Blurt at the Bull and Gate

Jazz pogo noir trio Blurt play tonight at the Bull and Gate. Their sound is abrasive, almost brutal - minimal repetitive guitar riffs with bursts of hysterical saxophone and lyrics half chanted half screamed. I came across them on an old Factory Records compilation, and they stood out a mile from everything else on the record, their music sounded so raw and alive that everything else seemed a bit bloodless in comparision.

I had no idea they were still together (but then I read a interview with Ted Milton the lead singer, and the journalist said the same thing to him back in 1985) and I can't believe my luck that I going to see them. Tickets are only £6 from here.

Blurt - Puppeteer

Blurt - Kenny Roger's Greatest Hit

Death of a rubbish rapper

 And if you think peace is a common goal that goes to show how little you know. 

Malcolm McLaren loved to stir up trouble. Annabella Lwin was 13 years old when he plucked her from her Saturday job in a laundrette and made her lead singer of BowWowWow. He teamed her up with a bunch of musicians he robbed off Adam Ant. Their first single was a song about the joys of music piracy and the cover of their first album prompted a police inquiry due to the naked image of adolescent sex kitten Lwin on the cover.

News of McLarens death saddens me. I saw an interview with Nile Rogers a while ago where he talked about working with McLaren on his Duck Rock album back in the early 80's and said what an awful rapper McLaren was. Apparently he had no natural rhythm. I found this strangely endearing. 



Malcolm McLaren - Double Dutch

In my element

Last week our oven broke down. The oven repair man came to fix it and left behind the broken parts he replaced. I'd no idea the innards of an electric oven were so glamorous - the element looks like a kind of retro futuristic space tiara - doesn't it?

Crash Course in Science are a band who made retro futuristic music about domestic breakdowns. Here they are on the Uncle Floyd show singing 'Cakes in the Home' and 'Kitchen Motors', the only song I know that samples an electric whisk.



Crash Course in Science - Mechanical Breakdown

Crash Course in Science - Kitchen Motors

Welsh rarebits

Here are some tracks by two of my favourite Welsh bands. Young Marble Giants are one of those infuriating groups who release one amazing album then disapear. That album, Collosal Youth, is one of the few records I can keep listening to but never tire of. Their sound was minimal, fragile/powerful, deceptively simple, intimate - it sounds like they're in your bedroom with you. They made music designed to be listened to in bedrooms. Their name was mentioned in almost every review of the XX last year. Kurt Cobain liked them too.

Datblygu are a much more obviously Welsh band. For a start almost all their songs are sung in Welsh. Seemingly arbitrary sequences of consonants run riot, although you get the feeling that if the lyrics were in English they would be equally crytic. Casserole Efeilliaid is a song I first heard on the lovely 'Under the Influence' album compiled by the Super Furry Animals. It might be about casserole. 

Young Marble Giants - Searching for Mr Right

Datblgu - Casserole Efellliaid

Thunder in her gowl

                   (www.sharpshock.com)

I was over in Dublin last weekend at the annual heel-clickin' snake-banishin' roller-coaster donkey-ride of glamorous despair, also known as the Alternative Miss Ireland. Far and away my favourite contestant was Deca de Rosmary (pictured above) whose act was based around the annunciation and its aftermath - culminating in a projectile birth to a Leo Sayer soundtrack, I love this song.



Walking home that same night I remembered that Leo Sayer has a doppelganger in the form of Gilbert O'Sullivan - who was Sayers principal Irish competitor for the lucrative frizzy perm/soft rock market back in the '70s. Here he is dueting with Lulu on her TV variety show - bad dog baby!

I picked up one of O'Sullivan's albums in the Notting Hill Exchange shop for 10p a while back and meant to post some tracks off it for Mothers day (Mammys love Gilbert, well mine does). So here goes - better late then never.


Leo Sayer - Thunder in My Heart


Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (naturally)
 

I got to know the Pope the hard way

"Put on some music, swallow a Viagra, and adelante!" 

The news that young priests and choir boys in Vatican City are being co-opted into a gay prostitution ring is hardly surprising, I mean what's the point in the Catholic Church having its own state if a Papal Gentleman can't have a good time?

These songs about prostitution go out to all the whores in the Holy See. First up is a song doesnt beat around the bush - Detroit disco classic, I Took His Money, by Hott City.

 As the title suggests, the song is about exchanging sex for money. Best lyric - 

I got to know this man the hard way
I sure you know just what I mean
I gave him all the love he needed
and in return he gave me green

Moving into darker territory, No Matter is a song about trauma, abuse, and sexual disassociation. It's by an obscure Italo group called Lowell, and came out on the Swiss TamTam label in 1985. I'd love to know if they made any other records? Discogs fails me.

Hott City - I Took His Money

Lowell - No Matter

Spring Affair!

It's bursting out all over - everybodies noticed. Round my way the old ladies have emerged from hibernation and are out on the streets furiously beating their carpets. Donna Summer! is making me feel frisky...



Watching this video I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights. Is Donna Summer the black Bush? They're certainly both working the same bug-eyed and breathless look - like waifs on the run from a mental institution.



Not that I mean to suggest Kate is actually mad! She always gets branded a crazy, which is horribly unfair, I'm guessing that video didn't help though.

Oooh something's coming over me

Ooooh think it's got a hold on me

It's got me....

Donna Summer - Spring Affair