The Enablers + Bedford Falls - Split

 

I bought this record because Hugh was gushing about how the Bedford Falls songs were two of their very best and I needed a copy. I had the two albums they’d released at the time and seen them a good handful of times, both in my Cardiff days and beyond. It was the only time I visited Ghost Town Records in Cardiff, what I assume was a fairly short-lived venture between Damaged Records and whatever Welly is doing now. It was a good haul - this 7” for £2, the first Onsind album on cd for £1 and an Underground Railroad to Candyland record for £7.50; I was very pleased with my haul. If I remember correctly, it pissed it down in the afternoon, so we had a token drink in the Christmas market and went to the cinema, mostly to keep dry. 

Anyway, Hugh was right (but don’t let him know I said that), these are two of the best Bedford Falls songs - both great, standalone songs, which is what you want from a 7” - two songs that are deserving of being on a bit of vinyl all to themselves. The Sweetest Science is particularly good. I know people love The Enablers, but I’ve never really gotten on with them. They’re fine, but don’t do much for me.

Format: 7"

Tracks: 4

Cost: £2 second hand

Bought: Ghost Town Records, Cardiff

When: 24/11/12

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Misfits - Legacy of Brutality

When I started writing this entry, I had a quick look at the release on Discogs and it looks like this second-hand, first pressing is worth about £50, which is considerably more than the £9 I paid for it one Saturday afternoon in Damaged. I can only imagine Welly didn't know it was of any real value - this was before Discogs was the resource it is now. There are coloured vinyl pressings that sell for much, much more, so I guess they're the ones people get really excited about. It was December, so the final instalment of my monthly-record-from-Damaged year and I'd covered a good selection of the punk that he stocked in there - older staples like Husker Du, Descendants, the Minutemen and Fugazi and newer bands like The Draft, Hot Water Music and The Loved Ones; I figured this was a worthy addition in the older staples category.

The first thing you notice about this record of how terrible it sounds. It's not a fault of the vinyl, it's just incredibly shittily recorded. But that's part of the charm - when you have songs like these, who needs production. I knew a bunch of these songs from covers I had, but that still doesn't really prepare for just how solid these songs are - Angelfuck, Where Eagles Dare, Hallowen, Hybrid Moments and Some Kind of Hate are all huge. Ridiculously huge songs. I think I have covers of all of them in my collection. Who wouldn't want to play those songs?

Despite all that, I've never bought another Misfits record. I just can't see myself getting any more enjoyment from their other albums than I get from this one.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 13
Cost: £9 second-hand
Bought: Damaged, Cardiff
When: 20/12/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Elvis Costello - The Man - the Best of Elvis Costello

The final instalment of the "records I got from a hold-all that Gunnar found in his attic" series is this Elvis Costello compilation. I vaguely remember Hugh having an Elvis Costello record when we were living in Cardiff, but whether that was before or after I picked up this album I don't know. Whilst I'm certain I'd heard Costello's songs on the radio at many points throughout my life (my mum even has a few songs on 7" in the box of records my parents have from their teenage years), the first time I remember consciously listening to him was, strangely, on the Woodstock '99 double cd. The first cd was a who's-who of late 90's, American (and Bush) nu-metal and hard rock. My friend Johnny had a copy and I borrowed it from him, before picking up my own copy some years later on eBay. The second cd was a very strange mix of things, including Elvis Costello singing Alison from the infamous event. It didn't blow me away, but did stick with me.

I don't know what I was expecting from this best-of when I took it home, but I wasn't expecting the opening run of Watching the Detectives, Oliver's Army and Alison to be quite so huge. I've listened to a lot of music over the years that is very far from pop music, but sometimes there's no denying that some pop songs are just really, really great songs. That is true of the opening trilogy here. Oliver's Army was a really unexpected highlight for me, with its upbeat piano in spite of the lyrical matter. It's hard to look past the now-controversial dropping of the n-word though. Pump it Up and I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down) are great too. There are moments that are unexpected in other ways too - Pill and Soap is quite bleak and Good Year for the Roses is calm and lovely. Generally though, the second half is much weaker than the first, but there are a lot of songs crammed onto these two sides of vinyl. I eventually bought a Costello best-of on cd so I could play these songs more easily. I definitely didn't expect to enjoy it quite so much when I picked it out of that gross hold-all of records.

Format: 12", gatefold
Tracks: 18
Cost: free second hand
Bought: Gunnar's attic
When: 25/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?

I got this 7" for a free in the same dirty hold-all of old records that yielded Burn to Run, Legend and Marvin Gaye's Anthology. I decided to take this one because it's just a really, really great pop song. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. It's perfect pop, and sometimes that is something to be enjoyed. I suspect this 7" exists in a huge percentage of record collections from the 80's, since everyone bought this single. The b-side, Feed the World, is just a lot of the stars leaving voicemails saying Merry Christmas, which is a bit strange, but ok I guess.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: free second hand
Bought: Gunnar's attic
When: 25/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Marvin Gaye - Anthology

I'll be the first to admit that, when compared to the full range of recorded music since records were created, my record collection is far from eclectic; the vast majority can described as white dudes playing guitars between 1990 and now. It's not intentional, but those just seem to be the records I buy mostly. And (very importantly), that's not to say that there certainly isn't room for music by people who don't fit into that category. But, ultimately, I like rock music, and a lot of rock bands fall into that category for whatever reasons.

I dabble in other genres but that dabbling rarely goes deep - I guess I just don't like other genres to feel the need to dig as deeply as I do for post-90's guitar music. I also don't feel I have enough knowledge to discern good from bad in most other genres. Anyway, there are some records in my collection that most people would agree are out of place given the rest of it. This is one such record.

I own Marvin Gaye's Anthology because I was given it for free in a hold-all of records my old colleague Gunnar found in the attic of the repossessed house he'd bought (the same hold-all of records that I got Born to Run and Bob Marley's Legend). I'm not exaggerating when I say he literally dragged this filthy hold-all of LPs into work, dumped them next to my desk and let me have a rummage. There wasn't a great deal I wanted in there, although I do sometimes wonder if there any hidden gems in there I wasn't aware of at the time. After I'd taken the few of interest, the rest went to a charity shop (I think) and the hold-all went in the bin (I hope).

I don't know what caused me to take this one home with me. I had a couple of covers of What's Going On, and Let's Get it On and I Heard it Through the Grapevine are just songs that everyone knows are classics. A few things to note about this album:

• It's impossible not to enjoy these songs, pretty much regardless of what music you like. They're just great pop songs. Even that strange one about an onion.
• It's a really long album. I've never known so many songs squeezed onto four sides of vinyl.
• The strangest thing about this record, by a long margin, is something I have never seen before or since - sides 1 and 3 are on the same disc, and 2 and 4 are on the other. That's crazy, right? Is that so I can have the other record queued up on my other turntable for a seamless listening experience? If so, it's a real shame that I only have one turntable (in this room).
• You is a really great song. That one really stood out.

Format: Double 12", gatefold
Tracks: 33
Cost: free second hand
Bought: Gunnar's attic
When: 25/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

William Elliott Whitmore - Animals in the Dark

Animals in the Dark was the first William Elliott Whitmore after released after his "Black trilogy" (as I've heard them referred to) of Hymns For the Hopeless, Ashes to Dust and Song of the Blackbird. Mutiny, the opening song here, immediately sets the album apart with a song that sounds like nothing on those earlier albums - comprising just (gang-)vocals and drums, it was very unexpected when I first heard it, but I loved it. Will's voice is one of my favourites and it works so well against the sparse drums. The outro of "He don't need no water / Let the motherfucker burn" was a surprise too, although tainted by the fact that most people (myself included) know the lines from shitty nu-metal songs around the turn of the century.

After that, we settle back into more familiar WEW territory, but with smaller twists - Johnny Law leans heavily into traditional country and Old Devils builds gradually in speed throughout (and is a highlight for it). The best songs are the ones that would have fit onto any of the previous albums (although that's not necessarily why they're the best songs) - Who Stole the Soul is slow and haunting, Hell or High Water is lovely in the usual Will Whitmore way, and There's Hope For You is uplifting and positive, in a way.

The album ends with A Good Day to Die, which is another lovely song but, if I'm being honest, a bit of a downer. I remember playing this album in the car in Florida as we got near to Gainesville for Fest and Sarah pressing eject somewhere towards the end of the song - she wasn't enjoying it and felt that Will had already expressed his opinion on whether or not today was a good day to die enough times already. My attempts to make her a fan of Will's work clearly didn't work.

I picked this copy up in Spillers just after it was released. 2008 was my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year and I'd only been in once in 2009 before I went in to get this in March; it wasn't intentional, I don't think, it's just that if I wasn't forcing myself to go I tended to be lazy and not go.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Cardiff
When: 18/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Gameface + Errortype:11 - What's Up Bro?

Errortype:11 were a name I knew because some of the members ended up in a band called Instruction with one of the guys from Quicksand. Instruction supported Hundred Reasons in a great, sweaty gig we saw in the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth in 2003 and mainly made an impression because they had the guy from Quicksand in, and I was (and still am) a big Quicksand fan. A year and a bit later I picked up their album God Doesn't Care and enjoyed about half of it.

Some years later, I found this in Damaged Records and picked it up because I was in a mood for spending money and not really finding much I wanted (I also got a record by The Sainte Catherines, which is equally an outlier in my collection). Gameface are a band I know literally nothing about, other than they did a split with Errortype:11. Their songs are fine I guess, but the crazy catchy hook in the Tom Petty song they do is the only really memorable part of their side (which I guess isn't a great review). It also ends with a pointlessly long drunk phone-call recording, for some reason. Who thought that was a good thing to put on the record, I don't know.

The Errortype:11 songs are nice, but sound appalling; so much so I was just checking my needle to make sure it wasn't broken. Maybe it's jut a bad pressing. I'm no audiophile, but it is hard to enjoy the songs when they sound so flat. I'm guessing the singer was in Instruction, because the vocals are very familiar from that record. Musically, they're a bit more upbeat, which works. They also offer a cover - I Got You by Split Enz - another song I don't know, but is catchy enough. I didn't need this record, but for £6 you can't really complain.

Format: 10", insert
Tracks: 6
Cost: £6 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 22/08/09
Colour: Orange
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Descendents - Milo Goes to College

Part of the reason I bought a copy of Milo Goes to College is because it's one of those records people just own, pretty much regardless of how they actually feel about the Descendents. It was also the first record in what would become the monthly-record-from-Damaged year, a companion to my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year, which only really came about because we kept going into Damaged on a Saturday and I felt bad that we'd just chat to Welly for a while and buy nothing. I used those Saturdays to dig deeper into a lot of the 80's punk bands that were so influential and that I was reading about in Our Band Could Be Your Life. Descendents only ticked the first box, but this was a record I'd known about for years, so figured I should pick up.

I don't love the Descendents, but do enjoy what they do. There are some great moments across these 16 songs - Parents, I'm Not a Punk, Suburban Home and Jean is Dead all have huge choruses. And by huge, I mean really wonderful choruses. Their ability to writing such a soaring chorus is really the best thing about this album. Hope is basically a whole song of such moments. I particularly remember putting this album whilst walking around the Statue of Liberty when I was in New York a few months later, just for the song Statue of Liberty; it was a pretty nice moment.

I saw the Descendents twice, and the first time remains one of the worst concerts I've ever seen. I'm not sure I've written about it on here before (can't think why I would have) so here goes. In the April of 2011 Descendents were playing a handful of shows for the first time in a very long time and a lot of people were extremely excited, in particular all of the punks I'd got to know in Cardiff. I was living in London by this point, so figured the shows would be a good chance to see a lot of familiar faces. They sold out pretty quickly, but I managed to grab a ticket on the day from some friend of a friend. It seemed that most of Cardiff had spent the afternoon drinking and smoking on the park into front of Shepherd's Bush Empire and I remember vividly walking through the mess and smell, seeing people we knew and looking forward to the show.

Annoyingly, the ticket was for the first floor area of the venue, but it was more annoying when we realised that Hugh and Chris (who were staying with me that night) had tickets for the third floor. In a story that I feel should have (if it hasn't already) gone down in history, Hugh and Chris managed to smuggle their way onto the second floor when the guy on the door wasn't looking, and I stood at the very front of the first floor, climbed up on the barrier and passed my first floor ticket up to Hugh, so he could come down, give it back to me and then pass it back up to Chris. From the front right balcony of Shepherd's Bush Empire we watched a car crash of a show.

Milo had lost his voice, and quickly became frustrated with his inability to sing songs. From where we were stood, we could see that the front few rows of the ground floor were still having a good time, but the rest of the audience wasn't enjoying it. After just a few songs, Milo threw his mic to the ground and stormed off the stage. The rest of the band weren't sure what to do, went off stage for a bit, came back and did a variety of All songs, Black Flag covers and Descendents songs with singers from the support bands helping out. It was painful to watch and far from enjoyable (but also one of the best Black Flag tribute sets I've seen). I remember Chris reading out some of the best tweets about the show on the train back to my house.

They were due to play again the next night and my brother-in-law's band were (inexplicably) supporting, but stories of how bad the show was began to spread and by early afternoon the show was cancelled. I think Si's band had already begun their journey down from Birmingham, so managed to find another show to jump on somewhere else in the city. I saw the Descendents play a very good show at Reading Festival just four months later. It would have been easy to skip it based on the show we saw, but I was keen to give them another chance and it paid off - they were great fun. However, no matter how great they were, it'll never take away from my main memory of the Descendents being that horrific show in Shepherd's Bush.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 16
Cost: £9.75 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 02/02/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Hot Water Music - Never Ender

I consider myself a fairly big Hot Water Music fan, but my ability to remember which order their albums came out in, or which one is which (other than Fuel, Flight and Caution) is shockingly bad. Never Ender was, apparently, the third HWM album I got, after the three I just mentioned (in reverse order). I had no idea I'd started so strong, nor did I know that my fourth album would be a collection of songs from 7"s and not a traditional album; you'd definitely not know by just looking at the sleeve, which was all I had to go on that Saturday in Damaged.

I like Never Ender, but it doesn't get a huge amount of play. As is my usual excuse, I don't have mp3s for the album, but on top of that I couldn't tell you which HWM albums I do and don't have digital copies of, so it doesn't immediately jump out at me when I'm browsing my records as one I should give more time. Still, it's a nice album - I doubt I'll ever reach a point where I'm seeking out all the HWM 7"s and splits, so I'd probably not have heard these songs otherwise.

The first two songs are from the Alachua 7" from 1997, but aren't quite as heavy as their sound on Fuel for the Hate Game, despite being from around the same time (the two songs from the You Can Take the Boy Out of Bradenton 7" have a lot more in common with that album). Both of the title tracks from those 7"s are great and have that perfect mix of huge HWM choruses and both Chuck and Chris singing completely unintelligible lyrics at the same time. Sandwiched between those 7"s are the songs from two splits - The Bitter End is a particularly great song, and sounds like The Loved Ones tried to steal it entirely for the title track of Build & Burn.

Apparently Elektra and Things on a Dashboard are on an 8" record, which I'm quite tempted to try to pick up just for the unusual size (I wonder if there are many 11" records around?). The final four songs are from the Push for Coin cassette from 1995, which are excellent given that they must be some of the first songs they recorded.

I, of course, have no idea what colour this record is. Based on the variants they pressed of it in 2008 (when I bought it), and a rough idea of colours, I'm going to say this is the "pink mix", which is apparently one of 131 in that colour from that pressing. It's pointless getting excited about any particular colour of any particular pressing because there are so many variations it all basically becomes the same. (Update: I asked my wife and she reckons it's the "dark purple with pink", but there were only 9 pressed in that colour, so it seems too unlikely. But I guess someone has to own them.)

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 25/10/08
Colour: Pink mix
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Johnny Cash - The Very Best of Johnny Cash

If you buy enough records, one of them will eventually be by Johnny Cash.

I bought this Johnny Cash compilation one afternoon from a record shop just off Albany Road in Cardiff. Albany Road was your usual former thriving high street that had descended into charity shops and gambling shops when everyone started going into the city centre instead. It had a few nice places to eat and drink, and might have improved recently; it's been many years since I went down there. The charity shops often had some good stuff, and D'Vinyl was just off the near end of it, so sometimes it was worth a browse down that road alone to find some strange records.

About a third of the way along, on a side road was a record shop I never knew the name of. I think it was basically someone's living room, which is also the possible explanation of how it could be a viable business - they must have been paying no rent. The stock was almost all dirt cheap and, in all honesty, of little-to-no value. I can't remember there being a great system for organising the stock, so you had to browse through hundreds of records that were pure junk if you wanted to find anything of interest. CDs were comically priced. Here is a complete list of things I bought in there over my two years in Cardiff:

• Electric Frankenstein - I Was a Teenage Shutdown (cd album): £3.70
• The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony (cd single): 10p
• Beck - Loser (cd single): 10p
• Therapy? - Teethgrinder (cd single): 10p
• Kula Shaker - Pigs, Peasants and Astronauts (cd album): £1
• This best of Johnny Cash: £2

At the sum total of £7, I doubt I was their best customer. Still, that Therapy? cd is great.

I'm not a big Johnny Cash fan. I'm very much of the age that I first heard of him properly was when he was covering Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. The American Recordings were huge when they came out, and it was hard to not get a little bit excited about the idea of him covering NIN and Soundgarden. But I never bought any of those albums in the end. If I saw them now cheaply, I might be tempted to pick them up, but I'm only really in it for the covers. He did do a fantastic job with Hurt.

I also remember watching the film Walk the Line on a flight, possibly to or from Australia, and thinking he was an interesting musician. I'd be lying if I said I was definitely awake for the whole film though, but that is more a reflection on the duration of the flight than the film necessarily.

But the truth is, I just don't care for his music enough to spend much time with it. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've played this record, and that hand could be missing up to two fingers and still probably be true. It's definitely possible to respect a musician without actually liking their music; that's how I feel about Johnny Cash. Maybe that makes me a bad music fan. I guess buying this record was a nod towards being the sort of music fan who dabbles in the music all the legendary musicians made, even if that's not actually who I am (a fact I'm finally ok with). (Ghost) Riders in the Sky is quite good, and It Ain't Me Babe I'm familiar with from the sprawling Bob Dylan boxset I have. Will Whitmore recently covered Busted, although I see that Johnny was covering it too. Ring of Fire never fails to baffle me.

As a final note, when I looked this up on Discogs I discovered that there are 900 Johnny Cash compilations listed - 900! He also has over 100 regular albums. That's ridiculous.

Format: 12"

Tracks: 16

Cost: £2 second hand

Bought: Albany Road record shop, Cardiff

When: 02/02/08

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: none

Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing

Steady Diet of Nothing is the only Fugazi album I don't have a digital copy of, which means it's had far, far less play then the others. It was also the last of their albums I heard having gradually picked them all up over the course of a couple of years. Beyond Repeater and the self-titled EP (the first two Fugazi albums I heard), I'd always found that each album had a handful of songs I really loved and a lot that I was basically a bit indifferent towards. The album I heard before this one, End Hits, I struggled with a lot, and looking at the tracklisting here, I'm not seeing any I've ever taken a particular shine to. Maybe I'd just rushed through their back-catalogue a bit too fast.

Recently I made a Fugazi mix cd for the car. I went through and found all my favourite songs and put them into a playlist. Just the ones I knew to be great songs took up 90 minutes, so I didn't even revisit the albums to see if I'd missed any (and had to find 10 minutes to remove). But because I didn't have mp3s of this album, none of them made the cut. The mix has been getting a lot of play in the car - they wrote some truly incredible songs.

Listening to Steady Diet of Nothing now, I'm aware of two things: I should play this album far more often and Reclamation, Latin Roots and Polish all would have made the mix cd if I'd had mp3s - they're all great songs. Reclamation in particular has this huge wall of guitars, and Polish is one of those slower Fugazi songs that works perfectly with Ian's tortured vocals. The fade out between Latin Roots and Long Division straddling the two sides of vinyl is strange, but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

I say this a few times a year, but the point of this blog was to make sure I revisit all my records at some point, and every now and again that process unearths a forgotten classic. I should have given this album a lot more time in the past.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £8 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 25/10/08
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Don't worry" Side B: "This is the last one"
mp3s: none

The Loved Ones - Build & Burn

I wrote about The Loved Ones a couple of years ago when I wrote about their perfectly fine debut album. The following summer their name came up again - they played a fun set at Leeds Festival and they released their second album, Build & Burn. 2008 was the year I was doing my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers, but also my Monthly-record-from-Damaged year, so this was my purchase that month; at £9, Welly was basically giving it away.

The first half of Build & Burn is good - Pretty Good Year is a really strong opener and The Bridge is huge, possibly the best song they wrote. But the second side of the album it all goes to pot - Selfish Masquerade ruins everything with a piano and some slow ballad nonsense, and Louisiana is even stranger - some sort of country working song. It's hard to take them seriously when they're trying hard to do these sorts of songs. I Swear is another strong song to close the album, but it's always tainted by Selfish Masquerade and Louisiana.

I think I wanted The Loved Ones to just be a solid punk band, but they clearly wanted to be Springsteen. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be Springsteen, but you can't go from songs like the ones on the first half to those two strange ones. After this album they sort of just disappeared and Dave Hause began his solo career. I saw him a few times, although it was mostly by accident. I remember him doing a solo cover of either Remedy or Trusty Chords by Hot Water Music, which was fun but once again reminded me that I have no idea what any of the HWM lyrics are.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 20/09/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: cd included

The Murder City Devils - In Name and Blood

It's 2019 and The Murder City Devils remain in the list of occasionally active bands I'd love to see but still haven't (along with Snapcase, Hum and The Blood Brothers - the list hasn't changed in years, despite all four playing shows in US in recent years. One day I'll see them and I'll hopefully have a great time).

In Name and Blood was the last of the original Murder City Devils albums I got (The White Ghost... hadn't been released and they were very much broken up when I was getting into them). I got Thelema, Empty Bottles and the live album, R.I.P., in 2005/2006 and loved them. A while later I found the self-titled album and it became a stable in the kitchen of our house in Cardiff - that album acted as a little revival of the band for me and I was very pleased to find this album in Spillers one day early in 2009. The albums had been reissued on coloured vinyl and I was very pleased to add it to my collection.

I knew a bunch of the songs from R.I.P., but there are some great songs that weren't played at that last show - Bunkhouse with it's excellent chorus ("If you don't think that cowboys cry / Then you ain't never heard a cowboy's song"), Someone Else's Baby and Fields of Fire. Of course, Press Gang, Idle Hands and Rum to Whiskey were all highlights from the live album, particularly the last one, so I knew them well. There's also a couple of covers thrown in - Neil Diamond's I'll Come Running (for some reason) and two much-more on-brand Misfits covers - Hybrid Moments and She, although the latter is not listed on the sleeve. Goes without saying that MCD's organ-heavy sound and The Misfits make quite a pairing.

The band had a slight stylistic shift over the years, so much so they considered the Thelema EP part of the reason they broke up, but it's a very gradual change - in my mind (and ears), the self-titled album and Thelema are the extreme ends, but Empty Bottles and In Name and Blood are quite similar and a very strong pair of albums. All that said, if you like any of their music, I can't see you not liking the rest.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 18/03/09
Colour: White and red splatter
Etching: Side A: "Look upon your city, enjoy the sight..." Side B: "For it will soon be rubble and bleached bones"
mp3s: Download code

Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart

I think I've finally learnt which band is Jawbox and which one is Jawbreaker - Jawbox are the one I have a couple of albums by and quite enjoy, Jawbreaker are the ones I watched a documentary about on Amazon Prime thinking they were Jawbox (it was reassuring that even Steve Albini couldn't remember which was which). The Jawbreaker documentary was interesting and I stuck with it, partly because they seemed to really hate each other, but partly because people really love them and, it turns out, I've never listened to them despite them being the sort of band I feel like someone would have played to me. But enough about Jawbreaker.

Like a lot of people (I suspect), I was introduced to Jawbox because Deftones covered Savory and their recording ended up on their 2005 B-Sides and Rarities compilation (as well as on the 2011 Covers LP). That recording also features most of the guys from Far, and I also had a recording of Jonah covering Savory on his The Three Sketchys compilation, so it's safe to say the song hit hard amongst that group of friends. I liked the song and made a mental note to check the band out; over the years I heard about For Your Own Special Sweetheart being a classic and landmark album.

In 2010 I finally stumbled across a copy - this is the 2009 reissue and Spillers had it in stock when I was back in town for some reason (it wasn't for a gig, so I'm not sure why I was in Cardiff that weekend in particular). I still hadn't actually heard Jawbox when I first played the record, but the covers of Savory and the general fanfare was enough to draw me in. Plus, it was on Discord, so it really couldn't go too wrong. Jawbox have a lot in common with Albini-related bands from Chicago but they have a far greater ear for a melody and throw in some incredibly catchy choruses; it's a far easier listen than anything Big Black recorded, which I see as a plus. It's still pretty abrasive (my wife made some strange faces at the start of FF=66 just now and left the room before the chorus kicked in). Of course, Savory is a great song, but so are Breathe, Motorist, Jackpot Plus! and U-Trau, mostly because of their soaring choruses. Reel feels quite different from the rest of the album, but is a nice moment.

Many years later I found a second-hand copy of My Scrapbook of Fatal Accidents on cd in Oxfam and that reminded me that I really should have bought more Jawbox records by now. It's no surprise that the only blocker has been that I never ever see their albums in shops and forget to seek them out online. I've bought both Jawbox releases that I've ever seen, so that's a reasonable effort I suppose. I should try harder; I like their music and could happily listen to more of it.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 13
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Cardiff
When: 17/04/10
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "This is not a psychotic episode" Side B: "This is a cleansing moment of clarity"
mp3s: Download code

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Lie Down in the Light

There was a period of time when I bought lots of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy records, and a period where I slowed way down and tried to make much more considered purchases from his back-catalogue. William Oldham's music is not something I universally love; in fact, he veers into territory that I don't like almost as much as he makes incredible music.

On one hand, he released I See a Darkness, one of the best and most interesting folk records I've ever heard, not to mention the darkest. I also have a couple of great live albums of his, and I really enjoyed the album with The Cairo Gang. On the other hand, I can't listen to Sings Palace's Greatest Hits, and there are a good handful of albums that are completely unremarkable. This album, the third of his I bought (after I See a Darkness and There Is No One That Will Take Care of You), falls into the latter category.

I bought this album about a week after it came out as my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers that week. The first disappointment (albeit a small one) was that it wasn't blue vinyl, which would have been such an obvious choice. The much bigger disappointment was that none of the edginess of the two albums I knew was present - despite the two being very different, both had a lot going on that made them interesting; Lie Down in the Light was kinda bland, with little excitement. It did nothing for me then, and every attempt to get into since has been equally underwhelming.

There was one incident that meant the album made some impression on me, but it literally the only one - in May 2012 we saw Bonnie 'Prince' Billy play a special show with Trembling Bells in the Union Chapel in London, although it was much more "Trembling Bells featuring Will Oldham" than the other way around. I suspect the vast majority in attendance that night also wished it was the other way around (they supported him when I saw him play an incredible set in Shepherd's Bush in 2010). I was there with a handful of friends, three of whom decided halfway through that it was so bad that they'd rather be in the pub. Somehow, the message didn't make it the whole way across the pew so Rich and I didn't know they were actually leaving, but probably would have watched the rest of the show anyway.

After they left, the band played the best song of the evening by far, a song I later realised was So Everyone from this album. I recognised the song; despite not having played this album a huge amount, the catchy chorus had lodged itself in my mind and I made an effort to figure out which album it was from when I got home. I was surprised that it was from Lie Down in the Light, partly because I didn't think I'd played it enough to remember any of it, but partly because I didn't think there was anything on the album remotely memorable. I stand corrected - it has one memorable song. If I was making a compilation of my favourite Will Oldham songs, it'd make the cut.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Cardiff
When: 27/05/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: None

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers

I've recently come to the conclusion that I'll never actually get into this album. It's been ten years of periodically trying, only each time to give up once again. The following will probably be some of the least positive things I'll ever write on here about the Manic Street Preachers. I'm sorry; I do love them, but just not on this record.

To cut straight to the point, Journal for Plague Lovers sounds to me like an album of demos that were never fully realised. There are two tracks on the record that I hear and think "this is a song" - the title track and William's Last Words - the rest are underwhelming. Some have a riff or a chorus that works, but that's it and it's not enough to carry the song. More than half of the songs are under three minutes in length, which is very short for a band who have written some of the best six-minute songs ever (Motorcycle Emptiness, The Everlasting) and do incredible things when at their fullest sounding as a band. The demos they've been so good at providing with each recent album are fascinating, but rarely ever a patch on the final product. I wonder if there was more depth and potential to these songs that for whatever reason they just never extracted?

The album had three particularly interesting features - it was written entirely using Richey's lyrics that he gave to Nicky before he disappeared; it was produced by Steve Albini - not a producer you'd immediately think of the Manics to go to; and they promised there would be no singles. Each of those deserves a little dwelling on.

Was the Manics using Richey's old lyrics a cheap attempt to reignite some old passion? I don't think so (but that's partly because I can't see that passion here), and I wouldn't like to say such a thing. It certainly threw more red flags for me than it did get me excited. I don't think the magic in the first three (and a half) albums was Richey's lyrics in isolation - I think the partnership between him and Nicky can't be ignored, not to mention that I suspect there was more to the process than lyrics-to-song without a bit of back and forth. A lot of these songs struggle to fit around the lyrics, making me think that the lyrics must have usually adapted to fit the songs more. The revival of the backwards R's and the use of more of Jenny Saville's artwork did, however, seem like a cheap way to make people draw comparisons to The Holy Bible though.

Steve Albini is an interesting choice as a producer for any band, but particularly one I can't imagine he would ordinarily have much to do with - they move in entirely independent circles and he is known for his strong opinions on music (and beyond). That said, I read an article a while ago where he noted that working with them was memorable and enjoyable, so I guess it was better than I'd assumed. Of course, we know Richey was really into Nirvana near the end, and Albini produced In Utero. Is the album influenced by Albini's production? Quite possibly - he famously prefers to be called an engineer, and these songs certainly aren't over-produced. I can imagine a more traditional (for the Manics) recording experience resulting in a very different album. I wonder if his hands-off approach didn't really work with the band.

As for the choice to release no singles, I feel like that is less a choice and more a function of the fact that there are no stand-out singles in these 13 tracks. Send Away the Tigers isn't my favourite album, but the singles there were at least songs you can get a bit excited about - Your Love Alone is Not Enough has aged incredibly well and I enjoy hearing it live every time they play it. Could you follow that up with any of these songs? No, not well at least. Peeled Apples starts well with a quote and a great bassline from Nicky, but has a remarkably flat chorus; James just about picks out a harmony in Richey's often disjointed lyrics in This Joke Sport Severed (which is why I can't believe these lyrics would have stayed the same had Richey been involved in the songwriting process); All is Vanity has the best chorus on the album, but otherwise I can't say much about it. For a band who have released some truly monumental singles in their career, to have so few is quite something.

The highlight is undoubtably William's Last Words, which stands out from the rest by a mile, and not (just) because Nicky sings (and sings so well!). At just over four minutes it's the longest song on the album by a good margin and feels like an actual song (chicken vs egg - is it a "song" because it's longer, or is it longer because it's a song). Musically there's some strings that add so much to the song and really hammer home the fact that the rest of the album is missing the extra "fullness".

Anyway, I rushed out to buy Journal for Plague Lovers the day it came out - I picked it up in Spillers along with a small poster of the artwork, which I still have rolled up somewhere. I played it and struggled a bit. It got filed away and I forgot about it a bit. I bought the double-cd a year later (for a fiver in the sale) and realised I'd barely listened to the LP. But having the mp3s still didn't help crack my way into the album. Some years later I was challenging myself to list all the Manics albums in order, and forgot this one entirely. I know a lot of fans really, really love this album but I'm not one of those (although that is one of the things I love so much about the band - a fanbase with passionately different opinions of what their best work is). I'd go so far as to rate it second-to-last in order of my favourite Manics albums (ahead of Lifeblood, of course). But even then that doesn't seem fair - Lifeblood feels like an album, but I can't get past thinking these are twelve demos and one excellent Nicky Wire song.

Possibly the worst part of this whole saga is that it marked the start of a period of time where I'd pretty much given up on the band. For a while I stopped buying all their singles and really tuned out, which is quite something for a band I'd loved for such a long time. More on how I came back out the other side of that is a story for another time though.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Spillers' Records, Cardiff
When: 18/05/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no