Melvins - Hooch EP (1993)

This is the first single The Melvins released after being signed by Atlantic (on the recommandation of Kurt Cobain). For Melvins fans (I was), it was therefore the follow-up to "Nightgoat". Actually, the version I post here is not the single 2-song version released in the US but a CD 4-song version released in Australia. Instead of the album-featured "Sky Pup", the EP consists in a cover of the MC5 ("Rocket Reducer"), of the Germs ("Lexicon Devil") and a live captured version of "It's Shoved" (from a February 1993 concert). Not seminal but rare enough to deserve attention from FS. "Hooch" was associated with a video clip (see below, full of X-ray images of Buzz singing) and was far from being the hit Atlantic surely was expected (naive they were, "Hey, it was the Melvins"). Sorry for my present Melvinomania, but I can't listen to anything else for the last 2 weeks, so the blog mirrors this obsession. More to come from these gigantic monster of heavyness that deserved to be on Atlantic. Enjoy it here. PS. Note that the 3 EP bonus songs would be included the next year on a promo EP with "Lizzy" in main song (same version than on Houdini).

Melvins - Eggnog EP (1991)

Another one, played yesterday evening in Paris. Released after the Bullhead LP (and just before the 3 Kiss-like cover solo EPs), this one consists in 4 songs, 3 rather punky and short, and the fabulously heavy "Charmicarmicat", a sort of pre-Lysol demo in which drone, doom and sludge meet for the best. There are so many bands in the last 20 years that should pay credit to this song that it can be considered as foundations. More to come from the rather complex Melvins 7" and EP discography. Meanwhile, blow your last neurons with this one here.

Melvins - Night Goat / Adolescent Wet Dream 7" (1992)

This is the first of a series of Melvins singles and EPs. Don't know whether they are rare or expensive and I don't really care, I want the Melvins to be in FS next to the Bastards and some other noise bands of the great 1988-1994 period. Of course the Melvins are much more than a noise band of this small time span, and can be considered the fairies leaning over the doom and the grunge craddles. But it's true tha"t for me their creative peak was reached during this period. Since I go to see them play 5 of the EP-LP tomorrow in Paris, and listen to them constantly for the last 2 weeks, it's normal some of it appears here. For the first post, I chose one of their greatest tracks, "Night Goat", in its first issued version (there will be another one on Houdini one year later and many more live later). It's like waves from a noise ocean crashing on our ears and minds, it's like an orgasm coming in that we are trying to delay for increasing the sensation. The band was on the verge to be signed by Atlantic and to face their only short trip in the corporate business. I can't imagine music more timeless than this. Enjoy it here. The Buzz picture below is from 1992.

JFG and friends - Golden Oldies (2002-2010)

If you're a regular visitor of FS, you know how I dig JFG, one of the rare singer-songwriter of the last decade to make me feel the way I felt about Dan Treacy, Mark Perry, Peter Perrett or Nikki Sudden in the 80's. Unfortunately, he (hitherto) did not meet any moment of glory and sure living in France did not help. Now he's relocated in Berlin and he just opened a record store called Foxhole (weserstrasse 179 Neukölln, see picture below) and I hope he'll find in this town a better place to live than in this rotting country. Kevin Coyne and Nikki Sudden did, no reason jfg doesn't. Here is a compilation of covers he did in the first decade of the century with various line-ups. He always succeeds in making others songs his. A treasure in which everyone can grab sound pearls. Good luck to him for the future. His bandcamp page here (his last EP is a masterpiece). Previous posts there. Below, in streaming, a personal subjective selection covering the various styles of the LP. Enjoy this great compilation here.Link has been fixed.

Procol Harum - As Strong As Samson / The Unquiet Zone 7" (1975)

Strange single actually. First because it was released after their album Ninth whilst recorded for their previous one, one year earlier (i.e., Exotic Birds And Fruits). Strange too because they had already issued in single one song from Ninth ("Pandora's Box"), with a rather public success (n°16 in UK, their highest position since "Conquistador" live orchestra version in 1972), and since the album (a rather weak one) was more commercial-inclined than the previous one, one would have expected the next single to be extracted from it. But someone (who?) decided to release as A-side of the new single a rearranged version of the strong "As Strong As Samson". Unfortunately, this version, with a dispensable slide guitar on it, was certainly doomed to pass unoticed in 1975 (prog, disco and soul-rock are here for 2 years). Anyway, this is interesting to post it, often the LP version being wrongly substituted to this one. Moreover, I added another alternate version (slower, longer, with the slide guitar but in another key) that was added as a bonus track of the Salvo reissue of Exotic Birds And Fruits in 2009. On the B-side, "The Unquiet Zone" version is the same than on Ninth I never liked the production work of Leiber and Stoller and they ruined what could have been a far better song in Chris Thomas hands. Meanwhile, enjoy this interesting document here. PS. Of course I am the one to blame for this cover sleeve (don't even know the name of the painter...).

Robyn Hitchcock - Harry's Song / My Rain fake 7" (2013)

Long time I didn't create a fake single with 2 songs from a newly released LP (and often it was with Robyn Hitchcock too) but here I feel the need to do it since if times were not so rottenly tasteless and music business so stinky, it would be an evidence to issue "Harry's Song" on the A-side of a single (and the great "My Rain" as a perfect B-side). So, approaching to the last part of my life (and maybe more if a damn fatal disease will precipitate my extinction), having failed in almost all the domains of life, it seems for me one of my rare left mission to do this. Modest for sure but better than nothing. Don't forget Robyn Hitchcock has a new LP out called "Love From London" and that it is an excellent album. Even if it was not that good it would be a mandatory acquisition since earing a new record from him is like reading the new volume of a diary published in book of one beloved author. Enjoy this gem here.

The Unthanks - Starless And Bible Black / No One Knows I'm Gone fake 7" (2011)

I re-uped this one yesterday after a visitor told me the link was deleted. Don't know if this was deleted by rs by demand or not (I forgot to read the message...). If you're interested, try not to wait too long. It could be deleted again soon. Note that the Unthanks are releasing a Live LP of their recent Songs from the Shipyards Trilogy. Surely great but for me this cover of the king Crimson classic is their masterpiece. Below what I wrote in the initial post (exactly 2 years ago, God this is crazy, death is coming at fast speed, give me my bible black that I can pray for mercy in this starless night).

The last (it's actually it's name) album from The Unthanks will surely be my album of the year. I listen to it for more than 2 months now, and I seriously doubt there will be something that will move me more till December. The previous one was quite a success but this is a total masterpiece, maybe the album that succeeds to give a successor to the Robert Wyatt cult Rock Bottom LP (not yesterday as you know). Interestingly, the Unthanks sisters had done a cover of "Soup Song" from this album, but here it's a similar climax over a whole LP. Not a weak note in it, and some moments you feel you hear something that few were able to reach. So is their cover of King Crimson's "Starless & Bible Black" (the real title, that KC didn't use cos' the previous LP wore this name). I am quite an amateur of trumpets in rock (see recently the superb Foxhole album I posted on this blog here), but here it's like this intrument was directely connected to my spinal chord and makes me shivering like a child naked in the snow (and of course without his mum). I think John Wetton, the happy father of this song, must be proud to hear it sung and played this way. This is why I did this fake 7" with a Tom Waits song on B-side (No One Knows I'm Gone" from Alice LP), another excellent rendition. But honestly, it's just for a taste and buy cos' I wonder how it's possible not to get this album this year. I took a picture from privatedanser to do the cover sleeve, the same who did the picture I took for the Back Street Crawler live LP here. Meanwhile enj..., shiver it here.

Starless & Bible Black. Sundown dazzling day gold through my eyes but my eyes turned within only see starless and bible black old friend charity cruel twisted smile and the smile signals emptiness for me starless and bible black ice blue silver sky fades into grey to a grey hope that oh years to be starless and bible black

Television Personalities - Wonder What It Was / Radiohead Song 7" (2011)

This is THE last Television Personalities single. A visitor was true when he corrected me after I wrote it was  "You're My Yoko". Actually, it's not clear whether it's an official one (only released in Formosa, with 2 songs recorded during the Memory sessions) but after all in the 90's there were also semi-official singles considered now as historically equivalent to the official ones. On side-A, it's a demo version of  "Walk Towards The Light" (the 4th song on Memory LP). Dan Treacy is alone on guitar. Moving, intimate, everything we love in this artist. On side-B it's a very good instrumental that deserved to be released. I bought the single very recently. It's not the one above, mine in number 554. I tried to capture the A-side with the best possible quality. The B-side was found on the net. Enjoy it here.

Nikki Sudden - Gold Painted Nails (Vocals) / Missionary Boy (Nikki Sudden Vocals) fake 7" (1983)

I had not created a fake single for quite a long time now. But I felt the need to do it with these 2 songs recorded during the Bible Belt sessions by Nikki Sudden and his enlarged band of mates for several reasons. First, cos' it was a strange idea to open the album with the instrumental version of "Gold Painted Nails" when it was clearly a good vocal song to open an LP with, and also a good candidate for an A-side single. So I did it. Next, because, even if the "Missionary Boy" version of Bible Belt sung by Lizard was good, it would have been more logical to put the version Nikki Sudden sang. Since reading the liner notes of the Strictly Canadian Bible Belt reissue, it seems he was sure it would be a hit, it's justice to put it on a single (what he omitted to do, an important point to make a song a hit). So here's a nice duo (from this reissue), closing the first solo period of Nikki Sudden. Afterwards, he would share partnerhip with Dave Kusworth in The Jacobites. Great too but never again we will hear from him this innocence and spontaneity. To do the cover sleeve, I used a picture from Kendra Nanayuki (her deviantArt gallery here) who is creating 3D nail art. I'm sure he would have liked it (at least I hope he would). Enjoy it here.

And 25 years later, it finally was it.

Unfortunately, she had a prolific descendance, and the guillotine that beheaded our king, could be useful for all the Thatcher's today political bastards who put Europe in this mess.

Melanie - An evening at the Paris Theatre (1975)

This is the 31st post about Melanie. You wouldn't believe if I said I'm not a Melanie-addict. Actually I can't say I am. It's by periods. Recently I had lost the need to listen to her. But finding 3 bonus songs from this Paris Theatre set recorded for the BBC on 6 November 1975 reactivated my will to have her music with me again. I say bonus songs since 10 from this concert had been released in 1997 by Strange Fruit label on the BBC series sporadic editing. But a bootleg with a perfect sound added 3 songs played at the same set and therefore here a13 song-setlist to listen to. Note that this concert was recorded on the same month that the Musikladen one (here). Never Melanie would be more folkish and intimist than in this concert. Gone is the European Eastern flavor, here it's pure American folk music. Moreover gone is the little girl in a woman body that seems to be her trademark. She's a mother and more a priestess than anything else. At the time, it was quite a suicidal evolution, but today, it's a passionating testimony of one of her constant changing mood. Another interesting information is the setlist. It's clear than in 1975, she's not yet the Woodstock lady having to sing her old successes to the audience, and that she was still able to present her current work, although she gives reworked versions of some of her older songs (notably "The Nickel Song", totally transformed in a folk declamative song). There are some highlights ("Here We Go Again", "Leftover Wine" and "Pretty Little Baby", all in streaming below) but I think every Melanie fan would have his/her own list. The fact there was a second guitarist gives the songs a much richer musical box than when she's alone. Enjoy it here. I created (what a surprise) a new cover sleeve. Not bad I have the weakness to think.

Procol Harum - TV Danish (1974)

A week I had not posted. I fear it will be more and more this way. Not that I don't have anything new (actually old) to post, not that I'm becoming bored with the fastidious process of ripping records, formating the MP3, doing the cover sleeve, uploading the whole and creating a post (actually it bores me a bit I must admit), but the main reason is growing professional stuff on my shoulders. I should be happy to have a job, many in my age range are jobless and life has been rather kind with me, with my small capacities I could have had a worst destiny. But you're not there to read about my uninteresting life (and what is left of it). Here the promised Procol Harum post from the Danish TV show captured in November 1974, 4 months after the Dallas radio show previously phere). Here we find the band in a stunning form. Actually, I think 1974 was THE year for PH. There was a sort of exhilaration in their way to play, and Gary Brooker wording during the instrumental parts was particularily jubilatory. And BJ Wilson was THE boss but this you all knew already. Enjoy this formidable document here (added on the CD reissue of the Hollywood Bowl show and on the DVD version of 2006 Danish show with orchestra, but not on the CD). And below some videos from the TV show found on youtube. The cover sleeve was again taken from a Masaki Yada painting, whose universe fits well with PH one (at least for me).

Television Personalities - You're My Yoko / The Girl From Nowhere 7" (2009)

Last official single released by Dan Treacy, 4 years ago, the A-side, with it's weird reference to Yoko Ono (surely for the pleasure of playing with "Oh no") would be on A Memory Is Better Than Nothing the next year but under the name of "She's My Yoko". Actually, I'm not sure it's completely the same version so I was careful to put the single source. On the B-side, the Velvetian "Girl From Nowhere" seems like a swansong in which Dan Treacy disappears forever, caring no more how he sings and what the fuck is going on, like in our last moments when we think "oh let it go". The instrumental final with oboe is really gorgeous. Music should always be like this or not be. Enjoy it here.

Nikki Sudden - Channel Steamer / Chelsea Embankment 7" (1982)

This is what I call a good post. Not that the 2 songs of the second Nikki Sudden solo single are top ones, but because the version of "Chelsea Embankment" on the B-side is in no way the album version (which was on Bible Belt). It's a weird version played only by Nikki Sudden apparently in a pub or somewhere similar, with a first part backwards and a second part rather approximately sung and played. But anyway, it has, to my knowledge, never been released as bonus on any reissue (vinyl or CD) and therefore is a rarity that fits perfectly with the concept of this blog.  Ripped from a vinyl I found recently. The A-side is a post-punk song that had few chance to be noticed in 1982. Not bad but rather basic. However, enjoy this single here.

Procol Harum - Live on KZEW Dallas (1974)

Sometimes I wonder if recording in a perfect quality all the concerts Procol Harum played between 1968 and 1977 would not have been necessary. And to release them afterwards in a voluminous boxset one of the best historical achievement in rock music. Because in each show during this fabulous decade, the band seemed to re-invent itself and proposed something different, very slight mood changes that could completely modify the way we heard and felt the songs. Here the band is in its dynamic mood, which was often the case when he played for radio or TV (later I'll post a Danish TV show which was similarly tonic). Recorded on the 4th of July in a Dallas radio (KZEW), it's not a very rare testimony, often bootlegged, but anyway, the sound is very good and some of you may ignore the existence of this recording. I've created a cover sleeve for it, once again with a Jakob Bogdani painting (the painter they used for the Exotic Birds and Fruits album, released that same year and from which they take many of the setlist songs). Once again, it's an opportunity to hear what a fantastic drummer was BJ Wilson. May he never be forgotten even when people from my generation who had the privilege to seem him play live will be dead. Enjoy it here.

Television Personalities - My New Tattoo / Funny He Never Married 7" (2009)

I forgot to specify that the 2 previous TVP singles ("Good Anarchist" and "People Think That We Are Strange") were released in Spain whereas this one (in May 2009) was a US release. Not sure it was possible that this psyche-cosmic song with not really serious lyrics (I sincerely hope you'll like my new tattoo) could have made it there but after all it was Dan Treacy and anything from him was better than nothing or most thing from other ones. Although the single featured the Edit version, I don't like to put cut versions of songs so I enclosed the complete version (7 min long in the file). Unfortunately the B-side was not the occasion to have a non-LP track since "Funny He Never Married" would be on A Memory Is Better Than Nothing LP the following year. But this song is such a wonderful moment of emotion that nobody would mind, somewhere between Robert Wyatt, J. Mascis and Neil Young, but totally Dan Treacy, with this childlike way to approach melodies that has never been reached by anyone else. Since I decided to post all the singles and EPs from the first decade of 2000, it's a good opportunity to put some light on this forgotten treasure. Enjoy it here.

Madness - Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da Live on the UK Arena Tour (2012)

Yesterday the word was Sadness when I arrived at the Trianon for the band concert. I should have been with my son but he finally declined to come and to be here alone made me jumped in a sea of... sadness actually. Did the band was able to change the "s" in "m"? Only partially. My life is so tightly linked with the songs of this incredibly underrated band (actually in France where they are too much considered as an entertainment and dance burlesque ensemble) that often the thrill to hear the melodies and orchestrations (always perfectly played, and I saw them 3 time over the last 4 years) was mixed with some nostalgia and awful feeling of all these years passed by and things irremediably lost. So here, this free downloadable testimony the band has generously (a word that suits them perfectly) provided last christmas. It shows that they are not living on their past but always creating (even if their last album doesn't reach the genius of the the fantastic Liberty of Norton Folgate). Enjoy it here. Below a picture from last evening show at the Trianon and more here.

Procol Harum - Welcome At The Grand Hotel / Live At The Hollywood Bowl (1973)

This is an upload of the same concert than previously posted here under the name of Delicado, which is the famous symphonic show at the Hollywood Bowl of Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic and the Roger Wake Chorale. The difference is the much improved sound on this version, not far to be equivalent to an official release. And since the setlist and the playings are still better than with the Edmonton Orchestra 2 years before (that gave the still more famous official live LP), it's not far to be one of the best LP ever released in history, even if non officially. Note that there is a mystery which is the usual mistake done about the date of the show, often said to be on the 4th of August when it was on the 21st of September. I did the mistake on my Delicado's post (but the mistake is on the cover too) but I'll change it right after this one. If I called the show and the LP Welcome In The Grand Hotel, it's because it was the poster announcement for the further shows (the one I created the cover sleeve with) and that it's true that 4 of the songs are from Grand Hotel which had been released 6 months earlier. The title suits after all quite perfectly to the general atmosphere of this incredible performance in which  BJ Wilson and Mick Grabham are particularly brilliant. Note that this version has been released last year on CD (actually a bootleg) by a French label called On the air. I would like to deeply thank Jean Marc Devaux, leader, singer, guitarist and composer of the band Astral Quest (see here, notably for his superb version of Procol's "Long Gone Geek", and more to come) to have sent it to me. Enjoy this aural jewel here. Pictures of the show come from here. Below I selected 4 songs for the  streaming sample (I'm too generous with you, you should dl it without even listening to it beforehand).