CDs I would buy if they were available #1: Cat Power sings Bob Dylan

Cat Power obviously likes Dylan (see e.g Song to Bobby) so how about a full CD of covers? Then maybe Cat Power sings Bowie?

Most played old songs of 2007

To complete the set, here are the oldies I played most in 2007. Yes I know this is a year late, but I know you have neen waiting...

Rank	Title	Artist	Album
1	Obsessions	Suede	Singles
2	Surrender	Cheap Trick	Cheap Trick: The Greatest Hits
3	Unwritten	Natasha Bedingfield	The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Music from the Motion Picture)
4	Release, Release	Yes	Tormato (Original Recording Remastered)
5	The Sodom and Gomorrah Show	Pet Shop Boys	Fundamental
6	Sheila	Jamie T	Sheila single
7	Christian Dior	Morrissey	In the Future When All's Well - EP
8	Baby, I'm Yours	Barbara Lewis	Hello Stranger: The Best of Barbara Lewis
9	UFO title sequnce music	Barry Gray Orchestra
10	Ko-Ko	Charlie Parker	Ken Burns Jazz
11	The Man Who Sold the World	Lulu	Man Who Sold the World
12	These Words (I Love You, I Love You)	Natasha Bedingfield	These Words (I Love You, I Love You) - Single
13	Sound Chaser	Yes	Relayer (Remastered)
14	Gonna Be a Big Thing	The Yum Yums	A Treasury Of Northern Soul
15	Beg, Steal or Borrow	Babyshambles	The Blinding - EP
16	Sukie In The Graveyard	Belle & Sebastian	The Life Pursuit
17	Watch That Man	Lulu	Man Who Sold the World
18	At Giza	Om	Conference Of The Birds
19	Flight Of The Eagle	Om	Conference Of The Birds
20	UMO	OOIOO	Taiga
21	Gimme Shelter	The Rolling Stones	Brussels Affair Definitive Edition
22	Tumbling Dice	The Rolling Stones	Brussels Affair Definitive Edition
23	Angie	The Rolling Stones	Brussels Affair Definitive Edition
24	Beautiful Ones	Suede	Singles
25	Crawl	The Wedding Present	Seamonsters

Most played new songs of 2007

For historical purposes here are my most played new songs of 2007. Last year I gathered the statistics but I never converted to html. So, better late than never...

Rank	Title	Artist	Album
1	Harder Than You Think	Public Enemy	How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?
2	Stuck Between Stations	The Hold Steady	Boys And Girls In America
3	Chips Ahoy!	The Hold Steady	Boys And Girls In America
4	Party Pit	The Hold Steady	Boys And Girls In America
5	You Can Make Him Like You	The Hold Steady	Boys And Girls In America
6	Valerie (Ft. Amy Winehouse)	Mark Ronson	Version
7	(I Wanna Have Your) Babies	Natasha Bedingfield	(I Wanna Have Your) Babies - CDS
8	The Magic Position	Patrick Wolf	The Magic Position
9	D Is For Dangerous	Arctic Monkeys	Favourite Worst Nightmare
10	Fluorescent Adolescent	Arctic Monkeys	Favourite Worst Nightmare
11	The Bad Thing	Arctic Monkeys	Favourite Worst Nightmare
12	Augustine	Patrick Wolf	The Magic Position
13	(Let's Go) Get Lost	Patrick Wolf	The Magic Position
14	My Body Is A Cage	The Arcade Fire	Neon Bible
15	Only Ones Who Know	Arctic Monkeys	Favourite Worst Nightmare
16	So Soon (Aretha Arrives Outtake)	Aretha Franklin	Rare & Unreleased Recordings
17	You're Taking Up Another Man's Place (Spirit In The Dark Outtake)*	Aretha Franklin	Rare & Unreleased Recordings
18	My Cup Runneth Over (Young, Gifted And Black Outtake)	Aretha Franklin	Rare & Unreleased Recordings
19	Rafflesia	Boris With Michio Kurihara	Rainbow
20	Rainbow	Boris With Michio Kurihara	Rainbow
21	My Rain	Boris With Michio Kurihara	Rainbow
22	Shine	Boris With Michio Kurihara	Rainbow
23	Untitled	Burial	Burial
24	Broken Home	Burial	Burial
25	Prayer	Burial	Burial
26	Pirates	Burial	Burial
27	First Night	The Hold Steady	Boys And Girls In America
28	Accident & Emergency	Patrick Wolf	The Magic Position
29	Don't Stop Believin'	Petra Haden	Guilt By Association

Most played new songs of 2008

These were my most played songs in iTunes that were released in 2008

Rank	Title	Artist	Album
1	Mr. Carter Feat.Jay-Z	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
2	Let The Beat Build	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
3	Lollipop Feat.Static Major	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
4	Mrs. Officer Feat.Bobby Valentino	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
5	I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You	Black Kids	Partie Traumatic
6	Sequestered In Memphis	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
7	Ghosts	Laura Marling	Alas, I Cannot Swim
8	A Milli	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
9	Comfortable Feat.BabyFace	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
10	Dr. Carter	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
11	La La Feat.Brisco And Busta Rhymes	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
12	Playing With Fire Feat.Betty Wright	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
13	Momentary Lapse (No. 1)	Mary Halvorson Trio	Dragon's Head
14	My Apocalypse	Metallica	Death Magnetic
15	Navy Sheets	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
16	Stay Positive	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
17	Magazines	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
18	Joke About Jamaica	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
19	Slapped Actress	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
20	Ask Her For Adderall / Cheyenne Sunrise / Two Handed Handshake	The Hold Steady	Stay Positive
21	3 Peat	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
22	Got Money Feat.T-Pain	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
23	Phone Home	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
24	You Ain't Got Nuthin Feat.Juelz Santana And Fabolous	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III
25	Suicide & Redemption	Metallica	Death Magnetic
26	Halfway Home	TV On The Radio	Dear Science

Most played old songs of 2008

These are my most played songs in iTunes that were not released in 2008.

Rank	Title	Artist	Album
1	It will be a good day	Yes	Lunar Park, Buenos Aires 09/12/1999
2	The Revolutionary Spirit	The Wild Swans	Mojo: Beloved
3	Homeworld (The Ladder)	Yes	The Ladder
4	New Language	Yes	The Ladder
5	Do It	Aphrodite's Child	666
6	Stay Free	Black Mountain	In The Future
7	Mother Liza	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
8	Black I Am	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
9	She's Mine	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
10	(A Case of) Too Much Lovemakin'	Gloria Scott	What am I Gonna Do
11	It Will Be A Good Day (The River)	Yes	The Ladder
12	Atlas	Battles	Mirrored
13	Angels	Black Mountain	In The Future
14	Evil Ways	Black Mountain	In The Future
15	Hold Out Your Hand	Chris Squire	Fish Out Of Water
16	School Day (Ring Ring Goes The Bell) (Single Version)	Chuck Berry	After School Session
17	Ready Or Not Here I Come (Can't Hide From Love)	The Delfonics	Love Train • The Sound Of Philadelphia
18	Crumble	Dinosaur Jr	Beyond
19	Jolene	Dolly Parton	The RCA Years: 1967-1986
20	Cinderella	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
21	The Best Big Youth Version	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
22	This Child Of Mine Version	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
23	Micron Way	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
24	Awn Yah!	Fe Me Time All Stars	Dub I
25	I Don't Know For Sure	Husker Du	Candy Apple Grey
26	Isn't It A Shame	LaBelle	Lady Marmalade: The Best Of Patti & LaBelle
27	Down By The Riverside	Sister Rosetta Tharpe	The Gospel Of The Blues
28	The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday	The Supremes	The Supremes
29	Sarah	Thin Lizzy	Greatest Hits [Thin Lizzy]

Free mp3s @ Amazon (US)

There are quite a few free mp3 compilations at Amazon. I downloaded three; click on the images below to go to a page with details. This may not work if you are outside the US.

Who are the best singing drummers?

First of all, what does this mean? I think it's drummers who sing and drum at the same time. So that makes it easy. The best three singing drummers are:

1: Grant Hart (of Husker Du)

2: Levon Helm (of The Band)

3: Karen Carpenter

Then there are drummers who can (and do) sing.

• Phil Collins
• Robert Wyatt
• Mo Tucker
• Roger Taylor (of Queen)
• Denis Wilson (of the Beach Boys)
• Dave Grohl
• Bobby Gillespie
• Ringo Starr
• That guy from Paper Lace

Then there's the special subcategory of drummers who shout:

• Yamantaka Eye (Boredoms)
• Yoshimi P-We (Boredoms, OOIOO)
• Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins)

Lightspeed Champion @ The Independent, 20 June 2008

It's as hot as it ever gets in San Francisco, and I am suffering. Devonte Hynes (i.e. Mr. Lightspeed Champion) is still wearing his signature wooly hat so he is cooler than me. Lightspeed Champion are setting up their own gear. The PA plays the Kinks, the Cure and Pulp. The club is less than half full. I can walk to the front so I lean on the stage. The band play a lot of different styles. I think that Devonte is like Prince cos he is so talented, but that seems lazy as Devonte is a rare black person in rock. Drummer Anna Prior kicks ass. They have nice songs but the best bit is where they play the Star Wars theme. The band and the audience have fun. It all seems so simple.

Conor Oberst @ Bottom of the Hill, 2 Aug 2008

With all the entrepreneurial energy in the United States, how come no-one has found a way to make the sound check superfluous? Why can’t concerts start on time? I think of these eternal questions as I wait. Tonight it’s particularly annoying to wait as I had come to the venue the night before without a ticket. I got the date wrong. It’s never happened to me before. The staff nodded sympathetically. And 10 minutes earlier people were trying hard to get rid of single tickets. Tonight I’m back again, with a ticket. The audience is young and 50% female. Next to me someone looks at wikipedia on their cell phone. On the other side a bloke shows off his iPhone to a girl. They play bass heavy reggae before the band comes on. I love reggae, there must be a special shop where you can buy boring reggae to play before shows.

It’s six piece band. There are three guitarists, breaking my #2 rule of rock: no band needs more than two guitarists. Wikipedia says that they play Indie Rock, but really they play in a Classic Rock style. It’s a bit Blonde on Blonde, it’s a bit E-Street Band. They’re all good players and the keyboardist is a great colourist. They’re really capable and so they’re not really pushed by the material. At one point the guitarist sings a song and everything brightens up: for once it could all go horribly wrong! But soon we are back to safety.

Conor Oberst is a good singer, and has nice songs. He can totally control that break in his voice that he uses so effectively on record. But he’s cold. There’s almost no interaction with the audience. This is in a tiny club, but I’ve felt more connection with Bruce Springsteen in (enormous) Wembley Stadium. Maybe we’re just there to admire him? People are chatting and taking lots of iPhone photos. Conor jumps on the drum riser. He raises his guitar aloft. I’m sure he feels it but I don’t. The band hits a groove, then changes gears in an instant. There’s a lot of head and not enough gut. I was disappointed.

Rush playing their own song on "Rock Band"

It is pretty cruel to make them start at the expert level.

Should I go and see John Mclaughlin in concert?

I love his electric playing, but this shows that he can play acoustic too.

Rock Stars and their favourite Games (part 2)

Before I had a blog I started this series on Rock stars and their favourite games. Here we see the the RZA playing chess (from Invisible Jukebox in the Wire). He has been going around promoting chess to the youth. His new online club for hip hoppers costs $48 a year which isn't going to work I'm afraid. Still, chess is cool and so is the RZA.

Jazz Icons: John Coltrane Live in '60, '61 & '65

I got this dvd from Netflix. You get Coltrane on European TV in 1960, 1961 and 1965.

March 28 1960 (Germany) with Paul Chambers (bass), Wynton Kelly (piano) and Jimmy Cobb (drums). This is most of the band that Played with Miles on Kind of Blue. They play classic bebop and it is nice.

• On Green Dolphin Street
• Walkin'
• The Theme
• Autumn Leaves / What's New / Moonlight in Vermont (with Stan Getz)
• Hackensack (with Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson)

December 4 1961 (Germany) with Reggie Workman (bass), McCoy Tyner (piano), Eric Dolphy (alto/flute) and Elvin Jones (drums). This band cooks and Jones makes the difference. The band still takes turns soloing. Dolphy looks pretty cool.

• My Favourite Things
• Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye
• Impressions

August 1 1965 (Belgium) Jimmy Garrison replaces Workman on bass. By now they are playing in the stratosphere. Sometimes they all play at once. It's all under control. This is the worst quality film but the best performance, perhaps because it is in front of an audience. Superb stuff.

• Vigil
• Naima
• My Favourite Things

The Boredoms @ The Fillmore 18-Mar-2008

The Boredoms equipment was set up in the middle of the Fillmore’s auditorium. The stage area was about 20 feet by 15, raised up a couple of feet. I have never been to a standing concert that was ‘in the round’ before and the first thing to decide was where to stand. The Boredoms have a special instrument called the Sevena which is made of seven electric guitars joined together with the heads sticking out sideways. I reasoned that this was a good thing to stand near. I was proved right as Boredoms leader Yamantaka Eye stands just in front of the Sevena. There are three drummers, all playing trap kits. Fans of Yoshimi P-We should note that her kit is set up diagonally across from Eye. Another member of the band has a job playing occasional keyboards and propping up and retuning the Sevena after Eye has beaten on it. This guy may have been Shinji Masuko the creator of the Sevena. I couldn’t really see the third drummer but the one to Eye’s left is a monster player.

The music was psychedelic. The Sevena is basically a percussion instrument which Eye hammers at with sticks. The three drummers produce an overwhelming noise. At times I was irresistibly driven to ecstatically bang my head. Sometimes Eye moves to the centre of the stage, throws his head back and screams like a shaman. There is a lot of noise in the sound, but it is there for a reason. This is music and it makes total sense when you are in the middle of it.

The Fillmore is still one of the friendliest places to see a band in San Francisco. Unusually the security staff put a lot of effort into preventing people from taking photographs. I assume this is an attempt by the band to maintain the sacredness of the performance space. For any other band this might seem pretentious but I buy it.

At the end the band went right by me as they threaded through the crowd. Eye was on crutches. He seemed smaller off the stage. As they passed people shouted congratulations and there were pats on the back and handshakes. It seemed to me that no one dared to touch Yoshimi, who trailed the others. She was smiling and saying “Arigato”. In reply I give my thanks to the Boredoms for a fantatstic gig that I feel lucky to have been able to attend.

Best of the Chic Organization

Chic were the greatest band of the disco era. They are an anomaly as the producer is often the auteur in a disco song. To fully appreciate Chic you have to look at their production work for other singers. Luckily for you I have put together a one hour showcase of The Best of the Chic Organization.

1. Spacer by Sheila & The B. Devotion
   This was written and produced by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers. The drummer is Tony Thompson. So basically this was Chic with a different singer.
2. I'm Coming Out (Chic Mix) by Diana Ross.
   Again, this is Chic with a different singer. Unfortunately Diana Ross is nobody's puppet:

   When the master tapes were submitted to Motown, a nervous Ross had resident Motown engineer Russ Terrana remix the album, toning down the funkier elements of Chic's playing, removing extended instrumental passages - and most noticeably, speeding up the tracks to give the singer's voice a brighter, more youthful sound.

   You can get the original Chic mixes now, they aren't really all that different (shhh!) but they are much cooler.
3. My Forbidden Lover
4. Good Times
5. Le Freak
   All these are from Dance, Dance, Dance: The Best Of Chic. You have probably heard these before, but if you think you have you should listen again. They are so simple, so perfect. You may have heard the bass line of Good Times in a few other places too.
6. 26 from The Best Of CHIC, Vol. 2.
   This very much a lesser known track, but I like it, the lyrics are funny.

   26, my baby's a 26 On a scale of 1 to 10, my baby's a 26

7. We Are Family by Sister Sledge
8. Lost In Music (1984 Bernard Edwards & Nile Rodgers Remix)
9. Thinking Of You by Sister Sledge
   These are all from the We Are Family album. Sister Sledge were a real group who had chart success. Here though they are just the latest singers to use Chic as producers and band. Actually that's a little unfair as there is some great singing here, especially on the album version of We Are Family.
10. I Want Your Love from Live At The Budokan.
    This is here to show that Chic could cut it live. This was Bernard Edwards last performance before his death the next day. What a great group. I wish I had seen them.

Follow the Leader

The best thing I have read about Clinton vs Obama is this essay in the New Yorker. I liked that John Edwards talked about poverty, a rarity for any US politician. Pity he had that slimy unelectable feel.

Ike and Tina Turner

This is from the movie The Big T.N.T. Show.

Update: read Donald Fagen on Ike.

Ronnie Hazlehurst

It is not really fair that some people are musical geniuses. When Ronnie Hazlehurst wrote the theme tune to Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em he spelled out the name of the programme in Morse code with the musical rhythm. Why did he do this? Because he could. I've heard this theme millions of times and would never have guessed. You can hear the theme in the embedded video and also see Elisabeth Sladen in one of her first TV appearances.

Tony Wilson RIP

Tony Wilson has died at the age of 57. He was a cocky bastard, but you have to respect him. When I was a kid he was a presenter on the local TV magazine show Granada Reports. It was always worth watching in case Tony slipped in an appearance by a cool band (who would quite often be signed to his record label, Factory Records). Even when he was famous (he was never rich), he still presented on this regional TV show and he stayed based in the North West.

In the movie 24 Hour Party People Tony is portayed by Steve Coogan. I think this is a great performance in a great film. He really captures the essence of Wilson as a trickster and chancer. He was never cool (look at his haircut in the video above) but he was a true hero.

Update: Click on the NME to read Paul Morley on Tony Wilson.

White Stripes beat the Fire Engines

In the post punk era there were a bunch of good bands from Scotland. I liked the Fire Engines a lot and once bonded over them with a cute girl from St Albans. They were famous for playing 15 minute sets. In general I think short sets are a great idea. When I rule the world, support acts will be limited to 20 minutes each.

On their tour of Canada the White Stripes are playing secret short shows in places like youth clubs. You can watch the shows on YouTube but they are all being filmed for a dvd so you could just wait. With time running out they wanted to play in every province and territory in Canada and the result was this short set that they played in St Johns, Newfoundland. The crowd knew what was happening which is why they aren't throwing things.