Author: pete

Music Stunt 2009

Stunt 2009: Week 15 – Fleetwood Mac

Post author By pete
Post date 2009-04-22
No Comments on Stunt 2009: Week 15 – Fleetwood Mac

*This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Karenâ€™s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.*

Usually I write my stunt post (and select the following week’s playlist) on Tuesday evening, but this week I completely forgot. Partly because I’ve had other things pressing on my attention (Bernard’s been poorly, and I’ve also been anticipating the arrival of my new bass rig) and partly because this week’s playlist has actually bored the shit out of me, because I knew half of the songs already, and the other half didn’t impress me much.

1. **Albatross** from English Rose – it’s a fairly pleasant song, but I think that I’ve heard it so many times that it no longer does anything for me. It’s passed the limit.

2. **Black Magic Woman** from English Rose – at the end of the day, it’s just a blues song. A particularly notorious one, yes, but not a particularly good one.

3. **Oh Well** from Then Play On – the first bit is a fairly short and spiky rock thing, which segues into a long and rambly quiet bit that develops at a snail’s pace.

4. **Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)** from 25 Years: The Chain – long and wanky, it reminds me of the lovechild of Cream and Spinal Tap.

5. **Hypnotized** from Mystery To Me – I really enjoyed this song, it’s got a nice summery vibe. It’s got a drawn-out ending, but I suppose that’s unavoidable for a song from this genrera ((portmanteau of genre+era)).

6. **Rhiannon** from Fleetwood Mac – I know that this song holds some significance for Karen, as she included it on one of her three “scrapbook” compilations. For me, I don’t know whether I like it or love it. But I definitely don’t dislike it.

7. **Go Your Own Way** from Rumours – I think I really, really like this song. It’s probably one of my favourite Fleetwood Mac songs. There’s passion in the vocals, and the guitar solo serves the song.

8. **You Make Loving Fun** from Rumours – despite having heard this song countless times, I still like it. Especially the chords in the bridge.

9. **Sisters Of The Moon** from Tusk – it’s all minor key and moody and despairiful. It’s not bad, actually, but I can’t think of anything specific that I like about it.

10. **Brown Eyes** from Tusk – the arrangement is fairly good, the whole song sounds complete and well-formed. But the tempo seems to drag, and it goes on for a fair while.

The next week’s playlist

Random number: 338
Only one playlist on this page – Ska. The book says:

> As Independence fever swept the island at the start of the 1960s, ordinary, working-class Jamaicans rejected US R&B, or what was fed to them on the BBC-based national radio, in favour of a vociferous homegrown sound. This was ska – and as an intrinsic expression of Jamaican-ness, it is music that is always going to be hard to beat.

Tags Fleetwood Mac

Photos

Laughing Penguins

laughing penguins

Tags Blackbrook, penguins

Photos

Pelican

Post author By pete
Post date 2009-04-20
No Comments on Pelican

pelican

Tags Blackbrook, pelican

Photos

Serious Hens

Post author By pete
Post date 2009-04-19
No Comments on Serious Hens

hens

Music Stunt 2009

Stunt 2009: Week 14 – Sam Cooke

Post author By pete
Post date 2009-04-15
5 Comments on Stunt 2009: Week 14 – Sam Cooke

*This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Karenâ€™s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.*

Spotification

1. **Any Day Now** from Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers – I sense that I’m supposed to be reviewing this song based upon his vocal performance. It’s fairly good, but there’s lots of note acrobatics, which has been taken to excess in recent decades. So Sam has a lot to answer for. Other than that, I found this song fairly dull.

2. **Wonderful** from Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers – if I was a devout Christian then maybe I’d get this, but I’m not, and so I just find it rather annoying.

3. **Jesus, Wash Away My Troubles** from Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers – stop expecting Jesus to clean up your shit, and take some responsibility for your own life. He’s been dead for years. The only use he’ll be now is if you spill some petrol on the forecourt and you need something sandy to soak it up.

4. **Nearer To Thee** from The Great 1955 Shrine Concert – I couldn’t find the “epic eight-and-a-half minute” version described in the playlist blurb, so my review is based on incomplete knowledge. But the version that I did find was quite dull.

5. **You Send Me** from Portrait Of A Legend – Sam realised that gospel was a dead-end genre and decided to dabble in some easy listening instead. It’s an improvement, but I’m not particularly impressed. I think I’ve written better songs.

6. **Wonderful World** from Portrait Of A Legend – I don’t know what a slide rule is for either. I do rather like this song. The Levi’s advert that it (or, an inferior version of it) was used in was the one where some dude climbs into the bath with his jeans on.

7. **Twisting The Night Away** from Portrait Of A Legend – I’m fairly keen on this song too. It’s actually a song that is in my current band’s repertoire, though our version doesn’t come close to the original, partly because we’re missing a piano and horn section. And Sam Cooke on vocals.

8. **That’s Where It’s At** from Portrait Of A Legend – probably the best song of this week’s playlist, it’s a beautiful soul ballad, and I love the way he practically screams the chorus.

9. **Bring It On Home To Me** from Portrait Of A Legend – this is just the same song again, though with an annoying “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” refrain between Sam and Lou Rawls; which, according to Neil Foxlee, who compiled this playlist, is the “icing on the cake” of this song. Yeah, if the icing smelled of wee.

10. **A Change Is Gonna Come** from Portrait Of A Legend – I can’t help but be moved by this song, because I know that it dates back to a time when black people were genuinely seen to be inferior in the eyes of the law in the US. Okay, there’s still a lot of racism in the world, and maybe we’ll never be able to completely eradicate it, but things are undeniably better. Sometimes it’s nice to have a reminder that the human race has some capacity for improvement.

So, in conclusion: underwhelmed, but hey ho, that’s how it goes sometimes. His wikipedia page makes for an interesting read though.

The next week’s playlist

Random number: 132
Two playlists on this page – at the coin toss stage, Flaming Lips concede to Fleetwood Mac, though I would have been happy with either. The book says:

> Around the eternal nucleus of Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass), Fleetwood Mac have battled through since 1967. Their story has been described as the ultimate rock soap opera, but even the most imaginative scriptwriter would struggle to dream up such a litany of success, failure, love, hate, alcoholism, disappearance, sex and drugs. And that was just 1971.

Spotification

Tags Sam Cooke

Music Stunt 2009

Stunt 2009: Week 13 – Africa calling

Post author By pete
Post date 2009-04-01
1 Comment on Stunt 2009: Week 13 – Africa calling

*This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Karenâ€™s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.*

Is anybody actually using these Spotify playlists? Cos if not, I’ll just save myself the effort.

1. **Pata Pata** Miriam Makeba – such a jolly and uplifting song, I can’t help but like it.

2. **Soul Makossa** Manu Dibango – pretty funky, it makes good “walking” music, if you know what I mean. The sax riff is simple, but effective enough. There’s a few little interesting changes thrown in as well, so it narrowly avoids feeling too long.

3. **Lady** Fela Kuti – 14 minutes long, the first 6 of which are basically vamping over the same chords, and then there’s some singing, but it’s all really rather monotonous.

4. **Monie** Kanda Bongo Man – “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WMG.” I wonder what Warner Music Group think that their job is. Here’s a stab in the dark – maybe you’re supposed to be giving your artists exposure? What have you achieved here? You’ve made yourselves look stupid. Fucking stupid.

5. **Birima** Youssou N’Dour – I can’t deny it, this is a pretty good song. But I can’t bear this dude’s voice. And this song has a really annoying bongo solo, which basically just consists of some eejit hammering away at them at machine-gun rate for too long. I do like the way that the song builds towards the end – I wish more songwriters made the effort to incorporate some kind of dynamics into their songs. Shame that Youssou can’t be bothered to write an ending, and just fades it out.

6. **Lasidan** Ali Farka Toure – six minutes, mostly guitar wank over the same few chords.

7. **Didi** Khaled – just very very annoying, predominantly because after a while you get tired of Khaled saying “Didi, Didi, Didi didididididididiwa didiwa didiwa heyeyeyeyeyey” or something like that. This is one of the most repetitive songs that I’ve heard in recent years.

8. **Tekere** Salif Keita – another moderately bland song with too much guitar widdling, but at least it’s sufficiently inoffensive to be listenable as background material.

9. **Shumba** Thomas Mapfumo – I quite like this song, though it doesn’t do much. It’s got a nice ambience. It’s got multiple guitar melodies, a vocal melody and a relatively complicated bassline all happening simultaneously, and they shouldn’t really fit together but somehow they do. No dynamics whatsoever.

10. **Yeke Yeke** Mory Kante – the song was written in the 1980s but gained notoriety in 1994 when it was remixed by German Techno duo “Hardfloor”. It’s been quite a long time since I went to a nightclub, so any interest that I may have had in dance music has mostly evaporated.

So, in conclusion: mixed feelings, but generally eager to get onto the next playlist, whatever it may be.

The next week’s playlist

We’re going to be off on holiday, so the next playlist will last us a fortnight. Unless it’s a load of toss, in which case we’ll listen to it once and then find something else to listen to.

Random number: 77
Two playlists, mystical forces choose Sam Cooke over Julian Cope. The book says:

> The soul singer’s soul singer, Cooke was the idol of everyone from Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin to Muhammad Ali and Rod Stewart. Selections #3-#10 are all Cooke compositions.

This looks most promising. Here’s Spotifyage.

Music Stunt 2009

Stunt 2009: Week 12 – Dodgy French

Post author By pete
Post date 2009-03-25
3 Comments on Stunt 2009: Week 12 – Dodgy French

*This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Karenâ€™s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.*

I’ve enjoyed listening to this playlist, because the connection between the songs is fairly tenuous, and subsequently there’s been a fairly diverse range of genres in here. Here’s Spotify showing its incompleteness again.

1. **Denis** Blondie – it’s not a particularly impressive feat of songwriting, but it’s okay to listen to.

2. **Le Freak** Chic – I can’t listen to this song. Not so soon.

3. **Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick** Ian Dury & The Blockheads – great song, fantastic bassline. And yes, the French is dodgy.

4. **I’m Not Scared** Eighth Wonder – ah, this takes me back. My first album (not including toddlerfeed) was Hits 8 and tape 1, side 1, track 2 was this song. I remember, when I was young, making “radio shows” – I didn’t have a substantial archive, so most of the songs on those radio shows were lifted from this album. Most of the inter-song banter was between me and my toys. Memories.

5. **Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi** Kylie Minogue – I don’t really have much time for Stock Aitken Waterman songs these days.

6. **Joe Le Taxi** Vanessa Paradis – what a thoroughly unremarkable song, practically the dictionary definition of “5 out of 10”.

7. **Lady Marmalade** Labelle – it’s probably received more cover versions than would be advisable, and is subsequently a little over-exposed, but you can’t deny that this song is fantastic.

8. **Michelle** The Beatles – I quite like the bridge, but on the whole this song did nothing for me. I can talk about the way that the instruments were panned, if you like.

9. **Psycho Killer** Talking Heads – this playlist has also coaxed me into finally making a date with Talking Heads, a band that I’ve always had intentions of familiarising myself with, yet never got round to. It’s good news.

10. **Si Si Je Suis Un Rock Star** Bill Wyman – a slightly daft song, twice as long as it needs to be, but lyrically entertaining. And pigeon French lyrics always make me think of Checkout Girl, which is no bad thing. At the time, I thought I was doing something faintly original.

So, in conclusion: people should take the relevant precautions before handling an unfamiliar language.

The next week’s playlist

The Randomaroo picked 386, but there are no playlists starting on this page (as it is at the end of a chapter). I rolled again, and threw a 3. Two playlists, the Randomaroo picks the second – Africa calling. The book says

> A playlist for a whole continent? Tall order, mad idea, etc. Still, here are ten tracks that wear the classic tag with some ease.

Surprisingly near-full Spotify playlist

I have been unable to find a copy of *Monie* by Kanda Bongo Man. If you are able to provide me with an MP3 for study purposes, then we’ll be able to include it in next week’s playlist. If not, then when it comes to time to review it, we’ll have to make something up, and it will probably be hilariously insulting.