Anyway, following the break up of the Wolves Of Greece rock and roll band we find ourselves the owners of a pile of equipment which, frankly, we’re fucking sick of looking at. YOU the punter are the winner. Peruse this list and email me at my spanking new email address:
(honeyisfunny AAAAAAAAAT fastmail DOTTTTT fm)

COLORSOUND OVERDRIVER PEDAL – vintage as you like. rare as you like. £quite a lot
SQUIER JAGMASTER – white/red scratchplate, taken a beating but has new improved bridge and plays great (though cosmetically challenged) – £120
HARTKE 4X10 BASS CAB – rude sounding cab with aluminium speakers (no shit). Comes with spare speaker and spare driver – £175
SHIN-EI FUZZ WAH – total nutbar 60s fuzz thing £offers
and maybe an early 80s Squier Strat but that’ll be £350 minimum as they’re rare (check EBay dude!)

and the car that transported them:

1986 SAAB 900i AUTOMATIC. My baby. I call it Sven. Light blue metallic. Very quick. Low miles. MOT to Jan 06. Tax to July. It kills me to let it go but I’m cutting back. £575

also allow me to advertise some gigs I am part of:

FEBRUARY
23 – NAYSAYER, FABULOUS FOXES, NORDIC MILE
NOTTINGHAM BUNKERS HILL

MARCH
4 – TED LEO/PHARMACISTS, HELP SHE CAN’T SWIM, LORDS
HIGHBURY GARAGE UPSTAIRS
5 – TED LEO/PHARMACISTS, RED MONKEY, LORDS
NOTTINGHAM GREENS MILL SCHOOL HALL (DAMN YOU BIG NIGHT OUT)
15 – DEAD MEADOW, STINKING LIZAVETA, LORDS
LONDON BARFLY

APRIL
1 – THIS AIN’T VEGAS, LORDS, COWTOWN, EAGLE EYE
LEEDS FENTON
2 – LORDS, BILGE PUMP (TBC), JOEYFAT (TBC), DESIGNER BABIES
BRIGHTON FREEBUTT

London ones are early starters (Lords 8ish)
See you at ATP.

Ted is the great divider among my friends. People I know either love him unreservedly or can’t see what the fuss is about. I have begun to use Ted as a barometer of whether someone is a warm human being worth knowing, or is a cold robot with no heart who will only throw you away like a piece of rubbish should you offer them any affection. It’s that big a deal now.

Why?

Because Ted is the MAN.

His last album Hearts Of Oak is really important to me. It was the only Minidisc my player would read on the flight to and from Australia last year and so I listened to Ted on and off for 24 hours there and 24 hours back. I know this album inside out and I love it. It reminds me of a very hard time but it shines through. See, Ted is all about fighting the fight, wearing your heart on your sleeve and delivering everything with a level of integrity that goes beyond not having a barcode on your record.
Ted is the patron saint of everyone who’s ever dealt with people in the supposed punk rock community who have their complex morals down completely but who are, ultimately, a fucking arsehole.
Ted makes political records and Shake The Streets is an unashamedly political album.

“I’ll put it to you plain and bluntly
I’m worried for my tired country”
(The One Who Got Us Out).

“I want to take it to the president, him and all the cabinet, with a broom
I want to sweep the Halls of Arrogance
sweep the walls of the excrement of these baboons”
(Shake The Streets)

Ted’s been compared to Crass before. You can see why if you’re reading this. I hate comparing
bands to other bands but that Crass comparison was genius because the review (whoever wrote it) declared Ted a mixture of the militant UK punkers and none other than Curtis Mayfield.
Because Ted is first and foremost a lover not a fighter. Or at least when he fights he does so in the name of love and with a heart of oak. This is not just political statement-making, it’s the politics of the individual. Ted knows you can wear a Smash The System badge and be a vegan and never deal with a major label but if you’re rude to the checkout girl in the supermarket for no reason, then being “punk rock” is not going to excuse you from being mean or acting like a twat.

And before this gets so wrapped up in the term “punk rock” that you never want to hear the record, let’s not forget that Ted can really write a tune.
I’ll pull back a second and admit this album was disappointing on first listen as nothing stuck out like Ballad Of The Sin Eater or Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone? from the last LP. But after 2 listens I had 3 or 4 tunes I was into and then bit by bit the songs reveal themselves and sneak into your heart and the gaps get filled and the album starts to resemble a whole that you slowly get to know better and better.
I think the initial disappointment comes from the band being much more straight up on this album. There is little exploration of sounds and with the Pharmacists reduced to a power trio the sound is direct to say the least so the songs sound similar at first and there’s less to hang your hat on. I wouldn’t presume that touring with bands like Radio 4 (who have enjoyed success beyond Ted’s now) has influenced the sounds but I wonder if this new directness from Ted is in part influenced by seeing contemporaries achieve relative success with a much more limited palette – not to mention more limited song writing skills. Thankfully Ted has not cut back on his own song writing skills and investing time in this record really shows it and in the long run the to-the-point quality of the sounds serves to emphasise how good the songs are.
The One Who Got Us Out may as well be a How To guide to writing an emotionally stirring pop punk song. It’s wonderful. As is Little Dawn which sees Ted ditch his sly, funky guitar style for a brief moment and hit some fat rock chords just in case you weren’t aware that the glorious moment was the CHORUS. And talking of CHORUS get a load of Heart Problems which positively leaps from the speakers when it hits its stride.
Picture me doing star jumps with a bit of air guitar thrown in, covered in sweat, grinning. Not a pretty sight but if you’re going to see Ted play live better get used to it.
Ted’s songs have this faintly traditional, certainly celtic feel to them that recalls Thin Lizzy a lot as well as The Pogues. Maybe Elvis Costello. But, well…better because he knows why he’s doing it and he’s doing it for all the right reasons.
Anyone who finds this too straight, too American or too simplistic (Ted criticisms I have heard) is missing the point.
Ted Leo is an American who writes direct, deceptively simple songs. It’s what he does, he’s not trying to do something arty and clever and failing. He makes songs designed to floor you and they do if you let them.
Just go and see Ted and The Pharmacists live if you’re undecided. They preach their gospel with joy and fervour. Before they start playing, take a ten pound note and put it in your shoe. You’ll be needing it at the record stall when they’ve finished.

Wow. Keep em coming. 2005 is triumphant.
I’ve never really heard LAL before. I’ve heard of them plenty. I know all about their links to Built To Spill and the K empire and the under rated Lync. I had an idea of them as being pretty cool and synthetic sounding. I don’t know why.
Jesus, unless this is a total change of direction for them, I have seriously missed out.
I’ve been listening to Dinosaur Jr a lot lately and that in turn led me to get back into Neil Young in a big way. Wilco’s latest tapped into that in me too and maybe it’s more me than the people making the music but Laughter’s Fifth is on the same track and is every bit as successful at marrying great songs to luscious sonics.
The LAL approach is more lo-fi than Wilco’s but every bit as intuitive at serving these songs the best they can.
Opener In Amber is Neil Young & Crazy Horse to a tee with the guitars sounding euphoric, crunchy and joyfully human over a melody that treads that happy/sad divide just like Uncle Neil did so well on Zuma. But it’s far from pastiche: a lot of bands that get the Neil comparison do so only by using cliched country rock sounds but neglecting to look at the simple art of writing a good verse and a good chorus.
Oh and some good lyrics too.
“I am a ghost and I float throughout your house at parties; flirting with your guests sometimes. They can’t see me, but some have even spoke to me. Yeah, that’s just fine. I’m a real nice guy…for a ghost” (I Am A Ghost).
It’s like a proper album should be, the happy songs are happy with a hint of sadness and the sad songs are heartmelters (I Won’t Hurt You – “I’ve been through paradise and out the other side”) still have a tenderness and optimism.
I don’t want to spend this review comparing LAL to other bands because it implies a magpie nature to the band that detracts from their (huge) skills, but that feeling you used to get with Built To Spill is here in buckets. If you’re a BTS fan you know what I mean: Pavement had it too. Where a band can get away with anything, no matter how cheeky because they’re so good. So one band’s ripoff is another band’s gleeful reference. Canal Street is a Lizzy-styled rowdy singalong and it rules (“I GOT IT ON CA-NAAAL STREET”). It has hand claps, a bassline to dance to, a crazy infectious tune, a Hawaiian guitar solo – what more does anyone want?
Every song is a lesser band’s single, the pop is such high quality and when it rocks it rocks too.
Buy this, see them live at ATP (or in Nottingham whydontcha).
Bring on the next winner…
(Picks Prefection by Cass McCombs out of the bag…)

Hey

http://www.gigposters.com/designers.php?designer=41189

is my page at gig posters. 36 of them. Sadly not in date order so the quality fluctuates. The Comets On Fire one is on the last page and rules if I say so myself. The Yanks don’t get my style. Thats cool, I don’t get America.

So link it from your site!

xxx

MEGADETH – Nottingham Rock City, February 5 2005

And so it is that on a Saturday night I find myself squeezed into the cosy shed-esque surroundings of Rocko staring at a huge piece of black cloth.
What’s more it’s 8.15 in the evening. I don’t know if there was a support tonight but if there was they probably played at about ten past three in the afternoon.
When I was about 16 I went to a house party in the middle of nowhere at a guy’s house. Said guy would later impregnate and eventually marry a lady who would wander the streets of our hometown asking people if they wanted to see her rat. She was called “Rat Woman”. She did actually have a live rat in her pocket that you could look at if you wanted. When I got to the party in a slightly crumbling mansion-style house, all the lights were out save for a strobe and around 5 or so guys were stomping around the front room with long hair and leather jackets listening to Corrosion Of Conformity really loud. Later all of us would lock ourselves in the bathroom while the host rampaged through the house with a hedge strimmer.
Next to me are about 10 young men who look exactly like rat-woman-marrying strimmer-violence boy. They are all shouting “ME-GA-DETH! ME-GA-DETH!”.
Roadies are running around on the stage making crazy hand gestures like bookies at the racetrack. It is very tense. One goes to pull off the black sheet on the stage and is severely reprimanded by what appears to be the supreme roadie. Supreme roadie stares intently at his watch with his other hand raised to the assembled crew clutching the black sheet, holding them back from revealing the secrets of what it is covering. It is agony. Then finally he drops his hand and the sheet is whipped off to reveal the Megadeth back line and a drum riser so high that the drummer will spend the next 2 hours basting like a pork joint 6 inches under the Rock City lighting rig.
Everyone is excited. My compadres Phillip and Neil are excited.
“They best play Holy War” says Phil.
I don’t really know much about Megadeth’s music. I have an open mind, I like metal.
The lights drop and they walk out, Dave Mustaine last. I think they dropped the lights to lessen the impact because as soon as they start playing and the lights come on the visual shock of Megadeth 2005 is quite arresting. Last week Steven J Kirk of the non-rock band The Chemistry Experiment was wearing a heavy metal wig at a party. The guitarist from Megadeth looks exactly like that. The bassist has emerged from the 1990s unscathed and sports a tight perm that’d stand him in good stead for selling knock off videos at Colwick car boot on a Sunday. I can’t see the drummer as his head is somewhere in the rafters, filled with nut stuffing and about half done at Gas Mark 6. Mustaine though, Mustaine looks sort of well, motherly in a kind of council estate mum-of-5 way. Time has not dealt Dave a good hand as anyone who’s seen Some Kind Of Monster can vouch for. I mention this to Neil who looks to the stage with a surprising tenderness.
“Come on man, he’s been on the piss for 20 years. Give him a break”.
The sound is so insane I can’t work out what the hell is going on for the first 3 minutes. Megadeth sound like Wolves Of Greece.
To their credit it’s stupidly loud but all I can hear from the drummer is the bass drum and he hits the drums like such a pussy that it’s all mush. Like all great metal bands from the 1980s the bass is inaudible and the guitars sound fucking hideous.
Like I said I’m not a Megadeth aficionado but their songs seem to be split into 3 categories: one is a sort of mid paced, multi sectioned affair that basically sounds like Black Album era Metallica. The second is a more direct simple sort of tune that’s a loose copy of a decent classic rock band. I reckon these are the new ones. My friend Metal Ben reckons the new Deth album is a killer return to form and he described it to me as a loose concept album about how shit nu-metal is and how it’s time for the real deal. So I figure these celebrations of rock history in song form are the new ones. The third is fast, tricky 80s thrash with high-pitched divebomb solos. It is also way, way better.
So, yeah, they go on a bit. They play for a while. Phil gets a round of 3 CANS of Red Stripe (the only choice of beer available) that comes to TEN POUNDS FIFTY. That’s THREE FIFTY A CAN. That’s over 200% profit on shop price let alone trade price. I guess no one forced us to buy them though.
There are good bits – tasty Lizzy harmony leads. There are bad bits – mercifully brief bass solo. Occasionally Mustaine affects a crazy childish whine style of vocal that I presume represents the demons in his head. Or his inner child. He delivers a speech about Dimebag Darrell where he tells us he lost a friend (“though we never exchanged spit or Christmas cards”) and what he has learned from the experience, which is to “play every show like it’s your last”. I appreciate the sentiment but I have to be truthful and say I am not sure I believe him.
90 minutes in and no Holy War. Phil is restless. A stunningly beautiful black haired girl times her crowd surf perfectly and lands at the feet of Mustaine and gives him a wave. Dave turns to his guitarist and mouths something that I hope was “Still got it”. I am momentarily jealous of Dave.
The young man in front of us is busting out an air guitar solo. Seems like Megadeth are too as I can’t see a single microphone on their speaker cabs and more to the point I can’t see the speakers moving in them. I conclude the cabs are for show and they are plugged into crazy amp simulators. Either that or they are plugged into 5 watt Gorilla practice amps hidden at the back which would explain the sound.
They play a medley of older songs that simply serves to make you wish they’d played the whole songs, as they’re far superior, in comparison at any rate. Neil muses that
“We’re losing some solid gold in this medley” and shakes his head.
He informs me that the song we’re listening to has the same music as a Metallica tune that Mustaine reckons he wrote in his spell with the band before being kicked out for being a human pint glass. Neil and Phil explain in detail why the Megadeth song is superior. The Metallica version is about “horses and dungeons and dragons and knights and bullshit like that” whereas the Megadeth version examines how Mustaine is a mechanic and through his profession meets a lady mechanic who is better than him. A proto feminist anthem apparently, albeit one that uses piston crankshaft penis metaphors.
Some old dudes come on stage and sing backing vocals and even Mustaine looks a little puzzled and sheepish and it’s all over. No Holy War.
Phil looks sad.
But wait. An encore surely.
Mustaine thanks us even though he believes they played badly. Choice of band and material Dave, don’t worry. He informs us that he has only ever written one song in the UK and what’s more he wrote it in Rock City the day after “I shot my mouth off about Northern Ireland”. They play Holy War and it’s the best of the night by a mile.
I guess metal fans are easily pleased though. It was a fun night, I love big rock shows more for the spectacle and the hilarity of the way the performers and audience abide to set laws in an environment supposedly notorious for giving the finger to convention (the solos for each member, the thanking of the crowd for the band; the monotonous circle from back to front via crowdsurfing then back around again etc etc) but as a newcomer to Megadeth all I can think is what a gulf there is between their good and bad songs and how that gulf is either not noticed or very well ignored by the fans. More simply, how the fuck can you throw a devil horn pinky salute up for a BALLAD? And not even a good one. If the kids with the peach fuzz moustaches saw High On Fire they’d spontaneously combust. I get to thinking about how if Mustaine wants to give the finger to false metal he could do better than a band of ponces playing mid tempo rubbish. I reckon he has it in him to do it. He needs to see past the rock show world though.
I am snapped out of this by a sudden 360 degree stereo backing vocal onslaught. I turn around to see where the extra speakers are and think of how amazing it sounds and find Phil wailing the backing vocals in my ear.
The song ends and they take bows at the front of the stage before we’re ushered out so the club night can start.
Phil and Neil have got their coats on already. “Fuck this, let’s go”.
So we did.

A review for avant-garde left-field free-thinking music fans

Or; ‘I came for the guitar playing. But I stayed for the songs’.

Hello weird music fan. Nice hair.
Allow me to play the psychiatrist for a moment and tell you something about yourself.
You got into music when you were between the ages of 13 and 18. You started off on something relatively tuneful that you might still like because of a vague romantic nostalgia (i.e. Nirvana) but ultimately you feel you have developed your own tastes upward onto a higher plateau now.
Over time, the variables that you have to consider before you allow yourself to like a song have increased beyond ‘Does this rock?’, ‘Is this catchy?’ into complex equations involving influence, attitude, credibility, artistic vision, originality and quite possibly record label and band name and former bands of band members.
Once you liked the Lemonheads. Now you like Lightning Bolt, or maybe Wolf Eyes and Double Leopards.
It’s cool; I do too. I am not judging you. I’m talking to you as a friend.
I am also willing to bet as your tastes have developed you have recently begun to get less and less inspired by new music. It’s not surprising, you realise that if you’ve got a longer checklist to look at before letting a band affect you, then less bands will make the grade. Simple mathematics. But still, you’re going off music, it’s just not the same anymore. New bands are so yawnnnnnnnnn…
Well, I can help you out of the rot with this simple diagnosis:

YOU LIKE POP MUSIC

It’s OK. The first step to beating a problem is admitting it exists. You’re denying your brain the music it likes best. You have to sort it out before it’s too late.
Stop protesting, I don’t believe it. I saw you at the front of that Deerhoof show almost crying when they played L’Amor Stories. You probably saw me too doing the same thing. That’s because it is pop music through and through, difference is Deerhoof wrap it up in familiar noise and avant-isms so it’s OK. You think you’re there for the oddness but you’re really there for the pop. Stop arguing.
A second ago Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos came on Radio 2 (my choice of station at work) and you know what? It sounded good. I’d like to hear it back. If they’d invented a repeat button for radio I’d have pressed it. Tori Amos has nothing to do with my life but that one song was great. Admit it; you have the same feelings about songs.
It’s what makes you like one Lightning Bolt song more than another. Why you skip to Track 3 on Sonic Nurse. Why Moonlight On Vermont makes the hairs on your neck stand up whereas Hobo Chang Ba doesn’t. Or doesn’t as much at any rate.
It’s because some songs are catchy. The hook part (whatever makes it) of even the noisiest noise is still what elevates it from good to memorable.

Damn it, Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon is now on Radio 2 and that song is FUCKING AMAZING.

Don’t panic and go out and gorge yourself on the Beatles and Zuma by Neil Young. It’s been too long and you’ll probably damage yourself forever. That’s not the way to pull you out of this; it’s too abrupt. You need a graduated approach. If not, they’ll find you after a 3 week disappearance, flat out dead on the floor of your room in a set of high quality headphones with God Only Knows by the Beach Boys playing. You’ll literally die of tune. Your heart will burst.
Plus, your friends who might not be as far gone as you (or not realise it if they are) could take this sudden shift to the dark side badly.
What you need is an album that offers tune and experiment in equal measures.

So what’s this got to do with Wilco?

Well, Wilco make pop music. And, troubled avant-garde music fan, they are after YOUR vote.
What’s more you don’t have to do anything. I know how lazy you folks are. No effort is needed on your part. They’re driving round to your neighbourhood to win you over. A Ghost Is Born is the Wilco manifesto for perfect pop music made super tasty to all you arty types.
It’s going to sort you out.
Chances are you weren’t interested in Wilco around the time of the Summerteeth LP with the sublime single Can’t Stand It. I wouldn’t have been either were it not for a chance viewing of them on the TV playing the song at Glastonbury with more passion than any of the bands they shared the stage with that day.
You might have read reports about the follow up LP Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which succeeded in being strange enough to get them dropped from Warner Bros. That album is mighty let me assure you. David Fricke, the peculiarly-jawed never-ageing editor of Rolling Stone reckons that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is going to become some kind of catch-all term for substance over style, or for a band sticking to its creative guns in the face of adversity. He’s probably right. However, it cost Wilco dearly. They lost their original drummer part way through recording to be replaced by Glenn Kotche. After the album’s completion Jay Bennett, co-songwriter of some of the record, was fired. Then, after touring the record, multi-instrumentalist wiz Leroy Bach walked too (amicably) leaving just main man Jeff Tweedy and his former Uncle Tupelo sidekick John Stirratt as original members.
Jim O Rourke enters the picture here. He mixed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and joined up with Kotche and Tweedy as Loose Fur for an LP on Drag City (which in retrospect sounds like a trial run for this Wilco record, hardly surprising seeing that the two line ups are so similar).
This time O Rourke produces and lends instrumental talents too. But don’t be mistaken and think O Rourke has sprinkled his improv noise dust on this. It isn’t his contributions that shine out on A Ghost Is Born. His role is fairly transparent. What is going to draw you in at first, avant-garder, is the phenomenal guitar playing handled almost entirely by Tweedy.
My New Year’s resolution was
‘Step up to the plate and play. More guitar solos in 2005’.
Looks like Jeff Tweedy beat me to it. The solo on Hell Is Chrome sounds like it’s beamed in from another galaxy and it is completely, soul-stirringly perfect. I use that P term sparingly and mean it one hundred percent. Tweedy’s sense of melody is proven by his song writing track record but his ability to put aside the box format and constraints of playing guitar and transfer this melodic skill into his instrument has propelled the Wilco sound into a new world closer to Television or Neil Young at his most icy. Long thought of as the rhythm player in Wilco, Tweedy has indeed stepped up to the plate. But it’s the songs and (most importantly) how they’re put together and dealt with that makes the record so special.
Tweedy has spoken at length of the deconstructive writing process Wilco employ and it’s spectacularly effective here. A Ghost Is Born is a very apt title; I take it to mean the songs themselves are born and cemented as mere shadows of their ‘real’ form, as stripped back and removed as they can be without actually disintegrating. The reverence that lesser songwriters place on their efforts often shackles their ability to best do justice to their output. Wilco’s total lack of worry about diving in two footed and tearing apart their own music shows something much more than a perverse compulsion to sabotage that Warner Bros mistakenly thought they had identified when they decided to drop the band.
It shows an unflinching confidence in the quality of their songs. It’s like they are daring themselves to progressively destroy their songs more and more to see how far they can go before they ruin what they’ve made but knowing the quality is so high that the song will shine through. It shows a band on absolutely peak form, bulletproof in their collective decision-making and as a listener it’s thrilling.
Spiders apparently began life as an intricate and complex multi-chorded song. Tweedy himself says that if you played songs from Wilco’s first album and last album on an acoustic guitar there wouldn’t be much difference but it’s in the way they treat the sonic qualities of their songs that shows progression. It’s illustrated perfectly by this song, which is a great slice of pop stretched into a 10 minute long Kraut workout with the original chords supported only by Tweedy’s vocals and the musical backing reduced to a single chorded, drum machine backed, metronomic pulse interspersed with lyrical skronk guitar that Marc Ribot would be proud of. When the song finally breaks the groove and hits a change the effect is euphoric.
Take Less Than You Think as a case in point too. A beautiful song supplemented by an additional ten minutes of crackle and drone that may push the point too much but serves to further blur the boundaries of exactly who is in charge of this record. Using the somewhat crap mettarrfer of a record being an animal; lesser bands would have reigned this collection of songs in to control it and to stamp their mark on it enough to show everyone, with no doubt, that they made it and were in charge of it. Wilco ending one of their most sublime moments with 10 mins of automated noise, created by their instruments with no human input implies that, rather than trumpet their abilities loudly, they acknowledge that these songs come from somewhere else unique and that they’re not entirely in charge of their music. Like the album title it gives the feeling this album is an entity in its own right.
And when you think the album is over they deliver the warmly human Late Greats to close, which has the effect of a cute shoulder-shrug delivered after some earth-shattering revelation.
(sample lyric: ‘The best song will never get sung/The best life never leaves your lungs/So good, you won’t ever know/I never hear it on the radio/Can’t hear it on the radio‘)
I can’t think of another band who could deliver an album with two plus-10 minute tracks alongside perfect sub-3 minute pop diamonds like I’m A Wheel and not have those 2 polar opposites of composition sound like 2 polar opposites of song. With Wilco you feel they can do anything and it would all come from the same band.
Wilco fans and fans of song writing will love this record, the quality of the songs not only shines through the experimental action but is enhanced by it to a point where you honestly believe these songs are as good as they possibly could be. I’ll save them the sales pitch.
But you, Mr or Mrs left field; you have no excuse. Wilco are here to sort out your music hassles. They are even on the cover of the fucking Wire for god’s sake. And don’t give me that ‘I don’t really like the Wire’ line you loser. What’s more, when they tour the UK in March they have Nels Cline on guitar to propel Wilco to a 2 guitar line up to actually stop wars.
With A Ghost Is Born, Wilco have made a truly revolutionary record: a collection of songs that will reinforce the idea of bravery among their fans but more importantly remind us avantwankers why we love music so much in the first place.

Don’t say I don’t do anything for you.

Sorry this is a bit long. Happy new year etc. Check the links too…

A is for Aubergine Parmegana. The Aubergine is the prince of vegetables. I fried about 400 pieces of Aubergine for dinner with Ian MacKaye when the Evens played, with Neil Johnson whipping the kitchen in to shape like that weird dwarf dude with ginger hair and an underbite who’s on all the cooking shows on TV. The Evens were great too.

A is also for AOL: GO PISS UP A FUCKING ROPE YOU FUCKNUTS.

B is for Breaking my tooth on a 10p Pickled Onion Space Raider that I stole from Howe Gelbs dressing room egged on by the lovely Scout Niblett who was lifting all the booze. Serves me right for being a thief.

C is for Cass McCombs and specifically his wonderful song Not The Way. The man is a prince and after 2 beers he’s anyones.

C is also for Cunt Galactica.

D is for Damo. If someone told me in January that by the end of the year I’d be mates with Damo Suzuki from Can I’d have thought they were mental, not only that but I played guitar with him in a band that consisted of my best friends. It’s been said on diskant that watching the gig was life changing but being up there doing it was overwhelming. Mainly because I was so caned I could barely stand up.

D is also for Deerhoof, the best band on the planet, who gave us a sell out gig at a new venue in Nottingham and paved the way for Damn You!‘s best year yet, which coincidentally also begins with D.

E is for the Evil Egg. I was frying some on a Saturday morning with a very ugly head and I cracked one egg into the pan and what came out was black. I leaned over to look closer and the heavy smell hit me and I gagged. No one could get this evil out of the door because getting close to it meant instant vom. I can smell it now if I think about it. 2004 was the year of the Evil Egg.

F is for Festival. We put one on. It was fun. Still recovering. I was so stressed by the third day in that I started to grow a boil on my ass. Luckily it never blossomed.

G is for Getting so drunk that you cry for no reason. At anything. I’m talking about the kind of drunk where the end of Karate Kid can set you off on a weeping frenzy.

H is for High Heels worn with socks by ladies. The quickest way to my heart. Yeah?! Fuck you! I’m not getting any younger. Fuck subtlety. And while we’re on the subject I would get busy with Anne Widdicombe if she was wearing knee high boots. Sue me! I don’t care anymore!

H is also for Hoover who reformed, played on my birthday with Lords supporting and were amazing. Joseph McRedmond absolutely personifies the above ‘Fuck subtlety’ statement too.

I is for Insanity. I don’t want to sound like a Daily Mail reader but is it me or has the world gone apeshit?. A man gets onstage and shoots someone 4 times in front of his own brother. In the town I come from, a guy I went to school with slit a man’s throat in the town centre and then, obviously not satisfied with his night’s work, went into the park and raped a man. Yesterday, I read in the paper that 2 men kicked a man senseless and then drowned him in mud in a ditch. That’s horrific but to cap it all they then called his wife on his mobile phone and told her what they’d done. A totally random man, a father of 2, married for 20 odd years to his childhood sweetheart. That is insane. I hope the two guys spend the next 20 years of prison life getting anally ploughed on an hourly basis.

J is for James, Skip. No understatement but this man;s music sorted me out. They say the blues is healing music and I thought all that was bullshit but I’m so pleased it isn’t. Column about Skip written and on the way.

J is also for the Jazz as it is every year.

K is for Kevin Smith. In Japan all year and then finally home for Christmas and still as handsome as ever. Later on this evening I will go out in town with him and we will be beaten up by people we went to school with because of our ‘big city ways’.

L is for Lungfish. Finally got to see them and loved them to pieces. Next time I go to the beach with them in Camber Sands I will endeavour not to be ripped to the tits.

M is for Moving to Sneinton. It’s where all the hip cats are. And all the petty thieves. And all the David Lynchian bald women who urinate on shop windows.

M is also for Marshall, Chan aka Cat Power who wrote He War which is maybe the best song ever written.

N is for Nirvana and specifically the Kurt Was Murdered theory that overtook my life for about 3 months. Just got to see the DVD from the box set too and the Motor Sports show with Dan Peters on drums. I am stoked.

O is Oxbury, Kevin, an odious snivelling prick of a man who (quite rightly) sacked me from Powergen. Hey Kevin, if you’re reading this like you read all my other emails then eat a shit you retard.

O is also for Hey Ya by Outkast. That record is godlike. It is the great bringer togetherer. If it comes on the radio NO ONE will turn it off and that’s the first time a record has done that since Push It by Salt N Pepa. Please look at the link on this. Oy is just Yo backwards.

P is for John Peel.

P is also for PJ Harvey. Will someone get me the guitar job in this woman’s band? Please. What do I have to do? I’m being serious!

Q is for Quim, the most amusing and out dated piece of terminology for the female tuppence.

R is for Rockette Morton. I fucking met Rockette Morton! And Drumbo! On my wall is a Polaroid of me and Rockette and Drumbo scrawled ‘DRUMS BY DRUMBO’ across my copy of Trout Mask Replica.

S is for my 1986 Saab 900i which has rinsed my bank account of all funds in the last 10 months but will do 130 mph, has a heated drivers seat, and is the absolute SHIT.

T is for Telecaster. Not Travis Bean. This year has been the year of the 1973 Mocha Brown Telecaster Deluxe. No more broken back, no more math rock geekery. Woo hoo!

U is for Ulrich, Lars and the amazing Some Kind Of Monster documentary. FUCKIN A! I love Lars, I have loved him since A Year In The Life Of Metallica Part One and I will continue to love him forever.

V is for Very shitfaced which is what my Dad was when he vomited his false teeth down the hotel toilet on his wedding night. Chap!

W is for Woe, served up with a side salad of misery and a dessert of heart break.

W is also for 2004: Worst year of my life by some way.

X is for X-girlfriend. See above.

Y is for Y can’t I think of something beginning with Y?

Z is for ZZ Top, my bestest band in the world ever. On my bedroom wall is the 3 fold gatefold cover from Tejas with the 3 members portraits so as I snore loudly, get dressed or bang one out, Billy, Dusty and Frank are smiling down on me. 2004 was the year of ZZ Top, Cat Power and Skip James on my stereo.

Does anyone else find the line in Chain Reaction by Diana Ross where she sings

“I start to tremble when your hand goes lower”

really fucking creepy????

I maintain that this is one of the best albums ever made. I’ve gone on about it before on diskant but now we have this reviews column I can get to do it again. Here is a blow by blow account (no pun intended)…
Not to put too fine a point on things, this album was made in the most fucked up conditions possible. It’s worth reading a biography about the Mac to get the full picture but basically John McVie and Mick Fleetwood represent true survival instincts at work to the nth degree. The Mac had been through all kinds of insane line up changes and had to contend with guitar wiz Peter Green going AWOL on a mental acid induced religous freakout. If I’d recorded Oh Well and then my band broke up I’d probably think I’d done enough to go into the painting and decorating business and forget music.
But no, they recamp to LA, get Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham on board (as well as McVie’s wife Christine who’d been in the band for a while at that point). However, Buckingham and Nicks came as an item but were on the verge of what would be a messy break up that would last years. To make matters worse McVie was a total pisshead and his marriage was falling apart. Then Fleetwood steps in and gets it on with Nicks. Set this carnage to biblical cocaine abuse and it’s a minor miracle no one died making this record.
But what a record.
Second Hand News is such a great understated opener, I don’t think anyone needs too much guesswork to get the topic matter
‘Some one has taken my place’
But already you’ve got to think, he’s writing a song about his relationship breakup and then his ex comes in to sing on it. They must have been fucking mental – or utterly tweaked off their gourds. Look at Fleetwood on the back sleeve and you’ll maybe conclude the latter actually.
The Corrs did their best to shit all over Dreams but the original is a masterpiece. Buckingham’s guitar is the SHIT. I’ve said it before, the man is so under rated. So anyway, you get Buckingham singing his troubles away on the first track and then Nicks is giving it
‘Listen to the sound of your loneliness, like a heartbeat driving you mad/of what you had and what you lost’
It’s absolutely killer and before Nicks began parodying her own voice she had the most lush singing voice imaginable. Stevie – if you’re at home reading this online, let’s do lunch sometime.
Never Going Back Again is proof of Buckingham’s guitar skills if ever any of you total mongs needed them. Instrumentally this could be John Fahey but it’s coupled to – you guessed it – more defiant relationship break up lyrical trauma. I FUCKING LOVE THIS MAN.
OK, Don’t Stop is a little plodding, mainly due to the meat n 2 veg rhythm section. Buckingham’s giving it all though
‘YESTERDAY’S GONE’
he yells. He’s right. It’s a bit of a downer though but I guess it digs a trough just to make the colossal next song seem even greater.
Yep, Go Your Own Way.
They played this on their reunion video The Dance and Buckingham was ripping it. He was earning like a million dollars a nanosecond for that tour and he still had total fire, aiming the words out at Nicks. Imagine it, one week you’re conkers deep in Stevie Nicks, the next you’re not. That is bad. But then you have to see her every day and sing onstage with her. And to make matters worse your drummer is in there in your absence. But God, this song is good. The way it’s on the back foot for the verses and then out of the gate for the choruses. The bassline is amazing. The harmonies are perfect and the big Who style chords (reduced in the mix for maximum AOR effect but present in the live versions) are rousing. Actually, I take it back, Lindsey if YOU’RE reading this, let’s do lunch.
I am listening to Rumours as I write this and I am going to flip the needle back and listen to Go Your Own Way again and when it gets to Buckingham’s solo I am going to pretend I have a guitar and I am going to jump up and down on my bed like Alan Partridge when he sings Jet. Excuse me.
(OK, Songbird I can take or leave. I like Christine’s songs but mainly the rousing ones. It’s nice and all that but when you’ve had Buckingham/Nicks spitting fire, the kind of wistful window gazing approach is a little slight).
Side two. How can it possibly get better?
What the cock is this? Side 2 starts with a southern styled dirge, foot stomps and all. Maaaaan? What’s this?
‘If you don’t love me now, you’ll never love me again. I can still hear you saying, we’ll never break the chain’
Yeah right. I wish someone would break this chain. I mean the song is OK but where’s it going?
And then…
DANG! DA-DA DANG DA-DA DUH-DUH DAH DUUUUURRRRRR!
Woooooooooooooh!
Top Gear and the Formula One Grand Prix have given the ripping coda to this track something of a Jeremy Clarkson feel but that’s not the Mac’s fault. Get it? IT BREAKS THE CHAIN. Genius. I read that James Dean Bradfield likes the Mac. He wants to take some notes. I dare you not to play air guitar to this.
You Make Loving Fun is Christine’s best tune. She has this thing I call the Sleater Kinney Trick: a shit verse that serves only to make the chorus even better. It plods along, Buckingham cops a few guitar bits here and there, you know. But then it hits the chorus and it’s a winner. And of course it is. This is FLEETWOOD MAC. Plus, McVie is laying his bass down knowing that the tune’s about his wife banging the lighting manager.
Harsh.
I Don’t Want To Know is a bit wank. I admit it. I like it in the running order but again the rhythm section is a bit of a slog. Great harmonies. Like the handclaps too.
Oh Daddy starts and it could be Palace, seriously. Then Christine kicks in again. You can probably see I like the Buckingham/Nicks stuff most. It’s interesting to note John McVie always puts the effort in on his wife’s songs though. I guess they’re winding the album down at this point though. Fair play.
This Bible of music ends with the classic Gold Dust Woman. Admittedly it should have been called White Dust Woman as Nicks set about totally destroying her septum to the point where she allegedly employed a roadie to blow coke up her arsehole instead. It’s a corker. Like a mountain there are ups and downs with Rumours. There is a summit and there is a base. And like a mountain it is always glorious.
And there’s lots of snow too.

On Saturday I had my first experience of being a best man at a wedding. It was my Dad’s wedding which made it a little weird. Not blowing my trumpet but I have played to literally millions of adoring fans around the world as the rock star I am but I’ve never known nerves like waiting to give a best man’s speech. Fortunately I was drunk enough to pull it off.

We all stayed in the hotel where the wedding was. I flaked out early being the total lightweight I am but my Dad raged hard till 3 or so.

Next morning I came down to meet him and Anne for breakfast and noted early on that he was looking sheepish and she was talking for him. Weird. I immediately sized it up as being a case of him getting spannered and doing something stupid.

However, I didn’t bank on it being this good.

Anne informed us that he got in bed, felt a bit “rum” and then went to be sick in the toilet. Fair play, I thought, no shame in that.

Turns out though that in the morning Dad woke up feeling a little odd in the mouth and then realised that not only had he flushed several litres of prime chunder away when he pulled the chain, he’d also flushed away his false teeth.