey Lee Pierce on Dutch TV: Pt 1 & 2...

Last night I managed to drag myself out of the house and into Glasgow. Firefox AK was opening for a Canuck combo called Junior Boys and you have to take your superior electro-pop action where you can find it. Firefox AK is the alter ego of Andrea Kellerman. Her album "Madame, Madame!" came out on Razzia last year and she also dueted on the HS “Long Lost Penpal” cut.

When she took the stage, the JB crowd was beginning to trickle in. Unfortunately the laws of economics dictated that it was a solo performance. With some of the backing tracks on ipod and augmented by guitar and vocal, the material from the album sounded a good deal gutsier at a volume you can’t really achieve at home. A rock edge was evident that perhaps isn’t definable in the studio stuff.

The music comes from a place on the corner of Neu and La Dusseldorf. There are elements of Kraftwerk but this trans-european expression has a warmth that rarely emits from the man-machine ouvre. There’s also a sense of the OMD sensibility with a hook. She’s quite a compelling performer even in this possibly nerve-racking situation and every inch a proper pop star in waiting. The room was a bit more full by the end of her set. This is the curse of the pre-club gig circuit and the bane of support act life. “What’s That Sound” has hit pre-programmed all over it and if there was still such a thing as Saturday morning pop shows then “All Those People” would connect with the kids and they’d all run out to buy the single. Now I guess they just run to their keyboard and download it. Doesn’t seem the same somehow. Check out the songs on her myspace page, suspend the requirement to rock out in a conventional sense. You might like it. I know I do.

Velvet Tinmine Radio

"This is Ben and I host (what I'm pretty sure is the only radio show) that plays nothing but 70's Glam Rock. Get 'yer boots, put 'yer lipstick and eyeliner on and tune in to 91.3 FM WBNY every Friday from 12 to 1pm in Buffalo, NY or to WBNY.ORG anytime!!!!" (Velvet Tinmine blog)

Link c/o Jos de Groot.

The Hold Steady are on the cusp of perceived mass audience acclaim, A Kaiser Chiefs for the "auld yins" in waiting maybe. Extremely accomplished and flashing strands of skewed pop music history. The preaching style of the singer, Craig Finn, is both entertaining and grating. I haven't heard the albums and possibly don't need to. The throng in Glasgow seemed to be ready to sing and clap along in all the right places. Blimey, there goes Cheap Trick, The Replacements, pomp era BOC and wild and innocent era E-street, Thin blinkin’ Lizzy. Even George Castanza channelling TMBG. They're capable of throwing considerable rock shapes. Guitars skirl but the real deal-breaker is the keyboards. That's what pegs it above your standard shouty indie angst.

The choice of opening bands didn't help. Derivative, not bowfing but utterly unremarkable, laid out the stall for the all-conquering visitors. The New York Fund - terrible name, not altogether bad. had one approximation of Freebird that almost held my attention. The Checks - Dearie me... no bouncing jokes please. All the supposed music bibles tell us that this HS will be huge. My money is on another act with the same initials. But what these guys do have are the ingredients down pat like a high-end ready meal and are a reasonable diversion. I just listened to Craig Finn's appearance on Tom Morton's show from yesterday afternoon (Wednesday if you want to access the Radio Scotland play it again facility). He's on some kind of mission and his combo are like a big blockbuster movie waiting to happen. There's no lasting afterburn but it's kinda fun during it's running time.