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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
 Posted September 25th, 2010 12:02 AM IP    
Oh, also got the two Wilco/Billy Bragg albums. I'd forgotten they existed as they always get filed in shops under Billy Bragg and never under Wilco, and it was only the fact that they played some songs i hadn't heard the other night when I saw them (California Stars being one of them) that made me remember there were still two records of theirs I'd never heard.
While i was in the shop they were playing an album by a band i'd never heard of called Autolux, which sounded really good. Nearly bought it but i'd spent to much already. Anyone heard of them or the album?
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted September 25th, 2010 06:27 PM IP
Just played Born Again by Randy Newman and remembered why I hadn't played it for so long. Dreadful album, the only one of his career i think but dreadful all the same.
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Ian Cubed
Member
Posts: 1670
Registered: May 2008 |
Posted September 25th, 2010 06:33 PM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
Just played Born Again by Randy Newman and remembered why I hadn't played it for so long. Dreadful album, the only one of his career i think but dreadful all the same.
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It's Money That I Love and Pants are great, but the rest is forgettable. I don't like Little Criminals either.
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koeeoaddi there
Member
Posts: 547
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted September 25th, 2010 07:58 PM IP
popped into my local 2nd hand shop for the first time in ages today and picked up a few things:
flying burrito bros - s/t and last of the red hot burritos twofer. s/t is kinda safe, but nice i guess.
pretty things - cross talk. pretty things go new wave. not good, unfortunately
rem - document. hmm....i really, really dont like scott litt's drum sound. there's enough there to make me want to go back and listen to it again though.
zeppelin - physical graffiti. original cd, not the remaster. sides a and c sound great, but b and d sound well funky for some reason. slightly maddening.
moody blues - seventh sojourn or something like that. original 80s west german cd that i'll sell to some hoffmanite if its shit.
sound the foghorn horn!
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted September 25th, 2010 10:23 PM IP
Quote:
Ian Cubed wrote:
It's Money That I Love and Pants are great, but the rest is forgettable. I don't like Little Criminals either.
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Little Criminals is probably my favourite. I know Sail Away is the biggie, but Little Criminals really moves me. In Germany Before the War is staggeringly good. So many good songs on it.
Its not that the songs on Born Again are forgettable, I think its more that he lost his natural moral compass. His cynicism sounded more like disdain for everyone. Mr Sheep is the worst example but its not the only one.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted September 25th, 2010 10:28 PM IP
Quote:
koeeoaddi there wrote:
popped into my local 2nd hand shop for the first time in ages today and picked up a few things:
flying burrito bros - s/t and last of the red hot burritos twofer. s/t is kinda safe, but nice i guess.
pretty things - cross talk. pretty things go new wave. not good, unfortunately
rem - document. hmm....i really, really dont like scott litt's drum sound. there's enough there to make me want to go back and listen to it again though.
zeppelin - physical graffiti. original cd, not the remaster. sides a and c sound great, but b and d sound well funky for some reason. slightly maddening.
moody blues - seventh sojourn or something like that. original 80s west german cd that i'll sell to some hoffmanite if its shit.
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Document is a fantastic record. The drumsound on track one is mega but its not typical. Personally i think they peaked on Life's Rich Pageant and Document, and they were never as good when they joined Warners.
Last of the Red Hot Burritos is the first of their albums i ever saw and ever heard (a friend at Uni had it) but i've never owned it. Is the self titled one their third? Never owned anything beyond the first two - not that you ever see any others really.
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koeeoaddi there
Member
Posts: 547
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted September 25th, 2010 11:55 PM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
Document is a fantastic record. The drumsound on track one is mega but its not typical. Personally i think they peaked on Life's Rich Pageant and Document, and they were never as good when they joined Warners.
Last of the Red Hot Burritos is the first of their albums i ever saw and ever heard (a friend at Uni had it) but i've never owned it. Is the self titled one their third? Never owned anything beyond the first two - not that you ever see any others really.
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i just wish REM had a bit more oomph, a bit more bass. The One I Love sounds great, but the rest of the album just kind of pierces my ears just like every other album of their's i've heard apart from Monster. After only one listen i would say that Green is the better album, Stand and all.
yeah the s/t is the third. been looking for it for ages and i managed to pick up an aussie twofer. its also on a compilation over here that contains the first three albums so its always expensive so i've always given it a miss.
sound the foghorn horn!
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted September 28th, 2010 03:04 AM IP
Went to the new(ish) Rough Trade East shop in Brick Lane for the first time yesterday, very trendy. Came away with the new Caitlin Rose album and an ep of hers. Hadn't heard anything by her at all and was just going on reviews. She's a 22 (or so) year old from the southern states who sings country. But the reviews over here were all great so i gave it a shot. The album turns out to be particularly good. Its nice to take a chance on a small indie record and it turns out ok. As well as the two I bought i ended up with another three free mix CD's which could be anything. I'll give them a go at some stage.
Bought the new Neil today and the Station To Station standard reissue. Not listened to either yet though.
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luther
Member
Posts: 5203
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted October 6th, 2010 10:38 PM IP
Bought the new Half Handed Cloud album today. HHC is a mostly one-man band (John Ringhofer) doing Christian-themed music, and often a band member for Sufjan Stevens. I prefer HHC by far, odd as that description is. Oh, and he's not just a one-man band in the multitracking parts himself sense--even live it's one or a few people doing crazy acrobatics across instruments. Definitely not everyone's bag, but I just love the guy.
don't try so hard.
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luther
Member
Posts: 5203
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted October 16th, 2010 03:58 PM IP
Been on an album-acquisition streak lately: new ones from Euros Childs, Jenny [Lewis] and Johnny [Rice], Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Nellie McKay, and a couple-years-old Jonathan Richman. That's with not so long ago having gotten the new Of Montreal and Half Handed Cloud. Busy early autumn, but I don't think there is much left coming this year. Almost time to start thinking back on the best of the year. I think rather than albums, I'm going to do a songs compilation this time around.
don't try so hard.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted October 16th, 2010 04:48 PM IP
Jenny Lewis has a new album? Didn't know that. Credited to Jenny and Johnny? Whats it like?
Have you heard the Caitlin Rose album? She sort of reminds me a bit of Jenny Lewis, but more country (though still on the indie side of country).
Yeah, we are now at the point where the new albums start to dry up and we get left with just the Xmas specials (all the deluxe stuff on the way). It doesn't seem like i've actually bought much new stuff this year. Need to think about what i have bought to see what has come out.
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luther
Member
Posts: 5203
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted October 16th, 2010 06:14 PM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
Jenny Lewis has a new album? Didn't know that. Credited to Jenny and Johnny? Whats it like?
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Yes, it came out maybe a month ago. Apparently Rice is her boyfriend; they've both contributed to some of the same things in recent years--he was on her Acid Tongue, and both were on that last Elvis Costello album. It has the same basic people as seem to hover over that scene: Mike Mogis, Dave Scher, etc. I'd describe it as a lightweight, but not a throwaway. Nothing especially brilliant, but it has its moments. They split vocals, which helps pace the thing. I like it more than Acid Tongue, which frankly I hated.
don't try so hard.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted October 17th, 2010 12:13 AM IP
Ah, its out November 22 in the UK.
Acid Tongue...i've played it a few times and I like it when its on, though none of the songs really stand out. I keep forgetting about it though as the sleeve is so thin that you don't notice it in the rack. They should think about these things when they think of album sleeves. Make them FAT!!!! But not so fat it doesn't fit of course....cos that is just annoying.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 2nd, 2010 04:26 AM IP
Never apologise for that! And no it hasn't been.
Ordered the blu-rayset yesterday (along with the Orange Juice box). Damn this is an expensive month! I just wish I could afford the 19 CD Sandy Denny set! Only £150....
The Bruce set is the single most wanted set I can remember since the Beach Boys box with the Smile songs for me. It isn't perfect - he could have inlcluded more unreleased stuff than he did, but i have loads of boots of that period with these things on I suppose. Can't wait to see the 1978 live DVD either.
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zelilgirlI1ncenu
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Posts: 2437
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted November 2nd, 2010 01:51 PM IP
Yeah I hope that maybe I get a present of the set for my bday, although I asked for a good pair of sectors tough choice!
Meanwhile beautiful piano and dark, and sexy moods galore on this streaming.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 2nd, 2010 02:57 PM IP
I'm not going to listen! I want to get the pleasure when i sit down with the whole package. I'm paying enough for it!
Only 2 weeks to wait!
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 4th, 2010 08:12 PM IP
Back from FOPP with another few CD's - I thought it was about time I had a Cure album other than their greatest hits albums as i've really been enjoying some stuff i downloaded, so I bought Disintigration. Also got the Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels CD that i only ever had on cassette, and a couple that i have on LP, Fairports Moat On THe Ledge and John Martyn's Glorious Fool, his last great album.
Also got a lovely looking Goth 4CD boxset for the wife's birthday coming up soon, which has a lovely corset cover! Lots of Sisters, Siouxsie etc and some more obscure but still decent stuff.
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The Grand Fromage
Member
Posts: 2732
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted November 5th, 2010 09:15 PM IP
Bought the (abridged) audio book of Flan O' Brien's "The Third Policeman".
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 6th, 2010 05:05 AM IP
I've got the book of that somewhere but never read it! Who's reading it?
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The Grand Fromage
Member
Posts: 2732
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted November 6th, 2010 10:19 AM IP
Quote:
alan wrote:
I've got the book of that somewhere but never read it! Who's reading it?
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It's read by Jim Norton. His delivery is a tiny bit fast and matter of fact to my ears - although perhaps that was necessary for three CDs lol?
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 8th, 2010 02:16 PM IP
My Orange Juice box popped through the post today. Lovely! Its one of the small CD size boxes rather than the type you can kill zombies with, but very nice all the same. Its a great comp, but one of the few where I actually have most of the rarities in it on vinyl (and cassette and video!)still, but lots of other goodies and its nice to finally have this stuff on CD.
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koeeoaddi there
Member
Posts: 547
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted November 9th, 2010 12:49 PM IP
Had to go to london last week and i wish i knew why, but trips to london automatically mean i have to buy overpriced cds. Why why why? I do like my cds, but i can get them cheap off the internet but the minute im in london i just cant help myself. Think its a hangover from my trips there when i was a kid and i'd buy stuff i couldnt get in Gloucester's Our Price.
Anyway, picked up Elias Hulk's Unchained, Tom Rapp's Stardancer, The Meters' Look-ka Py Py and Wizz Jones' Right Now. Noticed a new release of Shirley Collins debut but was too expensive. Actually they were all too expensive. I'm a mug.
sound the foghorn horn!
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The Grand Fromage
Member
Posts: 2732
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted November 9th, 2010 03:12 PM IP
Comfort buying dude! I do that when on holiday -only i balked at a 100% mark up this time lol!
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 9th, 2010 09:33 PM IP
I go to London every week and do the same thing! But to be fair you can bargains too if you know where to look! And you can't beat real shopping sometimes, digging through racks of CD's in the vain hope you'll see something you haven't seen a thousand times before.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 15th, 2010 02:34 PM IP
My Bruce box has arrived.
For once i'm overwhelmed. Beautiful package. Just watching a short bit of the 1978 gig now and it is heartstoppingly wonderful, fuzzy but fabulous. He was at his absolute peak on that tour, and this looks like a GREAT show.
Can't wait to work my way through all this. Actually the picture quality is improving as it goes along (3rd song in now, a brilliant '...Saint In The City')
Deep joy.
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The Grand Fromage
Member
Posts: 2732
Registered: Sep 2007 |
Posted November 17th, 2010 11:27 AM IP
Just received the 'The Promise' CD. No idea of context or historical importance as I only have Magic and a copy of Devils and Dust that a certain young lady did for me. But I liked what I heard on Amazon. My heart has sunk somewhat .... I see Bob Ludwig's credit on the cover .... he wouldn't dare, would he? 
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
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Posted November 17th, 2010 02:01 PM IP
Sounds beautiful to me. No problem with the mastering at all, unlike his last two studio albums.
You NEED Darkness On The Edge Of Town though. Thesongs on The Promise are the cuts that didn't make the album. It makes more sense in that context, though frankly most are good enough in their own right to see the light of day, but you can see why the ones that made the album fought their way to the top.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 17th, 2010 02:04 PM IP
Oh, and yesterday got the Dylan Xmas album from last year for £5 from FOPP and the Laura Marling one for £4. Had to remind myself that getting things through the post counts as buying too (especially when they cost £80!) and not go any further into the bargain racks.
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alan
Administrator
Posts: 7455
Registered: Aug 2007 |
Posted November 17th, 2010 02:14 PM IP
Interesting review of the Bruce box from the LA Times. I still haven't watched all but a few songs from the DVD's.
You'd better be some kind of genius to ask the world to admire your spiral notebooks. Bruce Springsteen, who's spent a quarter-century-plus absorbing the love of people who feel his music changed their lives, can afford to be that presumptuous. "The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story" is a boxed set disguised as a scrapbook, its packaging full of scribbled lyrics and tentative track listings and notes revealing — celebrating — the painful process of making a masterpiece.
The masterwork in question was the album that, Springsteen writes in the set's liner notes, granted him an adult voice. "More than rich, more than famous, more than happy, I wanted to be great," the 61-year-old admits, chuckling at the twentysomething egotist he was then, in Thom Zimny's fine film about the making of his 1978 album "Darkness on the Edge of Town."
This archival set goes to exhaustive lengths to prove that Springsteen accomplished his goal, though "Darkness" was neither breakthrough (that was 1975's "Born to Run") nor blockbuster (1984's "Born in the U.S.A.," icon jeans-clad derriere and all).
In three DVDs (the making-of film and two live sets, one vintage and one contemporary), a double album of rejected material, and the remastered original album, "The Promise" set illustrates how Springsteen used the circumstances surrounding "Darkness" to hone in on his Monument Valley, to reference his cinematic influence John Ford: a setting, both sonic and lyrical, that could hold the stories he needed to tell.
An ex-manager's lawsuit and the pressure to follow up the hit "Born to Run" put restrictions on the creative process; a monster writing streak, and the dedication of his E Street Band and longtime producer Jon Landau, broke it open. "What we had were our relationships and the music Bruce was writing," says the drummer Max Weinberg. This detailed, ruminative look back is not just an attempt to nab the shrinking music-buying public with a commemorative plaque; it's more like self-analysis, a long-standing creative team's attempt to understand the process it's come to take for granted.
"Darkness on the Edge of Town" is a highly focused classic that set Springsteen on a new path. In Zimny's film and the set's liner notes, Springsteen states and restates that this album revealed his major theme: the pursuit of happiness not just in youth, but within the more complicated realm of adulthood. Sharing what went into that process of revelation is a gift this collection gives Springsteen's fans; maybe it was one he wanted to give himself too.
Springsteen and his mates absorbed much as they explored this territory, which, to them, felt new. (Others had been there: Marvin Gaye, for example.) They learned from punk and Hank Williams, tried new production methods, recording styles and drum sounds. Equally important, and somewhat hidden within the narrative this boxed set presents, is what they left behind.
The two-volume rarities album "The Promise," available both in the boxed set and as a separate release, celebrates the sound from which Springsteen turned away. That sound was bewitched by radio-oriented pop — by the voice of Ronnie Spector and the seductive gestures of dandyish rock pioneers such as Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. On "Born to Run," Springsteen and the E Street Band found a way to meld that brashly commercial sensibility with the grandiosity of classic rock.
As a set, the previously unreleased material feels experimental, not in tone but in spirit. Some songs, like the brooding hymn "Come on (Let's Go Tonight)", are the seeds of others on "Darkness." Others could stand on any Springsteen album, relating familiar tales of freedom or peril on the highway, or love in dark tenement corridors, within arrangements that lack the sharpness of the "Darkness" material but often have more warmth.
Springsteen devotees will know some of this material from bootlegs and live renditions, but to revisit it as a set — pristinely remixed by Bob Clearmountain — is to realize that Springsteen, just as much as Bob Dylan, is a great lover and thief of American pop history. These songs journey from Spanish Harlem to the punk den of CBGB, invoke murder ballads and doo wop corner serenades, and using these sources, allow Springsteen to build his own world — a sonic environment that, when streamlined on "Darkness," would seem to belong only to him.
With "Darkness," Springsteen set out for somewhere beyond that space — beyond the porch where the radio plays. He moved toward darker areas where men gather to do business or hurt each other, or set forth on journeys that they might never complete.
And he abandoned romance.
What he turned from was specific: the flirtatious, dreamy, deeply feminine spirit of the pop music he loved. Working to make what his producer Landau then called "the highest thing in rock" — a concept-driven album — Springsteen found his mojo by going to a masculine extreme.
"It's a bit tragic," says the E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt in the film. "He would have been one of the great pop songwriters of all time." "The Promise" album, with gems like the Crystals' homage "Ain't Good Enough for You" and the lilting ballad "Candy's Boy" (a far cry from "Darkness' " aggressively lustful revision "Candy's Room") showcases the danceability, catchiness and even sentimentality Springsteen had to rein in to create "Darkness."
In Zimny's film, Springsteen's wife and band mate, Patti Scialfa, zeroes in on what this shift meant. "When you look at 'Darkness,' the person's not really attached to anybody else on that record," she says. "There are no love songs on that record."
On the surface, Scialfa's words seem wrong. What about songs like the sweaty vow "Prove It All Night"? Or "Racing in the Street," with its tender mention of "the wrinkles round my baby's eyes"? Or "Candy's Room," the sexiest Springsteen song next to "I'm on Fire"?
But Zimny's film and the sound of "The Promise" outtakes support Scialfa's insight. Not one female appears in the old footage from the Jersey farmhouse where the Boss and the band recorded those 70 songs. Van Zandt recalls that no one involved had a girlfriend that mattered; Springsteen says he had "no life," and cajoled his collaborators into a similar monk-like state.
The sound this band of brothers worked toward turned away from the feminine within Springsteen's earlier work. The warm embrace of Clarence Clemons' saxophone became a sparer element punctuating the music's movements like sniper shots. Giving what love songs he did write to other (female) artists, Springsteen filled "Darkness" with elegies and work songs, stuff that reminded him of punk and country. He clearly preferred Hank Williams to Loretta Lynn.
Then there are the lyrics, so crucial to Springsteen. Only one woman, the hardened Candy, has a name on "Darkness." These songs express an isolation that can't be remedied by pop's love potions.
Two years later Springsteen would open himself back up to other sounds and subjects. "The River" album puts seductions like "Crush on You" next to starker meditations like "Wreck on the Highway." He'd never completely return to that imaginary space of "Darkness." But for a time, like the hero whose character he inhabited, Springsteen made a sacrifice. The man he imagined had to stand alone. That meant leaving your woman behind.
-- Ann Powers
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