Best of 2009

This is what I came up with...

1-Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions:
Through The Devil Softly



2-Laura Gibson:
Beasts of Seasons



3-Girls:
Album



4-The Unthanks:
Here's The Tender Coming



5-Vic Chesnutt:
At The Cut



6-Black Heart Procession:
Six



7-Flaming Lips:
Embryonic



8-Gomez:
A New Tide



9-Cass McCombs:
Catacombs



10-Vic Chesnutt:
Skitter On Take-Off




11-Real Estate:
S/t



12-Beach House:
Teen Dream



13-MV & EE:
Barn Nova



14-Califone:
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers



15-Bill Callahan:
Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle



16-Dirty Projector:
Bitte Orca



17-Magnolia Eletric Co:
Josephine



18-PJ Harvey & John Paris:
A Woman A Man Walked By



19-Built To Spill:
There Is No Enemy



20-Nancy Elizabeth:
Wrought Iron



21-Choral:
Mountains



22-Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3:
Goodnight Oslo



23-Yo La Tengo:
Popular Songs



24-Sholi:
S/t

Frightened Rabbit: Nothing Like You (new single & video)

Yesss!


Frightened Rabbit on MUZU

Mazzy Star: Live at The Metro, Chicago, 1994

It's been quite a while (exactly four years!) since the last time I posted something regarding Mazzy Star, so when I came across this great bootleg (an FM broadcast from some WXRT radio) and I heard how good it was I decided it was time for some great atmosphere music... Besides, Hope Sandoval's last record ("Through the Devil Softly") is definetely one of my favourite ones this year (I haven't made up my mind yet for my "Best of 2009" list...), so I'm in a bit of a Hope Sandoval mood.
Well, if you want to know more about Mazzy Star go search @ Mazzy Star Boulevard, a good tool indeed (with tabs as well).
What more can I say? Great songs, great guitar licks by Roback: listen to Give you my lovin's steel guitar and you'll see where some of Damon and Naomi's stuff comes from, I guess. And yeah, the end of that song must be an homage to Reed's Sweet Jane (I mean: isn't David Roback one of Lou's most dedicate fans? C'mon!)

...and this is another good live performance from youtube:



Tracklist:

1. Flowers In December
2. Ride it on
3. Into Dust
4. Give You My Lovin
5. Fade Into You
6. Halah
7. Ghost Highway
8. Blue Flower

Live at The Metro

Frightened Rabbit: Swim Until You Can't See Land

Man, have I been waiting for Frightened Rabbit's new "The Winter of Mixed Drinks"... In the meantime the only thing is listening to this first single off their forthcoming album (and listen to the second, Nothing like you, @ their myspace).
Included with Swim until you can't see land is also the (non-album track) Fun stuff.

Swim Until You Can't See Land

Cowboy Junkies: 200 More Miles: Live Performances 1985-1994

There is at least one good reason to listen to Cowboy Junkies: Margo Timmins' wonderful warm voice. I personally have to say that I don't own their whole discography but that I hold dear (as one of my favourite records) their second groundbreaking 1988 album "The Trinity Sessions", and that, had I to choose one single work of theirs as an example or a good point of entry to their career I'd probably go for this "200 More Miles", being it a good sum of their first five LP's and having also a spectacular rendition of Springsteen's State Trooper .

And listen to them play Lou's Sweet Jane:



200 More Miles

Piano Magic: Live November '09

I saw Piano Magic live twice: the first time five or six years ago, and then some weeks ago during the tour of their last "Ovations". This is the bootleg recording of that concert. It must be said that as a live band they are way different than in studio (i.e. more electric guitars, less electronic, more strightforward, etc.). Still, they always play beautiful, meaningful and profound music. Only more new-wave-like (and yes, I do hear some echoes of Joy Division in here).
Anyway, I did whatever I could in order to give this audience recording the best possible sound: now it's not perfect, but it's a nice listen if you enjoy Piano Magic.
PS The picture is from another gig (an english one, taken from Flickr).

Piano Magic Live November '09

Request

Does anybody have any of Amanda Brown's work as film music composer ("Son of a Lion", ""Sidney Nolan"...)? And would like to share...?
Thanks.

The Go-Betweens: Tallulah (The Expanded Edition)

I know how poorly this album is usually considered, and by the Go-Betweens too, as anyone can see by reading the Forster-McLennan interview on their whole career in the 80's @ the Go Betweens' Archive page, where Forster, talking about "Tallulah", says: "...we were sort of cursed. We had the engineer that we were using on Liberty Belle, Dicky Preston, and working with Dicky was good. We then went on to the next one and we were put into this horrible studio–..." and then "And so Dickey didn't do a good job I think on Tallulah, so it had to be rescued and remixing a little but which always sounds horrible ...". But I also completely agree with him when he says: "...Tallulah really could have been the big, dark masterpiece, and I don't know, we didn't… really…hit it. But it's good."
Yeah, that's really true, I mean, look at some of the songs in the album: there is Someone else's wife ("It's a fine line between love and despair/Do you know the times I've waited on your stair?"), The house that Jack Kerouac built ("With friends like these; you're damned as well/Keep me away from her"), Hope then strife ("Never gonna be the one /Who said you were the one /Who liked the lonesome life"), and then there's the whole (and one-of-a-kind type of song in the GoBes' canon) intense The Clarke sisters.
But yes: the production of "Tallulah" brings out the worst of the eighties' music: it's almost hard to listen to this version of Right here (when compared to the oh-so-much-better live rendition of it)... Plus there is Cut it out, possibly the worst Go-Betweens' song ever.
And that's one of the reasons why I have uploaded the bonus disc too: the demos of Right here and I just get caught out do give more justice to Forster's and McLennan's songwriting skill. Moreover the B-side When people are dead is a beautiful gem.
One more thing: this two-discs edition of "Tallulah" got out of print...why?

Tallullah (Disc 1)
Tallullah (Disc 2)

New Frightened Rabbit Video

Frightened Rabbit on Wiki

My Favourite Show on TV

Official Site @ FOX
On Wikipedia

Steeleye Span: Ten Man Mop or Mr Reservoir Butler Rides Again

It's no surprise that I adore english folk-rock (or electric folk), and I'm particularly fond of the "Fairport family" (Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard and Linda Thompson, Fotheringay...). But I had never put my heart and soul into listening to the other major british folk-rock ensemble, i.e. Steeleye Span and Pentanle. My bad, of course. Anyway, although I still have some problems listening to Pentangle (because of Jacqui McShee's voice mainly...but I dig Bert Jansch's solo repertoire), I am now starting to love Steeleye Span too.
And the album I love the most (at least until now) is their third, this "Ten Man Mop or Mr Reservoir Butler Rides Again": I think everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) should try and listen at least to When I was on horseback and Gosser Wassail. The work of Martin Carthy on this two songs is simply incredible (the Gosser Wassail lick does sound like new-wave to me...)

Unfortunately I haven't found any video on youtube with Gosser Wassail. But I found When I was on horseback:

Ten Man Mop...

Warren Zevon: Stand In The Fire

I'm going through a Warren Zevon phase (again). So, I've decided to post this strong live album from the seventies with many of his early careers' classics (Excitable boy, Muhammad radio, Werewolves of London...).
It's also a quite good point to start your own Zevonesque mania (and this is the new 2007 edition with 4 bonus tracks)

By the way: there is plenty of Zevon's gigs @ the Internet Music Archive.

And here is some good advertisment of "Stand In The Fire" by David Letterman:

Stand In The Fire

Thom Yorke: Open the floodgates

What can I say? I absolutely love this new song...

Townes Van Zandt: Live at the Old Quarter (Disc 1 & 2)

I bumped into a Townes Van Zandt's music only recently, but I was immediately hypnotized by it: rarely had I heard songs so intense and a songwriting apparently so simple and yet so deep, the typical example being Van Zandt's most famous song, Pancho and Lefty (the cover version by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard in 1983 reached #1 in the Country Chart), which after you first listen to it, it may not sound a first rate number, but then later, it slowly grows on you (and gets huge).
TVZ has recorded a vast number of (excellent) LP's, but I have just purchased this one, the "Live at the Old Quarter", which I particularly love because of the sparse arrangement: only Van Zandt singing and playing his acoustic guitar.
What more? This one has TVZ's best songs from the first part of his career, and also some blues numbers that he loved (i.e. Chaffeur's blues and Cocaine blues in the second disc). If you like his music go search for more. My advice is (but I'm not into his whole carerr yet, so I'm not such a good or impartial judge of it, I suppose) go buy "Our Mother the Mountain"(too).

Live at the Old Quarter (Disc 1)
Live at the Old Quarter (Disc 2)

The Unthanks: New album leaked

I have already ordered it...but my mailman is being lazy, so: I cannot delay this wait for much longer and I guess I'm going to download it thanks to (the usual welcome post by) Bolachas. Yipee!
Btw, if you want to buy it (and I already know it's sure woth it), go see the Unthanks' official site.

Rachel Unthanks & The Winterset: Live BBC 2008

They probably are one of my favourite bands of this decade, and I mean really. I say this simply because "The Bairns" just knocked me dead. It reminds me of when I listened to Lal Waterson for the first time: I instantly knew that was a great voice, with depth and intensity. And the Unthanks (their “new” name) seem to have the Midas touch too. You know, it’s a bit like listening to Richard Thompson playing Britney Spears’ Baby one more time…I mean: it sounds almost good… (or Caetano Veloso performing Jackson’s Black or white, for that matter). The point being: it looks like they can take any song (particularly from the british folk canon), make it their own, and make it sound divine.

So, just in case any of you haven't heard anything from Rachel Unthank/The Unthanks, this is a rip from a BBC radio christmas special with 3 songs (Tar Barrel In Dal, Felton Lonnin, This Endris Night).

If you want to know more about the Unthanks and their forthcoming album, "Here's the tender coming" go listen to BBC 2 "The Radcliff and Maconie Show" from 08/09/09, when they played live 3 new songs. Incidentally: does anyone have an upload of "Here's the tender..."?

And here are also 2 videos of them playing for "Shoot the player", dating back to some months ago:

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset: Blue Bleezin Blind Drunk from shoottheplayer.com on Vimeo.

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset: On A Monday Morning from shoottheplayer.com on Vimeo.

Live BBC 2008

OGGI SCIOPERO

Contro il DDL Alfano: per il Diritto alla Rete.

The Go-Betweens: Los Conciertos de Radio 3 (2001)

I don't know why but I was fairly certain that I had alrealy posted this, when I actually haven't... So what happened is that I found the video of the GoBs' performance @ Radio 3, I went and check the whole thing (if I had posted the Radio 3 bootleg or not), and it turned out I didn't. Which is kind of a shame because it is a very good boot. It's just eight songs, but I like the performance a lot (a very simple semi acoustic rendition of then new songs from their comeback "The friends of Rachel Worth" and some old ones), and being able to watch almost the whole showcase (alas the last Love is a sign got left out of the TV broadcast) is definitely a plus (so yes, I split the video into four parts and uploaded them to youtube).
Hope you appreciate.
(I'm still thinking over the idea of collecting a sort of "Best Of" GoBs' bootlegs, so if you have some concerns, some ideas, suggestions or whatever just tell me. And if you have some pictures of the band: send them over to me, please, I'll sure need them for future posts).

So here are the videos and the audio download:









Los Conciertos de Radio 3

Elliott Murphy: Night Lights

I'm still amazed by the depth of rock history: no matter how smart you think you are, there's always some great artist you somehow failed to recognise as one, or that simply didn't cross your way... And that's what happened to me with Elliott Murphy: I barely knew he existed (had heard of the name, I guess), and that's why when some weeks ago I read a long article spanning through his entire career I knew exactly zip of him... So, just after reading I started digging and as soon as I started listening to his debut "Aquashow" I felt sooooo very stupid. I mean: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and Richard Hell in one person (and one album!).
So, I was supposed to upload the "Acquashow" LP, sure, but I know there's plenty of blogs with that same album (try PVAC...for instance), and I wanted something a little less obvious, and I went for Murphy's third release, "Night Lights", a slightly inferior one, but with a bunch of great (great!) songs as Diamonds by the yard, You'll never know what you're in for, or Lady Stiletto (about Patti Smith, btw).
And if you're not easily convinced try and read Lady Stiletto's lyrics:

I see this little girl she's dressed in black
She's spitting on the stage
And like some stray cat she arches her back
She leads the anarchist parade
She's a poet with street walking rhymes
They say she's got no shame
And as she screams about some piss factory
Her eyes burn with Rimbaud's rage

Ch baby you got such a way with words
You got such a way with your hairstyle
There's only one thing that you do I don't believe
That's when you smile

Her T shirt's ripped with a passion
Her mind's been raped by Rolling Stones
She keeps her weight down by fasting
On Jim Morrison's bones
And when she's good she's a rock dream witch
With Mac Beth on lead guitar
Just a ballad of a thin girl
I really think she's gonna go far

Oh baby you got such a way with words
You got such a way with your hairstyle
There's only one thing that you do don't believe
That’s when you smile

She really knows how to get to the heart
She writes with a stiletto in mind
She's got just a touch of Bonaparte
She's lack the Ripper's kind
Her wounds are open for the sake at art
She's living right near the edge
I love to see that kind of power
Its getting lonely on this ledge

Oh baby you got such a way with words
You got such a way with your hair style
There's only one thing that you do I don't believe
That's when you smile

And if this didn't do the trick, take a look at Diamonds by the yard played live in 2008:



Night Lights

Request

I have a little (?) request: does anybody have the Go-Betweens' "The last Stand, Max's Dec.1989" (i.e The Go-Bes' last concert of the 80's)?
If yes, please (pleeeeeze) would you upload it and post as a comment?
It'd be very appreciated.

M.