Randcamp: Halloween

Blimey. Took my life - okay, my ears - in my hands searching for tracks on Bandcamp with "Halloween" in the title. What a load of old balls! Lots of very heavy tracks, often with something-or-other-core in the description. Oh look, we're a scary band, apparently, and what better way to show that than with lots of black and red and songs about the occult. Yawn. But I persevered, and found these three, at least.

Meg and Dia Frampton are sisters, which might explain why their voices gel so well. They come from Salt Lake City, if their Bandcamp bio is to be believed, though their Twitter/X suggests both Texas and Canada, so who knows. Their Halloween is from 2009.

Hugh Lindsey is a singer-songwriter from Huntsville, Alabama, with a declared interest in melancholia. His Halloween seems to be a metaphor for his disintegrating marriage. Given that this was released in 2021 and includes the line "Take your mask off", Hugh felt the need to make it plain he was not a post-Covid anti-masker. So that's good.

Grimm are from Vancouver. Like Hugh, their track is also from 2021. Again like Hugh, Grimm's lyrics are like a little short story ... albeit a story that doesn't really go anywhere.

There we go then, three Randcamp tracks for Halloween. Any give you the shivers, in a good way? Or did they all just give you the creeps?

"I'm just learning new things with the passing of time"

I went to a gig at the weekend. I didn't have to go far to get there, but the wind and rain dampened my enthusiasm, to the point that I almost didn't bother. But a bought ticket is a bought ticket and, since it wasn't the cheapest, I ventured out into the squally night.

Support was from The Inspiral Carpets, can you believe, or the current iteration thereof, at least. Since Tom Hingley got off the reunion bus in 2011, the band have re-recruited their original, pre-fame vocalist, Stephen Holt. He tries his best, and I don't like to be critical, but it was like watching a competition winner where the prize was getting to sing lead vocals. He wasn't terrible, far from, but he lacked stage presence. Still, it was nice to hear Saturn 5 and This Is How It Feels get live run-outs.

The headline act was The Wonder Stuff. Talk about a contrast in front men: Miles Hunt remains opinionated, energised and totally unfiltered, even after all these years. It's been a while <checks Songkick - 32 years! Impossible!> since I last saw the band live and, like The Inspirals, they've had lots of line-up changes since: indeed, only Hunt and his "brother from another mother" Malcolm Treece remain from the classic line-up. But the songs... oh, how the songs endure. And oh, how so many of them remain lodged in some recess of my brain, just needing a live setting to trigger recall.

A lot of bands would close with Mission Drive, if not the whole set then at least the bit before the encore, such is its four-minute elegy-into-anthem transition. But The Wonder Stuff opened with it at the weekend, and built up from there. It was quite the show, and I came away glad to have braved the wind, the rain and, worst of all, my own pre-gig malaise.

Because I had forgotten just how many songs of theirs I knew and loved, you might have done too. Take a peak at the setlist:

TLAP: Lucky Saint German Weissbier

I'm having to widen the net if I'm to review 20 different alcohol-free ales this year. Example?

Lucky Saint German Weissbier

What's it like? Well, it's an alcohol-free take on a classic wheat beer and, if you like wheat beer, I think you might like this. It certainly looks the part, with characteristic cloudiness and a big head. It tastes the part too: full-bodied, some slightly fruity notes but basically an unmistakable wheat beer flavour. Some will like this more than others. I certainly liked it more half way through the pint than I did the first couple of mouthfuls. Bottom line: I don't drink a lot of wheat beer, but I can say this compares reasonably with its alcoholic wheaty cousins. I've had worse!

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Yes.

Would I drink it all night? No.

Stats: 0.5% ABV. Calories 23 kcal/100ml. Currently on offer at £2 for a 500ml bottle, from Ocado

Stars: ★★★⯪☆

For a wheat beer, you can probably guess the obvious musical connection I've shoe-horned in at the end. But to show that I'm not completely on autopilot, I have at least tried to find a different version of Wheatus's biggest hit. To wit, here's an acoustic Teenage Dirtbag.

A lot can change in two years

There was a plenty of love for yesterday's post, featuring a 1979 Cure B-side. But just two years earlier, things had been quite different.

Still known as Easy Cure, the band won a talent competition in early '77, which led to them getting a recording contract with Ariola-Hansa. After a bit of line-up shuffling, which included Robert taking on vocal duties (he'd previously just been on keys), the band recorded their first demos at London's SAV studios during October and November 1977. This is the version of I'm Cold they recorded back then, and it's very different. More punk-influenced than goth, and more new wave-sounding than punk, this is an intriguing glimpse of what might have been.

Ariola-Hansa baulked at this and the other demo's recorded, and dropped Easy Cure from their contract in March 1978, having released nothing. Guitarist Porl Thompson left in April, Smith changed the band name to The Cure, a new demo tape was recorded and by September '78 the band were signed to Chris Parry's newly formed Fiction label. Crucially this had backing and distribution support from Polydor. Debut album Three Imaginary Boys followed in May '79, and by August the band were supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees on tour. Then in October came the single Jumping Someone Else's Train, the B-side of which was yesterday's version of I'm Cold.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

"I'd love to love you, girl, but..."

As we plough through autumn, towards winter, the heatwaves of the summer suddenly seem very far away. I only work from home a couple of days a week now but today is the first of the season that I've been chilly in the spare bedroom that masquerades as my office. Chilly enough to root out some fingerless gloves to type in. And chilly enough to also dig out what just might be my favourite Cure song ever.

I know, I know, The Cure have had many, many great songs, but for me I'm Cold is Bob et al in a nutshell. Originally the 1979 B-side to Jumping Someone Else's Train, it later found its way onto the cassette release of Standing on a Beach - The Singles, which is where I first heard it. Only the cassette release got the B-sides, so lucky me, I guess. Anyway, it's all there in my view, the slightly discordant guitar sound, the detuned bass, Robert's vocal style, lyrical themes, the lot, and all in less than three minutes. Genuinely, this is one of my absolute favourite Cure tracks, and not just because I, too, am cold: my body may be made of fire, but my soul is made of ice.

Oh, and Siouxsie Sioux is allegedly an uncredited backing vocalist on this, though if you can hear exactly where you've got better ears than me. Admittedly, that isn't saying much.

You're begging me to stay
But I'm laughing in your face
You're so desperate
Not to let those years of care go to waste
But it was you who wanted love, not romance
You've got to pay the price
My body may be made of fire
But my soul is made of ice

I'm me, I'm cold
I'm cold, I'm told
I'd love to love you, girl, but my body
But my body has just been sold

You're begging me to stay
But I'm laughing in your face
You're so desperate
Not to let those years of care all go to waste
But it was you who wanted love, not romance
You have to pay the price
My body may be made of fire
But my soul is made of ice

I'm me, I'm cold
I'm cold, I'm told
I'd love to love you, girl, but my body
But my body has just been sold

Homonyms #10: Contact

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

It's time we made contact...

It's also, I think, the first time I've featured anything by Mick Jones' other band, Big Audio Dynamite. Their Contact dates from 1989 and, whilst it shows its age in many ways, there's still a lot to love in this video: Mick's 12-string teardrop guitar for one; the sample of The Who's I Can't Explain at 2:50 for another; the extended acid-lite coda (if only as a historical curiosity)...

I've written before about how much I like Stewart Copeland's songwriting efforts for The Police, and their Contact is another one of his. Maybe there's something about Sting singing someone else's lyrics that punctures his bubble a bit, or maybe I'm just partial to Copeland's skewed worldview. Whatever, this is from the band's second album, Reggatta de Blanc.

Other acts who also wanted to make contact include some early 90s oddness from Phish, sci-fi electronica from Daft Punk, well-known Moroder-lite disco from Edwin Starr, and this slice of not-aged-well from Pizzicato Five. Plus who knows what else.

So, Mick or Stewart - does either or both inspire you to make contact?

TLAP: Brulo Lust For Life IPA

If I'm going to do an end-of-year chart rundown, I need to have reviewed 20 alcohol-free ales, right? So I'd better crack on.

Brulo Lust For Life IPA

What's it like? I was intrigued by a quote from The Guardian's review of this: "The Rolls-Royce of alcohol-free beer". That's a big statement, the implication being that it is a class apart. And you know what? It just might be. It's not just a tasty, quaffable AF IPA, it's a brilliant IPA full-stop. You know when you see people claim that they couldn't tell the difference between their AF beer and a "proper" ale? Well, this is justifiably one of those. I'd go as far as to say this double dry=hopped IPA is tastier, smoother and slips down easier than a lot of "real" IPAs I've had too. And although it's got a fruity undertone (peach? Mango?) it isn't too fruity, like some AF ales, so you never forget you're having a beer and not a can of Lilt. Very highly recommended.

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Yes.

Would I drink it all night? Yes.

Stats: 0.5% ABV. Calories 17 kcal/100ml. Currently on offer at only £5 for 4 x 330ml cans, from Morrisons

Stars: ★★★★★

Given the name of this IPA is "Lust For Life", you're probably expecting a song of the same name, and who am I to disappoint? Except this is Lana Del Rey exhorting you to take off all your clothes, not Iggy Pop.

Oh, go on then. I spoil you.

New to NA: Hitsujibungaku

The algorithm served this track up to me on some social media or other and it caught me off guard. It's Addiction by Japanese indie band Hitsujibungaku. I like this, I thought, it reminds me a bit of... who? Lush, maybe? Curve, more likely? But who else?

I gave up thinking about it in the end, content to enjoy the 90s crunchy guitars and chugging rhythm. No idea what the song's about, as only a couple of lines are in English. If Google Translate is to be believed, there's a verse that includes the lines "So take me somewhere, Preferably off the phone-screen, Because I want to feel alive." And that's something we can all get behind, I'm sure.

I've got a feeling this might become tiring if listened to too much, but that might be because I'm a terrible curmudgeon. What do you think?

The literal translation of Hitsujibungaku is "sheep literature", for what that's worth.

Oh, and do you think the drummer took their look from the girl who crawls out of the TV screen in The Ring?

Where you stop and the world begins

I found this picture earlier this week, whilst doing a little housekeeping/pruning of my phone's camera roll:

The date and time on the picture tell me that I took it in Aarhus, Denmark, at the tail-end of August 2024, and given that these are some of artist Jenny Holzer's Truisms, it was almost certainly taken in ARoS, a brilliant modern art museum (and very cool building). Whatever, you might say that these truisms feel a bit like ... (drumroll) a design for life.

Yep. That's how bereft I am of blogging ideas.

Obsolete Monday

This has been in my YouTube Watch Later list for ten years, waiting for me to do something with it. God knows what I've been waiting for. You've probably all seen it already, it's had 10 million views after all. But who doesn't want to see someone playing the saw?

Whatever, here's Orkestra Obsolete, hitting all the right notes with their 1930s instrumentation.

TLAP: Old Speckled Hen Zero

At the end of the year, I'll do a chart rundown. Better get a few more reviews in then...

Old Speckled Hen Zero

What's it like? Well, this is an interesting one. Back in our younger day, The Man Of Cheese and I had many a happy but spectacularly hammered night out that involved significant quantities of regular Old Speckled Hen. Although not the strongest ale (nor the weakest, in our defence), it seemed able to generate disproportionately large hangovers. I was curious to see what I'd make of the neutered version, then, and the news is good: it's alright! The twin malt four hop brew delivers plenty of flavour, and you actually feel like you're having a beer when drinking it - this sounds obvious but so many alcohol-free ales seem to have overlooked this crucial element. Not too sweet either. As a result, this is right up there in the top quartile of alcohol-free ales, in my view. Footnote: I even felt slightly sub-par the morning after drinking this, but that may just have been a deeply-engrained Pavlovian response.

Would I drink it in a pub? Yes.

Would I drink more than one? Yes.

Would I drink it all night? Quite possibly.

Stats: 0.05% ABV. Calories 12 kcal/100ml. Currently a steal at only £4 for 4 x 440ml cans, from Morrisons

Stars: ★★★★⯪

Old Speckled Hen is produced under the Morland Brewery name (though that is now owned by Greene King, and Zero is brewed at GK's excellent Bury St Edmund's site). But anyway, Mor(e)land gives, gives, gives me more, more, more...

Homonyms #9: Come Together

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

Today we examine two different takes on, ahem, unity. Of sorts.

Our first Come Together is by Blur, from their oft-maligned debut album, 1991's Leisure. I say maligned but, thinking back, I seem to recall most people (myself included) were just a bit disappointed that it wasn't all as good as There's No Other Way. In fairness to Damon et al., they set themselves quite a high bar there. Anyway, here's their very-91 offering.

I usually write something here along the lines of "there's always a bigger fish" ... and so it is today, for this is the brilliance of Come Together by The Beatles, a popular Scouse beat combo who I feel may go far.

Poor Blur, I've just lined one of their lesser moments up against one of the greatest moments of the biggest band of all time. Anyway, other acts who also want you to come together include Primal Scream, The Internet, Spiritualized and, er, that's about it, I think; everyone else just covers The Beatles.

So, do you want to come together, or do either of these drive you apart?

Buried answers

The answers to last week's logic problem:

Blogger	Radio station	Format	Decade
Andy	Radio 3	Spotify	60s
Bob	Radio 1	Cassette	70s
Charlie	Radio 4	MP3	80s
Debra	Radio 2	Vinyl	00s
Erica	6 Music	CD	90s

Don't know what Bob is doing listening to Radio 1, given his preference for music of the 70s. Also, if I was a single man, I'd probably want to meet Erica...

Anyway, that was alright, wasn't it? And here's I Buried All The Answers by Fink, which seems appropriate. I know nothing about Fink, having only found this by searching for songs about answers. Seems he's from Cornwall, is in his mid-fifties, and has pivoted in an acoustic direction after a 30-year career focused on electronic music and DJ-ing. Really, where have I been?

My freedom's a delusion

From every-home-should-have-one Songs From Northern Britain, this, for me, is ultimate form Teenage Fanclub.

Your sadness don't lie
Your feelings can't hide
You always know why
But your reasons are sly
You never deny
What you feel inside

I, I disappear when you're not here
In my life

I can't slip away when I see your face
I lose my confusion
Your love is the place where I come from
When I'm on my own I'm lost in space
My freedom's a delusion
Your love is the place where I come from

My sadness don't lie
My feelings can't hide
I just can't deny
What I feel inside

I can't slip away when I see your face
I lose my confusion
Your love is the place where I come from
When I'm on my own I'm lost in space
My freedom's a delusion
Your love is the place where I come from

I can't slip away when I see your face
I lose my confusion
Your love is the place where I come from
When I'm on my own I'm lost in space
My freedom's a delusion
Your love is the place where I come from

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom..."

"...not, the end." So said Mr Spock in Star Trek VI. Notwithstanding that, I used to love logic problems as a kid, and would spend hours putting ticks and crosses in little puzzlebook grids. So here's one I made just for you.

There are five bloggers: Andy, Bob, Charlie, Debra and Erica. They each prefer different radio stations - Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6 - and they each prefer to collect music in different ways - cassette, CD, MP3, Spotify playlist or vinyl. Oh, and they each blog about the music of a different decade: 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or 00s.

The clues below are all you need to work out who likes which station, which format and which decade, just with logic - no guesswork is required. Here are the clues:

1. Charlie blogs about 80s music; his preferred medium is MP3.
2. The blogger who has embraced Spotify also loves Radio 3.
3. Erica blogs about 90s music.
4. The vinyl collector (who isn't Andy) loves Radio 2 and blog about 00s music.
5. The CD collector loves 6 Music, but not 60s music.
6. Bob (who doesn't listen to Radio 4) blogs about his cassette collection of 70s music.

And here's a grid to help organise your thoughts. Use ticks to mark intersections you know to be true, and crosses to mark combinations that are definitely untrue. Easy, right?

And another grid for your answers:

Blogger	Radio station	Format	Decade
Andy
Bob
Charlie
Debra
Erica

And (don't groan) here's The Logical Song (sorry!) to listen to whilst you think...

New to NA: Ghostwoman

Let's be honest, I'm in the second half of middle age. My finger can still feel a pulse, but it is nowhere near on it. That's just the way it is, and also right and proper.

Lucky for me, then, that I still get exposed to plenty of new music, courtesy of Amusements Minor. He's an avid user of Spotify, and has invested enough time and effort in it for the algorithm to have a pretty good symbiotic relationship with him. And, by extension, me.

All of which is longhand for saying that I heard this from AM's Spotify playlist, and rather took to it. That out-of-time chiming guitar line hooked me, the minimalist backbeat and bluesy vocal reeled me in. This is The End of a Gun by Ghostwoman, about who I know very little other than that they are from Canada (I think), this was on their second album, 2023's Anne, If, and they are worth investigating further.

This is their Bandcamp, if you want to hear more. Why wouldn't you?

Oh, and I'm too tired to make a joke about a song that's already three years old being new to me, but you can make your own, I won't be offended...

Monday long song: You Are The Magic

You may have seen in the news that an auction of Johnny Marr's guitars at Christies last week raised more than £3.6 million. Incredible. One guitar, a 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo, sold for £358,400 ... but then it was used on This Charming Man, Still Ill and What Difference Does It Make? so that's probably fair enough. Spoiler alert: I didn't buy it.

There were also some charity lots, mostly Smiths-era tour posters, and 100% of the sale proceeds of these went to The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The National Autistic Society. Which was nice.

What you might not know is that the Christies auction brochure was wonderfully detailed, and makes a lovely PDF for those who can't afford Marr's Guitars. If you missed it, don't worry, I didn't, and will make my download available here until someone tells me off for doing so.

Anyway, here's You Are The Magic, a lovely, low-slung piece of lazy haze from all the way back in 2003 when Johnny was still plying his trade as chief Healer.

Blue Friday: Is This What You Really Want?

I sometimes think Dears frontman Murray Lightburn is the Moz it's still socially acceptable to like. From the 2020 album Lovers Rock, here's Is This What You Really Want?

Well nobody wants to die
But does anyone want to live
Another day 
Going through 
the motions

Leaving this behind
I think all of us will miss
Everything upon 
which you left 
A mark

And since
All these years
Is it still the same song?
Can we ever look
Beyond
These sins
From the past
Will lead us to despond
Is this
What you really want?

Are you
Singing the same old song
Or can we ever look
Beyond
These sins
From the past
Will lead us to despond
Is this
What you really want?
La la la la-la
La la la la-la
Are we singing the same old song
Or can we ever look
Beyond
These sins
From the past
Will lead us to despond
Is this
What you really want?
Is this
What you really want?
Is this
What you really want?

Randcamp: Autumn

One way or another, September marks the start of Autumn, whether you go for the meteorological (1st Sept) or the equinox (today). So it seemed like a good subject for this month's Randcamp ... except I had to listen to a whole batch of dreary sixth-form poetry about mists and falling leaves, mostly set to desperately earnest but entirely predictable musical offerings. Sigh. At least I found these three.

The Blue Herons are a jangly duo who even called their song Autumn Leaves but redeemed themselves by singing about a drop in atmospheric pressure in the first line. Okay, so they almost ruined that with a strange pronunciation of "atmospheric" but I let it slide.

Autumn Glow by Boat To Row sounds like what you'd get if you crossed Gavin Osborn with early Jake Bugg. This is a good thing. The track dates from 2010, and their dotcom address just redirects back to Bandcamp, but they were still active in 2021, so who knows?

Peacock Affect is the stage name of a singer-songwriter from Exeter. I chose his take on Autumn because it was so very different from everything else I was hearing as I researched this post. I wonder if maybe he wasn't in a very good place when he wrote this? 'Tis the season for mists and melancholy, after all...

So, three quite different Autumn vibes... Any of them making you want to wrap up warm and go for a trudge through predictable fallen leaves?

Homonyms #8: Loser

For the purposes of this blog, homonyms are different songs with the same title. And for the purposes of my sanity, I'm limiting each post to two songs, however many there may be that fit the bill.

Today we take a detour into self-deprecation, self-effacement, self-pity and maybe even self-loathing.

Our first Loser is by Tame Impala, and is currently pulling up proverbial trees after its inclusion in the recent Spiderman film, Brand New Day. Social traction, if that's even a phrase, has been helped further by an engaging video starring Joe "not just 'Steve Harrington' but also a musician by the name of Djo" Keery. Here it is.

But there's always a bigger fish or, in this case, a bigger loser. I picked up Beck's Loser on 7" vinyl from the Woolworth's bargain bin for 49p, back in the day. I can picture the slightly tatty cover now. This was his third single but first hit, and went top ten all over the place (though only reached #15 in the UK). I have fond memories of trying to decipher the lyrics with my good friend Tim, on late night drives back from wherever. Get crazy with the Cheese Whiz indeed...

Other losers include Limp Bizkit, The Grateful Dead, Motorhead, 3 Doors Down, and probably loads more - we're everywhere, after all.

So, are these lucky losers or a lost cause?