Showing posts with label Big Audio Dynamite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Audio Dynamite. Show all posts

Monday 8 April 2019

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #4 - #2 - The Last Post - Carbon Silicon


My initial plan was to choose albums from this decade, but I've gone back to the last decade for this one, but I'm still in the most recent century and millenium. When I heard "The News" from "THe Last Post" it was one of the most exhilarating and hopeful songs I'd heard though it was released at a time when things were improving and looking great.

The album was a collaboration between Mick Jones (The Clash,Big Audio Dynamite) and Tony James (Sigue Sigue Sputnik which I always thought was Zigue Zigue Sputnik) but that's just me showing my musical ignorance.

So I know this is just a short post on today's #TenAlbumsInTenDays post but it is another excuse to share "The News", though I also love "The Magic Suitcase" as well, but it's a great album well worth a listen.

So it's Monday morning , time for work, and I hope you have a great one.

Saturday 9 June 2018

Stay Free


I thought Iknew Newcastle, well the record shops in Newcastle. Today I was in Kazbat's Den talking Donna Summer, Giorhio Moroder, Human League , Black Sabbath and the las who was in tere said his favourite record shop in Newcastle was Stay Free. I'd just been to Beyond Vinyla and this week I discovered 586.

"Where's Stay Free"?" Quoth I
"Opposite Haymarket Metro, down the alley next to Boots, in The Antique Centre" Quoth He (Roughly)

So I wandered off across down before it got swamped with Blaydon Racers and Ed Sheeran fans. (I love Ed Sheeran as a person but find his music leaves me unmoved)

Anyway I tracked down Stay Free and wandered upstairs , also seeing signs for Meli Cafe which I visited briefly, and was well impressed with the warm welcome, interesting Greek Menu and incredible vies of Northumberland Street. I will be revisiting soon.

Then I wandered into the Antiques Centre and straight into Stay Free which has a great selection of Vinyl , so great wall displays and is most reasonably priced. A record shop is good if you walk in and can immediately find somthing to buy, I managed to get two items . A 12" single of "Boops" by Sly and Robbie and "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash backed by "Rush" by Big Audio Dynamite II.

Tony the owner is great to talk to, and knows his stuff and is very helpful and the couple of customers who dropped in liked it too. This is another gem of a record shop I have found so below is my up to date list of record shops in Newcastle:



plus spectial mention to Oxfam at Jesmond ( I used to work there briefly and the manager Katie knows her stuff , Pop Recs in Sunderlan and there are record shops in Durham, Hexham and Gosforth,  and if you are pushed HMV is not bad for a high street shop.

Please comment with any I've missed.

So really there's only one song isn't there?

Sunday 22 April 2018

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #5 - The Race For Space - Public Service Broadcasting


This was the first coherently themed Public Service Broadcasting album, they had put out "The War Room" EP, and this was their second album. "Inform, Educate, Entertain" is a mission statement for the band and you will probably learn something by listening to enything by this band.

There pasting of dialogue from films, and documentaries is similar to what happened in Spirit's "Future Games" and early Big Audio Dynamite albums although without the dialogue the e songs are just driving instrumentals (and rather excellent at that).

"The Race For Space" revisits both the Russian and American sides of the race that started in the 1950s, with dialogue from John F Kennedy and The Apollo program.

The band are probably one of the finest live experirences you can see today, and I amazed at J. Willgoose Esq.'s ability to tee up the sound samples wile playing guitar. Even the crowd banter is done via keyboard.

I have seen this band three times though they now tend to sell out gigs immediately so I am not sure if I will see them in a live situation again, but you never know. I've included a live take of "Go" at one of the gigs I saw the at , the 6Music Festival at The Sage in 2015, and I am somewhere in that crowd mass. An absolutely brilliant gig and part of a brilliant festival.

Saturday 21 April 2018

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - Future Games (A Magical Kahauna Dream) - Spirit

Before the internet and email and mobil phones the was CB , Citizen's Band Radio. I'm not exactly sure what the attraction of this was for the average person but I know a few people who had CB Radio set ups.I could see a use for it for long distance lorry drivers and this was documented in the CW McCall song "Convoy".

This album opens with a track called "CB Talk" with Randy California descring the Spirit album. I had been majorly impressed by  "Spirit of '76" but this album took things to another level for me. The songs are excellent but are spliced with soundbites from Star Trek (this was just pre Star Wars), Science Fiction "B" Movies and The Muppet Show. There are a lot of interjections from "Jack Bond" the drummer Ed Cassidy's creation (he was also Randy California's father in law!)

It was like a movie for the ears, carried along by the excellent songs. California was favouribly compared with Jimi Hendrix but he was definitely his own man, but they still tackle Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" and deliver a creditable take although no one has ever touched the Hendrix version.

The songs are California sun influenced as well as being touched by certain other substances. THis album is my favourite all time album and when I first got it I was working shifts so would often drift off listening to this during the day.

Like all good albums you listen to it as a whole and ideally it should just be continously played, non stop.

I'm not sure if this was the first album where not musical dialogue was used an intefral part of the album,a concept later embraced by, among others, Big Audio Dynamite and Public Service Broadcasting.

Thursday 25 January 2018

Future Games


Yesterday I was listening to Spirit's "Future Games", my favourite album of all time. I mentioned it in a favourites post here. It was the first time I'd heard an album where sound snips from film and TV were woven into the fabric of the album. The songs a classic second stage Spirit with Randy California's etherial voice and guitar playing and Ed Cassidy's (Randy's father-in-law) guttural Jack Bond interjections, with effortless covers such as "All Along The Watchtower". Into this seemless tapestry are woven The Muppets, Star Trek and Science Fiction "B" Movie dialogue. The song I included gives you a feel for the album, and if you like that just buy the album. "Spirit of '76" has a similar feel to it though not quite as seamless but still brilliant.

It;s like a film for the ears. I'd often go to sleep listening to it after a shift as a computer operator when I got the chance. Though often I'd finish a night shift and my dad would ask me to just drive a wagon to a site and drop off some stuff, and I'd get there and they'd want me to some more stuff to another site going on til the end of the day and I soon be back on the computer night shift. As I was about 19 at the time I could take it.

Big Audio Dynamite were another band that used this process in their early albums successfully and their first two albums are brilliant, highly worth listening to.

Oh by the way Blue Oyster Cult's "Curse of The Hidden Mirror" is a class album if you can get hold of a copy, some of the lyrics a bit AOR but all the songs are brilliant.

Anyway it's time to set off for work, have a brilliant day everyone.

Sunday 9 October 2016

A Brush With Eastenders #ALifeInNumbers #13


I know I'm rattling of a few of these at the moment, 13 had a few more possibilities than 12 including "13" by Big Star and Johnny Cash , "Broken Heart (Thirteen Valleys)" by Big Country but I have gone for "V13" by Big Audio Dynamite (Mick Jones' post Clash combo) from the album "10 Upping Street" (not the greatest title Mick), but an album full of great songs including the excellent "V13". I love the use of soundbites in the Big Audio Dynamite songs, some of my other favourites being "Medicine Show" and "Bottom Line" from the first album, "This Is", and "Dial A Hitman" from "10 Upping Street" which is very funny but I don't know if they took that from a film or just recorded it themselves. It also contains the great couplet:

"We're The Band That Couldn't Shoot Straight
But We Aim To Please"

The other thing about "V13" is that wen it hits the coda it let's in the "Eastenders" Theme which is a fun touch.

I'm currently going down with a cold, nose dripping and throat feels like I've swallowed a pack of rusty razor blades making it difficult to talk or swallow, so Doctor Mikey's treatment id chocolate, ice cream and paracetamol, and we shall see how that goes.

I hope your Sunday is going wonderfully.