Urban's Journal Of Half Assed Ideas

Urban Hat€monger ? · 09-05-2010, 06:42 PM

The Music That Shaped Me

A look into the past to show the songs that made me the man I am today.

Part 1 : The Formative Years

The Wombles - Remember You're A Womble

Give me a break here, I was 2 years old at the time. 2 albums by The Wombles were the first pieces of music I ever owned. My Auntie Christine worked in a branch of Woolworths and these 2 Wombles albums had been bought back by a customer because they were scratched. She kept hold of them & gave them to me because I was already mad about the Wombles TV series. They played fine on our old antiquated record player and from that moment onwards my mother was blasted with this song for about the next 5 or 6 years. Orinoco was always my favourite, I think it was the big floppy hat & scarf that did it. It made him look like Tom Baker's Dr Who and gave him a slightly bohemian look.
I've never been allowed to forget about my love of the wombles as a child illustrated by my sister giving me a stuffed womble for Christmas last year (Orinoco obviously) which now proudly sits on top of my CD rack... when it's not being carted around the place by my 2 & a half year old nephew.

(I watched this video all the way to the end too.)

****

Neil Diamond - Beautiful Noise

Around the same time I was digging The Wombles according to my Dad this was another of my favourite songs at the time I was crawling around on carpets in my nappy, he says that whenever he would play this song that I would get up & start to boogie around the living room.
Normally I would think my Dad is talking crap just to embarrass me but I do have a lot of memories of hearing this song in my childhood so I'm forced to accept this as truth...sadly.

****

Dr Hook - When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman

So i'm now out of nappys & into school and one day i'm sitting around playing with my lego and this song comes on, it may have even been this very episode of Top Of The Tops.
Now i'm sort of half listening to it quite liking it and then I see it..........

THERE'S A HALF COWBOY / HALF PIRATE MAN PLAYING THE MARACAS !!!!!!!!

Suddenly Dr Hook were the coolest band in the entire history of music for having not only a pirate, but a cowboy man in the band. Fuck The Village People. This was a real cowboy/pirate hybrid. For months afterwards I would scour every BBC light entertainment show for a hope that I would get to see pirate/cowboy guy, and because this song was everywhere at the time my need was satisfied regularly.
I still had no idea what his name until I just googled him, Ray Sawyer.. I salute you sir.

****

Blondie - Union City Blue

Debbie Harry was my first crush. Not in a 'I really fancy Debbie Harry' type of way. I was far too young to know what that was all about. It was much more innocent than that. Every time she would come on TV I would rush to the screen and watch 'The pretty blonde lady' sing her stuff. I think it was the way that the lights would hit her hair and she had this sort of ephemeral glow about her, mixed with great pop songs. It wasn't just her either. I remember thinking that the rest of the band looked really cool in their shades & bright sharp new wave fashions that I have still remained a love of. Debbie Harry & Chris Stein taught the infant later-to-be Urban Hatemonger the importance of coolness.
I chose this song because I can remember the video vividly. I would watch the beginning as the camera scanned along the harbour keeping my eyes wide open looking out for Debbie and then as 5 figures on the jetty would come into view would proudly point to the screen & shout to my mum & dad that I could see them before being transfixed by Debbie again.

I was so innocent back then.

(Yes she gets a much bigger picture)

****

VEGANGELICA · 09-08-2010, 11:12 AM

^ This is all just so sweet. Really.

MORE!!

Goblin Tears · 09-08-2010, 07:50 PM

Wombles and Blondie in the same post? Debbie Harry is definitely one of the prettiest ladies in music. ++++ points.

Urban Hat€monger ? · 01-08-2011, 12:53 PM

Various Artists - Great Jewish Music : Marc Bolan

One of the things i wanted to do in this pitiful attempt at a journal was at some point to review a tribute album. I've always enjoyed listening to tribute albums because they're such a mixed bag. Usually the first thing you look for is your favourite songs and usually when you end up hearing them they're nearly always disappointing and it's usually the obscure gems done by artists you're not familiar with that end up grabbing your attention the most.

My first choice album for doing this was originally going to be Hard To Believe : A Compilation Of Kiss Covers, The Kiss covers album that came out in the early 90s that's most well known for featuring Nirvana's cover of Do You Love Me? But after listening to it I decided against it given that all the songs on it are pretty much covered by grunge bands and although I enjoy the album it's not really interesting or diverse enough for me to muster the energy to write about it.

Then on my online travels I came across this album. Released in 1998 it's a part of a series released by John Zorn's Tzadik label that also includes tribute albums to people such as Burt Bacharach & Serge Gainsbourg. Having looked at the weird & wonderful list of artists that appear on the album I decided this had been the album I had been looking for to write about and so here we are.

Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot - Childern Of The Revolution
Both Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot are artists who although I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of I do see their names popping up with alarming regularity on records I enjoy. Also this was one of the first T Rex songs I had ever heard so I was hoping this would start the album off with a bang. I wasn't disappointed, this rocks.
It's pretty much a straight 'rock' cover but Lindsay & Ribot turn it into a bombastic monster that someone like Motorhead would be proud of. Towards the last couple of minutes of the song it just turns into a wall of noise but the base of the song is so firm that it never descends into chaos. Basically this is a pretty awesome cover and a great way to open the album.

Rebecca Moore - Telegram Sam
I didn't know who Rebecca Moore was so I looked her up.

"Rebecca Moore is a musician and actress. Known mostly for being the lover and onetime muse of Jeff Buckley as well as her participation in experimental theater productions and experimental music. She is the daughter of noted art photographer, Peter Moore and his wife, Barbara, an art historian."

So, I thought to myself. This is going to be a really slow version of the song with a load of electronic effects going on in the background.

I started listening to the song

It's a a really slow version of the song with a load of electronic effects going on in the background.

I beginning to think that for every tribute album planned it says in the contract that there must be at least one rock song performed by a female artist who will slow it down & turn it into some kind of ballad. And it get's on my bloody nerves every time. Any swagger that the original song had has been turning to some monotonous dirge.

Horrible.

Kramer - Get It On
The Smurfs do dance music.
It actually rather works.
I enjoyed it anyway.

Melvins - Buick MacCain
If you've ever heard the original song and you've ever heard the Melvins you pretty much know what you're going to get.
It's slow, it's heavy, it's noisy it's the Melvins.

This is the Ronseal track of the album

Medeski, Martin & Wood - Groove A Little
I'm a little familiar with Medeski, Martin & Wood. I heard one of thier albums last year sometime and although it didn't exactly blow me away it sustained my interest till the end. Their take on this is similar to one of those kind of 'Joe Smith plays the hits of the day on his hammond organ' type albums that i'm sure people over the age of 30 will remember their parents owning in their childhood. Thankfully they decided to keep the riff of the song and make it sound dirty as hell which keep things ticking over nicely to the end of the song.

Lo Galluccio - Cosmic Dancer
Another female jazz / avant garde singer so you know exactly where this song is going.

Yep .... Dronesville

zzzzzzzzzz

Fantômas - Chariot Choogle
Although Mike Patton gets on my tits this is a welcome break after the last song. I don't remember the original song sounding anything like this but it's loud, it's fast, it's weird and it's over before you get bored of it.
Exactly the kind of thing the album needs at this point.

Tall Dwarves - Ride A White Swan
I would say that it was this song that I held out the most hope for before I listened to the album, and thankfully I was right.
This is pretty much a straight cover of the original with a little extra bounce & energy and all the better for it. It's one of those songs that you stick on a compilation to save you the effort of having to listen to the rest of this album.
Easily the best track on the album so far.

Chris Cochrane - Rip Off
Starts off with a heavy bassline, a bunch of electronic noise & lots of guitar distortion and goes into some kind of average so-so electronica track. Then just as I am beginning to wonder if I should skip to the next track halfway through the song all this is ditched and it's just a guy singing the song playing the banjo. By the time you've adjusted to this you think perhaps you should give the song a bit longer to see how this plays out and while you're doing that the song goes back to the electronica hum-drum it started as orginally & reaches it's climax.
Bizarre.

Gary Lucas - Daboraarobed
Deborah is one of those songs thats so catchy even an idiot could cover it and it would sound good.
This is a pretty decent cover it's done acoustically (like the original) and played at about twice the speed and it's great.

However for some bizarre reason they decided to swamp the track with a droning buzzsaw type electric guitar in the background which comes to the fore at the end of the track, and it's really really irritating.
I'd love to hear a version of it without that because it would be perfect.

Ezster Balint - Mambo Sun
This was a surprise hit on the album for me. When the song started it started slowly with crackles of guitar & cheap synth sounds and i'm wondering if i'm about to hear chick snoozefest No 3. But there's just something about the same that you just know it's going to kick in at some point. Then suddenly the song explodes into a typical 90s female fronted alt-rock song. Think something like the Breeders or Throwing Muses if you want a comparison.
As i'm listening to the song i'm wondering who this Ezster Balint is. I read that she's also a violinist and as if on cue she knocks out this killer noise ridden violin solo before the song reaches it's climax.
Pretty good in all.

Vernon Reid - Jeepster
You know how at the beginning of this review I said that the songs that you look forward to before you hear the album are nearly always the most disappointing ones.
Well here it is.
The best thing about the original of the song was that it was up-tempo bouncy & catchy and it forced you to want to clap your hands along with the song.

Sadly all of this seems to have escaped Vernon who slows the song down and makes it heavier.
Basically this song now sounds like it was performed by an early 90s grunge band with Vernon showing off his guitar histrionics in the background. And once you realise that the song is going to be at this pace until the end you just want it to be put out of it's misery.
Awful

Danny Cohen - Lunacy's Back
Didn't like this one at all. It sounds kind of halfway between a country song & a lounge song.
Regardless of that it was really the vocals that turned me off. He sounded like he was going to burst into tears at any moment.
No idea who Danny Cohen is and a google search revealed nothing so i'm guessing he never really did much after this.

Elysian Fields - Life's A Gas
Life's A Gas is one of my favourite ballads of all time & if there's one song on this album that could be done justice with a female singer it's this one. The music on this is pretty minimalist, a few jazzy bits, a soft unintuitive guitar solo. The main focus on the song being Jennifer Charles's vocals, and the song is all the better for that.
Another album highlight.

Yuko Honda & Sean Lennon - Would I Be The One
I had high hopes for this one. Around the time this album was released in 1998 I bought Sean Lennon's first solo album Into The Sun (Which people here really should check out) . And I played that album to death for years.
I was hoping that this song would be in a similar vein to that album with it's kind of laid back summery pop that wowed me back in 1998 and i'm glad to say it does just that.
Apparently Lennon was unhappy with the cheap recording of this song & re-did it on his 2006 album Friendly Fire.
So now I have another album to get hold of.
This was great though.

Cake Like - Love Charm
Didn't know much about this band so I did some finding out. Apparently they're a female 3 piece who were signed to Neil Young's record label because he liked the cover of their debut album. The music itself is your typical 90s grungy alt rock. Not terrible but not mindblowingly great either.

Trey Spruance - Scenescof
Crap

Buckethead - 20th Century Boy
I was really dreading this one.
20th Century Boy is the most obvious 'Rock Anthem' on this album
And it's being covered by a 'Guitar Hero'
I also quite like this song
This can only end in tears.

I suddenly noticed that the song is over 7 minutes long and it soon became apparent why.
It starts off with a 2 minute widdly widdly guitar solo that almost sent me to sleep.
When the song finally starts you realise that this sounds like some crap (With much emphasis on the CRAP part of the description) hair metal band covering the song in the 80s with extended guitar hero histrionics
I have 80s hair metal band The Cult wannabes Bang Tango covering this song on an album somewhere.
It's a damn sight better than this awful crap.

Lloyd Cole - Romany Soup
I know of Lloyd Cole, I know he had some success in the 80s although I can't recall a single song by him. My main memory of Lloyd Cole is him being dissed by Mark E Smith at the beginning of Cruisers Creek on the Peel Sessions collection.

It's kind of inoffensive laid back electronica with even more laid back vocals. It's extremely repetitive and you never really get the impression that the song is going anywhere. Seems an odd choice of an album closer to me.
Not terrible but doesn't really set the world on fire either.

*****

An interesting collection with lots of John Zorn known associates showing up. There are more misses than hits but there is some good stuff to be found here. Which is exactly what i predicted at the beginning before I'd heard a note.

Highlights
Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot
Tall Dwaves
Ezster Balint
Elysian Feilds
Yuko Honda & Sean Lennon

Lowlights
Rebecca Moore
Vernon Reid
Trey Spuance
Buckethead

Bulldog · 01-08-2011, 03:46 PM

There's a good mate of mine who lives nearby, and every time he comes over to have a few drinks, he always berates me for not having anything Marc Bolan-related on my iTunes except for Born To Boogie. I think I might just have to get hold of this so I can dumbfound him next time

Tribute albums are interesting ones and, as you point out, it's always the songs you really want to hear covers of that turn out the most disappointing. I'd be lying if I said I had many of them though. Just We Were So Turned On to David Bowie, the I'm Your Man live album to Leonard Cohen, Almost You to Elvis Costello and Return Of the Grievous Angel to Gram Parsons. It's pretty much that exact case with all of them though.

Good to see this journal back in business by the way.

Urban Hat€monger ? · 01-26-2011, 04:38 PM

URBAN'S REVIEWS FOR PEOPLE WITH A.D.H.D.

This week

No 2 - Stick Men With Ray Guns - Some People Deserve To Suffer - 2002 (Recorded 1981-87)

A bunch of hillbillys start a punk band and decide to become a Flipper tribute band.

Fun piece of trivia : Lead singer Bobby Soxx's party piece was to shove the microphone up his own arse at the end of their set.

Did I mention this album is awesome.

9/10

Queen Boo · 01-29-2011, 01:55 AM

You said something about Flipper and ADHD. I'm interested.

CanwllCorfe · 01-30-2011, 10:00 PM

I have A.D.H.D. I thoroughly enjoyed your review. I hope to go to Florida soon.

zachsd · 01-30-2011, 11:46 PM

Hm, for some reason that review made me want to download that album.

Then I saw the one review for it on amazon:

Quote:

I saw these guys live several times in the mid 80's and worked with the guitarist for a rare coin and stamp company. The guy we worked for was a complete fool. Let's call him "Blaine," because that was his name. Once Blaine accidentally left the draft of a letter he was planning on sending to his parents in the bin of our office computer printer. I picked it up and read it. The letter was an incredibly angry and almost incomprehensible rant directed at both of his parents. It ended with the line, "I love you very much, but I can't stand you at all."

I thought it was hilarious. I took the draft, copied it verbatim, deleted all of the punctuation and paragraph breaks, and sent to a literary magazine as a free verse poem. To my unexpected surprise and delight, the magazine actually published it.

If I had never known Clarke Blacker, the guitarist, or heard his band Stick Men With Ray Guns, I don't think I would have done this.

You owe it to yourself to own this CD, no matter how you obtain it.

Now I really want to get it

Urban Hat€monger ? · 04-08-2011, 01:50 PM

Urban's Look At The UK Official Top 10
(Apr 3rd - Apr 9 2011)

10. Dr. Dre - I Need A Doctor (feat. Eminem & Skylar Grey)

Nice to know that after all these years Eminem still sounds like a petulant teenager who's whining about being grounded. The video is hilarious. He looks like a little kid lost on some sci fi movie set. I was half expecting some guy in a clipboard to come into shot and lead him away to where his mummy was waiting for him in the wings
This is over slick, over glossy, over expensive, over produced garbage.
This is to hip hop what November Rain was to rock music.
You hit a moment where you think to yourself ...WHY?
Don't you have anything interesting left to say?
Where's the attitude?
Where's the energy?
Where's the balls?
Hip hop now reminds me so much of how hair metal was circa 1990, just lost in it's own extravagance, fat & bloated just waiting to die.
Now if only something would come along & kill it.

09. Rihanna - S&M (Come On)
Boom
Thud
Boom
Thud
Boom
Thud
(Parpy 80s synths)
Boom
Thud
Boom
Thud
Boom
Thud
(Parpy 80s synths)
Boom
Thud
Boom
Thud
Boom
Thud
(Parpy 80s synths)
Rihanna is wailing away over the top of this about how she's such a kinky bitch or something.
Just like that last female pop singer who said the exact same thing probably using the exact same beat & tune maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago.
I couldn't watch the video to this. It's too dangerous for my virgin eyes apparently and I couldn't be bothered signing up an account on Youtube just for this shit. Which is quite funny considering her titties have been splashed (literally) all over the internet and viewable just about everywhere.
Still at least I know who she is which is more than I can say for....

08. Katy B - Broken Record
Like one of those anonymous club anthem one hit wonders from the 90s
Katy B ladies & gentlemen 2011's Olive
everybody sing along with me
"Youuuuu are not alllllloooone"

07. Jessie J - Price Tag (feat. B.o.B)
Why is it that every music producer seems to think that sticking a rap in the middle of a song that clearly doesn't need one makes it sound hip?
Do something different for fuck sake
How about a kazoo solo?
How about a marching band?
How about a stadium full of people with vuvuzela's
How about an entire fucking orchestra made up of people with down syndrome?
Anything but another fucking rap

B.o.B .. You're not needed on this record
Fuck off.

06. Wiz Khalifa - Black And Yellow
The best tribute to Stryper I have ever heard

05. Nicole Scherzinger - Don't Hold Your Breath
No please do hold your breath.
Preferably for around 5 minutes or so.
Let us know how you do

04. The Black Eyed Peas - Just Can't Get Enough
Fortunately I did however get enough of this autotuned peice of shit, somewhere around the 20 second mark.

03. LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock
Timmy Mallet retro cool
Actually forget that, It makes it sound much better than it actually is.

Spot The Difference

02. Adele - Someone Like You
This song breaks all the laws of physics. Time seems to ground to a halt, The concept of infinity becomes a revelation in your mind. The understanding of it rushes over you and you realise that you are a part of something never ending (this song). Adele quite literally has invented something that will go on forever. i bet she's still in a recording studio as we speak still singing it and whether it be 100 year, a million years, a million million years this song will still be going on in a seemingly endless loop for all eternity.
Or at least it felt like it anyway.

Dull

01. Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull
Booty shaking club anthem taken from her forthcoming concept album based on the life & works of Russian poet & playwrite Vladimir Mayakovsky and his concepts of Russian futurism entitled A Slap Of My Arse In The Face Of Public Taste.
Pitbull says "Yeah, Yeah" a lot.

09-05-2010, 06:42 PM	#101 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	The Music That Shaped Me A look into the past to show the songs that made me the man I am today. Part 1 : The Formative Years The Wombles - Remember You're A Womble Give me a break here, I was 2 years old at the time. 2 albums by The Wombles were the first pieces of music I ever owned. My Auntie Christine worked in a branch of Woolworths and these 2 Wombles albums had been bought back by a customer because they were scratched. She kept hold of them & gave them to me because I was already mad about the Wombles TV series. They played fine on our old antiquated record player and from that moment onwards my mother was blasted with this song for about the next 5 or 6 years. Orinoco was always my favourite, I think it was the big floppy hat & scarf that did it. It made him look like Tom Baker's Dr Who and gave him a slightly bohemian look. I've never been allowed to forget about my love of the wombles as a child illustrated by my sister giving me a stuffed womble for Christmas last year (Orinoco obviously) which now proudly sits on top of my CD rack... when it's not being carted around the place by my 2 & a half year old nephew. (I watched this video all the way to the end too.) ** Neil Diamond - Beautiful Noise Around the same time I was digging The Wombles according to my Dad this was another of my favourite songs at the time I was crawling around on carpets in my nappy, he says that whenever he would play this song that I would get up & start to boogie around the living room. Normally I would think my Dad is talking crap just to embarrass me but I do have a lot of memories of hearing this song in my childhood so I'm forced to accept this as truth...sadly. Dr Hook - When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman So i'm now out of nappys & into school and one day i'm sitting around playing with my lego and this song comes on, it may have even been this very episode of Top Of The Tops. Now i'm sort of half listening to it quite liking it and then I see it.......... THERE'S A HALF COWBOY / HALF PIRATE MAN PLAYING THE MARACAS !!!!!!!! Suddenly Dr Hook were the coolest band in the entire history of music for having not only a pirate, but a cowboy man in the band. Fuck The Village People. This was a real cowboy/pirate hybrid. For months afterwards I would scour every BBC light entertainment show for a hope that I would get to see pirate/cowboy guy, and because this song was everywhere at the time my need was satisfied regularly. I still had no idea what his name until I just googled him, Ray Sawyer.. I salute you sir. Blondie - Union City Blue Debbie Harry was my first crush. Not in a 'I really fancy Debbie Harry' type of way. I was far too young to know what that was all about. It was much more innocent than that. Every time she would come on TV I would rush to the screen and watch 'The pretty blonde lady' sing her stuff. I think it was the way that the lights would hit her hair and she had this sort of ephemeral glow about her, mixed with great pop songs. It wasn't just her either. I remember thinking that the rest of the band looked really cool in their shades & bright sharp new wave fashions that I have still remained a love of. Debbie Harry & Chris Stein taught the infant later-to-be Urban Hatemonger the importance of coolness. I chose this song because I can remember the video vividly. I would watch the beginning as the camera scanned along the harbour keeping my eyes wide open looking out for Debbie and then as 5 figures on the jetty would come into view would proudly point to the screen & shout to my mum & dad that I could see them before being transfixed by Debbie again. I was so innocent back then. (Yes she gets a much bigger picture) __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.**

01-08-2011, 12:53 PM	#104 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	Various Artists - Great Jewish Music : Marc Bolan One of the things i wanted to do in this pitiful attempt at a journal was at some point to review a tribute album. I've always enjoyed listening to tribute albums because they're such a mixed bag. Usually the first thing you look for is your favourite songs and usually when you end up hearing them they're nearly always disappointing and it's usually the obscure gems done by artists you're not familiar with that end up grabbing your attention the most. My first choice album for doing this was originally going to be Hard To Believe : A Compilation Of Kiss Covers, The Kiss covers album that came out in the early 90s that's most well known for featuring Nirvana's cover of Do You Love Me? But after listening to it I decided against it given that all the songs on it are pretty much covered by grunge bands and although I enjoy the album it's not really interesting or diverse enough for me to muster the energy to write about it. Then on my online travels I came across this album. Released in 1998 it's a part of a series released by John Zorn's Tzadik label that also includes tribute albums to people such as Burt Bacharach & Serge Gainsbourg. Having looked at the weird & wonderful list of artists that appear on the album I decided this had been the album I had been looking for to write about and so here we are. Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot - Childern Of The Revolution Both Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot are artists who although I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of I do see their names popping up with alarming regularity on records I enjoy. Also this was one of the first T Rex songs I had ever heard so I was hoping this would start the album off with a bang. I wasn't disappointed, this rocks. It's pretty much a straight 'rock' cover but Lindsay & Ribot turn it into a bombastic monster that someone like Motorhead would be proud of. Towards the last couple of minutes of the song it just turns into a wall of noise but the base of the song is so firm that it never descends into chaos. Basically this is a pretty awesome cover and a great way to open the album. Rebecca Moore - Telegram Sam I didn't know who Rebecca Moore was so I looked her up. "Rebecca Moore is a musician and actress. Known mostly for being the lover and onetime muse of Jeff Buckley as well as her participation in experimental theater productions and experimental music. She is the daughter of noted art photographer, Peter Moore and his wife, Barbara, an art historian." So, I thought to myself. This is going to be a really slow version of the song with a load of electronic effects going on in the background. I started listening to the song It's a a really slow version of the song with a load of electronic effects going on in the background. I beginning to think that for every tribute album planned it says in the contract that there must be at least one rock song performed by a female artist who will slow it down & turn it into some kind of ballad. And it get's on my bloody nerves every time. Any swagger that the original song had has been turning to some monotonous dirge. Horrible. Kramer - Get It On The Smurfs do dance music. It actually rather works. I enjoyed it anyway. Melvins - Buick MacCain If you've ever heard the original song and you've ever heard the Melvins you pretty much know what you're going to get. It's slow, it's heavy, it's noisy it's the Melvins. This is the Ronseal track of the album Medeski, Martin & Wood - Groove A Little I'm a little familiar with Medeski, Martin & Wood. I heard one of thier albums last year sometime and although it didn't exactly blow me away it sustained my interest till the end. Their take on this is similar to one of those kind of 'Joe Smith plays the hits of the day on his hammond organ' type albums that i'm sure people over the age of 30 will remember their parents owning in their childhood. Thankfully they decided to keep the riff of the song and make it sound dirty as hell which keep things ticking over nicely to the end of the song. Lo Galluccio - Cosmic Dancer Another female jazz / avant garde singer so you know exactly where this song is going. Yep .... Dronesville zzzzzzzzzz Fantômas - Chariot Choogle Although Mike Patton gets on my tits this is a welcome break after the last song. I don't remember the original song sounding anything like this but it's loud, it's fast, it's weird and it's over before you get bored of it. Exactly the kind of thing the album needs at this point. Tall Dwarves - Ride A White Swan I would say that it was this song that I held out the most hope for before I listened to the album, and thankfully I was right. This is pretty much a straight cover of the original with a little extra bounce & energy and all the better for it. It's one of those songs that you stick on a compilation to save you the effort of having to listen to the rest of this album. Easily the best track on the album so far. Chris Cochrane - Rip Off Starts off with a heavy bassline, a bunch of electronic noise & lots of guitar distortion and goes into some kind of average so-so electronica track. Then just as I am beginning to wonder if I should skip to the next track halfway through the song all this is ditched and it's just a guy singing the song playing the banjo. By the time you've adjusted to this you think perhaps you should give the song a bit longer to see how this plays out and while you're doing that the song goes back to the electronica hum-drum it started as orginally & reaches it's climax. Bizarre. Gary Lucas - Daboraarobed Deborah is one of those songs thats so catchy even an idiot could cover it and it would sound good. This is a pretty decent cover it's done acoustically (like the original) and played at about twice the speed and it's great. However for some bizarre reason they decided to swamp the track with a droning buzzsaw type electric guitar in the background which comes to the fore at the end of the track, and it's really really irritating. I'd love to hear a version of it without that because it would be perfect. Ezster Balint - Mambo Sun This was a surprise hit on the album for me. When the song started it started slowly with crackles of guitar & cheap synth sounds and i'm wondering if i'm about to hear chick snoozefest No 3. But there's just something about the same that you just know it's going to kick in at some point. Then suddenly the song explodes into a typical 90s female fronted alt-rock song. Think something like the Breeders or Throwing Muses if you want a comparison. As i'm listening to the song i'm wondering who this Ezster Balint is. I read that she's also a violinist and as if on cue she knocks out this killer noise ridden violin solo before the song reaches it's climax. Pretty good in all. Vernon Reid - Jeepster You know how at the beginning of this review I said that the songs that you look forward to before you hear the album are nearly always the most disappointing ones. Well here it is. The best thing about the original of the song was that it was up-tempo bouncy & catchy and it forced you to want to clap your hands along with the song. Sadly all of this seems to have escaped Vernon who slows the song down and makes it heavier. Basically this song now sounds like it was performed by an early 90s grunge band with Vernon showing off his guitar histrionics in the background. And once you realise that the song is going to be at this pace until the end you just want it to be put out of it's misery. Awful Danny Cohen - Lunacy's Back Didn't like this one at all. It sounds kind of halfway between a country song & a lounge song. Regardless of that it was really the vocals that turned me off. He sounded like he was going to burst into tears at any moment. No idea who Danny Cohen is and a google search revealed nothing so i'm guessing he never really did much after this. Elysian Fields - Life's A Gas Life's A Gas is one of my favourite ballads of all time & if there's one song on this album that could be done justice with a female singer it's this one. The music on this is pretty minimalist, a few jazzy bits, a soft unintuitive guitar solo. The main focus on the song being Jennifer Charles's vocals, and the song is all the better for that. Another album highlight. Yuko Honda & Sean Lennon - Would I Be The One I had high hopes for this one. Around the time this album was released in 1998 I bought Sean Lennon's first solo album Into The Sun (Which people here really should check out) . And I played that album to death for years. I was hoping that this song would be in a similar vein to that album with it's kind of laid back summery pop that wowed me back in 1998 and i'm glad to say it does just that. Apparently Lennon was unhappy with the cheap recording of this song & re-did it on his 2006 album Friendly Fire. So now I have another album to get hold of. This was great though. Cake Like - Love Charm Didn't know much about this band so I did some finding out. Apparently they're a female 3 piece who were signed to Neil Young's record label because he liked the cover of their debut album. The music itself is your typical 90s grungy alt rock. Not terrible but not mindblowingly great either. Trey Spruance - Scenescof Crap Buckethead - 20th Century Boy I was really dreading this one. 20th Century Boy is the most obvious 'Rock Anthem' on this album And it's being covered by a 'Guitar Hero' I also quite like this song This can only end in tears. I suddenly noticed that the song is over 7 minutes long and it soon became apparent why. It starts off with a 2 minute widdly widdly guitar solo that almost sent me to sleep. When the song finally starts you realise that this sounds like some crap (With much emphasis on the CRAP part of the description) hair metal band covering the song in the 80s with extended guitar hero histrionics I have 80s hair metal band The Cult wannabes Bang Tango covering this song on an album somewhere. It's a damn sight better than this awful crap. Lloyd Cole - Romany Soup I know of Lloyd Cole, I know he had some success in the 80s although I can't recall a single song by him. My main memory of Lloyd Cole is him being dissed by Mark E Smith at the beginning of Cruisers Creek on the Peel Sessions collection. It's kind of inoffensive laid back electronica with even more laid back vocals. It's extremely repetitive and you never really get the impression that the song is going anywhere. Seems an odd choice of an album closer to me. Not terrible but doesn't really set the world on fire either. *** An interesting collection with lots of John Zorn known associates showing up. There are more misses than hits but there is some good stuff to be found here. Which is exactly what i predicted at the beginning before I'd heard a note. Highlights Arto Lindsay & Marc Ribot Tall Dwaves Ezster Balint Elysian Feilds Yuko Honda & Sean Lennon Lowlights Rebecca Moore Vernon Reid Trey Spuance Buckethead __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.**

01-26-2011, 04:38 PM	#106 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	URBAN'S REVIEWS FOR PEOPLE WITH A.D.H.D. This week No 2 - Stick Men With Ray Guns - Some People Deserve To Suffer - 2002 (Recorded 1981-87) A bunch of hillbillys start a punk band and decide to become a Flipper tribute band. Fun piece of trivia : Lead singer Bobby Soxx's party piece was to shove the microphone up his own arse at the end of their set. Did I mention this album is awesome. 9/10 __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.

01-30-2011, 10:00 PM	#108 (permalink)
CanwllCorfe Quiet Man in the Corner Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Pocono Mountains Posts: 2,480	I have A.D.H.D. I thoroughly enjoyed your review. I hope to go to Florida soon. __________________ Your eyes were never yet let in to see the majesty and riches of the mind, but dwell in darkness; for your God is blind.

04-08-2011, 01:50 PM	#110 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,605	Urban's Look At The UK Official Top 10 (Apr 3rd - Apr 9 2011) 10. Dr. Dre - I Need A Doctor (feat. Eminem & Skylar Grey) Nice to know that after all these years Eminem still sounds like a petulant teenager who's whining about being grounded. The video is hilarious. He looks like a little kid lost on some sci fi movie set. I was half expecting some guy in a clipboard to come into shot and lead him away to where his mummy was waiting for him in the wings This is over slick, over glossy, over expensive, over produced garbage. This is to hip hop what November Rain was to rock music. You hit a moment where you think to yourself ...WHY? Don't you have anything interesting left to say? Where's the attitude? Where's the energy? Where's the balls? Hip hop now reminds me so much of how hair metal was circa 1990, just lost in it's own extravagance, fat & bloated just waiting to die. Now if only something would come along & kill it. 09. Rihanna - S&M (Come On) Boom Thud Boom Thud Boom Thud (Parpy 80s synths) Boom Thud Boom Thud Boom Thud (Parpy 80s synths) Boom Thud Boom Thud Boom Thud (Parpy 80s synths) Rihanna is wailing away over the top of this about how she's such a kinky bitch or something. Just like that last female pop singer who said the exact same thing probably using the exact same beat & tune maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. I couldn't watch the video to this. It's too dangerous for my virgin eyes apparently and I couldn't be bothered signing up an account on Youtube just for this shit. Which is quite funny considering her titties have been splashed (literally) all over the internet and viewable just about everywhere. Still at least I know who she is which is more than I can say for.... 08. Katy B - Broken Record Like one of those anonymous club anthem one hit wonders from the 90s Katy B ladies & gentlemen 2011's Olive everybody sing along with me "Youuuuu are not alllllloooone" 07. Jessie J - Price Tag (feat. B.o.B) Why is it that every music producer seems to think that sticking a rap in the middle of a song that clearly doesn't need one makes it sound hip? Do something different for fuck sake How about a kazoo solo? How about a marching band? How about a stadium full of people with vuvuzela's How about an entire fucking orchestra made up of people with down syndrome? Anything but another fucking rap B.o.B .. You're not needed on this record Fuck off. 06. Wiz Khalifa - Black And Yellow The best tribute to Stryper I have ever heard 05. Nicole Scherzinger - Don't Hold Your Breath No please do hold your breath. Preferably for around 5 minutes or so. Let us know how you do 04. The Black Eyed Peas - Just Can't Get Enough Fortunately I did however get enough of this autotuned peice of shit, somewhere around the 20 second mark. 03. LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock Timmy Mallet retro cool Actually forget that, It makes it sound much better than it actually is. Spot The Difference 02. Adele - Someone Like You This song breaks all the laws of physics. Time seems to ground to a halt, The concept of infinity becomes a revelation in your mind. The understanding of it rushes over you and you realise that you are a part of something never ending (this song). Adele quite literally has invented something that will go on forever. i bet she's still in a recording studio as we speak still singing it and whether it be 100 year, a million years, a million million years this song will still be going on in a seemingly endless loop for all eternity. Or at least it felt like it anyway. Dull 01. Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull Booty shaking club anthem taken from her forthcoming concept album based on the life & works of Russian poet & playwrite Vladimir Mayakovsky and his concepts of Russian futurism entitled A Slap Of My Arse In The Face Of Public Taste. Pitbull says "Yeah, Yeah" a lot. __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.

09-08-2010, 07:50 PM	#103 (permalink)
Goblin Tears Music Addict Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Ireland Posts: 337	Wombles and Blondie in the same post? Debbie Harry is definitely one of the prettiest ladies in music. ++++ points.

01-08-2011, 03:46 PM	#105 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	There's a good mate of mine who lives nearby, and every time he comes over to have a few drinks, he always berates me for not having anything Marc Bolan-related on my iTunes except for Born To Boogie. I think I might just have to get hold of this so I can dumbfound him next time Tribute albums are interesting ones and, as you point out, it's always the songs you really want to hear covers of that turn out the most disappointing. I'd be lying if I said I had many of them though. Just We Were So Turned On to David Bowie, the I'm Your Man live album to Leonard Cohen, Almost You to Elvis Costello and Return Of the Grievous Angel to Gram Parsons. It's pretty much that exact case with all of them though. Good to see this journal back in business by the way.