Bird Fruit Flower Fish

This is a great game, this, and perfect for a rainy Friday afternoon. It's a distraction. Seeing as I'm not going to get around to submitting for next weeks Contrast Podcast, on the theme of chickens and other birds, I thought I might as well do a bird-fruit-flower-fish for today's post. And why not? It's an easy game to play, just pick a bunch of categories then a random letter and get 10 points for a unique answer, 5 points if shared with one of the other players.

Work is really productive at the moment.

Note to colleagues: we didn't actually play this. Today.

Bird

A Hawk & A Hacksaw - In The River

Resisting the urge to post either Charlie Parker (good) or They Might Be Giants (horrible), I find myself asking: why on earth I haven't posted about these so far? I've had the mp3 in my inbox from Leaf for weeks, so sorry about that. Anyway: A Hawk & A Hacksaw have been on the road with Beirut recently, a pairing that works pretty well. While Zach Condon's efforts have failed to impact my life in the way I'd hoped (though there's still time), his collaborators on Gulag Orkestar seem to have gone that little further in the Eastern Europea gypsy-folk-indie hybrid.

Jeremy Barnes was, of course, drummer in Neutral Milk Hotel, an extremely credible addition to any resumé. Aside from violinist Heather Trost, Barnes plays most of the instruments himself, creating something of a madcap one-man-band image, which can't fail to be great, despite lacking the traditional three-legged dog in support. Their latest record, The Way The Wind Blows, has been garnering much critical acclaim and automatically interests me given their position on one of my favourite labels, Leaf (who've been kind of quiet on my radar this year, unlike Beirut's UK label 4AD who've had a quite genuinely barnstorming annum). So please enjoy the offering, and investigate Leaf further. Please.

Fruit

Apples In Stereo? The Lemon Song? No... How about some Belafonte? Yes... Who doesn't love the soft lilt of calypso's biggest star, and the gentle Banana Boat Song is one of the most famous. It's a work song at heart, originally sung by Jamaican dock workers lifting crates of bananas onto the banana boat (duh...) at night, hence "daylight come, and me wan' go home."

Of course, such is the media-saturated modern mind that I can't listen to "Hide the deadly black tarantula!" without thinking of Ubiquitous Teen Movie Grown-Up Jeffrey Jones making like a possessed spider in Beetle Juice.

Harry Belafonte - Banana Boat Song

Flower

Public Image Ltd. - Flowers Of Romance (album version)

PiL were great. I mean really good, have a listen to Metal Box and tell me that's not innovative, fascinating music. In a cool tin. John Lydon is clearly a joke these days, and kind of was in the Sex Pistols. Being born well after the implosion myself, I find it hard to judge but my feeling is that I would have found it hard to take him seriously even then, certainly not the threat to society as envisaged at the time. But Pil, those inbetween years? Those are great. Even if you just know Rise, surely that's enough to tell you how great they were, a monster of a song with falls and rises, and Lydon's inimitable hectoring, his oblique railing at the world, or anyone who would listen.

Photo by s76fitz

Flowers Of Romance (from the album of the same name) is based on, or at least references the band of that name, featuring then-Pil guitar hero Keith Levene (who's sound defined Pil on a number of occasions) and one Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious to his ma). It reached #24 in 1981.

Fish

If you were hoping I would post Fish or Phish, sorry, that's just not going to happen. Think it through. What I will post is Red Snapper. If you love you some fried fish (and who doesn't?) then red snapper is the route to go down. If you love you some dubbby, jazzy, breaky, millenial London beats then Red Snapper's for you. Free from the Matador website, Some Kind Of Kink is apt an introduction as you could hope to have to this often dizzying act, with it's large bassline and congas, and somewhat claustrophobic, unsettling fx.

Red Snapper - Some Kind Of Kink

The 'fo
Artists: A Hawk & A Hacksaw/Harry Belafonte/PiL/Red Snapper
Websites: brokenheartfoundation.org.uk/wikipedia/johnlydon.com/matador.com
Recommended: The Way The Wind Blows/The Essential.../Metal Box/Prince Blimey
Label: Leaf/RCA/Virgin/Warp & Matador
Buy: Amazon AH&AH/HB/PiL/RS
More: Hype Machine AH&AH/HB/PiL/RS; elbo.ws AH&AH/HB/PiL/RS
If you like this you might like: anything...
Tags: bird; fruit; flower; fish; A Hawk & A Hacksaw; Leaf; Beirut; Harry Belafonte; calypso; Jamaica; John Lydon; Public Image Limited; Red Snapper; Matador; Warp

Come on all you good rats

(Dropkick Murphys, Milan 23/4/06, photo by stardumbs)

Film review? You're having a laugh. Post inspired by film seen? That's more like it. I saw The Departed last night, breaking my habit of just not bothering going to the cinema. I liked it, tis a good film, and as usual with Scorsese, very evocative of it's locale, in this case, Bwaaawston. A change from his usual NYC, I guess, but just down the road in global terms, Scorsese looking at Boston is kind of similar in some respects to Scorsese looking at New York (the underbelly rather than, um, the overbelly), but then different in other respects (I'm so used to Italian mob movies with De Niro or Pacino in, it makes a nice change to focus on the Boston Irish).

In America, apparently, no-one's American. You might be 6th generation Irish, or your descendents might have moved over from the Old Country 150 years ago, but people cling onto their heritage. It's not something the British ever get used to, even in London (one generation is fine, but don't milk it...). The enjoyable thing about The Departed was the soundtrack - alongside Scorsese's usual Rolling Stones quotient and Van The Man covering Pink Floyd, there was a couple of Dropkick Murphys tracks on there.

Ah, what visions of delight when I heard the familiar ranks of bagpipes backed with humungous walls of overdriven guitar. It's nothing if not perfect for playing loud in a cinema, and fit in superbly with the boisterous Irish gangs of the film. Of course, I would say that, if I hear Dropkick Murphys in a film, I'm going to say it's great whatever. Accompanying a couple of driving scenes, the songs barrel along at full tilt, the pipes creating a sense of scale that few punk bands can carry off.

The Irish thing is certainly the Dropkick Murphys USP, and from my point of view, they carry it off with a lot more panache than contenders like Flogging Molly, or even Swingin' Utters to an extent. The cover of their 2000 album Sing Loud, Sing Proud! (released on Rancid's Hellcat label) features a green and white mural painted onto a wall, replete with shamrocks, and the reverse pictures the band with Guiness' raised, busy falling out of a pub. Their heritage is at the forefront of tracks like The Rocky Road to Dublin and The Legend Of Finn MacCumhail, and the sound is just unmistakably gaelic throughout. I find it hard to complain about people hanging onto their heritage when it's this much fun.

So turn it up loud and blast this out at top notch, shout along with it, it's the only way. For Boston is the intro track to Sing Loud, Sing Proud! and you must know The Wild Rover...

The Music
Dropkick Murphys - For Boston
Dropkick Murphys - The Wild Rover

The 'fo
Artist: Dropkick Murphys
Website: dropkickmurphys.com
Recommended: Sing Loud, Sing Proud!
Label: Hellcat
Buy: Amazon; The Departed OST
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: Bouncing Souls - How We Spent Our Summer Vacation
Tags: Dropkick Murphys; punk; Irish; The Departed; Boston; Hellcat

The most eligible batchelor

There are no unmissable TV programmes, I like to think. I prefer to believe that I'm not enslaved to a medium sized box from which coloured light emits, with it's happy happy sounds and pretty moving pictures and... No. I say to myself, no, I can miss TV. And for the most part, it's true. I try not to miss Lost, simply because that's an actual addiction, I can give up any time I want though.

But one that just shouldn't be missed not because of it's cliffhangers, or the promise of bared flesh or any such sordid, cheap gimmicks, but because of it's life-affirming celebration of this diverse and fascinating world, and it's diverse and fascinating denizens, is Tribe (Going Tribal in the US), with the inimitable Bruce Parry.

I would gladly let my unborn (as yet unconceived...) daughter marry Bruce Parry. The man is a beacon of hope that good people still exist, refreshingly free from cynicism or pandering, and genuinely interested in the human condition. He makes an already enticing concept (going to live with obscure and hitherto almost unreached tribes in the depths of Africa, or Asia, or South America, living with them as one of them, eating what they eat, doing what they do) into a beautiful and heartwarming exploration of the meaning and importance of life, bringing into question our own values and attitudes in the process.

I could go on: the man is a legend, and now you can be his friend! Series 2 highlights here, and more clips on the BBC minisite.

Some songs in celebration:

Jimmy Cliff - Wild World (Cat Stevens cover)
Joy Division - Wilderness

<$>Jimmy Cliff/Joy Division<$>

Tags: Bruce Parry; Tribe; Going Tribal;Jimmy Cliff; Cat Stevens; Joy Division

Spoilt Mancunian Child

(Photo by Mark Pilkington)

This has been a weekend of live music on the telly for me, at least from last night. Some of it has been good (Pearl Jam nailing Alive at the Reading Festival). Some of it has been curious (Sway redefining the concept of an acoustic set; Tom Araya sporting literally a full head and face full of hair in front of Dave Lombardo's awesome drumming with Slayer). Some of it has been downright awful (whoever thought the Kooks were a good idea in the first place needs serious work in the brainal area, let alone whoever thought an acoustic version would be worth it. The Kooks are seriously the worst band to lay claim to indie status that I've seen (or heard) in ages and ages, and their weedy, fake romantic songs sounded even worse in that setting).

One of the low points had to be a live version of Kasabian's new single, Empire. For a band who plundered some dubious musical reference points almost to the point of plagiarism on their first album, Kasabian haven't stepped up their game any. This time though, instead of quoting Gallagher and Brown, they've attempted to get in on Mark E Smith's game, with the lead vocals heading towards a bark, and the elctro-punk backing trying to groove. But The Fall will be no-one's fools - their version of Theme From Sparta FC at Reading showed just how far the young pretenders have to come, and they put these upstarts to shame on every front. While I usually roll my eyes at disaffected, sneering kind of postures, Smith has unarguable presence that makes it OK for him, but for no-one else. So Kasabian: back off, leave it to the masters.

The Fall - The Man Whose Head Expanded

<$>The Fall<$>

Tags: The Fall; live music; Reading; Kasabian; The Kooks

I don't need no booze and drugs

Nope, I haven't turned into Ian MacKaye, I'm not going to start giving soup to people exiting hardcore gigs at the Garage. It's from Coffee Mug by Descendents.

You know what's great? Coffee is great. Coffee is black gold, it pulls you in and won't let go. It comes in many guises, but they're all wonderful, wonderful java. A steaming espresso, wonderful. A big mug of coffee perks me up after a day at work better than your low-rent Red Bull, and it doesn't give you wings, it gives you a sense of self-affirmation that soars above that.

Buy Fair Trade coffee - it's better: it tastes better, it's better for the producer, it would probably clean your house and iron your shirts for you if you asked. Don't do it for Chris Martin, do it for me! You know it makes sense.

For some reason, here is a list of songs about caffeine. The fools neglect to mention the legendary Wildhearts' Caffeine Bomb (sorry, no audio).

Descendents - Coffee Mug (punk rock's greatest biochemist agrees with me)

i don't need no booze or drugs
i just chug-a-lug on my coffee mug
and i don't need no kiss and hug
i just chug-a-lug on my coffee mug

Label/album(download)/album (buy)

Lagwagon - Mr Coffee

morning has broken
mr coffee has spoken
the familiar wake up call
sings to my ears
i woke with a shrug
to the floor with a thud
where in this hellhole is my coffee mug
i can now face the day!
on legal speed (the american way)

buy Lagwagon/label/buy

Blur - Coffee & TV (courtesy of the lovely BadmintonStamps)
blur/buy

This is all the coffee songs I could think of (without actually trying, to be fair). Is there anymore (I mean good ones, locatable ones, not the ones on that list)?

Give 'Em Hope

The title is somewhat misleading.

Yesterday, I spent maybe the most depressing day of my working life filling envelopes with letters, for an entire day - I did my share of 35,000 letters that had to be posted that day. I'm telling you, the tension, you wouldn't believe it.

Anyway, the reason was that staff at the institution wherein I work had decided to strike, and thus we, the admin donkeys had to send out these letters to explain the situation to all those who might be affected. I don't really approve of striking. I'm not a member of any union nor do I plan to be, and any greivance at work I feel I have the ability to resolve it without resorting to ridiculous threats and comical posturing. Much as it might amuse me for a half hour or so to stand out in the cold yelling SCAB at anyone nearby, on Holloway Road this is likely to get you more than a cheery nod of approval.

Also, I'm not going to support anything that gives me a thousand letters a day to stuff, I feel this is not quite right.

Newtown Grunts - Solidarity. This is a cover of the elderly Angelic Upstarts track about the Polish shipworker strikes of the Lech Walesa-era 1980's, updated for the Liverpool dockworkers strikes. It came to my mind when the dispute was raised here, and it's a cool enough track if you like your punk rock to barrel along and shout "Oi!" at you as it passes. It's from an album on BYO Records from a few years back, to try and get some of those crazy So.Cal yanks to listen to British punk rock, and features some great contributions from Leatherface (I couldn't miss the opportunity to post up their excellent 'Boogie On Down', maybe the most poignant and romantic song ever to be buried in utterly indistinguishable hardcore), and also Snuff, Road Rage, Airbomb ranting about the TV and Melksham's finest Citizen Fish.