Straight away I have to come clean and admit that this mini album is a few years old now but only a recent discovery for me after experiencing several exhilarating live performance.  Not owning this release until now ultimately is several years my loss as I genuinely love this release.

Spread over seven tracks Scorpio Scorpio is a mean motherfucker from Australia, very much in the Mark “Chopper” Read mold with no mould, a one man assault system with a twisted sense of humour and a vocabulary turns the air blue. 

The life of a one band as described/explained by Leo Sayer many years ago is a tough and lonely road of existence.  It is made even lonelier when you are selling drugs and performing bank jobs.  To combine drum n bass with guitars in this manner truly is something of a criminal act, like an Australian Devo on crystal meth, packing to settle nerves.

Scorpio Scorpio is the king of the infectious blast of aggression, slamming/smashing electro music fires through in a lo-fi industrial style as jagged guitars like parchments of AC/DC feedback with hooks aplenty. 

The real strength of the release is in the lyrical content that is spat out like bullets – this is pure poetry in its execution.  Opening track “Utility (You And Me)” verges on pure pop perfection, following the announcement “fuckin’ turn it up”, Scorpio Scorpio calls out the listener “have a go” before using the basic genius principle of having a chorus including “na na na na na.”  It just works!

With song titles as “Ayatollah Rock’N’Roller” and “Cobra (Knobya)” it would take a very stone faced person not to find humour in this record, the type of person that may have experienced a fatality at the hands of Mr Scorpio Scorpio himself.  There are no innocent bystanders connected with this music, especially when “Cobra (Knobya)” is concerned. 

The one sad flaw of this record are the high fidelity qualities, they are sadly lower than such a collection deserves.  For some this could prove a spoiling point but for others this may even make the music.

Thesaurus moment: schismatic. 

Scorpio Scorpio

I reprinted all my posters:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157594212951999/

and did some limited prints of some of the illustrations I’ve done for Plan B.

Slight price increase to £5 each for the posters or any 3 for £12 (Plus postage)

I like this Muxtape lark. Here’s a new one I did for knuckling down to work to with some obvious choices and even some Eric Clapton: http://sumlin.muxtape.com

Toots & The Maytals – Pressure Drop

Althea & Donna – Uptown Top Ranking

Dave & Ansel Collins – Double Barrel

The Meters – Cissy Strut

Talking Heads –  Once In A Lifetime

ZZ Top – Snappy Kakkie

Muddy Waters – Mannish Boy (Electric Mud version)

John Lee Hooker – I’m Leaving

Bo Diddley – Hey! Bo Diddley (live)

Koko Taylor – Wang Dang Doodle

Blind Faith – Had To Cry Today

Dr John – Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommm_sykes/2436782237/

http://www.myspace.com/summerlin 

Last 6 mins or so of Bilge Pump in Bletchley. Unbelievable.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAOkyCyKVbA[/youtube]

http://sumlin.muxtape.com/

There you go, couldn’t rename the tracks as it keeps telling me there’s an error so here’s the tracklisting:

• Neil Young – Cinnamon Girl
• Jimi Hendrix Experience – Killing Floor (live)
• The Sonics – Have Love, Will Travel
• Oneida – Doin Business In Japan
• MC5 – Looking At You
• Ike & Tina Turner – Untitled
• Yardbirds – Stroll On
• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Diddy wah diddy
• Sebadoh – Flame
• The Elastik Band – Spazz
• The Buffalo Springfield – Mr. Soul
• Howlin’ Wolf – Wang Dang Doodle

The internet in “bloody good idea actually” shocker. Muxtape allows you to upload songs you like to make an online mixtape, which can be shared with friend and foe alike. Check out mine, and post your own. 

Just got back from a week in a van with Bilge Pump and the other Lords. I’ll spare you a lengthy tour diary and instead point out that if you want to see 8 people slowly crumbling then I’ll stick a few photos up every day over here at my Flickr site:

www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin

If you took any pics of any of the gigs then let me know or email me them or something and I’ll stick them up.

I cannot get a grip, this time last week it was snowing and the snow was settling, it was the most terrifying Easter I had ever seen. Thank Christ BBC took it upon themselves to show High School Musical 2 and pacify me with dreams of a golden future for my impending offspring (impending as in within the next ten years)

And now the clocks the have changed and this is officially British summertime? If its not raining now, it certainly has been and yet I still need to have my window open because it is still too fucking warm for me. Is this the way it is supposed to be?

I’ve finished with the music industry. I left just before Easter just on the verge of being the tour accountant this summer for one of my heroes and also for a Glastonbury/T In The Park/V headliner. I had had enough. Music has sickened me in the past but this was a new low, the escape had to be done. Unwisely to escape having to work out my notice I accused them (the industry) of constructive dismissal, a claim that could carry no weight considering my previous adventures with employers (that bloody book, I have done bugger all to push it this year).

I haven’t been pissed for months, this weather does not want it. The last time I “went for it” I wound up being sick in the pub and ended up at a loved one’s flat hurling bullshit and abuse at her in a comedic fashion before passing out on her sofa only to awaken in the morning with my trousers off having ruined ANY final opportunity to rekindle anything. Its all about the manager of S******lor for her now, how could I compete with that talented bunch of original artists

Which all in all moves me to my current listening tastes. I was excited this year about new records from Nick Cave and The Breeders but neither have really cut it. Nick Cave was great for a few weeks but my enjoyment has been somewhat tarnished by everyone and their arsehole saying what a great return to form it is. Dude, never lost it.

And The Breeders record just is not grunge. I sense it is a real slow burner, after this initial downer, the songs are growing subtly in my mind now and will probably remain there all summer, when it finally arrives. I have been listening to old Breeders bootlegs from the Last Splash era and they’re some of the most exciting live sets I have ever heard. I have even been revisiting their lyrics and fallen in love with simple first lines such as “I like all the different people, I like sticky everywhere” along with the beautiful way “oh c’mon, nobody wants that!” on Iris.

As I yearn my first big weekend the record that has really grabbed me is Aidan John Moffat’s this may be the soundtrack to my summer. I really regret how undervalued Arab Strap were to me after their first two records because their words are pure poetry. It is ridiculous how I found myself still surprised and shocked by “I Can Hear Your Heart”, its a no-brainer. I cannot remember which was the last record to make me laugh out loud but the current one is this. When I played a track around my parents’ yesterday and the stringed intro to track three came in to the response of my Father that’s nice, I just knew I had to skip a track entitled “Cunts”. This is not subtle but its painfully close to the bone. The dissection of Grease and the aftermath is pure grit realism and for some reason right now I need this attitude justified and confirmed to me. It may be the most negative take on existence but it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily wrong or unacceptable. Love will ruin a person, damn near kill them when it falters and goes wrong. I have also seen positive love/relationships stunt and kill the spirit of pure/real men. In other words, these words are essential.

She has cut me dead this year, the lady I fell for last Nov/Dec only to have stomp on my heart and ruin my 2008 but at least this confirms I am not alone and proves that there is a way of finding humour in the most debasing and humiliating of moments. Flirt divert.

As the rain comes humbling down and the words “summer is ready when you are” tickle my mind, I strive further looking for something the least bit summer and this perhaps unwisely finds me digging out my copy of The Punch And Judy Man – that has a happy ending doesn’t it?

Guitars are funny things. They break a lot. It can be very upsetting to say the least.  Taking it into your local Enormostore isn’t exactly the best idea and you don’t often find quality guitar repairers in the Yellow Pages.  Luckily for you, if you live within a few hundred miles of Nottingham, luthier and general life-saver Andy Farrell has finally got with the 21st century and has a website so you don’t have to go through the strange Masonic rituals that I had to go to to to find him when Wolves Of Greece were going through a guitar every 2 months.

Andy’s a rare commodity in the guitar world. As anyone who has ever gone into a guitar shop will tell you it’s possibly the only area of consumer goods where the old saying “the customer is always right” doesn’t apply. Most people who work in the world of guitars are either frustrated musicians, former Guitar Institute students, snobs or arseholes. Or a delicate combination of all of the above. Andy, on the other hand is as far removed from that stereotype as possible. And what’s more he once chinned someone in Academy Of Sound which puts him at the top of my estimations anyway.

He’s done countless repair jobs for me as well as for pretty much everyone connected to the Gringo Records label. He’s done work for nearly all of my guitar-playing friends at some point or another even managing to permanently re-assemble the infamous Telescopes guitar where others had failed when it snapped for the 4th time. He should really put on his website that he restored the Telecaster used by Franz Ferdinand from a right old shitty state a few years ago.

So, there you go. Loads of you play guitar, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t sneer or talk down to you and can offer you good impartial advice and make your gear work as well as it can.

So looky here: www.andyfarrell.co.uk