unpopular

Waiting for The Man

Quick heads up for anyone wanting any of the music from this blog - you better grab it fast because pretty much all of it is being deleted. The Man has spoken. If you’re a band or label who has managed to garner a few more fans or sold some records because of being included in a mix then my thumb goes up to you. If you’re a band or label who thinks I’ve ripped you off and cost you money then my thumb is pointing at the ground.

Remember kids, home taping didn’t kill the music industry, but lawyers just might manage it yet.

 

The Sound The Past Makes

Our one time Tangents contributor William Crain has a fabulous blog going on over here, with some fascinating (even to an avowed hater of the ‘B’ group) archaeological investigation about ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ and an utterly essential (yes, even with ten minutes of the aforementioned ‘B’ band) ‘Towers Open Fire’ mix. How can you argue with a collection that pitches The Stones, Fugs, Holy Modal Rounders, Dylan, MC5, Manson and The Monkees in with some spoken word Burroughs and a host of other delights? 

(Nothing to do but) Get High In The Afternoon

End of February and here’s a blend of blistered, blurred and blissed out guitars, beats and electronic glitches for you. Personal highlights would be the the Loveless lovers’ space rock of Young Prisms, Alien Pimp and Spatial’s subterranean techno and the glorious Pop electro smooch of Living Rooms and especially Icky Blossoms, whose aptly titled ‘Perfect Visions’ gives title to the mix. Not forgetting of course the salacious sludge rock of Fungi Girls and Girls Names: shifty, bedsit noisy Pop whose aim in life is surely to soundtrack a moment of mixtape romance and then to be be gone (and hence remembered) forever. Mission accomplished.

Haller Lake - The Cave Singers
I Want To Be Around You - Jonny
Stay Awake - Young Prisms
I Did It Sober - Idiot Glee
Ungirthed - Purity Ring
Another Sunny Day In Barcelona - Alien Pimp
100319 - Spatial
You're A Mirage - Living Rooms
Perfect Vision - Icky Blossoms
Sleepless City - Punches
Belong - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Pacifica Nostalgia - Fungi Girls
Tear Me Down - Girls Names
Meet Me In the City - The Babies
Youth Is Wasted On The Young - Chain And The Gang

Boredom so loud.

ribbons

ribbon, originally uploaded by unpop.

I bought some nice ribbon in town this morning.

Midnight Movies - 'Ribbons'

1980 - Do you wanna break my heart?

I’ve had the ‘No More Running’ compilation by Belfast punk/power popsters The Sweat for some time but it was only when putting together a mix the other night that it’s brilliance shone brightly for me. It was the fabulous ‘Do You Wanna Break My Heart’ that grabbed my attention first; a mad surge of youth if ever there was one. It’s the 1980 single ‘Why’d Ya Have To Lie’ that you might be most familiar with, however, though I admit I do not remember it from the time at all.

What I do remember, and what The Sweat immediately reminded me of, is the ‘What Will Mother Say’ single by The Flys (also 1980). My brother had this 7” and it was a firm favourite around our bedrooms, alongside the wayward powerpop surge of The Donkeys’ ‘No Way’. Those two singles, more than many others, were the soundtrack to many of my solitary daydreams that year and several more to follow. And whilst I may not have seen it then, listening to them again now it makes perfect sense that they should have followed The Rubettes in the bedroom jukebox of my heart.

The Sweat - Why D’Ya Have To Lie
The Flys - What Will Mother Say?
The Donkeys - No Way

Night scene stealers

So it’s no ‘Live at the Annandale Hotel’ but this live recording of the monumental Life Without Buildings at The Cavern in Exeter remains more special to me than you can possibly imagine. So Sue Tompkins may herself have bemoaned the sound quality that night, yet for me it hardly mattered. I was transfixed. Transported. Well, Life Without Buildings could do that to you, couldn’t they?

 

Yesterday's News

I’ve been having a bit of a clear out recently. I don’t know about you, but I’m always amazed at what I find when I do this. Things I had forgotten all about. Things that delight me all over again and distract my attention from the task at hand. So whilst sifting piles of old CDRs I came across this recording of The Gossip playing at The Cavern in Exeter way back in August of 2003. I’m quite sure there are a million live Gossip boots out there, many of them likely with better sound quality than this one, but maybe some folks will find it of interest.

 

Rip you out of magazines, stick you right up to the top...

 

Don’t watch this video. Don’t visit the MySpace page (as if you would use MySpace anyway, except as a last resort, right?). Don’t ‘like’ the Facebook page. I’m making it easy for you. In fact, just leave now. Go away. Listen to some old Huggy Bear, Photos, Shampoo, Wendy James, Blondie, Manics or Kenickie records and dream of your aching past.

Pop like this makes me yearn to disappear. Pop like Pris makes me want to explode in a sherbert fountain of ecstatic despair. Pop that throws arms open in welcome and yet simultaneously pushes you away with a force field of impenetrable, impossible cool. Those who understand have always called it magic and believed in it until the end of time.

Pop is defined by moments. Moments in life, in songs, in love. Even within songs there are split seconds of infinite magic within the midst of delirium: Big Flame’s ‘and’; Television’s ‘hesitating’; Pris’ ‘fuck’. Throwaway and utterly, utterly essential.

Kiss For Fun

February already, so just in time for that mid-month day of romantic commercial overkill (sorry, of course I meant ‘celebration’) here’s a mix of some of my month’s listening so far. Lots to love, I'm sure you'll agree. Don't forget to follow the trails and investigate/support the acts that make your knees tremble.

Attention - BLOW!
Kill Them - Tiger Bones
Edita V - Balkans
Teachers - Surf City
Up Past The Nursery - Suuns
Bruises - Minks
Gotta Get Along - New Shouts
The Kingdom - Bank Heist
Equestrian (Flosstradamus Remix) - U.S. Royalty
Found Out - Caribou
The High Life - Matt Longo
Theme From New Fun - The European
Under The Silver Stars Of Love - Slow Down Tallahassee
God Save the Runaways - The Secret History
Kiss For Fun - New Shouts
Climbing Walls - Strange Talk
Lovesick (Once Again) - The Hundred In The Hands
Quitting You Is Harder Than Candy (featuring Liz Enthusiasm) - Eiscafe

Jelly Babies

Imperial

Okay, here's another wee piece of Primal Scream history for you, with a neat connection back to Arash who got me listening to it all over again. June 26th 1987, and Primal Scream headline at ULU with suport from Loop and one Phil Wilson, in whose group Arash now plays. There is a lovely old diary entry reproduced by Kitten Painting about the show that you can read whilst you wait for the download to finish...

Primal Scream - Live at ULU. June 26th 1987