Week In Music April 24th-May 1st

A sad week this week as I woke up on Wednesday to the news that Anita Lane had died. I'd had her & Barry Adamson's excellent version of 'These Boots Are Made For Walking' stuck in my head for the previous week, perhaps with good reason.

I was reminiscing about how in 1998 on my fateful trip to Europe where that stranger told me that Nick Cave owned a bar in Berlin, setting in motion that epic adventure, I was reading Ian Johnston's 'Bad Seed' biography and Anita seemed like such both a powerful muse and creator in her own right. And then at the end of that trip I went to London and found her 'The World's A Girl' EP, her and Nick's version of 'Je T'aime...' introducing me to the world of Serge Gainsbourg. And those Gainsbourg covers she did with Mick Harvey! Their version of 'Overseas Telegram' is my definition of gorgeous.

I quickly sought out her 'Dirty Pearl' album and then a couple years later, I was going to Canada with my band Lifestyle to play some gigs and I picked up the newly released 'Sex O'Clock' at a record shop in Buffalo, NY. We were fascinated by it. Mute is reissuing that record later this year and I was hoping to speak with Anita about it for the ETC podcast. I spent a lot of time on Twitter looking at all the lovely tributes to her and it was great to see that so many people knew of her and what a powerful force she was. 

It was one such tweet that introduced me to the work of Penelope Trappes. Her new song 'Fur & Feather' is lovely.

Also on Twitter was introduced to the catchy spacey electronic sounds of wor_kspace. 

And the lush dreampop of Phantom Handshakes, whose album cover for their new 'No More Summer Songs' was nice enough to inspire me to listen and I really enjoyed it. 

I seem to find out about a lot of music through Twitter these days. Not a bad thing. And it was the same for the new illuminati hotties song 'MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA'. Sarah really knows how to write an energetic pop song

And speaking of energetic pop, last weekend I watched 'Josie & The Pussycats' again on my birthday and that soundtrack is so good. I really like the countdown from six in the chorus '3 Small Words'. 

And I wouldn't have thought it possible to love Charly Bliss any more than I do, but reading this The Fader oral history of the film, I found out that CB covered the entire soundtrack for Halloween a couple years ago. 

Guided By Voices are back with a new album, 'Earth Man Blues', which Rolling Stone called their best since 'Alien Lanes'. That's a mighty call, but after one listen there are some good tunes on there. I'm particularly fond of 'How Can A Plumb Be Perfected?' 

Anton Barbeau is back with a cool video for his ace new wavey 'Across The Drama Pond'. If you don't know Anton's work, I highly recommend checking it out. Especially if you like Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope, XTC, or just really good pop music. He's an American English eccentric. 

I kept hearing Sonny & Cher's 'The Beat Goes On' last week and then Telex covered it. 

New Quicksand song, 'Inversion', that I'm digging

The Quietus ran a Pet Shop Boys 'Beyond The Hits' piece and I contributed a blurb about 'Nightlife', a tune I've always loved. 

And also it was rad to see Yoko Ono tweet Bobby from The Quietus' review of the Plastic Ono Band boxset. The songs he mentions at the end are lovely. 

After reading the review, I put on her 1973 'Approximately Infinite Universe' double album. Excellent stuff. 

Robert Pollard with Doug Gillard - Tight Globes

If you're looking for a dose of pure ROCK N ROLL, here you go:




'Tight Globes' from Robert Pollard & Doug Gillard's 'Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department'. Glad to see GBV has played this live a lot too. Killer track. When that lead line kicks in, it just takes off skyward on a full-on Rock N Roll trip. Making me think once again that all you need is a I - IV chord progression.

Darren Hayman once said on Twitter something like - 'If aliens came to Earth and demanded to know what Rock N Roll is, Guided By Voices are what you'd play them'.  How true.

Martin Newell's Golden Afternoon...

Just got back from Martin Newell's Golden Afternoon which, despite being a day of grey and rain (and the rail line being down meaning 2 trains and a bus each way), was very enjoyable, really great. Ever the entertainer, Martin came out and played some songs, switching between guitar and piano, before bringing on the 2 acts he chose to play, then he came back for some poetry (one poem pointed out that if you were born in '45, when you were 33, it was '78) and an incredibly funny story about a dog, then the bands played again, and he finished off with some more songs, including a new one on the mandolin which shows much promise for the new record (I'm Moving On, which can be heard here after a really good interview with Fixe mag). The show started at 2 PM and the whole thing was over by 5, very civilized. Checking the setlist when it was over, after the 3rd song he seemed to abandon sticking to it and even threw in an amazing cover of Life On Mars? and Matt Monro's Walk Away (which I'd never heard before and is lovely).  Both are now up here under the name Duvet Covers, as well as The World Strikes One and a clip of Stella & Charlie Got Married.


The second song of the set was Speed Of A Train from his Songs From The Station Hotel, which I love. A killer tune, if you like Guided By Voices I highly recommend listening to this, a shame I can't find it anywhere to play on the internet. An excellent song that had passed me by is Grenadine And Blue from The Light Programme and the live version today really sold it to me. The World Strikes One was also excellent this afternoon. Here it is (with Victoria Grey following!) from the first Golden Afternoon in 2003:




I was very excited that he played The Greatest Living Englishman:



The other two acts were Girl Du Bois who were very good, playing 30s French songs and Franglaisized versions of English pop songs such as Road To Nowhere and People Are Strange. They even ended with a Boris Vian cover. Check Boris Vian out, a very clever and entertaining figure (I mean to do a post on his music soon). And The Corner Laughers from California, who play very cute, melodic indiepop.