Boynton me memed.
Total volume of music on your computer:
None.
The last album you purchased was:
The Magic Flute - Karl Böhm and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Song Album playing right now:
When I started: Life on Other Planets - Supergrass.
When I finished: Brain Capers - Mott The Hoople.
Five songs albums you've been listening to a lot recently, from several genres:
- The Magic Flute.
Rather than listen to the Berlin Phili on seedy, I've just this week got a tape of the Royal Opera doing TMF at Covent Garden in 2003. It's a fabulous production with standout visuals and huge performances from Dorothea Röschmann as Pamina and Simon Keenlyside as Papageno. If you are new to opera (like me) this is surely a good place to start. Fabulous! Super overture sequence, too, as one of the youngsters runs through the backstage looking up at all the main characters by way of introduction/credits. A top way to open the show.
- Venus and Mars - Wings.
Suffering from the usual comparisons with Band On The Run, Venus & Mars has nevertheless lately been on high rotation here. It contains two of my favourite post-Beatles songs, Rock Show and Magneto and Titanium Man, and while there is undoubtedly some filler, I loved (most of) it when it came out in 1975, and I still love it thirty years on.
- Legend - Micky Jupp.
Ebullient London pub rocker Mickey Jupp is generally obscured by the likes of Dr Feelgood, Brinsley Schwarz, The Rumour and all their intermingling personel. But this 1978 album, an amalgam of out-takes from Jupp's late 60's band Legend is a terrific sampler of top-class guitar, drums and bass. Or what I like to call London Chug.
- Roots of Hip Hop - Mojo.
Released by Mojo Magazine in September 2003, this is their best sampler CD yet. Standout tracks by Grandmaster Flash (Adventures of Flash on the Wheels of Steel), Rufus Thomas (Itch & Scratch Part 1), The Dramatics (Get Up & Get Down), Al Green (Here I Am), Parliament (Flash Light) and Funky 4 +1 (That's the Joint). Not sure how you can got hold of it, but if you can, do.
- Muswell Hillbillies - The Kinks
Recently I commented at Fluteys that I thought Shangri La was my first favourite Kinks song, but that's not the case. I'd forgotten 20th Century Man, the lead-off track from this under-rated (and often mocked) 1971 album. While not as good as Something Else, Village Green Preservation Society or Arthur, this is the one that is doing the business here at the moment.
- Funky Kingston - Toots and the Maytals.
Forget your Bob Marleys and Peter Toshes. Proper reggae is all about Lynton Kwesi Johnson, Burning Spear, Lee Scratch Perry, the soundtrack from The Harder They Come and these guys. Specifically, this album; family size, deep crust, extra everything, reggae with the lot. Right from the tight drum intro of Time Tough, via the majestic title track, a bang-up version of Louie Louie, a brilliant cover of John Denver's Country Roads (naturally transplanted from West Virginia to Jamaica) and the awesome Pressure Drop. The only mis-step would be the closing track which probably suffers by coming straight after Pressure Drop.
- Long Journey - Michael Hurley.
Today's Green Guide contains an interview with Ian McShane talking about Deadwood. Mid-point the interviewer (Ian Munro) writes "Deadwood benefits from use of a broad range of American roots or roots-influenced music. The first series featured Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, and Lyle Lovett." But where's Michael Hurley? The Oregon folkie's Hog For The Forsaken from Long Journey closed every second episode of series one and, for me, was the stand-out roots sample during Deadwood. Though it didn't ring any bells with Munro, it certainly had ME putting the album back on the turntable after a longish hiatus.
Passing on to:
Emerald Bile: Noreen got memed once before and whined about it. It was funny. And it's obvious she, Ball Bag and Barry are dead-set desperate to rave about their latest Corrs, Chieftans and U2 purchases.
Chase Me Ladies: Harry has recently revealed his ambling around the slums of Carcas. What he didn't tell, though, was that he'd been doling out CDs to grasping urchins. The smiles on their grimy dials are something to behold as he hands them the soundtrack of Moulin Rouge.
Hungbunny: HB is an official music type person; chances are he knows the difference between a quaver and a tin of peaches. Thus it will be enlightening to have him instruct us ignorant slobs on the coruscating and multi-hued brilliance of his two favourite songs; Agadoo and The Lion Sleeps Tonight. There should be a bonus, too. He and Harry are pulsingly excited to have the Olympics in London so maybe they'll be recommending the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire. Won't that be grand.
Brisbane Window: Rusty has exquisite judgement. Appreciating, as he does, the cultural significance of shithouse sequels. Movies with numbers after their titles are too easily dismissed by the "serious" filmgoer. But Rusty, like me, understands that the higher the number, the greater the net worth the fillum. I mean, It's obvious Eddie & The Cruisers II is a far better film than it's pedestrian original. Eddie comes back, for Christ's sake! Anyhoo, I reckon Russ might just treat us to his favourite tracks, 50 Years by Uncanny X-Men and Moving Pictures' Busting Loose.
