Yeh today I was going to post Death in Vegas, but I changed my mind.

The new album “Satan’s Cock” or whatever is a reviewer’s wet dream in terms of the references to classic music and all that, but although it talks the talk, has all the right sounds (and some good tunes) it’s just a bit……wrong.

I listened to a few seconds of each song, and was like wow. Then to the whole of one and was like oh. In the same way Primal Scream used to talk the greatest album in the world ever but never deliver.

I don’t think they are trying too hard or anything, it just lacks some spark. Maybe they are tired.

I mean I loved ‘Dirt’ the first time I heard it with the dirgy Sabbath feel and (even with the predictable disco sucks sample) and went to see them at that time, got a bit bored by the second album but saw a return to music I liked with ‘Leather Girls’ and ‘Hands Around My Throat’.

Ok, they are never going to be one of my favourite bands, but I quite like them.

So anyway I was almost looking forward to this album, german song titles, a song dedicated to Rother, no Gallaghers, Wellers or anything!! Wow! You know, they love mbv, drone, kraut and acid house – should be great! It’s not.

Am I being harsh?

It must be difficult I know. You got pigeon-holed as big beat, then almost got stuck in advert music, pioneered Adult and almost went electroclash, I guess where can you go?

There is still the song that sounds like tomorrow never knows (come on get over it), so they haven’t left everything behind.

Anyway, while I was trying to write something horrible about the entire album, it kinda got to me. So what if the secong song is the same rip off of kraftwerks that maddona used in music, and that the eigth song is the same as blah blah off radioactivity – maybe its just a nerd like me who would notice these things. I usually praise a song by comparing it to something else, and I might rip those sounds of myself given a chance.I like the slow dub of ‘Black Lead’, which is like analogued out renegade soundwave, the looped up repetitive layers of ‘Anita Barber’ grew on me, but sound like sonic boom.

So yeh, it’s not that I hate the album, it’s just I expected it to be good, and thinking about it why should I? I have never liked a Death in Vegas album in my life before! (only some of the tracks). This time I thought it might be different but it ain’t. So, I’m gonna post it now…

Death in Vegas – Sons of Rother

And it’s not great, but it’s a big selling band trying to do the kind of music I like. I think my Dad would like the album for xmas, if that helps.

Can anyone lend them some Boredoms before they do the next album?

Afterthough for the day.

I read or heard about this thing called the “John Peel Scale of Authenticity” that still rates true, like he plays some bands you think are shit, but you know why he plays em and if you were into that kinda stuff it would rock your world, but other bands he just knows are not ‘for real’, like the Charlatans -ok but just, not really on the “John Peel Scale of Authenticity” – they never really pushed the boat out, and never got a peel session … and then you have stuff like Rod Stewart and The Faces god luv em, unartful, pub rock, but genuinly authentic, and John could smell it.

Anyway, has John ever played Death in Vegas? let me know.

More moaning now…

Hrm, I don’t like any of the songs in Damage, the new Blues Explosion album, it sounds really dated, like a twee-less boring version of 90s Beck (who hasn’t aged too well either…) with a production so clean it almost makes me cringe (I mean, Phoenix are cleaner, but we are talking R-O-C-K-A-N-D-R-O-L-L here aren’t we?). It’s a shame because I really respect the guy Spencer, I mean, check out his CV: Pussy Galore and Boss Hog and the JSBX (especially Orange and Now I Got Worry), and he also puts a great live show (plus he looks like a bat out of hell!)…but after the disappointments of Acme (medium-sized)), Plastic Fang (big) and now Damage (huge), a boy has to start to wonder whether the Dracula Elvis and his reservoir dogs will ever be able to achieve the heights of, say, Afro, Bellbottoms or 2Kindsa Love… I hope to be wrong.

So as I can’t find anything I deem XXJFG-worthy (oooohhhh, ok, it’s my opinion) in Damage, I thought I’d post an older song by these guys, ‘Soul Typecast’ as remixed by Dub Narcotic Sound System in the Experimental Remixes album that Matador released in 1995, and which included several song getting reworked by UNKLE (not as boring as what they did with Can’s Vitamin C in Sacrilege), Beck (good lo fi crossover), Genius/GZA (genius gothic hip hop), Moby (errrr…it’s actually ok, sorry, I know we all hate him) and some other people (as well as an hilarious interview with a german journalist and some amazing drumming).

Soul Typecast is really good, a lo-fi yeh yeh blues thing with scratching, weird twists, hammonds cranked up to 11, the usual name-checking and some messy (i.e. great) tape manipulation…it’s all all good but…then I decided I might as well post a song by the Dub Narcotic Sound System themselves, they are the band Calvin Johnson formed after the mighty Beat Happening faded away, and compared to the JSBX they are relatively unknown. Dub Narcotic are a hit and miss thing, some of their stuff sounds a bit ‘Jazz Funk’ (not in a 20 Jazz Funk way) and samey, but then, and it couldn’t be any other way, there are some sparks of true genius in their discography, especially, it seems, in those of their songs that include the words ‘fuck’ and ‘up’ in the title, check out, for example, ‘You Fuck me Up’ or ‘Fuck Shit up’: I read someone say- it might have been Plan B , perhaps not- that the Dub Narcotic Sound make true punk funk, that is, punk + funk, this might sound a bit silly but listen to these songs and you will understand. Not trendy but gutsy.

In any case, I couldn’t post any of them, as the first is already in the K Records website ( here) and the second was posted by those nice and wise people at the Tofu Hut a few months ago. So finally I decided to post something by The Beat Happening themselves. After all, they are a true legend of the 90s indie underworld and, in my opinion, a criminally neglected band (a boxset released some time ago will have hopefully helped to reddress this situation).

I could have gone for some of their lovely poppier numbers, which bring to mind the (also unfairly forgotten) Young Marble Giants, or one of their inmaculate velvet-y drones, or I could have chosen some proper lo-fi indie that plays in the same league as Pavement or Sebadoh (and fights for the title!) , but then, in order to keep with the spirit of the sounds presented in this review I decided to pick…

The Beat Happening- Midnight A Go Go

…a psychobilly bastard that hits you hard like the monster coming out of the wardrobe in a Wes Craven movie, biting your neck and turning you into a jiggy vampire. Calvin Johnson does his undead cool-as-fuck crooning (J’acusse! Adam Green ripped him off!!), the guitars peel your skin away and the rhythmic section is a hip shaking nightmare. Your only option is to surrender and join the stoned zombie revolution, if only one of the songs in Jon Spencer’s last album was at least half as good as this!!

ps- We’re not haters! We’re nerds!

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with advert music black lead blah blah bored classic music disco sucks gallaghers german song given a chance hands around my throat kraut lacks leather girls maddona pigeon holed radioactivity rave tomorrow never knows wellers