back from the dead??

An admission.

In July of 2009, I got an email purporting to be from Google, with a cease and desist order. This related to an old blog post, featuring some very OLD music.

When I started this MP3 blog (and that term seems very quaint and antiquated now!), I was under no illusions that what we were doing was anything other than... well, illegal. Copyright Infringement. That sort of thing.

But I sold the idea to the other members of Johnny Domino as a way for us to stay in contact with each other and maybe promote the "work" we were doing.

Anyway,  I always told myself (and my now-wife), that if I ever got a C&D order I would pull the plug.

So when it came through, I - quite frankly - freaked out and deleted all of the posts.

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE:

All the files (images and mp3s) were stored on the Johnny Domino website server, so I should have just disabled hotlinking from the blog. That way, all the writing we worked on (and all the lovely comments we received) would be safe forever.

Durr.

However...

Before I pulled the posts, I created a PDF of the whole site. And I have most of the comments as Blogger automatic-notification emails.

So - for no real reason AT ALL - I've decided to put them all online again, linking wherever possible to the songs we talked about on Spotify. I'll even add a comments digest for posts.

This will take time! And who knows? Eventually we might add some new stuff (somehow!).

But for the moment, I'm just enjoying looking back at a time when (really) pretty much all we cared about was music, before we all got married and (some of us) had kids - hilariously, this is pretty much as wild as our wild young days got.

shutting up shop

That's yer lot - cheers.

domino rally hot 100

Well, The Rally (as precisely no-one is calling it) has racked up 100 tunes - not bad going.

Below is a list of everything we've posted so far. If the tune is still available, click through to the relevant post. If you missed something that's no longer available, leave us a comment and I'll try to get it back online.

1) They Might Be Giants - Now That I Have Everything
2) They Might Be Giants - The Famous Polka
3) Propaganda - Murder of Love
4) The Isley Brothers - Who loves you better
5) Al Green - L-O-V-E (Love)
6) Throwing Muses - Snail Head
7) Throwing Muses - Mexican Women
8) The Posies - I May Hate You Sometimes
9) The Posies - Solar Sister
10) The Bad Plus - And Here We Test our Powers of Observation
11) The Bad Plus - Iron Man
12) XTC - Grass
13) XTC - Ladybird (Mummer Version)
14) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Rahway Wasdi Jhok Faridan Di
15) Nino Tempo & April Stevens - I've Been Carrying A Torch For You So Long That I Burned A Great Big Hole In My Heart
16) Nino Tempo & April Stevens - Deep Purple
17) Three O'Clock - Jet Fighter
18) Rain Parade - You Are My Friend
19) Gary Byrd & The GB Experience - The Crown
20) Devo - Uncontrollable Urge
21) Devo - Be Stiff
22) David Lee Roth - Just Like Paradise
23) David Lee Roth - Damn Good
24) Prefab Sprout - Walk On
25) Prefab Sprout - Lions in my own Garden
26) Prefab Sprout - Cue Fanfare
27) The B-52's - Whammy Kiss
28) OMD - Bunker Soldiers
29) Dalek I - Destiny (Dalek I Love You)
30) Hall & Oates - Rich Girl
31) Hall & Oates - Back Together Again
32) Bradford - Skin Storm
33) Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - Little House I Used To Live In
34) Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - The Mud Shark
35) Velvet Underground - Lisa Says (live 1969)
36) Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane (live 1969)
37) Velvet Underground - Rock And Roll (live 1969)
38) Golden Smog - Until You Came Along
39) Golden Smog - Please Tell My Brother
40) Son Volt - Windfall
41) Son Volt - Mystifies Me
42) The Beat - Too Nice To Talk To
43) The Beat - Twist And Crawl
44) April March - Cet Air La
45) April March - Chick Habit
46) April March - Stay Away From Robert Mitchum
47) Tom Waits - Poncho's Lament
48) Tom Waits - I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute
49) Tom Waits - Frank's Song
50) Japan - Swing
51) Japan - All Tomorrows Parties
52) Matthew Sweet - Superdeformed
53) Matthew Sweet - You Don't Love Me
54) Johnny Domino - New Pink Shirt
55) Johnny Domino - Forever In Blue Jeans
56) The Upsetters - Kentucky Skank
57) David Isaacs - We Are Neighbors
58) Frank Sidebottom - Anarchy In The UK
59) Frank Sidebottom - Popular Medley
60) Frank Sidebottom - Everybody (Loves To) Sing Queen
61) Herbie Hancock - Rain Dance
62) McCarthy - Red Sleeping Beauty
63) McCarthy - Should the Bible be Banned
64) April March - Voodoo Doll
65) April March - Kooky
66) Victor Banana - Slumber, Precious
67) Neil Smythe - Onions Make Me Weep
68) Neil Smythe - Teen Hobo
69) Neil Smythe - I Wanna Be A Dummy
70) Neil Smythe - Peace, It's A Gasser
71) Neil Smythe - My Shoulder
72) Dean Friedman - Woman Of Mine
73) Dean Friedman - Rocking Chair
74) Meat Puppets - Dolphin Field
75) Meat Puppets - Split Myself In Two
76) Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun
77) Sebadoh - Weird
78) Minutemen - Viet Nam
79) Minutemen - One Reporter's Opinion
80) Minutemen - Doctor Wu
81) The Teardrop Explodes - Tiny Children
82) The Teardrop Explodes - Passionate Friend
83) The Pale Saints - Timethief
84) The Pale Saints - Kinky Love
85) D'Angelo - The Root
86) Dungen - Panda
87) Dungen - Festival
88) The Cult - Spiritwalker
89) The Cult - Resurrection Joe
90) Status Quo - Mean Girl
91) Trumans Water - Aroma Of Gina Arnold
92) Trumans Water - Playboy Stabtone Bloodbath Go
93) Madonna - Burning Up
94) Ciccone Youth - Burnin' Up
95) Colin Blunstone - How Wrong Can One Man Be
96) Colin Blunstone - Say You Don't Mind
97) Prince - Superfunkycalifragisexy
98) Prince - Bob George
99) Patrick Skelly and the Prescriptions - My Dear
100) Patrick Skelly and the Prescriptions - Rosalind Berry

creme brulee

First of all, apologies for the audio quality on this one, it was burned from a badly shredding cassette nearly 15 years old! This post is the result of a brainwave I had about local bands that you and about 10 other people cared about and how the download revolution could bring them back from the 'dumper' (I have noticed other Dominoids using terminology culled from old copies of 'Smash Hits'). So there's the background and hopefully future posts might include some not rubbish local bands.

Patrick Skelly and the Prescriptions- Rosalind Berry

Patrick Skelly and the Prescritions- My Dear

That very term 'local band' implies half-arsed crapness but it's the very fact that bands often come from dull provincial towns that acts as a spur to rampant creativity to relieve the boredom. Patrick Skelly and the Prescriptions came from Hartlepool, at the time this stuff was recorded a godawful, end of the line port on the North East coast best known for an amusing local legend regarding a monkey....monkey.... hahahahaha! Patrick recorded with his mates in a local studio that provided the local dole-ites with somewhere to be artistic and shelter from the bitter wind blowing off the North Sea. The influences are easy to spot here and there is an obvious word I could use to describe it but I will refrain due to its recent over-use! I just think this is really well played and well executed and great fun. I still treasure that cassette and will cry when it finally snaps.

No links as they no longer exist but I think they were probably influenced by.........this

none more black

Your name is Prince. And you are funky. It's 1988. You've released 'Sign O Times' - your 'What's Going On' - to massive acclaim. So what are you going to follow it with, other than your 'Let's Get It On'?

Prince - Superfunkycalifragisexy

I was 14/15 at the time and "The Black Album" on the dodgy third generation copy I got off a mate was the best thing I had ever heard. Mostly recorded in the persona of Camille, the dirty-minded character first introduced on "Sign O the Times", the whole thing never really gets above crotch level, apart from the bizarre Butthole Surfers-like "Bob George", a scarifying, Prince-as-pimp, audio-drama - eat that, R. Kelly.

Prince - Bob George

Prince pulled the album before it's official release fearing it was too dark. I'm sure that in the 'Lovesexy' tour programme, he hinted that he had been possessed by the devil at the time. But on that tour he did versions of both of these tracks.

Considering how 'Lovesexy' turned out, does the devil really have all the best tunes? Discuss!

Visit NPG Music Online
Visit Prince fansite
Buy The Black Album

this is your captain calling

Colin Blunstone- How Wrong Can One Man Be


So the nights close in and thoughts turn to walks through autumn leaves, roaring fires, fine wines, Belgian chocolates and......the Belgian chocolatey voice of Colin Blunstone. The former lead-singer of insurance clerk Beat group The Zombies had and has a fine set of honeyed pipes. I have dim recollections of Blunstone's solo albums as a child but he would usually lose out in my Dad's affections to Steely Dan and my Mam's '70's obsession with David Essex.....we must have a Bread post sometime.....Steve? Even as a nipper I recognised this was a special voice if a little too velvety compared to the far superior rock majesty of The Wombles.

Colin Blunstone- Say You Don't Mind


'How wrong can one man be' captures the whole 70's singer-songwriter vibe, it's warm, cute and quickly digested. 'Say you don't mind' haunted me for years as I kept catching bits of it on the radio without hearing who it was. I love the way the string section grooves along and that hi-fi voice, so unashamedly clear and beautiful. It may be a bit too 'Peter Skellern' for the more cynical amongst us but I would suggest that 'Say you don't mind' is a LOVELY song, no more no less.


Colin is still touring today
This is a good thing to buy

the george lucas of pop

Madonna - Burning Up


Mike Watt/Ciccone Youth - Burnin' Up


So, recently I moved in with my fiancee and the great joining of the CD collections took place - not as traumatic as we first thought and there was a lot of crossover.

But listening to her "Immaculate Collection" made me scuttle back to my copy of Madonna's self-titled debut, and that's where the title for this post comes from. How much revisionism can you get on one CD?? Where are all the lesser hits? If you're going to have bloody "Crazy For You", where's "Angel"? If Madonna is famous for allegedly re-inventing herself at the drop of a hat, where are all the tunes where she went a bit "off-message"? Isn't that part of her appeal, or for "reinvention" should we read "removal"?

It's like she's airbrushed the stuff out that made her so interesting in the first place. And the re-edited songs and re-recorded vocals... I'm sorry, luv, but that piano bit at the end of "Holiday" is part of my youth - stick it back in. It's kind of how the "Special Edition" versions of the 'Star Wars' films just aren't as 'special' as the originals, no matter how much THX and glitter old beardy-boy throws at them.

When Madge first appeared in the early 80s it was love at first sight, my first proper pop-star crush. I remember seeing her on The Tube in her groovy day-glo knitwear and weird fingerless gloves. The first album has "Lucky Star", "Holiday", "Borderline", but also a load of REALLY average songs - the kind of songs that you can imagine soundtracking a montage in (say) "Footloose" - the main characters in love, running on a beach, dancing in a barn, trying on endless "hilarious" outfits. It's good to hear that she didn't always know exactly what she was doing.

And the Mike Watt/Ciccone Youth version is here because someone will ask me to post it anyway!

Buy Madonna's first album
Buy Ciccone Youth's "The Whitey Album"
Visit Madonna
Visit Mike Watt's Hoot page
Visit Sonic Youth