Tom Verlaine: First solo album

Tom Verlaine became the indie myth with the first legendary LP of his Television, Marquee Moon. After their second LP the band split and he went on for a solo career started off with this homonymous album: nine songs that did not differ much from his previous band's material, yet they are a good promise for his solo career (as some people might have wondered if he had been able to be such a good songwriter without his past comrades at his side).
And for those who love The Velvet Underground I recommend to listen to Breakin' my heart (in here you will also find the Kingdom come covered by David Bowie on Scary monsters).

More about Tom Verlaine:
See The Wonder
and Oldielyrics

Tom Verlaine

Arab Strap: Acoustic Request Show

Arab Strap just split and this is a post to remind everyone what a great band they have been, also on stage: 11 acoustic tracks from their last tour (and mind the last one...there is a peculiar ghost track hidden in there).
I really hope their future solo careers will be at this level (and for those who have't: go and listen to Malcolm Middleton's last LP, which really is one of my favourite musical work of these years).

Acoustic request show

Danny & Dusty: The lost weekend

Danny & Dusty were much more than the names could lead you to think: it was (on writing "team") Dream Syndicate's Steve Wynn and Green on red's Dan Stuart, plus Stuart's colleague on GOR Chris Cacavas, Long Ryders' Sid Griffin and Tom Steffen, and at last DS's drummer Dennis Duck.
The lost weekend was a collaboration of a couple days only, when all of these people met only "for the fun of it", delivering good-rocking pub songs for drunks and old timers (including a more than enjoyable version of Knockin' on heaven's door).
Many consider this some kind of a lost masterpiece (lost given the fact that it has not been re-released for a long time), and I do not completely agree with that because I still think that the Paisley Underground (the californian scene that included all the three of these musicians' bands) produced better than this (Days of wine and roses and State of our union come to mind...), but still The lost weekend does not deserve to be left in the drawer of some label forever because it is a collection of songs that many Paisley underground Fans could truly appeciate, along with Neil Young fans (I think of Ragged glory) or Dylan's (specially if you like some of his slack material).

The lost weekend

Cha VanGaalen: Skelliconnection

Chad VanGaalen is a young and talented canadian artist, involved both in painting and musicmaking. He has just released this Album -Skelliconnection- on which he played all the instruments and where he shows the many sides of his music: soft-baladeering, folk-pop (the opening Sing me to sleep), lots of 60's references (the beautiful, stunning, and yet with simple chord sequence Graveyard that reminds me of Harvest/After the gold rush-era Neil young and first Belle & Sebastian, though the lyrics are more reminiscent of Smog), indie-rock, and more (like the electronic folk of Red hot drops).
On the whole Skelliconnection is an album with a lot of naiveté (in a good way) and one that is also able to surprise you quite often with its music shifts. There are not so many out there (and this is how I have decided to uploaded, while I usually do not post brand new stuff).
...and check out the Surprise link all you West Wing fans (if there are any in here).

For more info about him:
See his Myspace page (if you want to have a taste of his songs)
or Newmusiccanada
or the Eye Weekly (there's a nice article with his bio)

Skelliconnection

Track 11

Here is track 11 for those who could not extract it

Track 11

Robert Wyatt: EPs

I'm not a great Robert Wyatt fan, but this collection of EPs just takes my breath away: specially the first three EPs (songs 1-14), which are loaded with wonderful cover versions, one of which is Elvis Costello's magnificent Shipbuilding, playedeven better by Wyatt, but also with a is-this-really-it?-version of Neil Diamond's I'm a believer, and then Peter Gabriel's Biko among others. The fourth EP is a whole different matter, with the eerie sounds from The Animals Film, and the fifth is a series of remixes of songs from Wyatt's Shleep album.

(And check out the surprise link because it is big fun, trust me!)

INFO:
See Robert Wyatt on Wiki.
Look in here if you are looking for his solo discography.


This is big, so it's split two parts.

Part 1
Part 2

Morrissey: You have killed me + Feist: One evening

Today a post with two cd singles: MORRISSEY's You have killed me (with 2 previously unreleased tracks) and FEIST's One evening (with a remix, a live -I think- version of Lover's spit with her and BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, and a solo piano version of the title-track).



Link Removed

Tangerine Dream: Alpha Centauri

Today's album is Tangerine Dream's second LP, the cosmic Alpha Centauri, released in 1971 after first drummer (and further on succesful solo artist) Klaus Schultze left the band. Nonetheless Alpha is -like all of the first four TD first four LPs- a magnificent piece of work, one of the highest points reached by the so-called Krautrock. So forget about further-on progressive -and kind of boring- TD, because this is real cosmic music, not new age-y stuff good for waiting rooms or mid age hipsters (as most of the stuff they played from the late 70's and on).

INFO:
Web page on Krautrock with lots of links.
TD Fan site with interviews, articles, picture, etc.


Alpha Centauri

Sebastien Tellier: Sessions

Today I'd like to introduce Sébastien Tellier to those of you who do not know his music talent: he is a 25 years old parisian who has already released three albums, "L'incroyable verité", "Politics", and this one, the last, "Sessions". "Sessions" is something peculiar in Tellier's discography because it consists in a one-day session that pictures his playing some song from his back catalogue (including also "Fantino", featured on Sofia Coppola's "Lost in translation"), an unreleased track, "Classics", and a cover version of Cristophe's "La dolce vita", in a bare and extremely impassioned acoustic performance.
What makes the difference betweens this and the previous Tellier's LPs is that the french musician avoids here his typical and a-bit-of-kitsch arrengements, and in doing so his songs sound more sincere, unlike their versions on "Politics" and "L'incroyable verité" (beautiful "La ritournelle" apart) that sometimes seemed more a divertissement than proper songs.

If you want to give him a try you can also go listen to ST's songs on his Myspace page.

Sessions

The Go-Betweens: Before Hollywood (expanded disc)

Just as I said, here is The Go-Betweens' "Before Hollywood" expanded disc. And it is not a matter of half-formed demos (although they are, mostly, demos) or such: they are all well-played songs, starting with "Just a king in mirrors" or "This girl, black girl", and it includes also the single (from the "Send me a lullaby"-first LP-period) "Hammer the hammer".

Before Hollywood Expanded Disc

The Long Ryders: 10-5-60 (EP) + End of the trail (Live)

The LONG RYDERS are another Paisley Underground band: they were a cow-punk or -if you prefer a country-rock ensemble lead by singer Sid Griffin in the early 80's. These days with musicians as Ryan Adams or Neko Case being so hip LONG RYDERS are definetely a name to re-discover.
Today's download is LR's first EP (released 1983), "10-5-60", and a good-quality Bootleg called "End of the trail" from the final part of their career (presumably shortly after "Two-fisted tale", their last LP).

For more info see LR'S page @ Sid Griffin's website (a very-well made one, where you can also find some MP3 of live material), or Wiki.

Two links this time for the download:

Long Ryders (Megaupload)

or

Long Ryders (Sendspace)

The Go-Betweeens: Before Hollywood

Hello, and sorry if I have been away for a while (on vacation in Paris, by the way), but now I'm back and with a hell of an album...and I know I have already posted a lot of THE GO-BETWEENS' stuff, but in Paris I bought this one (I had not bought it before because it is not available in Italy, so I had only bad MP3s of it) and I am so satisfied with it that I have decided to make it my comeback-post.
So, I'm talking about GB's second LP: "Before Hollywood", IMHO their first masterpiece (cointaining the absolute gem of McLennan's "Cattle and cane"), and one of those record that sound both naive and stunning...their sound is so clearly stuck in the past but still fascinating and beautiful (in that it kind of reminds me of REM's first album, "Murmur": it is clearly an LP made in the ealry 80's with all that crystalline sound and fine-sounding guitars...in fact both LP's were released in 1983!).
Anyone interested also in the bonus disc?

The Go-Betyweens on Wiki
The Go-Betweens Archive

Before Hollywood

Re-post: Robert Forster - Radio showcase

This is for those who did not make it to download Fosrster's radio showcase.

Showcase

Robert Forster: "Drop" CD single + Radio showcase

And here is something for the GO-BETWEENS fans: Robert Forster's "Drop" CD single, plus a radio showcase with also two songs from his GB days ("Rock 'n' roll friend", and the marvellous "When she sang about angels").
By the way, you like the picture? I hope you do, it comes from the "16 Lovers Lane"period, when he had dyed his hair silver... (I have taken it out of David Nichols' biopic on the Go-Betweens: take a look at Amazon if you are interest, it is a quite good bok).

Robert Forster

Galaxie 500: Demo tape

GALAXIE 500 were Dean Wareham, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, one of the most talented indierock bands of their time (late 80's), and probably one of the best ever. They unfortunately released only three LP's before splitting, but year after year we discover more recondings of theirs (like the "Uncollected" album, the "Peel session", and the "Copenhagen" live). This is one more GALAXIE 500 fans should be delighted of: 7 tracks from early demo tapes, four of which do not appear in the "Uncollected" G.500 compilation.

Here is the tracklist:

1-Walking song
2-The other side
3-On the floor
4-Pride
5-(Unknown)
6-Open road
7-We...all right

If you do not know much about GALAXIE 500 go visit their myspace site to listen to them, or get to their website, which is full of lyrics, tabs, and such.

Demo tape

Re-upload for The Triffids

I have uploaded again the Triffids album since it was dead.
Just click on "In the pines" in the previous post (I have changed the link).

The Triffids: In the pines

THE TRIFFIDS were an australian rock band active in the eighties: they sound like something between late-Byrds and english-american post punk bands. This beautiful LP, "In the pines" is one of their best efforts (together with the previous "Bord Sandy devotional" probably), having it all of their influnces, well-balanced, in it. For instance: the country music of "Once again", but also the perfect pop of the title track (it reminds of the poppiest STRANGLERS songs), while "Suntrapper" is a great stop-and-go new wave thing, "Kathy knows" might sound like early CURE stuff, and "Better off this way" is the closest a band grown in the punk scene can get to write a crooner kind of song.
Plus you will find also a bunch of interesting bonus tracks along with the original tracklist.

For more info see this well-done fansite and wiki (also, on their official site there's this wonderful page with lots of downloads of rairities.

In the pines

The Beatles: White album (one-disc only)

This is a bit of a game I played: I asked myself "What if the Beatles had made one disc out of all the music they put on tapes for the so-called "White album" instead oa double LP? (I think George Martin would have appreciated a more concise work)
And I know this could seem a bit pretentious and all, but I tried nonetheless to compile a one-disc version that might sound fine (and, at the same time, I tried not to leave all the McCartney songs out...which is a bit of a hard work. I have always thought this was one of his worst period as a writer. He did much better sooner -"Pepper"- and after -"Let it be").
This is the result. Don't take it too seriously (otherwise you would probably want to chop my head for putting also an Anthology-version track in it...), it was just fun (at least it was for me compiling it).
I won't tell you the tracklist (it would take half the fun out).

White album

4 Beatles fans

Here is a great link for all BEATLES fans: on Beatspace you can find lots and lots of their stuff (incluiding 17 discs of "Get back sessions"...highly recommended!).

CD 5 Track 7 & 13

This is for those who have had problems unzipping these tracks.

Tracks