No Show/Kill Twee Pop

No show this week as I'm at home.

But here's some nice stuff to listen to anyway!

I've been rediscovering my first wave twee-pop records this week. Something about the summer really makes them sound better for some reason.

Vaselines - Son of a Gun
I think some band called Nirvana covered this, the original's prettier though. Did you know Kurt Cobain had a K Records tattoo?

Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh
The video for this is sort of unsettling. Really, the absolute worst kind of fey white kids. But it's a lovely song! How do I reconcile these opposing views? Not sure. I feel a post about twee coming on.

Here's one way of reconciling it.
Their record "Kill Twee Pop" is actually really good, noisy shouty songs with angry lyrics which somehow sort of remind me a bit of Beat Happening.

Have a good Easter all, see you after the break!

Show 05/04/09

Here's what we played this week. Starts off poppy and goes noisy towards the end.
I love the tracks by Enablers and the Fire Show especially.

Ramones - Carbona not Glue
The Wedding Present - Kennedy
Love is All - Busy Doing Nothing
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of this Country
Pavement - Ell Ess Two [early version of "Elevate me Later"]
Absentee - They Do it These Days
The Boo Radleys - I Hang Suspended
Wilco - Airline to Heaven
Mclusky - She Will Only Bring You Happiness
The Mountain Movers - Bomb Shelter
Wire - Reuters
Bonnie Prince Billy - My Life's Work
No Age - Brain Burner
Enablers - Kosovo
Spacemen 3 - Transparent Radiation
The Fire Show - The Rabbit of my Soul is the King of his Ghost
Sonic Youth - Hyperstation

And the mp3:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h7cpwb

EPs

It's been hinted to me that I should write more on here rather than just putting up the playlists (although I can't see how you could not be excited by arbitrary lists of song titles and band names) so here's some thoughts on the EP as a format. I'll post more rants/musings from time to time if I can be bothered. Comment and tell me what you think otherwise this will be futile.

EPs are good. I sometimes think they're my favourite kind of release, just because they're insignificant enough that they don't need to be taken seriously at all, either by the band or by the audience, but they can still be an interesting opportunity for bands to play around with new ideas or just to have fun. Sometimes bands' best work is on EPs. Maybe it's because they're freed from the pressure to repay lots of studio time, or from the necessity of making something the label thinks is going to be commercially succesful enough to warrant them promoting it as they would a full-length album. The other geat thing about the EP is how cheap it is to make - many (most?) really great bands' first release, at least since they started to get current again in the punk period, is an EP or a single of some sort (e.g. Buzzcocks - Spiral Scratch).

Some of my favourites:
Pavement - Watery, Domestic
Nothing particularly revolutionary about this one (beyond the fact that Pavement were moving so fast at this point - just after Slanted and before Crooked Rain - that they pretty much couldn't put a foot wrong) but it does contain at least three of the very best Pavement recordings for my money. Their next EP, Pacific Trim, is pretty great too, in a much different mould. Apparently Spiral Stairs didn't turn up to the recordings for whatever reason so it's a reduced version of the band playing some of Malkmus' most playful songs - Saganaw especially has to be a piss take, and because it's an EP it just doesn't matter. Also, "I Love Perth" off Pacific Trim is the best pop song they ever released.

Rites of Spring - All Through A Life
...being the one where Rites of Spring shifted from their pure hardcore roots (as seen on the classic End on End) and moved in a more considered, thoughtful direction: there's chiming guitars on this which remind me of something as far removed from DC hardcore as early REM. An example of the EP as pointing a new direction in a band's songwriting and sound, maybe, although they sadly broke up before they released anything else.

Belle and Sebastian - Dog on Wheels
Where it began for B&S. 4 songs including a different version of my own favourite B&S track, "The State I Am In" whose recording predates Tigermilk and as such shows the band still in a formative state but with most of the elements in place. Murdoch's songwriting is already great. Plus it has Joanne Kenney on the cover (same as Tigermilk) which is obviously a good thing.
The compilation of the B&S EPs, "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds", is very much worth getting as some of their best stuff's on there and not the albums I think.

Deerhoof - Green Cosmos
My favourite Deerhoof release, I think it's because the EP is a perfect length for their schizophrenic kind of crazed indiepop. A full album's length I tend to get a bit exhausted after half an hour or so but this hits the spot perfectly. Also the first Deerhoof I ever heard.

What do you think about the EP as a form and what are your favourites?

Show 22/03/09

This week's show! Mostly pop in its various (noise-, indie-, twee-) forms this week. I think it's a good one.

Playlist:
Minutemen - My Heart and the Real World
David & the Citizens - Graycoated Morning
Yo La Tengo - Little Honda
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Share
Stereolab - Our Trinitone Blast
David Thomas Broughton vs 7 Hertz - The Weight of my Love
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - This Love is Fucking Right!
Drean Syndicate - Until Lately
The Primitives - Do the Ostrich
Manhattan Love Suicides - Indian Summer
caUSE co-MOTION! - Which Way is Up?
The Fall - Slates, Slags etc.
Titus Andronicus - Titus Andronicus

Also, cheers to Rob from Tin Trains for giving us a mention on his blog this week! Download their show, it's good.
http://tintrains.blogspot.com

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vyph3h

Show 15/03/09

Here's the show from Sunday.

Threatmantics - James Lemain
The Triffids - In the Pines
The Gunshy - May 14, 1943
The Wedding Present - Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft [Live 1987]
The Acorn - Crooked Legs
It Hugs Back - Saving
My Latest Novel - Ghost it the Gutter
Velvet Underground - White Light White Heat
Tompaulin - Days Fall Away
Dinosaur Junior - In a Jar
Slowdive - Machine Gun
Wavves - The Boys Will Love Us
Looper - Mondo '77

mp3: http://www.sendspace.com/file/8m0h78

I have an excellent plan for next week's show. See you then!

Show 08/03/09

Here's what we played last week. It was the 40th ever show so we had a bit of a party in the studio, with 3 guests!

Titus Andronicus - My Time Outside the Womb
The National - So Far Around the Bend
Wilco - Kicking Television
Pavement - Cut Your Hair
Fiery Furnaces - Smelling Cigarettes
Rote Kapelle - Sunday
Flaming lips - Race for the Prize
Okkervil River - Song About a Star
Absentee - Boy, Did She Teach You Nothing?
Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened
Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth
Bubblegum lemonade - Holocaust

mp3: http://www.sendspace.com/file/xqe1gn

Warning: this show may contain scenes of "banter" by certain guests which some listeners may deem offensively rubbish.

Show 01/03/09

Here's the playlist & mp3 for this week's show. James Hodgson was on again.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/w99c7s

The Halo Benders - Virginia Reel Around the Fountain
Jeffrey Lewis - Life
Neil Young - Revolution Blues
Wetdog - Send a Delegate
Crystal Antlers - Owl
Unwound - Off this Century
Restlesslist - Hour Glass
I Heart Hiroshima - Captain to Captain
The Drones - Cold and Sober
The Velvet Underground - Beginning to See the Light (Live at Max's Kansas City)

Have fun!