The Ropes - We want to fight you

Getting on for a year since I first heard New York duo The Ropes with this rather impressive EP title track...

♫ Be My Gun
Be My Gun EP (2009)
free download  |  buy the CD

They've a fine & shiny new EP out now, which is similarly available completely free at their website

♫ I Miss You Being Gone
I Miss You Being Gone EP (2010)
free mp3 download


♫ Love Is a Chain Store
Love Is a Chain Store EP (2009)
free download

They Say I'm Normal

I do like this - it's long and jazzy and wonderfully open, feels torch-songy, despite the subject; and proves that if you're good, you can write about most anything.
I get My Funny Valentine and Cry Me a River going round my head, hearing this...

♫ Succulent Mayonnaise  -  Lachi

myspace  |  buy  |  more free mp3s

& yeah, it's not on the album, or any album, so far as I can tell... sue me.

Rosie and Me - the Bird and Whale EP

Back last April, I was really very enthused about Rosie & Me, particularly the delightful
'Come Back', which as others have pointed out, seems to be ripe for a high-profile TV ad' -  not to cheapen the music, heavens no... but it's catchy & charming & innocent & sweet as can be.

♫ Bonfires - Rosie and Me

♫ Come Back - Rosie and Me

Bird and Whale EP (2010)
myspace | last.fm | buy | twitter

Seems no labels took my advice to sign these guys last year - so they've a self-released EP out very soon, available to buy here in high quality mp3 format, or as a physical CD... all the way from Brazil.

The Wooden Constructions

I'm soooo behind eh - not that it makes a lot of difference...
Another more than pleasing performance from the latest Music Alliance Pact collection.The Wooden Constructions, on this track at least, bring a very angular, dancey, new-wavey Roxy Music to mind. Maybe one song at a time is enough though? - but this is well good, and no mistake.

♫ No No (Hip Hop) - The Wooden Constructions
Dont ask me man, I dont know why EP (2009)
myspace | free download

Lazy Ways & Birthdays

A re-up this, just a cut n paste about a shamefully near-ignored track that I posted last year, which happens to be next in in the unruly pile of seven inch singles awaiting their sad fate on ebay.

Battered, tattered & torn - not to mention a bit crackly... (although even when new, this pressing was more than a little noisy). Getting old it is too, like me eh - a day, & technically, a year older since yesterday...


--------------------------



I'm gonna reach into your chest, and fumble with your emotions

So sings Jalacy Hawkins, backed by Keith Richards on this darker than usual version of his oft-covered song. I like to contemplate the imaginary video - a cross between a less choreographed Thriller & the Titty Twister acts in From Dusk 'til Dawn... Keith Richards looking undead, some ghoulishly attractive backing singers, a zombie stand-up drummer; and Screamin Jay Hawkins presiding - threatening not just spells, but weird disfigurement & more in his macabre efforts to hold on to a woman. Maybe he's some land-based version of the Flying Dutchman, appearing on Halloween every seven years, hoping to escape his cursed fate through the use of witchcraft.

I guess a graveyard setting, coffins... - no wait; that's just his live act.


A single release on Polydor in 1980, this & the B-side 'Armpit #6' were recorded on December 18, 1979, at Blue Rock Studios in NYC. Producer was Allan Schwartzberg; presumably the prolific session drummer.


♫ I Put a Spell on You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Keith Richards on guitar)
7" 45 - Polydor POSP 183 (1980)
buy? you might find it on ebay or somewhere specialist for $15 or so

I love it; have always found the 'normal' version rather uhh, silly for the sake of it whereas this sounds more serious; the production & Keith's guitar help of course. I think I mean that there's an air of menace, as opposed to tomfoolery; and to borrow a line from Jon Spencer - "We don't play no blues, We play Rock & Roll".
If you think that sounds like I don't rate the usual Hawkins versions - yes, you're right. Somehow, the first rendition I ever remember hearing of I Put a Spell on You, was on the vinyl you hear above; & the others sound too tame in comparison.




There've been dozens of cover versions of Spell on You, I can't be doing with finding 'em all, but expect a few for comparison later on - one's rather bizarre.


Sooo, not a huge Jalacy Hawkins fan overall - but I thought he was excellent in Mystery Train, a film I'd warmly recommend; I've never heard the word 'chimpanzee' in the same way since watching it.

Keeping Records

Having moved house, and a lot of other things in the last year - I'm finally getting around to shifting some oldish 45 rpm singles, left over from a not-so feckless youth. For someone who likes music, I never bought very much of it... but perhaps I'm unwittingly making comparisons with a pal or two, who had serious vinyl habits.
Whatever the case, I purchased relatively little in the way of records & tapes, save for a few hardly heady years post '79 or so; but I do have a pile of singles beside me, presumably chosen some time back, for their likelihood of fetching more than a penny on ebay.

What the hell, they don't get played, so let's have a crack at selling them - and while I'm at it, see what time has done.

♫ Frustration  -  Purple Hearts
7" 45 b/w Extraordinary Sensations (Fiction Records - 1979)
buy | myspace

It's actually rather good that - about as 'mod' as Supergrass or The Clash, mind - or err The Jam, for that matter. Suits & ties really, perhaps a scooter out back.

Piles of cash to the usual address - or look out for it on ebay eh - ho ho.

The Farewell Circuit

The Farewell Circuit are a four-piece band out of Minneapolis, Minnesota - they sent an email back in December, mentioning "somewhat silently" releasing Birdless Sky - their debut album. Describing themselves as similar to Death Cab, Sigur Ros, Radiohead etc, along with the unassuming manner in which the album's being pushed, you might not expect anything wonderful... so be pleasantly surprised then, becuase they're really rather good.

I've been playing this one over & over - so it must be my favourite eh?.

♫ The Inexorable March of Time - The Farewell Circuit
Birdless Sky (2009)
buy | myspace | website

Seems the band consists of:
Danny - Vocals, Guitar, Keys, Vibes, Bass, Programming
DJ - Guitar, Vibraharp, Keys, Sampling
Geoff - Drums, Love Machine, Hand Claps
David - Vibraharp, Vocals, Keys, Guitar, Percussion

I'm not sure we see them all here - but I doo love this live version of the above album-opener.




As an aside - it's farewell to nearly all the mp3's that are linked to on last years posts - due to a cheap-ass web host deciding to err terminate the sorta promotional free account I had, months before it was due to expire, at which time I was actually going to pay them money... not any more though - I'll bumble along without, and let someone else stump up for all the Chinese & Russians hot-linking & using 'em as background music for shoe-shopping websites - fiddle dee dee, I say, being such a polite English gent.

Well, it ain't ol' Blue Eyes...

I first heard Mack the Knife sung by Bobby Darin, when I was a kid in the early '70's - it fascinated me right off the bat, even spending some of my not so heard-earned on one of his albums... which wasn't a patch on the one song I bought it for.

Anyways, I'm listening to January's "Music Alliance Pact" collection, & found that I Guess I'm Floating had chosen this excellent & very properly story-telling version of the song, along with an extra verse that lends some atmosphere - although it stands shy of revealing Mackie's true unpleasantness.

This is real good - and he's from just up the street, maybe I can catch a gig sometime?

♫ Mack the Knife - Vikesh Kapoor
Newspress Scare (7" ep - 2010)
myspace | website | buy