Live - Idioteque

Idioteque (mp3) by Radiohead, live in 2003.

One of my favourite Radiohead songs, in fact one of my favourite songs regardless of artist and this is an excellent live version.

Live - Books From Boxes

The second single from the second album, Our Earthly Pleasures. If you don't already own that album you should do, and you can pick up Paul Smith's solo album Margins at the same time.

Books From Boxes (mp3) by Maximo Park, live on The Culture Show

Live - If You Wanna

The Vaccines have their debut album coming out 21st of March. I could go on about them, but they're so hyped I'm sure you've heard it all before and anyway, I'm pushed for time.

If You Wanna (mp3) by The Vaccines live on Later with Jools Holland.

Live - Naima

One of John Coltrane's most famous compositions he wrote this in 1959 and named it after his first wife, Juanita Naima Grubbs.

This performance comes from Antibes in 1965. Antibes is in southern France, home of the outdoor festival Jazz à Juan as well as an Absinthe Museum.

Naima (mp3) by the John Coltrane Quartet live in Antibes, 27th July, 1965.

The musicians on this recording are:

John Coltrane - Saxophone
McCoy Tyner - Piano
Jimmy Garrison - Bass
Elvin Jones - Drums

Live - Angola, LA & The 13th Amendment

Angola, LA & The 13th Amendment (mp3) by Christian Scott, live on the Jimmy Kimmel show, 10th of August 2010. This is from Christian Scott's new, and exceptionally excellent, album Yesterday You Said Tomorrow.

Today is Dizzy Gillespe's birthday and, although Christian Scott's trumpet playing is more like Miles Davis or sometimes Freddie Hubbard, they both play the same unusual shaped trumpet.

Dizzy Gillespie:

Christian Scott:


Plus there's no where near enough talk about Christian Scott.

Live - So Young

So Young (mp3) - Suede, live on Later with Jools Holland, 1993.

Along with REM Suede were the first band I ever really got into. Automatic For The People and Suede were on more or less constant play for me. My next door neighbour/close friend was listening to Fields Of Gold, it was the first time anything like music snobbery ever stirred in me.

Live - Cinemo Paradiso

Here's some live jazz from a piano trio that, for a change, isn't The Bad Plus. Of course everyone who reads this knows how much I love The Bad Plus, and I seem to have introduced/converted some of you to their greatness as well. However part of the reason I post jazz here is to introduce people who don't normally listen to jazz to exceptional music. The other part is because I still haven't got my jazz blog up and running yet.

Anyway. Here's the Marcin Wasilewski Trio. Contrast them to, say, The Bad Plus, or the Esbjörn Svensson Trio and it'll give you a good example of how different and versatile piano trio jazz can be. All three bands had the same instruments and play the same genre but their music is easily recognisable as different from the others. The thing that unites them is the quality of the music.

This interpretation of Ennio Morricone's composition is a very laid back, beautiful peice of music. It has Slawomir Kurkiewicz playing his contrabass with a bow to start the song and Michal Miskiewicz drums with brushes. These are two of my favourite sounds in music.

Cinemo Paradiso (mp3) - Marcin Wasilewski Trio, live.

Live - Invitation

Another week with little time and less blogging. I'm sorry to everyone who reads my blog, I'll make it up to you. I'm especially sorry to everyone who is waiting for me to reply to an e-mail, I will get back to you as soon as I can.

In the meantime here's some superb jazz to tide you over, Roy Hargrove's interpretation of the jazz standard Invitation. Invitation was composed by Bronisław Kaper for the movie of the same name.

Invitation (mp3) by Roy Hargrove, live.

Live - Cut My Wings

Seasick Steve just came out of nowhere, his popularity in Britain seeming to blossom overnight. From unknown to playing the Hootenanny in, seemingly, one small step his brand of electric blues was combined with the persona of an American stereotype that everyone here recognises. But the persona, 'real' or not, should distract from the music. To judge Seasick Steve on how he dresses in no different from kids jumping on popstars bandwagon's because of the way they look or TV viewers voting on X Factor because someone seems nice.

In truth not all of Seasick Steve's music is that great. Post-Dog House Music especially there have been songs that haven't worked, perhaps the albums wouldn't have gained the same level of attention and acclaim if not for the persona. Never mind, when he's on form his music is phenomenal.

Cut My Wings (mp3) - seasick Steve, live at Reading in 2007. Future historians will also be able to use this video to prove that once we did have sunny days in England, even if only in the south.

Live - Rapper's Delight

Remember when hip-hop was all about funk, when it featured disco beats and verses about bad meals at a friend's house? I am, of course, talking about Rapper's Delight, the first hip-hop record. It was released in late 1979 and the video, fashions and all, illustrates the era pretty perfectly.

Rapper's Delight (mp3) - The Sugarhill Gang, live.

Live - Remembering

I know I've been neglecting you all lately, so here's something by way of recompense.

Remembering (mp3) by the Avishai Cohen Trio

It's beautiful, delicate jazz that I think everyone will enjoy.

Live - Died In Love

Here's some more jazz for you, since last Saturday's selection went down so well. This is some of the best jazz I've come across recently. I'm not going to talk much about it, I think with this track it's best to let the music speak for itself. I'll just say that I think this track is something that can be enjoyed by those who like jazz and those who generally dislike it. It's a pretty good starting point for those of you who are new to jazz as well.

Died In Love (mp3) - Christian Scott, live at the Newport Jazz Festival, 9th of August 2008.

Live - Bloodbuzz Ohio

It wasn't my plan to not post earlier this week, but I've just been too busy. If you've e-mailed me I'm sorry I haven't replied yet, but I will very soon.

As part apology for my lack of posts this week here is The National playing Bloodbuzz Ohio live on Jools Holland. This song comes from the album High Violet which I have absolutely fallen in love with in a way that I very rarely do with an album. So if you don't own it I strongly recommend that you buy it at the first opportunity.

Bloodbuzz Ohio (mp3) - The National, love on The Jools Holland Show.

Live - Lord Help My Poor Soul

I'm going to take an educated guess here and say that you probably know Fionn Regan for his fantastic Mercury Nominated debut album The End Of History.

Or perhaps you know him as the possessor of the greatest bowl haircut since Luke Skywalker.



Either way, you probably haven't heard as much of his more electric guitar based music which can be found on his second album The Shadow of an Empire. The album has altogether more of a rock feel than his debut, which sits firmly in the acoustic singer-songwriter tradition.

Predictably there was plenty of criticism at his change of direction. I fail to see why this happens so much. Why do we expect musicians to make record after record sound the same. Don't we like these people because they are creative? To then complain when they don't just create slightly different versions of the same thing over and over seems to me to be fairly idiotic. If the new direction results in poor music then I can almost understand the criticism. But that's certainly not the case here. I think this song shows off the quality of his new material and, in particular, his guitar playing.

Lord Help My Poor Soul (mp3) - Fionn Regan (live at Dolan's, Limerick 6th March 2010)

Live - Crazy

Gnarls Barkley's Crazy must be one of the most covered songs of the last five years or so. Understandably so, it's a great and catchy song, hip-hop without rap and it features everyone's favourite producer Danger Mouse.

I remember first hearing it as a small clip on an advert for the Zane Lowe shop and being instantly impressed. A couple of days later I was walking home from work listening to the radio on my phone (my mp3 player wasn't working properly) when it was mentioned Crazy would be played in full in a few minutes on Radio 1 (one of three stations I could get on my phone's rather inadequate radio). I got home, managed to tune the radio on my ancient turntable to Radio 1 in time, listened to it, loved it, and bought it as soon as it came out. I have no idea why I didn't just listen to Radio 1 online.

This is a live version recorded on Top Of The Pops. It features five violinists, a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist and three backing vocalists as well as Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse. You may have seen this before, everyone is dressed as a member of an airline crew. If not, this is even better than the studio version. If you have, well, you already knew that.

Crazy (mp3) - Gnarls Barkley (live on Top Of The Pops)




This was meant to be posted last night, but I had some software problems. So as recompense for it being late here's a bonus track & video:

Crazy (mp3) - Gnarls Barkley (live Star Wars version)

Live - Defiance, Ohio

I featured The List by Defiance, Ohio and because it was pretty popular and because I think more people should listen to them I decided to post some more of their music for you to here.

And because I'm far too good to you/I couldn't choose here are two live tracks.

First here's Condition 11:11:

Condition 11:11 (mp3) - Defiance, Ohio (live at The Fest VI)



and next is Hair Pool:

Hair Pool (mp3) - Defiance, Ohio (Pink Couch Session)



I hope you'll enjoy them both.

Live - Childish

I'm sure we all know some-one who fits the description offered in this song to a tee.

Childish (mp3) - Damien Rice

Live - Ecstasy

Ecstasy is one of those words that even when spelled correctly looks misspelled to me. So does misspelled for that matter.

Anyway. Ecxtasy comes from Lou Reed's album, also called Ecstasy, that was released in 2000. I love this album because it's a grown-up album. Nothing annoys me in the same way as bands full of teenagers/early twenties singing about love. When Lou Reed sings about it it's clear he knows what he's singing about.

The title track fits that description well. It's a love song, mostly it's about loss and regret. It's still a love song. This version was performed live on US TV. It's got slightly different instruments and arrangement from the album.

If you need any further encouragement to watch the video there's even a guy playing body percussion which is both excellent and amusing at the same time.

Ecstasy mp3 - Lou Reed, live on US TV

Live - Everlong

Although this is a Foo Fighters song at a Foo Fighters concert it's really an acoustic David Grohl solo performance. Being acoustic it is of course much more stripped back than the version and because of that it's a very sincere performance. It's absolutely lovely, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Everlong mp3 - Foo Fighters

Live - Everywhere You Turn

This is just perfect. the Bad Plus at the height of their considerable powers, always a recipe for great music. As much as I enjoy their recordings with Wendy Lewis it's good to listen to the trio play without vocals as well.

It starts off with just the drums, (is there a better drummer than Dave King at the moment?), quiet and subdued, and slowly and seamlessly grows into an absolute epic song as the rest of the band join in. The video's exceptionally well shot, it's worth watching this instead of just downloading the mp3.

Everywhere You Turn (mp3) by The Bad Plus