I Never Knew!

Okay, I didn't know that this song I love was a cover til I read Fintan's excellent post on Evie Sands (scroll down a bit).

I remember the first time I got stung:

(I was only 15 when I bought it on tape single, I must have watched the Graduate shortly afterwards...)

Here's the question - which songs did you later find out were covers, and how did you feel?

Redressing The Balance

To restore order and balance to The Force, after 2 hours of Brits nonsense, I turn to one of my old faves Xiu Xiu for some heartbreaking weirdness.

I like to watch this video about every 5 months.

Evie Part 2

I'm still a neophyte on this blog post doo dah, so I'm sure there's a way to combine this with my Evie Sands post Below & display the Youtube box & maybe even bring peace to the Middle East but as I don't know yet, I'm getting ready to go to San Francisco with Mrs. Fintan & I just found this I had to share. The Link below should take you to a clip of Evie on the Johnny Cash show doing an old Ray Charles tune & in my humble opinion she just tears it up. This must have been when she was out promoting the album. Hope you enjoy.

Evie Sands on the Johnny Cash Show - 1969

and she likes bicycles

Earworms of the Week (Feb 16)

17 Hippies - Son Mystère

17 Hippies are a fairly recent addition to my list of favourite bands. There aren't 17 of them and they aren't hippies, either! This song, from their 2007 CD Heimlich, builds little by little. It's gentle, sweet and there's absolutely no percussion. I haven't got a clue what the lyrics are about - I don't think I want to know - it's part of the song's mystery - ouch!

- Makinavaja

She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

With Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward releasing 'Volume Two' of their collaboration next month, I've been revisiting 'Volume One', from which this is the standout track, a countrified, Spectorish song of innocence.

- Catcher

Owen Pallett - Lewis Take Action

This song has got me this week, from Owen Pallett (the artist formerly known as Final Fantasy). It's off his new album, Heartland. Strange contradiction - the song sounds happy and upbeat, but the lyrics speak of serious violence.

- glasshalfempty

Soft Cell - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

This came on in the car the other week and my girlfriend said "Yeah, but I still think the David Gray version is vastly superior," like that's a thing people say. Next day, she played the DG version and I remembered exactly what I hated about it - an atrocity of a Dylan impersonation drearily plotting a route through Almond's luminous torch song with the same lazy slur Amy Winehouse brought to Valerie. Soft Cell vs Gray - there's no comparison, right?

- May1366

Twisted Sister - Leader of the Pack

Mr. Z. (Sheddi) has just purchased, via eBay, some vinyl and even though he hasn't played the Twisted Sister LP yet, I've had their version of "Leader of the Pack" bouncing around my head ever since the postman handed me the 12" square parcel

- Zalamanda

Jo Stafford - You Belong To Me

One of the great voices. Up there with Ella and Patsy. I remember this from when we used to listen to the BBC "Light Programme". Lovely soaring melody. Excellent for singing in the shower I've found. What's not to like?

- Severin

Richard Butler - Nothing's Wrong

From the 2006 eponymous LP by the ex-Psychedelic Furs frontman. I put it on 'Repeat1' to decipher if that strange metallic voice floating around W-A-A-A-Y back in the mix was some kind of subliminal whisper. Before I knew it, it was almost two in the morning and I was still falling in love with different bits of it.

- DsD

3 spots filled for next week; 3-4 left. First-come, first-served(ish). Preference to non- RR 'leftovers'.

The Brits - Live Blimped!

Welcome to a live blogging of the least culturally relevant music awards known to humanity. Where UK record company execs pat each other on the back, do their lines, and generally try to give meaning to their empty empty lives.

However!!

It is tradition in our household to watch the Brits, for better or worse, and play the "guess who's gonna win" game.

Here we go, hit refresh every wee while for more.

20:00 - It's on!! Lily Allen is miming whislt dressed like Shirley Bassey on a bad day, singing "The Fear" (a song which made it onto the festive spill last year, y'know!)

20:02 - Is she making some sort of biting comment on bankers here? Or were her set designers just told to "do british, cos it's the Brits, yeah?"

20:03 - It's official - Allen looks "dog rough, like a tranny, like Elizabeth Taylor"

20:04 - Peter Kaye has arrived; with a lead balloon in tow.

20:05 - Sam Fox is having a wee ride in the lead balloon....

20:06 - They've fucked it up already. I think Geri Halliwell's crotch has won something.

20:07 - This is too hilarious already.....

20:08 - Gollum is onstage....or has Mel B not left yet....

20:09 - I say Dizzee for best male. Mrs McF agrees. - YES! HE"S WON!! Dig it. Mini McF's artist of the last few years too.

20:09 - "Max Factor" seems to be rhyming slang for "actor" these days.

20:10 - JLS are indeed an all black all male version of Bucks Fizz - spot on from Mr Kaye there..

20:11 - Our least favourite JLS member is the one with googly eyes, he looks like his hobbies are R&B and Child Molestation.

20:20 - Best Int Solo Male - Seasick Steve vs Springsteen - there's a bar brawl I'd like to see. Jay-Z is actually there, so it must be him....it is..... Seasick Steve looks more pissed than disappointed - at least it's a square meal, and a warm evening in for him....

20:23 - Noddy Holder is doing the new Bond theme? The noms for best LP of the last 30 years (Keane, Dido, Dire Straits, Travis) make me want to cry. Oasis have won it!!

20:25 - Ape man from oasis got muted, he did a sweary, had a go at his brother and wandered off in the wrong direction. Wasted. Now, talking of wastes... here's Kasabian!

20:32 -Kasabian were on fire. Well their stage set was. They were predictably dull.

20:34 - Next award - best breakthru - Geri is backpedalling for not thanking her fellow spice girls earlier. Kula Shaker are getting a severe bashing from a former spice girl - ?!?!?!! Anyways - best breakthru - I say La Roux, she says Florence....but JLS win

20:39 - the rapey looking one from JLS is damn sinister...

20:40 legend alert!!! COURTNEY LOVE!!!!

20:41 - WE LOVE COURTNEY LOVE!! Sing for us!!!

20:42 - Boo hiss. Courtney is straight, and she's given an award to Ellie Goulding for what exactly? Pointless...

20:43 - Lady Gaga time!! This will be good!

20:44 - Lady Gaga is Liberace for the Tenties.

20:45 - put down the piano love, and get out the FLAMING BOOBIES!

20:46 - Is this the Brits or a Leigh Bowery nightmare?

20:47 - this is not dissimilar to some first year art-school performance art i had the misfortune of seeing back in the 90s.

20:54 - British group - probs Muse - its gone to Kasabian, get ready with the mute button

20:56 - Kasabian are the missing - but not missed - link.

20:58 - international breakthru award - AnCo vs lady Gaga - there can only be one winner. I'm saying Gaga, and so is she. The winner is.........GAGA! THE ELEPHANT WOMAN OF MODERN POP.

21:01 - Time for a duet - Florence and Dizzee

21:02 - Dizzee is repping good, I'm glad Floz is just doing the chorus.

21:04 - If there was a category for "best bellowing" Floz would be a shoe-in.

21:05 - Why is James Hewitt Jr on my telly-box??

21:09 - These epically long ad breaks are quite a relief really.

21:10 - Best Int Fem Solo - Gaga or Shakira - we think - GAGA strikes again. "Oh, doctor you've been sho sho kind to me...". Dammit, I'm now losing....

21:13 - Despite approx 15 years of heroin and crack abuse, Whitney Houston looks remarkably chipper....

21:15 Floz or Bat? Lily walks it.....I thought she'd retired to run a knocking shop.

21:17 - Who let the professional entertainers in? This is the Brits dammit!! Jay-Z take your amazing flow and stage presence, and SLING YER 'OOK!

21:18 - Jay Z has two drummers, like The Fall or prime period Pavement.

21:21 - I bet you a fiver Jay-Z is hiding eels in his trousers.

21:23 - There's an app for eel to trouser ratio baggage, y'know.

21:28 - Mika is drivelling, endlessly. Best int LP - Anco -vs JayZ vs Gaga - tough call....gone to GAGAGAGAGGAGGAGAGAGAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!

21:30 @bishbosh - thanks for tuning in!!

21:31 - The cats' chorus of Cheryl Cole has attracted my cat Mewsli into the room...funny how i can;t tell the difference between this song and the JLS one...

21:34 - Oi Cole!! Miming means to move your lips IN TIME to the backing track....

21:36 - Best Brit single then..... as voted by Sun readers..... I'm going for Cole. She says Pixie Lott. The winner is....JLS. JLS stands for Jack the Lad Swing apparently.

21:40 - Tom Ford is looking immaculate, and time for best Brit LP - the big one - I'm going Dizzee. She says Floz. She has beaten me for yet another year.

21:42 - Floz will look like Janet Street Porter in a few years, no one will play her music, and I will wish i never watched this pointless parade.

21:46 - Is that it? or will Elton John be on soon, to duet with Paulo Nutini, to make my dreams come true, as SClub7 receive a lifetime acheivement award...

21:49 - Oh! It's gone to Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La band instead!! *

21:50 - *not

21:51 - Robbie just yelled "c'mon Glastonbury" - i think that says it all....

21:56 - we have a funny story about RW from when she worked at MTV, unfortunately we can't print it, not even on the internet.

21:57 - unless Take That come onstage, this is the last update, thanks for listening - see youse next year! Ta ta! xx

Evie Sands

May1366's post on the EWOTW got me thinking about this. If any of this is old news to anyone just think it a chance to listen again. Angel Of The Morning has always been one of those reach for the volume knob & turn it up songs for me. For years I labored under the assumption that Merilee Rush had done the original, but about 10 years ago I stumbled on the story of Evie Sands. Evie had a great voice & was first to some really terrific songs but a combination of bad luck & music industry shenanigans probably kept her from being well known. First up
, from 1965, Is Take Me For A Little While which was out & out stolen from her. Jackie Ross had a hit with it but didn't know her producer stole it. Second is I Can't Let Go which got lost in the shuffle of her legal battle over Take Me. The Hollies had a hit with this the next year. Third is Angel Of The Morning which she released in 1967 only to have her label go under just as it came out. Finally in 1969 she got an album release and some notice & I've included her cover of the Troggs Anyway That You Want Me from that. Can't help thinking that with some luck she might have made it Big.

Take Me For A Little While

I Can't Let Go

Angel Of The Morning

Anyway That You Want Me

For More on Evie

Take a break sample spot.

Have to say I was somewhat frazzled this afternoon, Clifford Gilberto's restless has done wonders for my mood. I only looked it up because I came across the sampled flute fragment in Julie London's go slow, which is equally good at lowering the blood pressure.

Girl at her volcano

Is it just me? Perhaps its just the sentimental day. Or maybe the three glasses of Portugeiser I've polished off so far tonight. Or is this actually..somehow.. perfect?

pssst - not on a Shhunday totally shoooober

Whisper
Breathe
Holding Out For A Hero *ta mnemonic for the heads up.. this and footloose are inspired - I need more and will go and purchase.

Umbilical
Kissing *'evening sun' is the more whispery- right shoey? this fits today!

Talking Drums Whispering Vinyl
Drop The Other (Scuba's Vulpine Remix)
Ghoul Expert

Take
Consciousness (Ashley Beedle Mix)

Mad Man Song
Slow [Chemical Brothers Remix]
Enter One
Parallel Lines


spot the 4 ninja tunes game for nilpferd

Sunday evening - what's happening?

Okay 'Spillers - it's Sunday evening - what are you up to?

The Mrs & I already had our valentines dinner & a movie on Friday, so this evening we're going to slob out, catch up on the papers (Laura Marling has a big feature in the Times that I shall read first), we're gonna have a dinner of whatever we can round up (I'm currently looking at haggis and fried potatoes, I think she's having quiche) and possibly watch Mad Men on dvd.

You?

Sunday Evening In Your Street

**edit** Anyone emerged from Valentine's Day yet? How did you spend it?

The Nilpferd A-listers- Jazz

A neat stop-motion video accompaniement to Giant Steps, showing what Coltrane's solo looks like in animated sheet music form. (Not sure if there's a sax-helper clip for this one yet, but it looks simple enough on paper.)
Lionel Hampton - Flying Home
Bill Evans - Lucky to be me
John Coltrane - Giant Steps
Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz
Miles Davis - Felon Brun

I've donned my turtle neck sweater to wind up the retrospective Nilpferd A-list series in chin-stroking splendour with the jazz picks. Each of these tracks- besides being very niiiice- has some historical significance.
Flying Home features the famous high energy "honking" Illinois Jacquet tenor sax solo which every subsequent saxophone player in Hampton's band had to learn off by heart, and which also influenced a generation of rock 'n roll sax breaks.
Giant Steps was John Coltrane's own breathtaking stride into the league of legendary tenor saxophonists, and a short-lived attempt to develop an entirely new scalar based language for jazz. But besides that, it also happens to be an incredibly fun piece of music.
Bill Evan's Lucky to be me develops Bernstein's song into an expressive, ambiguous meditation and was one of his first forays into "ambient" improvisation, while Ornette Coleman's double quartet produces a dazzling array of sound in the genre defining Free Jazz, but still manages to sound like the sort of party you can't quite bring yourself to leave. Admittedly many of you might not even have wanted to be dragged along in the first place, but I do recommend setting your expectations to one side and dipping in for a quick listen with an open mind. Comments welcome, though you probably don't need to tell me you think it is chaotic nonsense- I'll just assume that as the default position.
Felon Brun sits on the cusp of Miles Davis' move into rock- Tony Williams is explosive here and produces one of my all-time favourite drum performances. And there's a tie in with my opening post in this series- the self confident face double-exposed on the album cover belongs to Betty Mabry, shortly before she married Miles and became known as Betty Davis.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO

Back in '87 I filmed Yevegeny Yevtushenko at a poetry reading, specifically his reading of his poem Babi Yar, of which there's a wealth of detail via google, it concerns the nazi massacre of the Jews in the Ukraine. I asked him to sign a poster for me which he did but in Russian which I can't read. Sourpus has volunteered to try and translate it for me for which I shall be eternally grateful, it's been on my wall these many years I've often wondered what he wrote. Sourpus, I realise the dot structure might make it difficult but anything you can decipher will be fine, Thanks.

Here or there?

So, shall we stay here? or go over here?

Play this while ye ponder but do not tell a soul of that which you hear within lest we receive a most distressing and timely notification from the high and mighty court of legalities

Quick, call the cops - Bassey's been robbed!

Happy New Year!

You may have seen Andy Lau in all-action HK films like Saviour Of The Soul, God Of Gamblers, House Of Flying Daggers or the Infernal Affairs series. There's a chance you may not have seen him smiling benevolently on the people of China while riding an eagle and singing an infuriatingly catchy tune welcoming the lunar new year....until now. It's enormously silly but i love this video. Happy year of the tiger.

Emotional surgery

I dont know what to say about this post, except that I mentioned him below and if this performance doesn't touch you somehow then.. there are so many great clips from American Music Club's and Mark Eitzel's history on the internet now, of which this is only one small example. To this day, people talk about lugubriousness and other shorthand to box Mark off, but continue to miss the point..for me, he might just be one of the greatest there's ever been - although he'd undoubtedly hate to hear that and deny it completely if asked.

Anyway, is it just me?

a taste of sourpus

I was on the bus today, reading the latest Uncut magazine, and was pleased to see an old Leicester musical comrade, Kevin Hewick, interviewed as part of an article on the death of Ian Curtis - as some of you know, Kev was briefly considered to replace Ian in Joy Division. It reminded me of my first meeting with Kevin, when he approached me aeons ago in well-known city guitar emporium, as I sat softly strumming a Gibson acoustic 1974 Heritage series - as you do. He was impressed that I both knew and clearly loved the song I was playing, which was 'Treat me well' by Nancy Wilson (of the band, Heart). Turned out he was a massive fan of theirs and had thought himself a very rare breed. I too was surprised, approximately familiar with Kev's work, that such a man should be such a big fan of a band I had thought had touched no one in the known universe (which I knew only as Leicester) but myself.

So what is it about this band and why do they seem like the best example I have of 'unexpected listening' from me? I had been thinking about the last few posts on this subject and thinking that a) my taste is just too broad to make anything that surprising and b) not that much is actually known about my core taste here at the Spill. So, with your indulgence, I can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Although music has been the (pivotal) point of my days since before I can even recall, and although I'd soaked up a household full of influences from my mum (30's and 40's dance music, 'easy listening') my elder sister (Motown and Stax, fifties rock'n' roll, sixties pop and rock) and brother (punk and new wave, reggae, ska, rock, northern soul, funk, electronica, etc., etc.) not to mention their friends, my friends and acquaintances, TV, radio and the like, I have always felt that I didnt really start to form actual taste of my own until I was about 17 years old. Since I was a practicing musician from the age of about 12 (I had my first band then) music also comes to me through the prism of my own playing. With all this in mind, I can say that I had three main influences, springing from my listening taste, but forming me as a musician.

a) Bob Dylan
b) Jonathan Richman
c) Mark Eitzel

I have never tried (nor would I - I'm English for a start) to sound like any of them. But Bob became the ground on which almost everything thereafter somehow stood, Jonathan Richman was my musical and spiritual role model and Mark Eitzel showed me how far a performance could go. These three performers and their music spoke to me more personally and powerfully than any others and they really stood out.

Heart, I first heard in 1976, when Eitzel was still at school in England and Jonathan Richman was just getting his Modern Lovers Mark 2 together, and before I had really begun listening to His Bobness properly. In retrospect, Heart were actually my first attempt at forging taste of my very own. I used to sit on the floor, with cushions from the sofa strewn around me, drumming along, with a pair of my brother's (borrowed) drum sticks, to the whole of the Dreamboat Annie album. I was 12 years old and it was the sound of it. It sent me some place else. It was my own private world of ecstatic joy and release. I was too young for punk. But this band 'belonged' to me. Almost no one else was that interested.

Until I met Kev.

He was at least a Led Zeppelin fan. Some of my friends were big Zep fans, but not me. And I still think Heart's first five or so albums are uniquely exciting and wonderful, even though nothing else in my tasteworld would make sense next to them.

That's it. That's my story. Perhaps it is only actually me who is surprised?

News from Ilona and Manuel

Greetings from snow-bound Berlin. Instead of tearing through the Berlin winter running after the likes of Renee Zellweger I am doing what any sensible person would do in these circumstances - spending a lazy morning drinking excellent coffee chez Göttsching.

Here's some news of what Ilona Ziok (Missus Manuel), my dear filmmaking friend, and Manuel are up to.


On Sunday at 5pm Ilona has the world premiere of her latest documentary - Fritz Bauer - Death by Instalmets. It's a blinder. I had a sneak preview. German State Attorney General Bauer devoted his life to rooting out the Nazis gone to ground in the political and legal system just after the war. He helped get Eichmann brought to Israellfor trial and had the honour of the "Valkyrie" plotters posthumously and officially restored. Strangely enough, he ended up dead in his bathtub with his arms folded peacefully across his chest... It's a wonderful but chilling documentary that leaves you with surges of impuissant anger against evil institutionalised on the system....Here's the website.


Then at 9pm they have organised a Carl Laemmle evening (that's him on the left). Laemmle founded Universal Studios and they are showing Hiawatha (1909) his first film with a soundtrack specially composed by Manuel. This soiree will take place at the famous ufa Fabrik, the birthplace of German cinema. For those of you who are in Berlin or roundabouts, you can find details here.

Many directors during the Nazi era left the ufa to go to... Hollywood!!!
Bisous from Berlin, FP.

Careless Wispas

Silences Brink
I Want More
Whispers
Whispering Light
Whispering Streets
Honey Hush

Hush Little Baby
Whispering Into The Other
Who Pays The Piper?
The Whispered Year
Birds Fly
Taking Over Heaven
This Big Hush

The Na na hey hey list is up...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/11/readers-recommend-meaningless-words-songs

and it seems like the new subject is whispering songs. Not sure what that means, yet, of course, but here's a song in which people actually whisper...

Ukraine's Got Talent

This video has been doing the viral rounds for a few months apparently, but I've just seen it for the first time, and it's incredible.

This lass won Ukraine's Got Talent last year. She does animations in sand - this one depicts the German invasion of the Soviet Union in WW2. I'm going to stick my neck out and say she's got more talent than Susan Boyle.