In lieu of a proper post where I blind you with my dazzling erudition, taste and excoriatingly witty wit, all the while whilst balancing random pieces of Lego on a flat object; lets have a quickie.
Here is some stuff what I done buyed recentishly.
Judas Priest British Steel
Yup, I somehow made it to 54 years-old without ever owning this one, I am not proud. I think it reflects really badly on you all that you let this happen without staging an intervention*. Buying this was triggered by listening to Rob Halford’s memoir Confess, which was every bit as brilliant and moving as I knew it would be. I knew all the heavy hitters here and despite the presence of the execrable ‘United’ I’ve loved this – ‘Steeler’ is my current fave, I have the air guitar all worked out for both KK and Tipton’s parts.
Tangerine Dream Night Trains & Cityscapes
One of the very few RSD26 offerings I bothered with. This is a re-recording of both tracks that TG wrote for Grand Theft Auto 5 and ‘Love On A Real Train’ from the soundtrack of Risky Business**. This 12″ serves up just over 22 minutes of great late nacht noirish synth which is perfect post-sundown listening. I really like this record and have listened to it a lot, plus I love the train picture on the cover.
Ali Farka Toure Savane
The 20th anniversary release of AFT’s just-posthumous album on fancy pants yellow vinyl. Oddly I had never heard this before last night and it is a great listen, relaxed but not without some guitar flame licking at the edges of some of the tunes. AFT himself is in magisterial form, casting his spell as his tunes sound like the landscapes they were forged by and recorded in. This is special.
Flipper Generic Flipper
Concept stolen by PIL for Album, grindingly slow noise punk aped by none^, this is quite the LP. Flipper, umm, flipped the hardcore script when they emerged in San Francisco in ’79 by playing slow, oh so very very slow and when punk crowds flipped out because they weren’t following all the punk rules, they played even slower with more intent. Generic Flipper is a wonderfully contrary dense beast of an album. Album closer ‘Sex Bomb’^^ is the best new thing I have heard this year, easily.
Hawkwind The Iron Dream – Live 1977
I was getting twitchy as I owned most of the ‘wind I wanted to and I could see no more worlds left to conquer, but then everything was okay because I spotted this RSD23 release from what is fast becoming my joint favourite Hawk era. Recorded really well in Croydon and Ipswich*^ this is a good entry into the live canon. The newer stuff stands up really well to hoary old warhorses like ‘Brainstorm’ and ‘Sonic Attack’ and the Calvert/Brock/House/Shaw/King line-up really kicked hard.
The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis Deface the Currency
Discovered solely by myself, because I am so Goddamned cool, cutting edge, interesting and hip^*. So this is Fugazi’s rhythm section playing fast complex jazz but avoiding all those tired fusion modes and modulations, plus an Anthony Pirog on guitar and the excellent saxophonist James Brandon Lewis. Lewis plays in a really interesting quite old-school style throughout the pyrotechnics and the relaxotechnics involved here. Deface The Currency is really great travelling music and I’m still hearing new things in it constantly. Cheers Neil, I mean me.
Honorary mentions go out to all those records neglected above, despite my trying to be good for the last couple of months – Lunachicks, Tokyo Blade, Jackie Brown Soundtrack, Suede, Paris Texas Soundtrack and Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, to name but a very few.
I quite like records.
1319 Down (still).
*I’m not angry, just disappointed in you.
**warning: contains Tom Cruise.
^except tangentially by Killdozer, maybe.
^^not later covered by Tom Jones.
*^oh, the glamour!
^*this is in fact a complete lie. Thank you again so much Neil!
The Metal Inquisition has been duly informed about your shockingly late acquisition of ‘British Steel.’ End to end metallic brilliance, only slightly let down by “United”‘s chorus (the verses and riff are fine). “Steeler” is something else though, JP go motorik topped by some of Halford’s most nastily menacing lines – “masquerader in his lair/wants to tangle in your hair”, that’s Halfordspeak in excelsis. “Rapid Fire” also has some prime Brummie meral language-mangling. Am intrigued by that TD record too.
Point of pedantry: are people from Walsall Brummies? Walsallians? Walsalloids?
Steeler is by far the best track on it, it would easily command a place on Screaming or Defenders. I hath no greater praise.
The TD is really good, utterly neglected release; unjustly so. The tracks don’t seem to exist online, not in these re-recorded versions.
That’s absolutely fair pedantry! As someone who spent several years in Birmingham I should know better. And Mr. Halford is very proud of his Walsall / Black Country origins. “Screaming for Vengeance”, though, very over-rated IMHO. “Electric Eye” and the title track tower over everything else, so yeah, adding “Steeler” would improve it considerably!
That’s absolutely fair pedantry! As someone who spent several years in Birmingham I should know better. And Mr. Halford is very proud of his Walsall / Black Country roots. ‘Screaming for Vengeance’ though, over-rated IMHO. “Electric Eye” and the title track tower over everything else, so yeah, adding “Steeler” would improve it considerably!
Ive never hated United, but I guess I’m not a metal purist….
Agree, it’s mostly fine, but rather outclassed by every other track on the album.
It’s not really a puritanical thing for me, it’s just pants!
Some great stuff here. Al, Priest, Flipper aaaannnd The Wind in Ipswich. I have a Hawkwind in Ipswich story. I can almost remember it. The corn exchange in the 90’s. Heady daze… sorry what?
The Ipswich Gaumont, I think (I’m too tired to walk over and check, even for a friend, sorry!) regardless, it was a great lineup in ‘77.
Yep. The Gaumont was the legendary theatre. It was called the Regent when I lived there. I performed there once in a Punk Floyd tribute thing. I had the biggest crush on the box office girl for years. Saw Hawkwind in Christchurch Park there one summer night. Oh my Dog it was a time.
I love that Flipper song. Don’t they have another one that’s just Ha ha haha? I’m not much for noise but they do it well.
Hey Zack! Sex Bomb is just preposterously great, oddly jazzy and funky too.
Do American pharmacies still use bright yellow packaging for non-brand medicines? It’s what it was based on I understand.
Pharmacies haven’t used packaging like that for as long as I can remember, but that album came out way before my time so perhaps they did at one point.
You’re just too damned young! Curse you!!
PS. I love that ‘wind era too.
Always enjoy these quick ‘show and tell’ posts, Joe.
Nice variety of purchases. Many not known to me at all. (Not surprisingly. I gave up all pretence of cool around the time the millennium but proved to be a giant shart.)
Bit jealous of the TD 12″, though I’m not keen on hopping up and down to change discs every 3 ½ minutes (lil’ Enola Gay ref there). I do have TD’s ‘Warsaw in the Sun’ 12″. Is it ever sunny in Warsaw, I wonder?
Maybe I should dusk off VC with a similar ‘incoming’ post.
Definitely Bruce, it would be a good way for you to remount the old VC warhorse.
I’d really recommend the TD one, it was very unheralded, almost ignored by everyone as far as I can tell, it cost me about £12. The cool train pic is from NSW somewhere too.
I’d also gently nudge you towards the Ali Farka Toure album, quite a beautiful record, has a lovely sunset feel to it.
The one AFT album I have is delicious. So thanks for the nudge.