Uncovered on Saturday

We had a family picnic today and I spent several pleasant hours playing football with the kids. It's good to remember football can at least give my some pleasure today.

In The Sun - She & Him. The first of the two tracks mediafire wouldn't upload last week. I know I've mentioned this lots of times before, but I really like M Ward. The video to this is one of my favourites as well.



Reflection Of The Television - The Twilight Sad. The second of the tracks held over from last week.

Mista Mista - The Fugees. I decided not to go for one of The Fugees' songs that everyone has heard, so I chose thise, just to be contrary really. It's totally different from everything else I've ever posted on this blog.

Fly Away (live acoustic) - Lenny Kravitz. This song (the non-acoustic version) was featured on a car advert, Peugeot I think, and ended up at #1 in the UK on the back of that. It's his only UK #1.

Loved You Tonight - John West. It's a nice enough song, although not exactly the sort of thing I'll listen to again. I'm sure some of you will like it though, it's the sort of song that becomes a couple's "song"

That's Entertainment - The Jam. I love this song, it is a perfect slice of Englishness. It's also the first song I ever learned to play on the guitar.

I Can't Stand The Rain - Ann Peebles. Fitting that Ann Peebles should turn up today. I just bought Juiliet, Naked by Nick Hornby today and I first got into her after seeing her mentioned in High Fidelity.

I Wanna Make It Wit Chu (live) - Queens Of The Stone Age. Josh Homme: "Rock should be heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls." This isn't heavy, but it is kinda sweet. Good enough for boys & girls.

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.

On Shuffle

This should of been posted last night. In fact it would have been posted last night if not for mediafire playing up. The plan was to have Luke Haines' 21st Century Man posted, but mediafire's still refusing to host it. The whole point of On Shuffle is that the songs are what come up while I've got iTunes on shuffle, so I used that to choose a replacement.

Sorry for my incoherence this morning, but I am exhausted. Anyway, on to the music.

Coming Home - Murder By Death. Rock songs with a cello AND a singer that sounds not too disimilar to Nick Cave, what more do you want? Murder By Death are one of those bands that sound nothing like you'd imagine from their band name.

Answer To Yourself - The Soft Pack. After the brilliance of their EPs and the hype that had built up I was a bit worried that The Soft Pack's debut album wouldn't live up to expectations. As soon as I heard this single I knew there was no need to worry.

Adair - The Mountain Goats This is the song that iTunes picked at random to replace 21st Century Man. Of course The Mountain Goats and Luke Haines have little in common. Both produce great songs with exceptionally well-written lyrics, that's enough for me.

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

Covers for Sunday

EDIT: Annoyingly two of the tracks in this weels Covers for Sunday were deleted by mediafire. Why is this annoying? The two tracks in question, Misstress by Snow & Voices and Ain't No Sunshine by Melissa Bel, were both provided by representatives of the artists in question who sent me the songs in mp3 form and asked me to post them.

It's that time of week again, here are your covers, hope you enjoy them all.

Crazy Train by Jason Heath & the Greedy Souls feat Kid Lightning (originally by Ozzy Osbourne). A countrified cover of a metal classic, this works really well. The musicianship in particular is great on this track.

Mistress by Snow & Voices (originally by Mark Kozelek). From the album Anything That Moves, this is just a gorgeous laid back cover, one of the best female vocal performances I've heard in a long time. (You can buy the album from iTunes here)

Ain't No Sunshine by Melissa Bel (originally by Bill Withers). Another great female vocal, this time more of a straight up cover, Melissa Bel's voice dominates the song, and she has a great voice.

Firestarter by Sneaker Pimps (originally by The Prodigy). Hartlepool's finest trip-hop band, this is so different from the original, another laid back female vocal, this works because it's so different from the original it's more a re-interpratation than a cover.

All The Things She Said by The BossHoss (originally by T.A.T.U.). I really dislike the original song, but this is a pure country cover and it's very good.

Tattoo by Petra Haden (originally by The Who). The daughter of the greatest jazz bassist of all time (Charlie Haden, on the off chance you think she's Charles Mingus' daughter) covered the entire The Who Sell Out, a cappella. The whole album is as great as this track. This is what Pete Townshend had to say about the album:

I was a little embarrassed to realize I was enjoying my own music so much, for in a way it was like hearing it for the first time. What Petra does with her voice, which is not so easy to do, is challenge the entire rock framework ... When she does depart from the original music she does it purely to bring a little piece of herself -- and when she appears she is so very welcome. I felt like I'd received something better than a Grammy.

Uncovered on Saturday

Normally Uncovered on Saturday features six songs but for the last few hours mediafire has steadfastly refused to upload two of the songs I had planned, so there are only four this week. If I can get them uploaded tomorrow I'll edit them in, otherwise there'll be eight songs next week.

Big Gay Heart (Demo) - The Lemonheads. A gorgeous song, the video for this is rather good, but it's disappeared from YouTube. This demo isn't too different from the album version, both are great songs.

Sexx Laws - Beck. Gloriously over the top, this is the song that made me fall in love with Beck. He also does a pretty good Marc Bolan impersonation in parts of the song.

Let The Distance Keep Us Together - Britt Daniel and Bright Eyes. It was almost impossible to find something with just Britt Daniel that wasn't a cover. I didn't want to just put a Spoon song in, great though they are, so instead I chose this. I think it's a pretty good choice.

Cosmic Love (live on BBC Radio 2) - Florence & The Machine. Sometimes I find Florence's singing off-putting, too full of audio gymnastics. This is an example of her, more or less, keeping her voice under control and it is great.

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

On Shuffle

Another selection of songs that pop up when iTunes is on shuffle.

The Red, The White, The Black, The Blue - Hope of the States. This got to 15 on the UK singles chart, there best placing. A rock band that seemed poised to make it but success just seemed to elude them. They broke up in 2006 after playing the Leeds/Reading Festival, maybe it happened for them after that. Either way, this is an excellent rock song.

Precedents - Icarus Himself. A fantastic band name. Nice lo-fi, funny, cynical, sarcastic indie rock. Pretty much the opposite of Hope Of The States. Both very enjoyable though.

See My Friend - The Kinks. It's The Kinks, what more do you need to know?

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