Author Archives: Phil

When Big Joan Sets Up 12/5/11 – Turn Off Your Mind…

What up dawgs, as the Middleton family say (note:check is this is right). This week’s bag of spicy nick nacks featured a banging mix (them Middletons again) from Illinois based sonic adventurer Lake Radio who despite the ball achingly annoying triangle in his name which I’ve failed to reproduce here, is in point of fact ace.

Whompf there it is! as they say at Party Pieces.

Loudon Wainwright III - “Natural Disaster” (4CD Set – “40 Odd Years”) (Shout Factory)
Hype Williams – “Traccia 1” (CDR – “S.E.A.L. III”) (Self Released)
Ralph – “Death Of A Delivery Man” (7″) (Scavenger Of Death)
The Beastie Boys – “Crazy Ass Shit” (LP – “Hot Sauce Comittee Part 2”) (EMI)
Bad Banana – “Leanna” (7″ EP “Cry About It”) (Puzzle Pieces)
Bim Sherman – “Revolution” (LP – “Across The Red Sea”) (On-U-Sound)

Lake Radio Mix
Boards Of Canada – “Dawn Chorus”
Moby – “Porcelain”
Balam Acab – “Sea Birds”
Jay-Z – “December 4th”
The Beach Boys – “All I Wanna Do”
The Sky Operator – “Od Annaaw Od”
Spider Webs – “Ambient”
Boards Of Canada – “Julie and Candy” (Remix)
Fever Ray – “When I Grow Up” (Remix)
The Beatles – “Tomorrow Never Knows/Within You Without You” (Remix)

Anaal Nathrakh – “Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria” (LP – “Passion”) (Candlelight)
Fred Van Epps – “Maple Leaf Rag” (from the University Of California Wax Cylinder Digitisation Project http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/) – also listen to Karl Dallas’ “Swing Easy” Ragtime programme
Chris Unknown and Technikore with DJ Sy – “Black Wednesday” (Download) (Quosh)
Elvis Presley – “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” (LP – “The Sun Sessions”) (RCA)

When Big Joan Sets Up 5/5/11 – The Greatest Record Ever Made?

BEAVERBAGFRONYCOVER

The Greatest Record Ever Made - although er.. it's not a record

“Brevity is the soul of  wit” said Uncle Bill’s Polonius  in “Hamlet”  his famous tale of  cigar manufacturing in the Kingdom of Denmark .

Little did he know it in 1602 but he was summing up the appeal of  “25 Great Rock N Roll Hits” by Beaverbag , an ensemble of whom I know nothing other than their name refers to a disgusting sexual act, apparently.

This download LP contains 25 cover versions of what people who own purple satin bomber jackets with “Elton Across America ’76″  emblazoned across the back  refer to as “Classic Rock”. These are rendered in bursts of betwwen 7 and 10 seconds in bowel shaking grunts with little regard to the orginals and by this token, massively improve upon them.

I mean , who really wants to devote 8 plus minutes of their lives to listening to Ray Manzarek’s interminable tinking on The Doors’ “Riders On The Storm” when the ‘Bag (as I have elected to call them)  get the whole thing over in seconds thus leaving valuble time for more noble pursuits such as eating fig rolls , watching “Celebrity Juice” and scratching?

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When Big Joan Sets Up 28th April – Together At Last

Sunn O)))

Sunn O)))

“No other programme switches styles like we do” said the usually umimpeachable Laura Rawlings on last week’s BCB Sessions. Taking this carelessly uttered boast as a challenge this week When Big Joan Sets Up united the worlds of country music and drone rock by having two featured LP’s, one, “Kitty Wells Dresses” the new one by the godlike Laura Cantrell and two, the new limited edition live LP “Agathi Live 09-10” by drone rock titans Sunn O))). Continue reading →

When Big Joan Sets Up 21st April – The Return of The Wrinkled Retainer

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Every year since When Big Joan Sets Up came screeching into a hostile world back in 2006, for one week a year we have put aside our commitment to new music (why I’m referring to myself as “we” as if the progamme is put together by an assemblage of like minded enthusiasts, when in actuality, it is created by me hunched quasimodally over a virus ridden computer in a foul smelling back bedroom festooned with Everest like piles of 7″ singles, yellowing back issues of the NME and curiously, a ukelele which I don’t remeber having bought , I don’t know) to bring you an installment of the “Rawlinson End” saga as recorded periodically for John Peel’s peerless Radio 1 programmes between 1977 and 1990 by the late great Vivian Stanshall.

This is done for two reasons. Firstly because these grotesquely surreal vignettes are among the greatest radio broadcasts of our age, and, more pertinently, because I can’t hear Sir Henry Rawlinson’s butler Old Scrotum described as “the wrinkled retainer” without snorting like a Swallow Bellied Mangalitsa with rabies.

AAAA

If you too have a favourite breed of pig, please feel free to add a comment.

Monkey Maffia – “Yo Baby Yo” (v/a LP – “Kompakt Benefit Compilation for Japan”) (Kompakt Japan) availble from http://kompakt-japan-benefit.bandcamp.com/
Meat Curtains – “I Hate Rock n Roll” (Cassette – “Eden Disorder”) (Scotch Tapes)
The Germs – “Sugar Sugar” (LP – “Germicide”) (Bomp)
cp – “Smoke Crack With Whitney (Long Love Version)” (download EP “I’ve Been Really Trying, Baby”) (Self Released)
Trap Them – “St. Peelers” (LP -“Darker Handcraft”) (Prosthetic)
Marry Waterson and Oliver Knight – “Curse The Day” (LP – “The Days That Shaped Me”) (One Little Indian)
African Headcharge – “Undulating” (LP – “Voodoo Of The Godsent”) (On-U-Sound)
Vivian Stanshall – “An Absence of Whelks (Part 34)” (John Peel Session)
FFF – “Acceler8” (LP – 20,000 Hardcore Members Can’t Be Wrong) (Murder Channel)
A Grave With No Name – “Streams” (7″) (No Pain In Pop)
Orchestre Poly – Rhythmo De Cotonou – “Ma Vie” (LP -“Cotonou Club”) (Strut)
Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Stompers – “Carnival In Caroline” (LP – ‘Duke Ellington At The Cotton Club”) (Storyville)

When Big Joan Sets Up 14th April – Made in Japan

Hey popkids . The big noise on this week’s prgramme came from Autechre who have realsed a collosall 11:40 track called “6852” as a free gift for everyone who buys ticket for ATP’s Made in Japan benefit, which is hopefully sold out by now, but you could try www.atpfestival.com/newsview/1103241000.php if you like.

Battles – “Futura” (LP – “Gloss Drop”) (Warp)
Elmore James – “Dust My Broom” (LP – “The Sky Is Crying”) (Sony)
Low – “Done” (LP – “C’Mon”) (Sub Pop)
Sun Araw – “Bump Up” (7″ “Houston Abstros”) (Monofonous Press)
Fresh – “The Gatekeeper” (EP – “Future Jungle”) (Ram)
Holy Cobras – “Night Fighter Part 1” (LP – “Forever”) (Telephone Explosion)
Prince Jammy – “Get Ready For Dub” (4 CD Box -“The EvolUtuon Of Dub Volume 6: Was Prince Jammy An Astronaut?”)
Robot Koch and John Robinson – “The Future” (LP – ‘Robot Robinson”) (Project Mooncircle)
Bill Callahan – “Drover” (LP – “Apocalypse”) (Drag City)
The Fall – “Zagreb Movements 1, 11, 111” (EP – “The Dredger EP”) (Fontana)
Autechre – “6852” (download free with ticket bought for ATP’s “Made in Japan” Benefit. Go here  – for details)
Unkle feat Nick Cave – “Money and Run” (EP – “Only The Lonley”) (Surrender All)

The A-Z of The Fall

The FallBack in August 2010 a fresh -faced idealistic young DJ had a dream which came to him while he was idly perusing a Fall discography. “What if , ” thought our lantern jawed hero, ” there was a Fall record that began wil every letter of the alphabet?”

“And what if” he went on, sitting upright on his sofa strewn with discarded Frosties and old copies of DJ International magazine “we played them in order over the next 26 weeks – that indeed would be a fine testament to the work of Mark and the eternally revolving line ups of the Fall”.

And so, he went to work long into the unforgiving night compiling such a list because he was a bit sad and didin’t have anything better to do .

Some of his choices were perverse. A ramshackle live version of Gene Vincent’s “Race With The Devil” over “Rowche Rumble?”, ” forgotten LP track “Hilary” over “How I wrote Elastic Man ? Nothing from “The Marshall Suite”?, no “To Nkroachment:Yarbles” or Mollusc In Tyrol?”.

Some of his choices were hard fought. The battle between “Bill is Dead” and “Bingo Master’s Breakout” for the letter B and “Kicker Conspiracy” and “Kimble” for the letter K being the kind of epic set-to more likley to be seen in the final reel of Marvel comics superhero movies.

and the ignominious cheating of including “THE Quartet of Doc Shanley” as the letter “Q”

But 26 weeks later (and a bit as there were a couple of weeks when I forgot) here is it, replete with some of the great Fall moments, such as Mark stopping the band during the Peel session version of “C n Cs Hassle Schmuck” to announce the fictional assasination of Arthur Askey and during a particularly dirgey live rendering of “No Xmas For John Quays” Mark rounding on the band and shouting “Will yer fuckin’ gerrit together and stop showing off!”

and so with apologioes to Brian Matthew, in all it’s controversial, flawed beauty. Laydeeeez and Gennlemun I give you – The A-Z of the Fall Continue reading →

66 with a Bullet

Bullet

Now that the internet has rendered music from most of the world available in the time it tales Nick Clegg to renege on an election promise, it seems almost quaint to remember that the zeitgeist used to have a bike.
The indefinable spirit of the age used to pop up all over the world and each musical advance was complete with a map reference.

Whether it was Manchester in the late eighties, Berlin in the mid seventies or Liverpool in the early sixties geographical locations were synonymous with the music that was made there, and never was this more pronounced than in Nashville, Tennessee, which is indelibly linked in popular culture with country music.

In contrast to the examples above, country music didn’t begin in Nashville, but it was here that the music that had originated in Appalachian bluegrass and hardened into the gritty honky tonk of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzel had the beer stains hosed off it’s Stetson and cleaned up it’s act.

In the process it became, and still is, the most successful genre of music in the world.

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When Big Joan Sets Up – Lazy DJ gives Two for one

Once again I’ve fallen behind in my blog up dating duties due to the killer mix of work, decorating and idleness.
So here’s the last two weeks

7th April
Anne James Chaton – “Vendredi, 26 Juin 2009” (LP – “Evenements 09”) (Raster- Norton)
Sonic Youth – “Chez Yves (Alice et Clara)” (LP -“Simon Werner a Disparu”) (SYR)
Cliff Richard and The Shadows – “I Cannot Find a True Love” (LP “Me and My Shadows”) (Columbia)
Fourward – “Excessive Use” (v/a LP -“Bad Taste Volume 4”) (Bad Taste)
Tyvek – “Time Change” (7″) (Les Disques Steak)
Laura Cantrell – “Letters She Sent” (available from http://radiofreesongclub.com/songs)
Cornell Campbell – “Fight Against Corruption” (Split download LP with Barry Brown – “Head 2 Head Volume 1”) (Culture Town)
The Eternals – “Symmetric Children” (LP- “Approaching The Energy Field”) (Addenda/Submarine)
The Kinks – “Cadillac – Live on Saturday Club” (LP – ‘The Kinks – Deluxe Edition”) (Sanctuary)
The Fall – “You’re Not Up To Much” (LP – “Middle Class Revolt”) (Permanent)
Alert – “Fracture” (download) (Oblivion Fringe)
The Vivian Girls – “Sixteen Ways” (LP – “Share The Joy”) (Polyvinyl)
The Vivian Girls – “Death” (LP – “Share The Joy”) (Polyvinyl)
The Vivian Girls – “Light In Your Eyes” (LP – “Share The Joy”) (Polyvinyl)
DJ Format – “Here Comes the Dope Pusher – B-Boy Version” (EP – “Mr. DJ”) (Project Blue Book)
Beenie Man – “Tell a Gall” (no label)

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When Big Joan Sets Up 24/3/11 – Singles Night

Originally this post had a lame “Two Ronnies” style pun about 7 inches being enough for anyone in the title – but frankly I’m better than that and so are you.

Anyroad, after Simon Ashberry’s claim on this very blog here, that 2011 was turning in to a cracking year for music – excellent records of every stripe have rained down upon our grateful upturned faces like er…rain and happily a good number of these have been shiny black 7″ singles as I was getting a bit concerned that we were going all 1973 with all the LP tracks we’ve been playing.

So, tonight started off as a singles only programme and then transmogrified ( I love typing that word. I’m tempted to do it again) in to a mix of 7″‘s, 12”s (stop it!) LP tracks, downloads and wax cylinders (alright, that last one was a lie)

To hear the whole hideous farrago again go to http://www.podcast.canstream.co.uk/bcb/index.php?id=611

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When Big Joan Sets Up 10/3/11 – LÃ¥ta oss Klippa!

I tribut till denna kväll skisserat LP “Daydreams and Nightmares” vid Stockholm ” Those Dancing Days ” den här vecka tracklist är i Svensk

Boris – “Hope” (download)
J Mascis – “Is It Done?” (LP – “Several Shades Of Why”) (Sub Pop)
Concrete DJ’s – “Encypter B22” (Download EP – “Epidemic Transmitter”) (Teskoba)
Bounty Killer – “Can’t Stop Killer” (download single) (Weeseed Productions)
James Brown and The Famous Flames – “Hold My Baby’s Hand” (LP – “I’ll Go Crazy”) (Fantastic Voyage)
Echo Lake – “Young Silence” (EP – “Young Silence”) (No Pain In Pop)
The Panthers – “Malkaus” (LP – “Pakistan – Folk and Pop Instrumentals 1966-1976”) (Sublime Frequencies)
Group Doueh – “Badbada” (LP – “Beatte Harab”) (Sublime Frequencies)
DJ Delta and Anna Lua – “Glory” (split 12″ with Vaptor) (Biogenetics)
Sundials – “Crosby Sux” (LP – “Never Settle”) (Toxic Pop)
Bing Crosby with Woddy Herman’s Woodchoppers – “I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes” (LP – “Bing With A Swing”) (Bygone Days)
The Fall – “Van Plague” (LP – “I Am Kurious Oranj”) (Beggars Banquet)
Toro Y Moi – “Light Black ” (LP -“Underneath The Pine”) (Carpark)
Those Dancing Days – “I’ll Be Yours” (LP – “Daydreams and Nightmares”) (Witchita)
Those Dancing Days – “Can’t Find Entrance” (LP – “Daydreams and Nightmares”) (Witchita)
Those Dancing Days – “Keep Me In Your Pocket” (LP – “Daydreams and Nightmares”) (Witchita)
8rolek – “Genotype” (downoad LP – “The Raban Collection”) (Cock Rock Disco)