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.
The Good Heads 