A Little New A Little Old

After an absolute hellish week of allergy suffering and my tribute to it I can almost half breath again. Folks, make a mental note not to live next to the things that you are most allergic to. It's not a good idea...trust me. One allergy shot, THREE boxes of Claritin D, Clarinex, and Benadryl later and I'm back to post again.

That brings us up to this post which really has no set theme. I've gone through the ol stacks again and picked five new songs and five classics for your downloading and compiling pleasure. It's always fun to do these sorts of posts (despite our horrendous upload speed) because of the stuff that I get to dig up. Some of the classics I dug up for this post I haven't heard in years.

Anyway, enough of my yackin...get clickin.

New New New Stuff...
The Automatic - Recover
Another fine release from the fine folks at B-Unique. This tune twists and bends itself into a frenzy from the get go and seems to be about a night on the tiles. Literally. It screams, "Get Up. Recover. Cos you'll never dance again." But, with a corker of a bass line and that chorus its almost impossible not to try and dance just for the hell of it. And after all…the only way to recover scene points when you eat it on the dance floor is to get up and play it off like you meant to fall flat on your face.

Cazals - Poor Innocent Boys
A nice jerky Rock n' Roll tune that sits somewhere between Elvis Costello and Urge Overkill. It's got a catchy as hell guitar riff that will be stuck in your head longer than your Social Security number. Then it's got perfectly placed handclaps that add another level of charm. This song is the sort that bores itself into your consciousness no matter how hard you try and deny it and somewhere in the back of your head you just know that the no matter how hard the Cazals try and convince you otherwise they just aren't "Poor Innocent Boys."

Delays - Valentine
Let's just say this isn't your fathers Delays records. Gone are the epic soaring songs that once graced their repertoire. They've been replaced with spangly indie disco floor fillers that sound like Donna Summer on lots of hormones. "Valentine," sounds like "I Feel Love," sharpened with guitars and run through the 21st century. The song grooves so much that it's easy to forget that it's actually being sung in a key so high it could scare dogs away.

The Fallout Trust - Washout
These guys are a funny lot. Every record they've ever done looks absolutely depressing. But then you put the records on…and it's not at all what you would think. "Washout," despite its name is no different. This starts out sounding remarkably like, Razorlight's "Golden Touch," but quickly develops into a jumpy little tune that breaks down into a classic British power pop song that's not at all disheartening. In fact, it's quite a perky little number thanks to that Razorlight-ish riff and sort of a half-falsetto (I sense a theme here) vocal that carries the chorus. Nice stuff.

The Rifles - Repeated Offender
No falsetto vocals to be found here. Instead, this tune is punky, speedy, spiky pop that roars along like the Futureheads and the Jam in a race to reach a giant Mod target at the end of Carnaby Street. "Repeated Offender," is dressed up in its finest shoes, shirt, and suit and ready to dance the night away with some bird in a scooter dress. It is proper British pop unafraid to let it's Britishness get in the way. So break out your Union Jack and wave it proudly...especially those of you in say Alabama.

Classics from the archive...
Delicious Monster - Power Missy
If I'm not mistaken...this might actually be our first Who Needs Radio request! A couple of posts back I posted a Delicious Monster track and someone not only remembered them, they agreed w/me that more people should have known about them and needed to hear more. So here you go. And as a result of all this I'm officially declaring that the Delicious Monster revival starts here. Download this track and you can say you were there when it began. About the song...unlike the previous song I posted, "Snuggle," "Power Missy," isn't nearly as aggressive. It's a bit more strummy but it rocks enough in a folky sorta way to draw comparisons to say the Sundays, Frente or maybe Juliana Hatfield.

Dweeb - Oh Yeah, Baby
Anyone remember Teen-C power? For those of you who don't here's a little primer...Unofficially started by BIS sometime in 96-97, the scene featured a whole host of bands with members under 21 cranking out spiky slightly twee indie pop that was sugary sweet (in fact...BIS even had a single called Sweet Shop Avengers). While there were tons of bands involved in all of this, about three really ever made an impact; Bis, Kenickie, and Dweeb. Dweeb signed to Fierce Panda initially and then got picked up by WEA offshoot Blanco Y Negro. They managed to release one album, which, "Oh Yeah, Baby" is taken from (it was a single). It's drum machine led, synthy, sweet, pohgoh inducing pop. It's the sort of song that's so goofy and silly you can't help but jump around and make a fool of yourself to. I still love it 10 years on. Incidentally, one of the members, John, is now known as DJ Downfall and has become quite the producer/DJ remixing everybody and anybody including the Postal Service.

Long Fin Killie - Lipstick (remix)
Is it indie and bass? Drum and indie? Who knows. What I do know is that this Scottish group produced some of the best and well thought out music that no one ever heard. Take the Tindersticks smoky moodiness, Dave Gedge's annunciation, Nick Cave's angularity and lyricism add a lorry load of intelligence mixed with excellent musical chops and you might be able to piece together a bit of what LFK were about. The band released three albums, named after tragic heroes (Houdini, Valentino, and Amelia) that progressively got better and better. By the time Amelia came around, which, "Lipstick" is from, the band had put together all the pieces of the puzzle to become a brilliant artsy theatrical sounding band. Unfortunately, Amelia was the last thing LFK did as a band. I guess it's best to go out on a high.

One Dove - Breakdown (Cellophane Boat Mix)
Many site Portishead as the creators of Trip Hop. But the way I see it, it really comes down to two other bands; Massive Attack and Glasgow's One Dove. I suppose Massive Attack technically were the first but there will always be a special spot reserved for One Dove. While they might be a bit more dubby (their records were produced by Andrew Weatherall) than Massive Attack(?!) or Portishead they're still slinky enough to fit in the genre. This particular remix was done by the legendary William Orbit sometime around the time of his amazing Strange Cargo III album. Singer Dot Allison has since released two albums on her own. Both are good. Incidentally, "Breakdown," was the first song I ever danced to.

Transvision Vamp - I Want Your Love
Sometime around 1988 Transvision Vamp took over the British Pop Charts. Despite every critic in the UK hoping for their demise, Transvision Vamp continued to crank out chart friendly pop. The bands leader Wendy James let success go to her head and developed an ego the size of Europe. She played up her campy sexiness and the bands status for everything it was worth. And despite critics hating her actions, the Great British public loved it and bought the bands records in droves. Sounding like a poptastic mish mash of the Pretenders, Blondie, T-Rex, and the Clash, Transvision Vamp were over the top fun. "I Want Your Love," is from the top 5 Pop Art and is TV at their campy best.

So that's it for this installment. Next time...we're headed to the Wigan Pier for some classic Northern Soul. Break out your suit, shine those shoes, and get your hard drive ready for an alnighter.

From across the sea or somewhere closer...

Paul the Anglophile