We are DJing at this tonight. After 12, they’re changing the genre every 30 minutes. We’ve chosen to play ‘party hip hop’. With only half an hour, the pressure is on. But I’m confident. You can’t go too far wrong with Warren G, Biggie and ODB… Can you?
Sadly, we’re not playing at 12, but if we were, there’s no way I couldn’t play “All My Friends”. And then “Heaven”. Pretty much the perfect new years’ sentiment. Somewhere, somehow, these songs never end, we play them again, we play them all night long.
LCD Soundsystem – “All My Friends”
Talking Heads – “Heaven”
I’ve got a thing for unicorns (I don’t even want to think about the Freudian implications, thanks). Which caught me by surprise, because I hate horses. It’s their smug fucking faces. Like cats. Horses and cats are untrustable creatures that would work in expensive clothes shops if they were human and make you feel guilty if you couldn’t afford to buy anything.
But unicorns are imperious. They’re on some next level mythical vibe, with a sword on their head looking like they’ve been carved entirely from diamonds and porcelain. Which pretty much makes them untouchable. You can’t fuck with that. But they don’t make a big deal out of it. Not too much. They’re like Benico Del Toro: “yeah yeah, I’m good, but it aint nothing”. Horses aint got nothing on unicorns.
No one makes a big deal out of The Unicorns either. Or Islands. Or Clues. But the world really should. Kanye should be hijacking all these end of decade lists :”Pitchfork, I’ma let you finish, but…” Because running through those bands, through those same few dudes who are either too dysfunctional or too chilled to rule the world like they should, is a weird off kilter broken pop impulse that’s forged some of the best music of the last ten years. That first Unicorns record is a timeless masterpiece so far ahead of the curve people can’t even copy it yet.
As some genius on Youtube wrote: “theres nothing negative to say about chill music like this”. Yep.
The Unicorns – “Jellybones”
Islands – “Rough Gem”
Clues – “Cave Mouth”
Last year we released mini-xmas album Listen, The Snow Is Failing as a free download. As you may not all know about this, I thought I’d post it again. The Favours for Sailors and Situationists songs are easily among the best things they ever did. Happy birthday, Jesus, thanks for nothing
Tracklisting:
1. Situationists – “Cold Out”
2. Favours for Sailors – “Hanging From Your Xmas Tree”
3. Empty Set – “Christmas Is The Best Day To Be Alone”
4. Fake Passport Office – “Christmas Abroad”
5. Honeytrap – “Empty Blue Holes”
6. Situationists – “Fabric & Thread”
ZIP FILE – Listen, The Snow Is Failing
Rockfeedback, for whom both Liam and I occasionally write, have just posted their albums of the decade list. Yeah, it’s another list, chill out haters.
The number one choice surprised me a little, although it does show that editor’s view rules (right, Tom?). I vividly remember it brutalising me into confusion as a seventeen year old, so kudos for bringing back those harrowing memories.
Below are our contributions and links to the entire list:
Panda Bear – Person Pitch
Much to Dylan’s chagrin, we spent much of the decade looking back as a means of moving forward. But not Panda Bear. He was looking in, on that last continent of man, the self. Because Person Pitch is obsessed with itself, a collage of half memories, found sound samples and never ending internal loops, not unlike the artwork that adorns its front cover. As such, it’s a deeply personalised record, in that it couldn’t have been assembled (I think that’s the appropriate verb) by anyone else.
I don’t know how Person Pitch happened or at what point it started to make sense, but hidden somewhere in these nine waking dreams was a logic that dictates a start, middle and an end. But I can’t find it. I’ll leave that to Panda Bear to know. I just hear waves of insect colonies, waterslides, school playgrounds and stoned love. Endless, endless stoned love. (Stephen)
LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Sound of Silver couldn’t have been made in any other decade, such is its wanton compression of the best bits of the previous five. Yet despite its smash and grab sign o’ the times construction, at its centre was, well, a centre. There was actually something there; something that made technology that little more human and dancefloors that little less lonely even when smeared with teardrops (that remind me, baby, of you).
And in “All My Friends” in particular, James Murphy achieved two truly remarkable things. First, a moan about the emptiness of fame that actually made you like him more, and second, a song that meant that if anyone were to list the best song of the decade and not include it, they were instantly wrong. ‘All My Friends’ made losing your edge irrelevant for seven motorik minutes, because taste wasn’t an issue. You either thought it was amazing, or you were wrong. The sound of silver was the sound of just getting it right, even if everything else seemed that bit wrong. (Stephen)
Queens of the Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf
Turn on the radio and switch to any station. Now listen as the homogenous slop pours forth, punctuated by the inane braying of pseudo-personalities. Songs For The Deaf knew radio was dead, whether it was K-R-D-L (“The Kurdle”), CLONE (“your infinite repeat”) or evangelists spoiling music for everyone. Josh Homme took this premise and commandeered a road trip through a taut, visceral landscape, redefining hard rock with nods to glam, hardcore and pysch. Joining him were Nick Oliveri, cast a rabid dog with a hard-on for the pharmaceutical cookie jar, and Mark Lanegan at his most vampiric, lips still wet with blood. The biggest coup remains Dave Grohl’s re-conversion to the dark side, his relentless and muscular drumming front and centre.
Post-script: Lanegan continues to work as a lone-wolf mercenary, Oliveri remains in exile and The Foo Fighters haven’t suddenly got any better. Any surprise that Grohl’s back with Homme? (Liam)
Smog – Dongs of Sevotion
How do you sum up an album like Dongs Of Sevotion in 100 words? What soundbites can you muster for an album that encompasses sadism, submission, loss of innocence, decomposition and cheerleaders? A record that at one point claims “I lay open jelly-limbed/To your smallest whim”, and the next “I could hold a woman down on a hardwood floor”? Where a man’s dying wish is for his wife to contrive a eulogy that extols his virtuous nature, but also recounts their sexual exploits, particularly “the time we did it on the beach, with fireworks above us”.
The last truly Smog album to be released under that moniker, it can only be summed up by Bill Callahan himself: “The conversation is like the beating taken in a dream/Where no real blows are landed/The only harm is in memory”. (Liam)
Rockfeedback Records of the Decade:
125-101
100-76
75-51
50-26
25-1
“Drop The World” is roughly the billionth time hip hop has boasted “I AM BETTER THAN YOU”. Eminem throws in a cameo that has him barking, for roughly the billionth time, how we shouldn’t underestimate him. And Lil’ Wayne still sounds like a crazy-ass homeless alien sleeping in the park, high on meths and paranoia. Yeah, this is familiar territory, regardless of their claims of a”Rebirth”.
But when Weezy comes on like 2012 and threatens to drop the world on my fucking head, I can’t help wishing that hip hop stays this way forever, his confidence an unswerving “stain that they can’t wipe off”. Always different, always the same. Something like that. Just don’t ever change.
Lil’ Wayne feat. Eminem – “Drop The World”
Veronica Falls are twee as fuck, but don’t hate them for it.
Featuring former members of The Royal We, they’re certainly paid up patrons of the indiepop mafia. But behind the thick-rimmed Ghost World aesthetic and the Velvet Underground Factory cool pulses a morbid heart of black desire.
Possessed with the spirit of early Creation Records, “Found Love In A Graveyard” is the Mary Chain charged on faded romanticism instead of S&M sleaze. They may be candy talking into the ears of ghosts and dress like overgrown children, but Veronica Falls know how it feels to be loved: dark, desperate and bloody ecstatic.
A 12″ is forthcoming on Captured Tracks in the new year. But of course.
Veronica Falls – “Found Love In A Graveyard”
Thanks to the sweet kids at Home.Under.Ground, we’re DJing at the Male Bonding Xmas party this Sunday (20th December).
Since the Vice show with Gallows and Lovvers has been cancelled and this is taking place at their spiritual home (like an East London Smell), it’ll likely be a huge blow out. Or at least Teen Sheikhs will be the most drunk band in the universe high on beer and Christmas pizza.
I’d settle for National Lampoon’s… and “You’re So Vain” on repeat for hours. That’s the place I’m in at the moment.
Teen Sheikhs – “Cracked”
Monday 14th December 2009
OLD MONEY II
Old Money brings its blue blood and incredible privilege to the Stag’s Head for the final Tough Love event of the year. Last month was suitably decadent and disarmingly noisy in equal measure. Given the proximity of Christmas, that tradition will likely be ossified.
Celestial Bodies
William
Dignan Porch
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This is our new website. It feels like it’s taken a million eternities to get here. But here we are… Thanks must go to both Ralph Wilson and Simon Moore for their tireless efforts and remarkable inability to be annoyed by my backwards understanding of HTML.
It’s not completely polished as of yet, but we’re adding bits and pieces as we go along. Under a number of the ARTISTS and HISTORY sections you’ll find free songs to download, and we hope to add more to these over the coming weeks. Have a browse and feel free to comment and share anything you like.
And, y’know, if you’d like to by some records, that would be lovely too.
THE FUTURE!
