Monthly Archives: October 2003

The BBCi guide to comedy is an interesting index of TV comedies, including links to some of my favorites. The articles seem quite thorough, and there are hi-resolution images available as wallpaper.

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So, last night we saw Julian Cope at the beautiful Lyric theatre in Hammersmith. Part of a show like this for me is normally the rush of recognition you get when the performer you’ve listened to for so long finally takes to the stage. In this case that was completely absent: I didn’t recognize him at all! This was probably because a) my image of Julian is about 15 years out of date and b) he wore a full beard, cap, and sunglasses with a blue military suit. The weird thing is that he didn’t really sound like himself either, at least not until he sang “Las Vegas Basement,” the gentle closing track on Peggy Suicide.

Julian had his wireless microphone strapped to his head, which allowed him to spend much of the first 20 minutes of the show exploring the 3-level theatre. The theatre is completely seated, so he was able to move around quite freely. The guy next to me went right up to him and had him sing into his mobile phone.

The band was pretty much out of this world. It made me wonder what I could achieve with time, diligence and rehearsal. Every show I’ve ever played has been under-rehearsed, but you couldn’t say that about last night. It was quite stripped down – bass, drums, guitar and occasional synth (a strange Korg module thing with no keyboard). The bass player also switched to what I think was a Mellotron for one song. The sound was incredibly crisp and repetitive rock music, which appealed to me much more than you might expect, especially in view of the guitarist’s frequent adventures in heavy metal-style solos. Somehow in this setting that seemed cool.

The support act was Sunburned Hand of the Man. When they first came on, they were pissing around, to the extent that I was joking that they were “my best band ever”. But they actually turned out to be pretty cool. Shambolic droning, with about 8 people on stage, most of whom were banging some drum or other, or yelping, or strumming.

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Thank you to Mike, Anj, and the charity shops of Yeadon and Otley.

John Leslie: 'Ireland A'GoGo' (LP; Saga; 1966)
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The homeland! Alas, the music on this record doesn't consist of 'Danny Boy' in a 60s discotheque Go-Go style.

It was definitely worth a try though...

Check out the full-size image for the full glory of this cover.

Larry Page Orchestra: 'Larry Page Orchestra' (LP; Silverline; 1969)
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I bought this purely because it was on the Silverline label, and I have another LP on that label by Zack Laurence which has some great beaty tracks on it.

This one isn't so great, but it has some reasonable versions of 60s standards.

Compilation - Mandingo: 'The Music of Mandingo: Tiger in the Night' (LP; MFP; 1973-1977)
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This record is astonishingly good. Some people will know Mandingo from the Sound Gallery compilation, which featured the great 'Black Rite', which is the lead track on this LP. This is well put together imitation afro funk/rock/beat music, made in the UK.

The original LPs are quite hard to find, so I was pleased to find this one. Some (all?) of the albums were reissued on CD about five years ago, and although I did buy one of them, I found it a bit boring. Perhaps it just all works better for me when the poppiest tracks are collected together as they are here.

However, this 'best of' LP is great, with not a bad track at all. It's tasty instrumental music; at times quite spare and minimal, and at others overflowing with brass and guitars. A huge variety of percussion instruments are featured throughout (they're conveniently listed on the back cover). There's nothing remotely authentic about the LP, but it's great fun.

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Yes. This site has some pretty amazing record covers. This one was emailed to me, and was the way I found the site. Amazing is the word, eh…

The site brought up some conflicting emotions for me. The collection is incredible, and I think it probably benefits from the fact that the site owner seems to be interested only in the covers, and barely mentions the music at all.

Sometimes, his comments are a bit snarky and mean, but it’s also really genuinely poignant when you see the contemporary pictures and websites of some of the original artists via ‘Where are they now’ links. Here‘s an example (the original record cover is here).

Overall, it’s great that sites like this are recording these people and their records for everyone to see. Many of them will have been extremely limited pressings. For me, this is the reason the internet was made!

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Yet another Ennio Morricone remix project is out, this time from Compost records. I hope it will be good, but I have a feeling I’m more into their reissues than their new stuff. Still, there are some excellent track choices, so you never know… The new Mondo Morricone compilation has been released, and the earlier ones re-released, by Cinesoundz. They seem to have redesigned the covers, which amazes me, since the original designs, by Stefan Kassel, are just about the best CD covers I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure if he did the new ones as well; the release seems to be a joint one with Royal Ear Force, a label founded by the excellent Stereo Deluxe.

In other news, we got one of our first reviews the other day at Score Baby!. He seems to quite like the record, which is cool.

I also read this interesting story about the resurgence of big bands in Taiwan.

Danny Guglielmi and Dena: 'Adventure in Sound' (LP; TOPS; 1955)
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A great album. Kind of a Les Paul/Mary Ford knockoff, but with a charm all of its own. It features early multitrack taping techniques, interesting sound effects, and ethereal vocals.

I know that a campaign was underway to have this album reissued, but sadly I don't think it came to fruition. Classic 50s cover that almost mirrors Alvino Rey's My Reverie.

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I just got a spam email with the subject “Access 200+ Million U.S Records”. It turns out they don’t have any records at all; it’s some kind of snooping database. Shit.

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