new standards

Being in Italy last month meant that I missed the broadcast on Radio 3 of a recent live set and interview from The Bad Plus on BBC Radio 3. I have spoken of my love for TBP on more than one occasion so I was really chuffed when a friend managed to record the broadcast and burn me a copy, which I now share with you. I've decided not to pick and choose individual tracks as the broadcast seems to build up its own head of steam. The running order is as follows:

The Bad Plus - Live at the Jazz Cafe London, June 2008 (plus interview)
(1hr, 54 MB)

[1] Dirty Blonde (Reid Anderson)
[2] Giant (Reid Anderson)
[3] Metal (Gyorgy Ligeti)
[4] And Here We Test Our Powers Of Observation (Reid Anderson)
[5] Flim (Richard D James)
[6] Have You Met Miss Jones (Rogers & Hart)
[7] Physical Cities (Reid Anderson)
plus interview

Earlier this year me and Mrs Domino finally made it over to New York - totally by chance our visit coincided with The Bad Plus' weeklong residency at the Blue Note, which is where I took the above image. It was great to go into that legendary club (smaller than you'd think) and see what is still one of my absolute favourite bands.

Even better was being in Greenwich Village the day before our visit to the Blue Note, queueing outside the Magnolia Bakery, when who should join the queue directly behind us but the mighty Dave King, mental drumming powerhouse of TBP. I'm rubbish at talking to people who I really admire but I couldn't let this past - I like to think I didn't embarrass Dave in front of his kids!

Here's a track from last year's Prog album, an interpretation of "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. Read Dave King's comments about Neil Peart here.

The Bad Plus - Tom Sawyer (Rush)



I don't have the original (whither Marc-o?) but I did find this great video. See also, Rush playing Tom Sawyer on 'Rock Band'.

Visit - The Bad Plus
Visit - Do The Math (TBP blog)
Buy - Prog

let's go fishing for the question

The tape this track came from is lost to the winds of time (or to my lovely brother). Whatever, this track's for Oxbow, 'cos if he hasn't got it he will love it.

This tape was made for me by Darius, ex-guitar-mangler and chief-Oasis-botherer with Derby music legends Cable - we went through a phase of going 'round each other's houses for tea and rifling through our respective record collections. Not very rock 'n' roll, I know, but some good tapes were made - well, I did OK out of the deal anyway.

As I say, this tape has long since left my possession but this track has stayed in my head for about 10 years, frequently popping up on my internal shuffle.

Kramer - I'm Your Fan



I've always thought this was a fantastic track and age has not withered it - f*cked-up chipmunk vocals, lazy strumming, tappy-tappy percussion, paint-the-sky solo and all.

Darius had the triple-LP box set of Kramer's The Guilt Trip - I can't remember if he had the album before Cable recorded their second album with Kramer in New York, or if it was a gift from the man himself.

Looking at his wiki page, I'm very interested to hear the results of Kramer's "Brill Building" project on John Zorn's Tzadik label.

All my mates work with Kramer, btw - not just Cable but Manchester's fabulous Night Jars, too. When do I get a go? Harumph.

Buy - The Guilt Trip and other CDs direct from Kramer
Visit - Kramer

illness as art

The tracks in this post came from a tape called 'Illness as Art', done for me in September 1989 by a friend of mine called Nicola. I can't remember how I first got talking to her but she'd recently spent a couple of years at school in America so she seemed terribly exotic to the 16 year old me.

Her tape introduced me to lots of interesting stuff including the Dandelion Adventure, whose Puppy Shrine album I bought soon after getting the tape. However, the tracks that really stayed with me betrayed her time at school in the US, consisting of what used to be called 'College Rock'.

Camper Van Beethoven - The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon



Camper Van Beethoven - Opie Rides Again/Club Med Sucks*
* if i was being true to Nicola's compilation I'd have removed 'Opie Rides Again' as this was edited off my tape.



CVB were one of those touchstones of US alternative music in the late 80s, like Violent Femmes - for example, I'd heard of 'Take The Skinheads Bowling' long before I ever heard it.

The Feelies - It's Only Life


This was the other stand-out track from this tape (via Shallyboy's music, not available on eMusic). That's a heck of a Lou Reed affectation on the vocal - the influence further underlined on the rollicking cover of "What Goes On" later on in the album. On the whole they're like a US Echo & The Bunnymen - Marc-o, if you're out there, is this the Paisley Underground?

Visit - Camper Van Beethoven
Visit - The Feelies
Buy - Popular Songs Of Great Enduring Strength And Beauty by CVB
Buy - Only Life by The Feelies (pricey import)

Image from here

drop me in for the badda-das

Bad News was the spoof New Wave of British Heavy Metal band featured in the first series of The Comic Strip Presents... This metal spoof was in production at the same time as This Is Spinal Tap.

Obviously Tap has had more long-term success but Bad News put a quintessentially English-toilet-circuit spin onto the pretensions of musicians, heavy metal or otherwise. Sometimes they overdid the 'we can't play our instruments' jokes but anyone who has ever been in a band (especially one that has been in a recording studio) will wince in recognition at some of the studio dialogue here.

The lines 'drop me in for the badda-das' and 'I've never had to move my arm up and down so many times in my life' definitely passed into Johnny Domino lexicon.

Bad News - Excalibur



Bad News - Warriors Of Genghis Khan



Bad News - Hey Mr Bassman



The characters were in the main extensions of the Young Ones archetypes - Ade Edmondson's Vim Fuego had the same barely-controlled rage as Vyv (just slightly more coherent), Rik Mayall's Colin Grigson was self-important, effete and pretentious in the same way as Rick, and Nigel Planer is just as dopey being Den Dennis as he was as Neil.

It's pretty clear that the Bad News boys had been listening to the infamous, hilarious Trogg Tapes. For more band-based shenanigans see also Father Ted's A Song for Europe - "play the f**king note!"

Buy - Bad News
Visit - Bad News

yah dude!

The world is funny old place and as A Tribe Called Quest said, "things go in cycles".

I have been on at dear brother Ox for absolutely AGES to do a post about The Stupids - or lend me his vinyl of "Peruvian Vacation" so I could do one. I've finally got round to doing it. And what do I see in today's Guardian? A review of the same album's swanky new deluxe edition CD...

I have to say, I'm really chuffed that a band like Les Stupides is getting the reissue treatment. As the review says they were a strange band - perrenial Peel-faves who often popped up on the pages of Smash Hits.

And, as the kids would say, they certainly did shred... make no mistake.

The Stupids - Virgin Bombshell Fucker / It's Fun To You




This is the opening one-two punch that opens Peruvian Vacation and for me it will always be the sound of hay fever.

To explain: there is a really cold room in our parents' house where me and Ox would go to get some respite from streaming noses and sneezing during the summer holidays. Days were spent playing records and eating ice lollies, and Peruvian Vacation was one of our favourite albums to play, representing a level of energy and enthusiasm that we could never hope to acheive post-sneezing fit. Good times.

It also makes me think of my old skateboarding school friends, Batesy and Fletch - do people still wear Vision Streetwear?

Buy - Peruvian Vacation
Visit - The Stupids (myspace)
Visit - The Stupids (wiki)

knucklehead

With apologies for the extended period of radio silence - I hope this will make up for it. Just right for the second day of British summer time - looking out my window at some increasingly mouldy garden furniture.

But who needs to feel down when there are footstomping party-bangers like this?

Bar-Kays - Knucklehead



Taken from "Soul Finger" which my dear brother Ox gave me for my recent birthday. Vinyl is always appreciated, and this track fair took my face when I first played it.

Buy - Soul Finger
Visit - Bar-Kays (home page)
Visit - Bar-Kays (wiki)

gary shandling

I've been thinking about posting some Butthole Surfers stuff for a while but the announcement that the (kind-of *) classic line-up is reforming for some US and European dates seems like the perfect opportunity.

(* By the way, the "kind-of" is because Paul Leary's involvement seems pretty much minimal. Wonder if Ta-Da the Shit Lady will be coming along for the ride...)

Anyhoo, the Buttholes album I've listened to the most is piouhgd. Not - admittedly - the coolest choice but for a long time this was the only album of theirs that we actually owned (who else misses tapes?).

I recently got hold of the Latino Buggerveil reissue which also includes the Widowermaker EP. We had this track on tape off an old Peel show for years and it was great to hear it again.

Butthole Surfers - The Colored F.B.I. Guy



Funnily enough, I was convinced it had a somewhat less contentious song title back then (a series of numbers, something like "1408" - any ideas?). Whatever, it just goes to show that maybe Gibby really did want to be in REM after all (from Double Live).

piouhgd has apparently been disowned by Gibby and Leary but one of the reasons I really like it is the weird way in which it has been recorded. All of the drums sound exactly like the default settings on an Alesis HR-16 drum machine - and I do mean EXACTLY, even down to the stereo positioning and the fact that, unless you change the levels, the hi-hats and cymbals are way too loud.

Did they have a complicated technological set-up that enabled King Coffey to play the sounds live? or most likely, did they programme the whole album onto a drum machine in this configuration? Whatever, it's quite odd for a band who had previously had two drummers to drop live drum sounds.

Similarly, it's an odd decision for a band so closely aligned to the 1988 Melody Maker Arsequake scene that it sounds clearly like the guitars weren't recorded going into amplifiers but were stuck directly into the mixing console - that's why the distortion is so very fuzzy and hissy. The whole album is pretty tinny sounding - whatever, a band called the Butthole Surfers were never going to be Steely Dan, were they?

Yes, there are some crappy stoner humour tracks (and possibly a few too many versions of Lonesome Bulldog) but the opening double whammy of both "Revolution"'s is still one of my favourite Buttholes moments. I've stuck both the tracks together for your improved listening pleasure. Enjoy!

Butthole Surfers - Revolution Part 1 / Revolution Part 2






If you're wondering, Gary Shandling is "just one of those people who haunt me", according to Gibby.

By way of aural demonstration of the recording style, there's an old Johnny Domino song that we recorded with the exact same sounds. It's part of The Best of the Shithouse Masters download available here. Lead guitar and distorted bass straight into the 4-track and more-or-less default settings on the HR-16 that we used on all of our "proper" recordings. It's the Scorpions/Euro-rock pastiche called Reachin' For a Reason (and that's still the most righteous guitar bit I ever played, even if it was a joke).



piouhgd was released in 1991 and - along with albums by The Jackofficers and Leary's History of Dogs - was one of the reasons that Rough Trade filed for bankruptcy in the same year. Quite the legacy!

Buy - pioughd/Widowermaker
Download - pioughd/Widowermaker from iTunes
Visit - Butthole Surfers
Buy - Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life - the chapter about the Buttholes is worth the price alone