My Favourite Albums - Hometowns

Hometowns is the debut album from The Rural Alberta Advantage. Released in 2008 and then re-released in 2009 after the band signed with a new & bigger label.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, from here on out I'll just refer to them as The RAA, is a three piece Canadian band made up of Nils Edenloff, (guitar and vocals), Amy Cole, (backing vocals, keyboards and percussion), and Paul Banwatt (drums).

Amy Cole, Paul Banwatt & Nils Edenloff (l-r)

If you read the last installment of Sunday Music you'll have seen, and heard, Don't Haunt This Place from Hometowns. It's one of my favourite songs from the album but it's not necessarily representative of the whole album, at least musically. I'm not sure there is one song that's representative of the musical styles on the album.

 The Dethbridge in Lethbridge

Lyrically however the album covers the same ground regardless of the music. The songs are about longing for something lost. A man in Toronto looking back at his past in Alberta and writing about that. So the lyrics are about things lost. Things left behind. A simpler way of life that we have when we're younger; soon enough to be replaced by the more complicated adult world. And it's a world that can never be revisited. Even if you go back to those places you've changed even if the places haven't. It's nostalgia, the remembering of things we loved that are gone.

Four Night Rider

Of course the problem with nostalgia can be that it leads to a refusal to grow up. Always looking back at the past is the easiest way to miss the present. This is not a trap that I personally feel Hometowns fall into. It's not an album about nostalgia as much as it's an album about living. Partially of this comes from the lyrics but mostly I think it comes from Paul Banwatt's drumming. All three members of the band are skilled musicians worthy of praise and the band works together in a perfectly complimentary way. All that said; Banwatt may be the best drummer around at the moment. In my opinion he's certainly vying with The Bad Plus' Dave King for the title. His drumming is always flawless, always driving the band along but never straying to far ahead. It gives the album a much needed vitality.

Luciana

Nils Edenloff's vocals do somewhat sound like Jeff Magnum's. The RAA however aren't another band trying to be the next Neutral Milk Hotel; they are just uniquely themselves and Hometowns is the perfect, (I know I've over-used that word), and expression of that. In a world where it's easier to tear things down and make snarky, pithy comments, (something I am very guilty of) this is a sincere album by a sincere band. If there is one song that perfectly sums up this album it's In The Summertime. A song about the past, dealing with the present optimistically, and looking forward to the future. Driven along by Banwatt's heartbeat drumming accomponied by Amy Cole's keyboards and finishing off the song, and the album, with her vocals.

In The Summertime

Your music collection is a much poorer place without Hometowns.

My favourite albums - Juxtapose & listening to Tricky

If you've been reading the weekly Sunday Music posts you know that for the last few weeks I've been posting Tricky songs every week. The problem is, that's only one or two songs out of six I post on a Sunday. Here's a solution. It's moving a little too slowly for my liking. It's been a while since I've made a new entry in the My favourite album series. This is a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Today I'll be talking about Tricky's 1999 release, Juxtapose.

Juxtapose was released in 1999; the first album to not feature Martina Topley-Bird on vocals. It is, I think, a big step forward in Tricky's style. Maxinquaye was such an impactful album that all the albums that followed it felt like reactions to it. Not attempts to copy it or improve it necessarily. The albums that followed Maxinquaye were all good; I personally rate Pre-Millennium Tension very highly. None of them quite stepped out of the shadow that the masterpiece that is Maxinquaye cast.

Juxtapose does step away from it. It's an entirely different style of music. Maxinquaye is over the horizon and in the past.

Contradictive by Tricky

This is the sound of a more mature Tricky. No longer an artist worrying about the trip-hop label being hung on him; he decisevly moves away from mid-90's trip hop. There's an argument to be made that trip hop follows the direction Tricky sets on this album, that doesn't change the altered course Tricky lays down here.

For Real by Tricky

Some credit for the album must of course go to producers DJ Muggs & Dame Grease. DJ Muggs is Cypress Hills' DJ & producer and has worked with a lot of other bands and artists. Including, oddly enough, Simply Red and, most famously, House of Pain. Dame Grease is probably most well known for his production with DMX and Nas. There's an entirely different feel to this album than all the ones that went before and a lot of that must be down to the producers.

She Said by Tricky

All that said, this is still unmistakably a Tricky album. His vocals are still delivered with that characteristic low almost growling tone. His lyrics are down to earth and often poignant. It is a Tricky album and it is a great one.

My favourite albums - Different Class

Not long before I put this blog on hiatus, a phrase which implies a degree of planning that certainly did not exist, I had decided to do a series of posts about my favourite albums. It's still something I want to do, now I'm going to do it.

A few ground rules first:

I'll be choosing 99 albums. Obviously, this won't be a short term project.

I'm going to limit myself to three albums per band/solo artist. This is to avoid filling the list with just the discographies of my favourite bands and seek albums that I love rather than just come up with the easy answers.

I'm going to avoid Best Of albums with the exception of some older jazz and blues artists who didn't really record albums, just singles.

These albums are not in any ranked order, I'll just write about them in the order I want to.

That's it, let's move on to the first album, Different Class by Pulp.

Different Class came out in October 1995 in between 1994's His 'N' Hers and 1998's This Is Hardcore, two other albums that will eventually feature on this list. All three of those albums were nominated for the Mercury Prize and the three albums together, in my opinion at least, form a cohesive whole about changing views and experiences of life.

Back to Different Class. Even though His 'N' Hers broke Pulp through to mainstream success Different Class made them absolutely huge. As good as His 'N' Hers was, and I think it's a great album, Different Class improves significantly on it. There's a maturity to the songs. A sense that these aren't just kids anymore but reflective adults, looking backwards to the past and forward to the future as well as recognising the present. Different Class came out in the midst of Britpop, it is very much a Britpop album, but it's also much more. It's not just about the present, about modern life in 1990's Britain and when it does talk about those subjects it isn't just about the perils of the rat race or the fun to be had at parties and festivals. It has major themes of working class life and sex running through it. It is, as I've said, an album of people who have become adults and are starting to have adult worries.

Live Bed Show by Pulp

The most well known song from the album, and from Pulp's career, is of course Common People. A song that pretty perfectly sums up the album. A song about cultural tourism the song is Jarvis Cocker's definite statement, at least it seems to me, about the class system in Britain. All done in a way that is funny and never boring. It's also covered by William Shatner if you want a really weird experience.

Common People by Pulp 

At the heart of it all Common People is an album about identity and belonging. It doesn't lionise or demonise the culture it's part of, it never sneers at it or tries to excuse it. It's full of sarcasm, piss taking and self-awareness It's about belonging regardless of how valuable or not the thing you belong to is. It's about creating something of your own to belong to, about not being afraid of life or living it your way. Not better or worse than the alternative ways and cultures, but truly yours.

Mis-Shapes by Pulp

The perfect introduction to jazz?

Jazz is a genre that a lot of people have preconceived ideas about. It's a genre that a lot of people are put off from trying. I am a huge fan of jazz and I wanted to talk a little bit about it. Honestly though, the world doesn't need another lecture about jazz. Instead I decided to share one of my favourite jazz songs and briefly describe why I think it's such a good introduction to jazz.

First we need a little bit of background. Jazz as a genre has been around for a little over 100 years. There's no definitive first jazz song and the start of the genre can be roughly placed as between 1890 and 1910. THe lack of surviving recordings from this time make it impossible to pin down exactly and I have no intention of going through the history of music in that time period here to try and provide a more definitive date, it's not needed for this post. All we do need for this post is a very rough timeline.

1890-1910 Musicians merge ragtime and blues together to form jazz.

Early 1930's Swing jazz develops

1943-45 Bebop jazz develops.

1948-49 Cool jazz, a 'softer' development from bebop develops, mainly on the west coast of the US.

Mid-1950's Hard bop develops in NYC.

That's pretty much as far as we need to go. Rather than describe hard bop to much I'll just say it's a more driven development of bebop than cool jazz. I think the best hard bop album, I'm not going to pretend to be an authority on it, is Blue Train by John Coltrane, who I rank as the greatest musician I've ever heard. I think the song that is the perfect introduction to hard bop is Lazy Bird from Blue Train. The band is:

John Coltrane — tenor saxophone
Lee Morgan — trumpet
Curtis Fuller — trombone
Kenny Drew — piano
Paul Chambers — bass
Philly Joe Jones — drums

The reason I think it's the perfect introduction, not just to hard bop but to jazz as a whole, is the way it's structured. Jazz can seem to be overwhelming at times with too much going on. Lazy Bird is far from sparse but it is never overwhelming. The solos are beautiful and contained within the song, they never wander from the rest of the band. The song starts with the full band playing and soon moves into a solo from John Coltrane. Then come Lee Morgan, (only 19 when this was recorded), on trumpet followed by Curtis Fuller on trombone. Coltrane plays another solo before Kenny Drew's piano solo progress into Paul Chambers bass playing. Chambers plays his solo with a bow but plucks the strings in the rest of the song. Philly Joe Jones, one of the great names in jazz, has a short drum solo before Coltrane leads the band to the end of the song with another sax solo. Six incredibly talented musicians playing as a cohesive band. It really is a fantastic piece of music. So that's why I think it's the perfect introduction to jazz. As to why I think you should listen to it? I think listening to jazz is an incredibly rewarding way to spend your time, it'll give you experience of music that you would never otherwise hear. It's a beautiful and expensive pool of music just waiting for you to start listening to it.

Making amends

Yesterday I claimed, lightheartedly, that Arcade Fire were the best thing to come out of Montreal since Jean Béliveau. Obviously none of my selections were meant to be taken too seriously but I did forget that Leonard Cohen is from Montreal. So here's some Leonard Cohen to make amends for the omission.

You Know Who I Am live at The Isle Of Wight in 1970

Chelsea Hotel [#1] live in Israel 1972

First We Take Manhattan from I'm Your Man.

Afrobeat

Everybody should know Fela Kuti, and I guess most people who're into music do know of him. He's one of my favourite artists so I want to share some more of his music here. He's the pioneer of afrobeat, but there's more to afrobeat than just his music, I've been spending some time lately listening to more of the genre and I decided



Zombie by Fela Kuti.

If you haven't heard any of Fela Kuti's music before this may very well be the best place to start. From the album of the same name this song, and the rest of the album, is directed at the military government of Nigeria. In the aftermath of this song's release and huge popularity in Nigeria Fela Kuti's home/commune was attacked and destroyed, his mother killed and many residents beaten, Fela Kuti included. He sent his mother's coffin to the main military base in Lagos and wrote two songs about it, Coffin For Head Of State and Unknown Soldier. In next year, 1978, Fela Kuti played this during a concert in Accra when riots broke out and he was subsequently banned from the country.



Truth Don Die by Femi Kuti.

Femi Kuti is Fela Kuti's eldest son, but I've no real interest in comparing the two. Femi Kuti's music stands out for it's quality on it's own merits and should be judged by that. Femi Kuti has been recording and releasing as a band leader since 1989. This track comes from Shoki Shoki which, along with Day By Day, are good starting points into his music.



Beaten Metal by Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.

From New York rather than Nigeria Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra have a heavy debt to Fela Kuti. This track comes from the album Security, their third, where they start to move away from pure afrobeat and introduce a few sounds from other genres. This is still afrobeat, it's just an evolution of it. Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra are responsible for the arrangement and playing of the Fela Kuti music used as the soundtrack for the Broadway show Fela!

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

Radiohead and all that jazz

It's generally accepted that Radiohead take influences from different genres. Unless this is your first time reading this blog you probably already know I'm going to talk about jazz.



Life In A Glass House (Full Length Version) by Radiohead feat. Humphrey Lyttelton. This is the version from the B Side to Knives Out and is probably as close to outright jazz that Radiohead have ever got in the studio. They worked with veteran trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band to add a trad jazz sound to the song.



Humphrey Lyttelton had one chart hit in the UK, Bad Penny Blues made the Top-20 in the UK and stayed for six weeks.

Bad Penny Blues by Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Lyttelton - trumpet
Johnny Parker - piano
Jim Bray - contrabass
Stan Greig - drums

Humphrey Lyttelton had a pretty full life. The descendant of one of Guy Fawkes' co-conspirators he was a performing musician from demobbing (he had served in the Grenadier Guards) in 1945 until his death in 2008 and also found time to work as a cartoonist for The Daily Mail, presented The Best Of Jazz on Radio 2, hosted I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (a comedy show) on Radio 4 and served as the president of The Society for Italic Handwriting. From landing in Italy to calligraphy via jazz.

Humphrey Lyttelton was inspired by Louis Armstrong and Nat Gonella. Louis Armstrong you'll already know as the first superstar of jazz. Nat Gonella was an English trumpeter and singer and was himself heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong with whom he later became close friends.



Hesitation Blues by Nat Gonella



Tiger Rag by Louis Armstrong

Of course Louis Armstrong influenced countless musicians but he wasn't without influences himself, notably Joe Oliver. Best known as King Oliver, he invited Louis Armstrong to Chicago to play in his Creole Jazz Band. Louis Armstrong played with King Oliver from 1922 until 1924.



Riverside Blues by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

King Oliver - cornet
Louis Armstrong - cornet
Johnny Dodds - clarinet
Kid Ory - trombone
Johnny St. Cyr - banjo
Lil Hardin - piano (later Louis Armstrong's second wife and sometimes referred to as Lil Hardin Armstrong)

King Oliver was influenced by Buddy Bolden, the band leader who invented jazz, if anyone person did. Sadly no recordings of Buddy Bolden survive so instead I'll finish with another jazz musician that has influenced Radiohead, Charles Mingus.



Freedom Part 2 (Clark In The Dark) by Charles Mingus.

There are well over 30 musicians on the album this comes from, The Complete Town Hall Concert, and I'm not going to list them all here. If you're interested you can see the list here. I'm just going to identify Eric Dolphy, who plays the saxophone solo, and of course Charles Mingus on contrabass.

New R.E.M. songs

Given that I gave you all those REM covers on Sunday and then yesterday told you about Rural Alberta Advantage's upcoming release it only makes sense that I tell you about Collapse Into Now, the soon to be released album from R.E.M.

So far two tracks have been released from the album, Discoverer and It Happened Today, featuring guest vocals from Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibbs. Both are available below and as a bonus I've included a live version of Man On The Moon, also featuring Eddie Vedder.

This is the first time in a while I've really looked forward to an album by R.E.M. As I've mentioned before Automatic For The People was the first album I ever bought. I loved it and I loved Monster. New Adventures In Hi Fi is my favourite R.E.M. album and Up was an excellent album. So when Reveal was released I was disappointed. Not that there aren't good songs on it, perhaps I'd have enjoyed it more if it was a debut album by a band I had no expectations for. Maybe then I'd have enjoyed the good songs enough to not let the rest colour my opinion of the album so much. Then came Around The Sun. Final Straw is a good song, but that's pretty much it. The album isn't terrible, but it's a long way from good or even above average.

So it's safe to say my expectations for Accelerate were low. After all the last three albums had all been ones I'd enjoyed less than their predecessor and the gap had grown with each release. If the pattern continued then I'd dislike Accelerate even more than Around The Sun and I didn't want to risk that. So I pretty much ignored the release and bought it a few months later after I'd seen plenty of good reviews. And it was very good. I enjoyed listening to it a lot and it made up for the missteps of Reveal and the general mediocrity of Around The Sun. Now it's almost time for Collapse Into Now to be released and I'm looking forward to it. I think after you've listened to these two tracks you will be as well.

Discoverer

It Happened Today feat Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibbs

Man On The Moon feat Eddie Vedder

Track listing:

Discoverer
All the Best
Überlin
Oh My Heart
It Happened Today (featuring Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibb)
Every Day Is Yours to Win
Mine Smell Like Honey
Walk It Back
Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter (featuring Peaches and Lenny Kaye)
That Someone Is You
Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I
Blue (featuring Patti Smith)

New Rural Alberta Advantage song - Stamp

One of my favourite bands since I first heard them Rural Alberta Advantage have a new album due to be released in March. Stamp is the first track to be released from the album in it's final form. (Two Lovers and Barnesyard were both played as acoustic songs by Nils Edenloff for Daytrotter). If you enjoyed their debut album Hometowns you'll love this and if you didn't you're a fool, but it's ok you'll still love this.

Stamp (mp3) by Rural Alberta Advantage.

The album's tracklist:

Two Lovers
The Breakup
Under the Knife
Muscle Relaxants
North Star
Stamp
Tornado ‘87
Barnes’ Yard
Coldest Days
Good Night

As a bonus, here are a couple of live versions of tracks from Hometowns, one studio and one gig.

Drain The Blood (mp3) live studio session for The Current 89.3



The Dethbridge in Lethbridge (mp3) live at Wolfe Island Musicfest, 8th August 2009.

My Favourite Artists - Blade

Back in January I mentioned that there wasn't much hip-hop on this blog and five months later I've decided to do something about it.

Several of my friends are very snobby about rap. They say they don't like it, which is fine, everyone has different tastes. But for some reason when people don't like rap they feel the need to try and belittle and demean it. That's an attitude I don't understand, these people never act the same way when they tell me they don't like free jazz.

I suspect part of the distaste they have for rap is down to the sort of rap they here on the radio and see on music channels. But really most music that's played on mainstream commercial radio now is pretty terrible, but it's only in rap that the entire genre is judged on such a small selection.

All of which is a very long-winded way of posting some music by Blade, probably my favourite UK rapper. Blade retired from making music after the release of his album Guerrilla Tactics in 2006. His (and his labels) website is no longer active, but there's plenty of his music available on Amazon.

If you've heard of Blade it's almost certainly this song:



Ya Don't See The Sign (Grant Nicholls remix) from his album with Mark B called The Unknown.



I'm not going to spend lots of time writing about how important Blade has been to UK hip-hop from the very start of the genre and how much I wish he'd make more music. Even though both of those things are true I hope he's enjoying his retirement.

Here's some mp3s for you:

Lyrical Maniac - Blade (his first ever release)

The Coming Is Near - Blade

You Better Go For Yours - Blade

Mind Of An Ordinary Citizen - Blade

Fade Em Out - Blade

Mumps - Blade

Ya Don't See The Sings (Phi Life Cypher remix) - Mark B & Blade feat Life and Si Philli

Just An Unknown - Mark Devine's Mash-up of The Unknown by Mark B & Blade and Just by Mark Ronson.

Four Walls - Blade (from his last album)

There are three albums (his last three) available from Amazon, all available at ridiculously low prices, so buy them:

The Unknown - Mark B & Blade

Storms Are Brewing - Blade

Guerrilla Tactics - Blade

That's it. Enjoy the music and buy the albums.

Beta Band, part 2

In this post about the Beta Band I mentioned a couple of songs I hadn't been able to upload. They're uploaded now and added to the original post. But just in case you can't be bothered to click on the link and go there here they are:

Round The Bend

The House Song (live version)

If you haven't seen the Beta Band post you should go and read it now, there's some more good music there.

I will now sell...

I imagine everybody reading this who has heard of The Beta Band has seen this scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack mispronounces the band's name:



I've been a fan of The Beta Band for a while now, since around 2000. They were one of my favourites when I was at university, which was the first time I'd ever lived somewhere with a music shop. Enough reminiscing though.

The Beta Band released three separate EPs in the late 90's. They weren't given huge distribution and in 1999 all 3 EPs, Champion Versions, The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos, were released together on the imaginatively titled The Three EPs.

At the time Britpop was dead, even the post-Britpop hangover had gone away and we had an indie music scene dominated by bands like Travis. The Beta Band's sound is from a totally different universe from Travis.

Experimental and talented the experimental side got toned down on the release of the 2nd and 3rd albums. It was still pretty far away from anything mainstream and still really good.

Enjoy the mp3s and buy the albums:

The Three EPs (buy)

Champion Versions

Dry The Rain (This is the song featured in High Fidelity)
Dogs Got A Bone

The Patty Patty Sound

Inner Meet Me
She's The One (live version)

Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos

Needles In My Eyes
Dr. Baker (live version)

The Beta Band (buy)

Dance O'Er The Border (live version)
Round The Bend

To You Alone/Sequinsizer (buy)

To You Alone

Hot Shots II (buy)

Quiet (Acoustic)
Squares
Won (US and Japanese release bonus track)

Heroes to Zeroes (buy)

Out-Side (radio edit)
Space Beatle
The House Song (live version)

A bit of Gomez is good for the soul

A couple of days ago I was looking through youtube fore something by Miles Davis. Instead I came across one of my favourite videos:



It'd been ages since I'd listened to any Gomez, but they've been on heavy rotation since. Gomez are a band I first really got into when I went to university, nearly ten years ago now. I was going to talk more about them, but now I feel old, so you'll just have to listen to these mp3s instead.

How We Operate from the album How We Operate

We Haven't Turned Around from the album Liquid Skin.

Revolutionary Kind (live)

Albums can be bought from the band's website here.

My Favourite Bands - The Velvet Underground part 3

This post was just going to be about The Velvet Underground's live recordings but I forgot to include the promised post break up releases. So they're in this post as well as the live recordings.

The first 3 Velvet Underground albums were released by Verve. However Verve wasn't making money and The Velvet Underground albums weren't big sellers. They were released from theircontract and signed with Atlantic where they released Loaded.

However, tracks had been recorded for a 4th album with Verve. The recordings were, of course, lost and eventually rediscovered. They were released over two albums, VU in 1985 and Another View in 1986.




Of these VU is by far the stronger. Of the 10 songs on the album 6 of them were released on Lou Reed's solo albums. This album is a great mix of ballads and heavier rock songs. Different from Loaded, this still has the same sort of balance, The Velvets were heading this way for their 4th album anyway.

Sample mp3s:

I Can't Stand It

Foggy Notion

Temptation Inside Your Heart

Buy the album here.




Another View is weaker in comparison and it's much more an album for completists. That's not to say it's in any way bad, but it's ok rather than great. Highlights are We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together and an early version of Rock And Roll.

Sample mp3s:

We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together

Coney Island Steeplechase


Buy the album here.

Now, onto the live albums.




1969: Velvet Underground Live. I consider this a double album, even though it's released on two seperate discs. When it was first released on vinyl it was a double album, and that's good enough for me.

The album is made up of gigs recorded over clubs sound systems at two seperate venues, one in Dallas and one in San Francisco. What's immediatley notable is the sheer energy that comes through on the songs, out and out aggresion in some places. As always it's easy to view the Velvet Underground as Lou Reed's band before he went solo but the full band is on form here. Reed and Morrison complement each other perfectly, Mo Tucker's drumming is sublime and even the much maligned Doug Yule shows his ability. Basically the band out and out rocks.

Highlights of the album are What Goes On, New Age, (with an almost completley different set of lyrics than the version on Loaded) and Heroin from Volume 1 and Ocean, Pale Blue Eyes, Heroin (again) and I Can't Stand It from Volume 2.

As always below are some sample tracks but bear in mind that, as with any live album, it's best to hear it in full.

Lisa Says (Volume One)

New Age (Volume One)

Heroin (Volume Two)

Over You (Volume Two)

I Can't Stand It (Volume Two)

Buy Volume 1 here and Volume 2 here.




Bootleg Series, Vol. 1: The Quine Tapes

Despite what the title of this album suggests there is no volume 2. This was released in 2001, so I think it's fair to say there won't be a volume 2 now.

It's a 3 disc set and the recordings on it come from gigs The Velvets did in two clubs in San Francisco during November and December 1969 as well as one track from a gig in St. Louis. The recordings were made with the bands consent by Robert Quine. Quine would later tour with Reed and play guitar on his album The Blue Mask.

During 1969 The Velvets toured extensively, the normally quoted figue is 70+ gigs, and this album is a comprehensive look at just how well the band was playing at that time. From the sametime span as the above 1969: Velvet Underground Live this album is more of the same and I think a more essential purchase. If you're only going to buy one live Velvets album get this one. As well as all the tracks you'd expect the album contains songs from the first album that were played live less often.

Here's 3 sample mp3s, one from each disc:

Some Kinda Love (This track contains the lyric 'Between Thought and Expression')

Venus In Furs

Rock And Roll

Buy the album here.

Which brings us to the last live album and the end of my posts on The Velvet Underground.




Live At Max's Kansas City is reputed to be the last ever concert The Velvets ever played. The audio quality is acceptable for a bootleg but not great, there's a lot of audience chatter, Mo Tucker is pregnant and Billy Yule fills in on drums and really it's an album best bought by fans. It's by no means for completists only though. Listening to the album it seems obvious how weary Lou Reed has become with it all. His introduction to and vocals on Sunday Morning are the best example of that.

Buy the album here.

The album contains both sets they did. White Light/White Heat is from the first set, Sunday Morning and Lonesome Cowboy Bill from the second set. Lonesome Cowboy Bill was actually played in both sets. The mp3 below is, as mentioned, from the second set. It was the last song played at their last gig so it seemed an appropriate place to finish. I hope you've enjoyed these posts and most importantly the music.

White Light/White Heat

Sunday Morning

Lonesome Cowboy Bill.

My Favourite Bands - The Velvet Underground, part 2

The Velvet's 3rd album is the self-titled The Velvet Underground.


By spunkyandtheslut at 2009-08-08

By this point John Cale has left the band to be replaced by Doug Yale. This means there's no more electric viola but instead the band has the 'standard' rock line-up of drums, bass, two guitars and vocals.

Gone is most of the feedback from the first two albums, this sounds in many ways markedly different, (although the penultimate song, The Murder Mystery, wouldn't seem out of place on either of the two previous albums). That's not to say that it's a generic rock and roll album. The distortion and feedback have been scaled back and replaced with an involvement in the songs that wasn't present in the first two albums. The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat were chronicles of different scenes and people. The Velvet Underground comes across much more as a chronicle of Lou Reed's experiences.

Here are some sample mp3s...

Candy Says

Some Kinda Love

After Hours (sung by Mo Tucker)

...and you can buy the album here.

The 4th Velvet Underground album is Loaded.




Now you'll here/read a lot about what a commercial album this is and how far it deviates from the other albums. And it many ways it does have a more accesible sound. There's no denying it sounds different to the previous albums. I just don't think different should be taken as a negative, bands evolve after all, and if this is really what commercial music sounded like, well, I'd be a very happy boy. I don't intend to do a huge review of this album. It just ends up like I'm defending it from accusations of selling out and really I don't care. If it's a sell out, if it's an attempted commercial record, a sop to the record company I don't care. Neither should you. It's an excellent album and it stands on its own merits.

It's worth mentioning that Mo Tucker was pregnant during the Loaded recording sessions so most of the drumming is done by bassist Doug Yule and his brother Billy. Doug Yule also sings lead vocals on four of the songs on Loaded.

Loaded is also available as a 2-disc set known as the Fully Loadd edition. As well as the full album it contains all the songs again from alternative takes or demos and 12 other demos and outakes, including a few songs that would turn up on Lou Reed's solo albums.

Here are the mp3s from the album:

Sweet Jane

Rock and Roll

New Age

and here are some of the tracks included on the Fully Loaded Edition:

Lonesome Cowboy Bill

I Love You

Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

I'm Sticking With You (This one is sung by Mo Tucker)

Ocean (Possibly/probably with John Cale on the organ)

Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall

Satellite Of Love

and you can buy the Fully Loaded edition here.

Part 3 will be the last of the favourite band posts on The Velvet Underground and will cover their live recordings. Until then, enjoy these tracks.

My Favourite Bands - The Velvet Underground, part 1

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground are easily my favourite band. So much so that I can't cover them in one post so I'll split it up into three. This one will cover there first two albums.

The next post will cover the last two studio albums and some studio recordings released after they broke up. The third post will cover some of the live albums that are available. There's going to be a ton of mp3s through these posts, I hope you like them.

I can still remember the first time I heard the Velvet Underground. It was an advert for Dunlop Tyres, and the song playing was Venus in Furs. Here's the commercial:



the song was totally different from anything I'd heard before. Maybe I'd led a sheltered life, but I'd never heard an electric viola before. I'd never heard anything that sounded even remotley like it.

I lived in a small town without a record store but eventually I managed to find and buy a best of Lou Reed & Velvet Underground compilation on cassette (remember those?) from the local Woolworths (remember those?)



and it all grew from there.





Their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, is talked about as the most influential album of all time. Probably it is, but that shouldn't overshadow what an awesome album it is. It's easy for people to talk about how influential the album is, but in a way that just makes it in to a museum artifact. It makes listeners focus on that. And that's not a bad thing. But it shouldn't be the only people know about this album. Despite being influential and experimental when it was released it still sounds fresh today. It's an album about the freaks and weirdos of the world, the marganilised parts of society, it stands on it's own merits as a great album and it should be remembered more for that than for it's undoubted influence on other bands.


Sample some of the songs below and find out for yourself.

Venus In Furs (the song in the video above)

Run Run Run

Heroin

I'll Be Your Mirror (sung by Nico)

On this album the band were:

Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker. Nico sang lead vocals on 3 of the tracks on the album.

You can buy the album here

As a bonus here's an alternative take of Venus In Furs from an earlier recording session at Scepter Studios in New York.




The second album White Light/White Heat has a different sound. All avant garde/expiremental rock dripping with feedback. Containing 6 tracks from the sub-3 minute White Light/White Heat to the 17+ minute Sister Ray it's a glorious album. I think it's often overlooked. The first album is experimental and edgy but stilll, everything on it is recognisably a song. So I suppose this is considered the 'difficult' album. On White Light/White Heat the band were Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker.

Buy the album here and enjoy the songs below:

Lady Godiva's Operation

Here She Comes Now

I Heard Her Call My Name

that seems a pretty good place to draw this post to a close. After this album John Cale left/was thrown out of the band. From here on The Velvet Underground would have the standard vocals, two guitars, a bass and some drums, even if they still didn't sound like a 'standard' band. But more about that in the next post. For now, enjoy the music.