Music of 2010, tracks 1 to 10
January 1, 2011
Didn’t listen to much music this year. Here are some of my favourite tunes anyway. See you 2011. Chris
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Bonus Number 10s
A run down of my tracks of 2010…
Django Django – Storm
Broken Bells – The High Road
Sleigh Bells – Rill Rill
Gruff Rhys – Shark Ridden Waters
MIA – Born Free
Black Mountain – The Hair Song
Cate Le Bon – Hollow Trees House Hounds
Cults – ‘Go Outside’
Summer Camp – Ghost Train
YACHT – The Afterlife
The Coral – Butterfly House
Miles Kane – Inhaler
The Streets – Going Through Hell
Here We Go Magic – Collector
MGMT – It’s Working
Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground
The Radio Dept. – Heaven’s On Fire
Beach House – Zebra
Tame Impala – Jeremys Storm
Badly Drawn Boy – Too Many Miracles
John Grant (feat. Midlake) – Chicken Bones
Gorillaz – To Binge
DJ Format feat. Abdominal – Participation Prerequisite
Elephant Stone – I Am Blind
Vampire Weekend-Cousinz
Thee Oh Sees – If I Had A Reason
Janelle Monáe – Tightrope
Paul Weller – Fast Car – Slow Traffic
Clinic – Bubblegum
The Fall – Bury! PTS 2 + 4
Blur – Fool’s Day
WE ARE ANIMAL 1268
Karen Elson – The Ghost Who Walks
Warpaint – Stars
Tame Impala – Solitude is Bliss
The Sums – Vegetable
Jonathan Jeremiah – Happiness (Quiet Village Remix)
Frankie Rose And The Outs “Candy”
Bang On! – Hands High
More from The Good Heads…
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The Good Heads is a musical thing based in Liverpool, Merseysippi, UK. The Good Heads = recorded collaborations, blog and podcast.
This blog sounds like (and doesn’t sound like) – Sweaty dancefloors, rocknfuckinroll, psych, soul, New Orleans funk, funk, garage, Tropicália, psychedelic dance music, reggae, Nuggets, The Merseysippi…. Some good things: Some Velvet Morning, Morricone, Primal Scream, Aretha’s Rock Steady, Cherrystones, The Congos Fisherman, Shake Some Action, The Action, Faust 72, The Small Faces, Carol Kaye – Bass Catch, The Clash, Helter Skelter, Gal Costa – Tuareg, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, Ananda Shankar – Streets of Calcutta, Heavy Music pt2, The Stairs (Edgar Jones), Sympathy For The Devil, Lee Dorsey, Flaming Lips, Shack & Michael Head, Electric Mud, Hendrix, Credence Clearwater Revival, Dungen, Frankie Valli The Night, The Maytals, Timebox Beggin’, Lee Mavers, Spencer Davis Group Im A Man, Damon Poor Poor Genie, Mani & Reni and the Stone Roses, Vishti Bunyan- Where I Like To Stand, The Meters, House Of Mirrors, Sly Stone, Mohammed Rafi, Lou Rawls, Sun Ra, Serge Gainsbourg, etc…
Music of 2010, tracks 11 to 20
December 24, 2010
Music of 2010, tracks 21 to 30
December 24, 2010
And so begins the countdown of my ‘finds of 2010′. Seeing that I only listened to the radio about three times this year (in May as I remember, which might account for the number of tracks from around then) it’s hardly a definitive best of the 2010. Some of the tracks are from 2009 for a start. Oh well, lets go…
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Bonus tracks (err 31 to 34)…
31
32
33
34
Just be thankful I didn’t publish the top 100. 20 to 11 up next.
A celebration of Shack and Michael Head in Video
October 6, 2007
SHACK: ‘TIME MACHINE’ – The best of.
Time Machine the best of Shack is out now on Sour Mash/Big Brother Recordings. The album contains songs from the albums Waterpistol, HMS Fable, Here’s Tom With The Weather and The Corner Of Miles And Gil (although nothing from The Magical World Of The Strands), plus two brand new tracks – .
Track listing:
1. I Know You Well
2. Comedy
3. Cup Of Tea
4. Al’s Vacation
5. Pull Together
6. Meant To Be
7. Butterfly
8. Sgt Major
9. On The Terrace
10. Undecided
11. Cornish Town
12. Miles Apart
13. Streets Of Kenny
14. Shelley Brown
15. Neighbours
16. Holiday Abroad
17. Wanda
To get you in the mood here’s a collection of some of the best YouTube footage of the band, ranging from official promo videos to tracks recorded by fans at gigs.
Shack – A House Is Not A Motel
Shack – Wanda
Shack – Something Like You
Shack – Miles Apart
Shack – I Know You Well
Shack – Butterfly
SHACK – Streets Of Kenny
Shack – Comedy
Shack-Cup Of Tea
Shack – Comedy
Shack – The Casa – Liverpool 2006
SHACK AT RADIO MERSEYSIDE 2007
Shack -als vacation
Shack – Oscar
Shack – Electronic Press Kit 2007 (Part 1)
Shack – Electronic Press Kit 2007 (Part 2)
SHACK: ‘TIME MACHINE’ – The best of.
September 24th (Sour Mash/Big Brother Recordings) On 24th September 2007 Shack release ‘Time Machine’: a collection of their greatest songs. The album contains songs from their five acclaimed releases, as well as two brand new tracks. Track listing:
* I Know You Well
* Comedy
* Cup Of Tea
* Al’s Vacation
* Pull Together
* Meant To Be
* Butterfly
* Sgt. Major
* On the Terrace
* Undecided
* Cornish Town
* Miles Apart
* Streets of Kenny
* Shelley Brown
* Neighbours
* plus brand new tracks ‘Holiday Abroad’ and ‘Wanda’.
A live tour will accompany the release of ‘Time Machine’ with dates to be announced.
packshot of time machine album
‘Time Machine’ is an appropriate name for a ‘best of’ Shack: for a band whose music is time-less, grounded in nothing but a purity of spirit and melody. Since Shack formed in 1988 they have charmed bleary-eyed romantics, inspired critical praise at every turn and enthused a generation of contemporary heroes – Oasis, The Coral and The Zutons amongst them. Noel Gallagher loved them so much he now releases their records. Shack have always captured the sound of “truth and beauty”.
Shack’s tenure as auteurs of ‘truth and beauty’ has literally careered – often from one seeming disaster to fortuitous event and all points in between. Formed out of the remnants of 80s should-have-beens The Pale Fountains, the Scouse brothers Mick and John Head set out on a saga of near-biblical proportions infused with the spirit of melody and mysticism captured by fellow star sailors Love, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Sly & The Family Stone, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Harry Nilsson and The Beatles. Shack albums are equal parts psychedelia, honesty, storytelling, love lost, love found and light and shade. So it was that the master tapes for their embarrassingly staggering ‘Waterpistol’ album were lost, the record label went bust and the studio burnt down; but the world evidently needed this record and eventually this masterpiece of understatement came out in 1994. Waterpistol lends ‘Neighbours’, ‘Sgt Major’ and ‘Undecided’ to ‘Time Machine’.
A leisurely seven years later (during which time the band became the backing band for the late Arthur Lee’s Love for a while – true hero worship and kindred spirits joining forces) Shack re-emerged as The Strands. and introduced a small but feverish group of Head-heads to ‘their The Magical World.’ A veritable blink of an eye in Shack-time passed before ‘HMS Fable’ docked – an almost-mainstream vision of life from the narcotic fringes of what Mick calls “states of consciousness”. ‘Pull Together’, ‘Comedy’, ‘Streets Of Kenny’ and ‘Cornish Town’ are taken from ‘HMS Fable’
Two more memorable albums have followed: ‘Here’s Tom With the Weather’ (2003) and ‘.The Corner of Miles and Gil’ (2006). These additions to Shack’s peerless collection are full of funny and forlorn tales of love, friendship and the spectrum of human experience; Mick a life-long storytelling natural who grew up, as did John, on the hard-knock housing estate of Kensington (‘Kenny’) in Liverpool, with his head both lost in the clouds and buried among the pages of Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Wordsworth.
All the while, Shack have been making some of the most beautiful music ever created by soul men gifted in melody. Almost 20 years since their immaculate conception, Shack are still here, still intact and still in love with truth and beauty.
“The journey we’ve had together has been beautifully turbulent,” laughed John in 2003. “But there’s times when we glide and we’re gliding forward now.” His brother, typically understated, summed up the Shack experience. “The story is what it is. But so are the songs and so are the records. Because?we’re good.”
Better than good: With Shack’s ‘Time Machine’ you can discover for yourself.
Edgar ‘Jones’ Jones and the Joneses – The Way It Is
July 23, 2007
Shack – New Moon
July 1, 2007
Beastie Boys – Off The Grid and The Rat Cage
May 29, 2007
The Beastie Boys are coming back in 2007 with an instrumental only album that’s sounding pretty cool from the stuff that’s leaked out so far. One of the few bands that improved album by album over a period of 10 years or so, peaking with Hello Nasty, don’t know the wisdom behind dropping the vocals but bring it on. Looks like there’s going to be a movie to accompany each track from the album so stay tuned. Here’s Off The Grid and The Rat Cage followed by an MP3 download of Off The Grid from another site. Don’t think Off The Grid is the lp version, just a live in the studio take.
Off The Grid
The Rat Cage
Off The Grid MP3 download, new Beastie Boys track. DOWNLOAD
Find an exclusive Beastie Boys remix by The Good Heads HERE
Candie Payne – I Wish I Could Have Loved You More
April 20, 2007
In anticipation of ‘I Wish I Could Have Loved You More’, the amazing debut album by Candie Payne, to be released May 2007…
Press Release 29/03/2007.
“After a successful debut tour with The Bees and with two highly sought-after limited seven inch singles under her belt, Candie Payne releases a new single I Wish I Could Have Loved You More, a retro-futuristic gem that sounds like the Neptunes collaborating with Phil Spector on the soundtrack to a sixties Kitchen Sink drama.
After several years spent playing in bands in Liverpool and fronting Liverpool indie group Tramp Attack, Candie signed as a solo artist to Deltasonic, the same influential Liverpool label that brought us the Coral and The Zutons.
Now, after writing and recording with Simon Dine (Noonday Underground), Candie’s debut album is due in May 2007.”
Candie Payne backed by Edgar Jones and the Joneses
The first clip, above, is I Wish I Could Have Loved You More by Candie Payne live at the Luminaire, 28/11/06 for Fact magazine. This video offers a rare chance to see the right half of Edgar Jones in stereo. Interestingly The Joneses line up for the Candie Payne tour included Paul from The Stairs on drums. Rumours Ged Lynn turned up to the audition but was scared off by Candie’s Bolton Wanders scarf and Tarzan undies cannot be confirmed. As close as we’ll ever get to a Stairs reunion? Probably. Wonder if they had a go at Skin Up For Me Baby or Weed Bus in the soundcheck for old times sake? It’s also worth noting that Candie was the lead vocalist for Edgar’s original line up of The Joneses and although she’d long left the band she does feature on backing vocals on a couple of the tracks on Soothing Music For Stray Cats.
The second clip is an alternative video for ‘I Wish I Could Have Loved You More’. Click the big button above.
Noonday Underground and Paul Weller – I’ll Walk Right On
So, if you’ve read the press release you’ll know the album was co written with Simon Dine of Noonday Underground. Noonday Underground happened to cut this track with Paul Weller. It’s a cracker.
Now you’ll be going out to buy I Wish I Could Have Loved You More quite soon, I can tell you that there’s a Candie Payne track tucked away in the Good Heads hugely unsuccessful podcast thing. PODCAST HERE
Candie Payne will be getting remixed by The Good Heads real soon. She doesn’t know it yet. Neither do the other half of The Good Heads.
Sony BMG Press Release 2007
Candie Payne was four when she was uprooted from an idyllic suburb of Liverpool to 1980’s pre-Guiliani New York. Hip hop was the sound on the streets, and this fast moving, multi-racial metropolis was a world away from what the young Candie and her family expected she would be growing up in. She spent her pre-teen years’ roller skating around the landings of the many apartment blocks she was to move in and out of during this time in her life. “We were always in Queens, just different areas of it; Jackson Heights mostly.” It was a precocious talent for drawing that helped her bridge the gap between herself and her peers at the many different schools she attended “I wouldn’t say I was shy, but I was very sensitive and quiet, so I just used to absorb myself in my pictures and the other kids would come over to see what I was drawing, and get me to draw things for them. That’s how I would make friends.” It was art that would remain her passion up until her late teens, right through her permanent move back to Liverpool in the early 90’s- From block-rockin beats to smiley culture. Toughened up by her formative years in the Big Apple, Candie returned a more confident and outspoken character.
It was in her early teens that the music which had so far permeated her everyday life via her musical family began to gain real interest for her. “My mum and dad have always had fantastic records, Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, any of the greats you could name, and they were always on.” Aside from her parents’ quality taste in music, there were her elder brothers’ record collections to broaden her listening spectrum even more, bands like The Who, Nirvana, The Byrds and Jimmi Hendrix. And of course the obligatory tea making duties of a little sister as her brother made demos in his bedroom. Her reward? Committing her very own versions of ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘A Day In The Life’ to tape.
Fast-forward through a teenage happy hardcore rave phase, and Candie’s ambitions still lay in the art-world, particularly fashion design. So much so that she was already designing and making clothes for herself and her friends as a sideline to her exams. This enthusiasm continued until an ill-fated and short-lived spell on an art foundation course left her disillusioned and re-thinking her long held dreams of a career in the art-world. “I was totally directionless, I knew I wanted to do something creative, I just didn’t know what, so I made a conscious decision to be open to any opportunities that came my way.” And these proved to be many, due to a plum job landed in the trendy vintage clothes shop Resurrection in the centre of Liverpool, with all the bands, dj’s, photographers, movers and shakers passing through for jeans and stopping for coffee to exchange records or gossip, “It was in this environment that my interest in music stepped up a gear, and my lifestyle began to reflect that. It was in that shop that I heard bands like Sly and the Family Stone, Funkadelic, and The Metres for the first time; records I may not have heard otherwise. To me, those years spent working in Resurrection were as formative in musical terms as hustling on and off subways in New York was character building.”
So in between the modelling, illustration and other sideline offers that she dabbled with, Candie first dipped her toe in the musical waters with a rendition of the Dolly Parton classic “Jolene,” performed with local heroes Tramp Attack. The word spread and she was quickly headhunted by ex-Stairs lead man Edgar Jones to front his new project, and honed her skills in earnest for the best part of a year. A change of direction in the band and Candie jumped off at the next stop, which was little more than the occasional turn with a Liverpool based jazz band. However, fate was to intervene when Bandwagon lynchpin and long time friend Gary Bandit, introduced her to producer Simon Dine, who happened to be looking for a singer to co-write with. A rough demo and a clutch of hand written verse later, and Candie and Simon set to work in the studio on what was soon to become the debut album.
So how does Candie Payne sound?
The title track blasts off in confidant style, with an incessant melody and pounding drums and a soaring vocal. Next, ‘Why Should I Settle For You’ draws you into one of the albums many dark corners. Such as ‘A Different You’, a big brash epic – all booming drums and syncopated percussion that makes Candies’ love lost lyrics sound all the more fragile and beautiful. At the other extreme ‘By Tomorrow’ canters along like a three-minute white knuckle horse back ride. And ‘Hey, Goodbye’ beefs up Candies sixties sound to the point where is sounds like a train is coming.
Make no mistake this album is trenchantly modern, updating the sonic and stylistic tricks of decades past. There is a fresh and spontaneous sound to this record that stems largely from this 24 year olds’ passion for singing, music and recording. She recently recorded a selection of songs from the soundtrack to Bugsy Malone, just for the fun of it and because “they are amazing songs, and taken out of the context of the film, they stand alone as classic tunes.” Look out for them on future b-sides.
In all, ‘I Wish…’ evokes Dusty in the daisy age, an air of Francoise Hardy, Nancy Sinatra, John Barry, or Scott Walker with a warped modern approach not dissimilar to that of Aphex Twin or the Wu Tangs’ RZA. Her furious girl meets boy kitchen pop songs recall late sixties British cinema or a Smiths single sleeve. “It’s pop music on the surface, in the sense that it’s catchy. But there is an underlying eeriness and even loneliness. These songs are trying to communicate the thoughts and feelings that go through your head when you’re struggling in a relationship, the things that you might not be ready to say out loud yet. And they are very personal to me. I felt I could only write and sing about things I knew a little bit about.’
You’ll Never Walk Alone
April 15, 2007
Anyone who ever had a heart knows why this post is here today. Keep on keepin’ on… The Good Heads
This is a celebration of a song…
“You’ll Never Walk Alone” was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for their 1945 musical, Carousel. It was sung in the original show by Christine Johnson and later Jan Clayton with chorus. In the movie Claramae Turner (although the weeping Shirley Jones first tries to sing it, but cannot) belts is out, and later reprised by Ms. Jones and a chorus.
You’ll Never Walk Alone became the anthem of the supporters of Liverpool FC in England in the sixties. The song has also been adopted by many other football clubs across the world most notably Celtic FC.
You’ll Never Walk Alone has been covered many, many times – the most well known of these versions (in the UK) being the Gerry and the Pacemakers standard dating from 1965. But this post has given me the opportunity to present some stunning recordings of a timeless song.
Ray Charles – You’ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
Perhaps the most beautiful version not sung by the Kop? There’s so much hope in Ray’s heart has he belts this out. A pure show stopper.
Johnny Cash – You’ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
Johnny Cash is already a hero of The Kop but few realise he recorded this cover. This track can be found on the Unearthed box set from 2003.
Gene Vincent – You’ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
Similar arrangement to the Gerry version but with some rockin’ roll guitar, doo woop backing versions, alternative lyrics and cheesy final chord. Great.
Elvis Presley – You’ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
This sounds like a hymn. You can see the golden sky when Elvis sings this.
Five Blind Boys Of Alabama – You´ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
How many great versions of this song are out there? Here’s another for the collection.
Aretha Franklin – You’ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
Jazzy gospel jam that oozes with class. This was the version John Peel chose to play back when he needed to.
The Kop Choir – You’ll Never Walk Alone. (the link has expired)
