Author Archives: Phil

When Big Joan Sets Up 25/3/10 – A Reading from The Book of M.E.S.

Mark E Smith

And for two years they did wander in the wilderness without any new Fall records until there came to pass a new single – and lo’ it was ace. And the children of Bradford came forth saying “Where hast thou been , O grumpy Mancunian bard of non sequiturs?” and he did say unto them “I’ve got milk on my elbow – ah!” – and they did understand that he was a genius and a bit bonkers as well.

And they saw that this was good and went off to beseech the almighty Domino Records to bestow upon them a copy of the new LP and they did so in a nice way because they did get loads of free records and they did not want to looketh a gift horse in the mouth. And as they went they sayeth unto themselves “That’s what happens when you get your biblical references off Wikipedia”

And there came forth a great howling and gnashing of teeth (from those who had teeth to gnash) and it sounded like this.

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When Big Joan Sets Up – Bloody Microsoft!

Hello chums, due to my PC being out of action AGAIN, this is a quick resume of what was played in last night’s calvacade of jolity.

Anglo Spencer et Les Hauts Sommets – “Shivers” (LP-“Anglo Spencer et Les Hautes Sommets”) (K)
Tymon and Waldhaus – “Void” (EP – “Menage A Trois”) (Industrial Strength)
Gorillaz feat Mark E Smith – “Glitter Freeze” (LP- “Plastic Beach”) (Parlophone)
Serena Maneesh -“I Just Want to See Your Face” (7″) (4AD)
To Roccoco Rot – “Forwardness (Traversable Wormhole Mix) (EP – “Forwardness Friday”) (Domino)
B Dolan – “Fifty Ways” (LP- “Fallen House , Sunken City”) (Strange Famous)
The Ballad of Mable Wong – “Bob’s Yer Uncle” (download EP – “See Dea Are”) (Winning Sperm)
Toumani Dibate and Ali Farka Toure – “Sabu Yerkoy” (LP- “Toumani Dibate and Ali Farka Toure”) (World Circuit)
The Teeners – “Nazi’s on Film” (v/a LP – “Casual Victim Pile – Austin 2010”)(Matador)
NC and Nusence – “Just Heroes” (12″) (Viper)
Ivor Cutler – “Ivor Cutler and the Paper Seller” (LP- “Prince Ivor”) (Rough Trade)
Taper Jinx – “Dopperling Light” (EP – “The Apnea EP”) (Self Released)
Capelton – “Lip,Lip,Lip” (7″) (Truck Back)
White Mystery – “Power Glove” (7″) (HoZac)
Japanther – “LA U R A Mystery”(LP- “Rock n’ Roll Ice Cream”) (Menlo Park Recordings)
The Fantastic Mr.Fox – “Sketches” (EP – “Keep Your Teeth Sharp”) (Black Acre)
So Cow -“International Waters” (LP-“Meaningless Friendly”) (Tic Tac Totally)

When Big Joan Sets Up 11/3/10

For Carol Tilsley 1968 -2010
“You can’t even hear the words”

Laura Davis – “I Am Thinking Of A Friend” (LP – “God’s Got It – The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles”) (Case Quarter)
Jah 9 – “Warning” (download) (Don Corleone)
Ellen Allien – “Pump” (12″) (Bpitch)
Japp Gutter – “Joel and Jail” (Cassette -“Heaven Dollars”) (Self Relased)
Blind Boy Fuller – “Pistol Slapper Blues” (v/a LP – “Murder:Songs From The Dark Side of The Soul”) (Trikont)
B Dolan – “The Reptillian Agenda” (LP- “Fallen House, Sunken City”) (Strange Famous)
The Radio Dept. – “Heaven’s On Fire” (LP- “Clinging To A Scheme”) (Labrador)
King – “Sissy Spacek” (v/a LP “Dubsteppers For Haiti – Volume 2”) (Betamorph)
Loretta Lynn – “The Pill” (LP -“The Very Best Of Loretta Lynn”) (MCA)
Chumbawumba – “Dance Idiot, Dance” (LP – “ABCDEFG”) (No Masters)
The Bambi Molesters – “Thundering Guitars” (LP – “As The Dark Wave Swells”) (Glitterhouse)
Dan Sartain – “Ruby Carol” (download)
Gonjasufi – “Susie Q” (LP – “A Sufi and a Killer”) (Warp)
Little Fella and Mr B -“Here I Am” (Download) (Relentless Digital)
David Thomas Broughton – “Ain’t Got No Sole” (EP – “Boating Disasters”) (Static Caravan)
Dub Spencer and Trance Hill – “The Saints Go Marching Through All The Popular Songs” (LP- “Riding Strange Horses”) (Echo Beach)
Horace Tapscott and the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra – “Peyote Song No.3” (v.a LP – “Freedom, Rhythm, Sound – Revolutionary Jazz and The Civil Rights Movement 1963-1982”) (Soul Jazz)

When Big Joan Sets Up 25/2/10 – Seminal Lionel

Lionel Richie

Ey, and indeed, up consumers.
This week’s When Big Joan Sets Up was “the usual mixture of agony and ecstacy” (c) my dad, 2010 , pushing the cultural envelope to feature tracks from noisy Americans, frenzied Spaniards, skanking Jamaicans, the sound of the greatest band who ever drew breath live, Â secret coded messages from anonymous MI5 agents (really) and,Â sitting lonley in the pantheon of popular music like a diamond floating in a sea of cat piss and stoat offal , the single solitary good record with the name “Lionel Ritchie” anywhere near it.

And if you don’t think that that all doesn’t add up to an hour of top class light entertainment , then according to my MI5 secret code book, ( supplied by Jez’s Discount Books, High Street Kippax Â£1.99) you are patently a massive 542562.

Must go now, there’s something going on in the sculpture class, I think I’d better check it out.

The Mylein Sheaths – “Do The Mental Twist” (7″) (HoZac)
David Moleon – “Goal” (EP – Blackhawk”) (Basics)
Babybird – “Send Me Back My Dreams” (LP – “Ex Maniac”) (Unison)
Dressla – “Bomb The Circles” (net 7″ available from www.jahtari.org/music/net7inch.htm)
Wynonie Harris – “Good Morning Judge” (LP- (“Rockin’ Greatest Hits”) (Burning Fire)
Prime Mover and Chuck B – “Better Days” (download) (Digital Pound)
Air Formation – “Low December Sun” (7″) (ac30)
Unknown MI5 Intelligence Officer – “Lincolnshire Poacher MI5” (4CD set – “The Conet Project – Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations”)(Irdial)
Busy Signal – “Food For Di Pot” (7″) (Penthouse)
The Strange Boys – “Laugh at Sex, Not Her” (LP – “Be Brave”) (Rough Trade)

The Fall recorded live in Berlin 12.02.10
“Slippy Floor”
“Cowboy George Parts 1 and 2”
“Psykick Dancehall”

The Commodores – “Brick House” (12″) (Motown)
The Black Belles – “What Can I Do?” (7″) (Third Man)

When Big Joan Sets Up 18/2/10 – Wanda land

Woodie Guthrie - This Machine Kills Fascists

Hey there, hipsters. As sure as night follows day, and Katie Price follows ITV2 cameras. Wednesday into Thursday saw another tip top edition of When Big Joan Sets Up , featuring Ghanian Dancehall, Banjos, Bleeps , Howls and Roars ,new tracks from veterans, Wanda Jackson and Gil Scott Heron and a record for our hero Nick Toczek (pictured). It went like this..

Mzbel featuring Quata – “Roll With Me” (download single) (no label)
Diaherrea Planet – “Powers Moves” (EP – “Aloha”) (Self Released)
Frank Fairfield – “John Henry” (LP- “Frank Fairfield”) (Tompkins Square)
Slum Dogz – “Anihiliating Rhythm” (12″)
The Desperate Bicycles – “Don’t Back The Front” (7″)(Refill Records)
Wanda Jackson – “Shakin’ All Over” (7″) (Third Man)
Ceefax Acid Crew – “Sidney’s Sizzler” (LP- “United Acid Emirates”)(Planet Mu)
Gil Scott Heron – “The Crutch” (LP – “I’m New Here”) (XL)
The Durrutti Column – “Brother” (LP – “A Paean For Wilson”) (Kooky)
Coprophillic Cryptic – “Moral Decay” (EP – “Putrefaction Upon The World”) (Self Released)
Trinity – “Vampire” (v/a LP- “Dancehall 2 – The Rise of Jamaican Dancehall Culture”) (Soul Jazz)
Marc Smith And Darwin – “Let The Bass Kick” (12″) (Notorous Vynil)
Little Richard – “Oh Why?” (LP- “Here’s Little Richard”) (Ace)
Hot Club de Paris – “Dog Tired at the Spring Dance Marathon” (EP – “With Days Like This as
Cheap as Chewing Gum, Why Would Anyone Want to Work”) (Moshi Moshi)
Cookie Monstah – “Me Want Cookie” (EP “In the Cookie Jar”) (Circle)

When Big Joan Sets Up 11/2/09 – You just put your lips together and blow

This week’s WBJSU (as all the cool kids are calling it) featured three tracks from the cracking new Lightspeed Champion LP “Life is Sweet , Nice to Meet You” and also threw the unforgiving spotlight on the lost art of whistling records – we know how to rock,us.

Maffia and Fluxy – “Tribulation Dub” (LP- “Dub Anthems”) (Black Arrow)
Brother Bones and His Shadows – “Five Foot Two Eyes Of Blue” (LP- “Globetrottin’ With Bones”) (Arhoolie)
Home Blitz – “Is Anybody There?” (LP-“Out of Phase”) (Ritchie)
The Electric Pop Group – “We Never Made Up Our Minds” (LP- “Seconds”) (Matinee)
Unknown – “Minimal Elvis” (12″) (White Label)
Demon Claws – “It’s Over” (v/a LP – “Our Boy Roy”) (Telephone Explosion)
Roy Orbison – “Sweet Dreams” (LP – “Roy Orbison Sings Don Gibson”) (MGM)
Autecre – “D-Sho Qub” (LP- “Oversteps”) (Warp)
Lightspeed Champion – “I Don’t Want to Wake Up Alone” (LP – “Life Is Sweet, Nice to Meet You”) (Domino)
Lightspeed Champion – “Madame Van Damme” (LP – “Life Is Sweet, Nice to Meet You”) (Domino)
Lightspeed Champion – “There’s Nothing Underwater” (LP – Life Is Sweet, Nice to Meet You) (Domino)
Mrs Alice Shaw and her Twin Daughters -“Spring Tide Revels” (from University of California Wax Cylinder Digitisation Project)
Don Carlos – “Rude Boy, Go Easy” – (LP-“Changes”) (Don Carlos)
The Afternoon Saints – “Round Trip Trinket” (LP – “Shirley Jangle”) (Kraak)
Best Coast – “Something In The Way” (EP – “Something In The Way”) (PPM)
Fred Lowry – “Sleepy Lagoon” – (LP-“Walking Along Kicking The Leaves”) (Decca)
Dillinger Escape Plan – “Farewell Mona Lisa” (download single) (Party Smasher Inc)

When Big Joan Sets Up 4/2/10- An Ooly Ginger Geezer

Vivian Stanshall

There is nothing in broadcasting history quite like the collection of Peel Sessions recorded by the late Vivian Stanshall for John Peel between 1975 and 1990. These stories of Sir Henry Rawlinson and the cast of grotesques that inhabit Rawlinson End, all rendered in Stanshall’s lavish prose with his rich fruity voice have been, like a lot of things, all but forgotten since the deaths of Stanshall in 1991 and Peel in 2004.

Lines like “A pale Sun poked impudent marmalade fingers through the grizzled lattice glass and sent the shadows scurrying, like convent girls menaced by a tramp…”

deserve to be disinterred from the dank, unloved corners of the internet and broadcast across the Aire Valley into the welcoming earholes of our avid audience of 4 people, some of whom I’m actually not related to.

And so they were, or one of them was, from 1977, on When Big Joan Sets Up this week alongside raggedly distorted Roy Orbsion covers, frenzied Dancehall about chickens and a raft of rude words.

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When Big Joan Sets Up 21/1/10 – The Wilfully Missing One

Due to popular demand (well, one person asked me for it – that counts as popular demand at BCB) here’s the tracklist from When Big Joan Sets Up broadcast on 21st Jan.

Purling Hiss – “Almost Washed My Hair” (LP- “Purling Hiss”) (Permanent)
Cornell Campbell – “Dub Trap” (LP – “The Gorgon Dubwise”) (Jamaican)
Edu K – “Ja Mann” (12″) (Scattermusic)
The Underlings – “Vice Squad” (7″) (Meth Bog)
Vice Squad – “Last Rockers” (LP -“The Complete Punk Singles Collection”) (13th Moon)
Kid Butcher – “Fighting For Yourself” (download EP – “Oblivion”) (Darkland)
The Pirates – “Four To The Bar” (LP-“Skull Wars”) (Warners)
Jack Rose – “West Coast Blues” (LP- “Luck in The Valley”) (Thrill Jockey)
Bounty Killer and Sugar Minott – “Tune In” (LP- “Sly and Robbie present Tune In to The Merry-Go-Round”) (Tad’s Music)
These New Puritans – “Attack Music” (LP – “Hidden”) (Angular)
Gorgonized Dorks – “Bloody Slab Of Jazz” (split cassette with Dos Amigos) (Thrashmouth)
Pierre Tchana and Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo -“Il Ne Jamias Trop Tard” (v/a LP – “Africa Boogaloo – The Latinization of West Africa”) (Honest Jon’s)
Top Cat – “Champion DJ – Shy FX Mix” (LP – “Champion DJ”) (Streetlife)

When Big Joan Sets Up – 28/01/10 – Aww C’mon

Returning to Untitled Noise after a week of overtime and televised football matches put paid to last week’s blog entry, this week’s programme featured three tracks from the ambivalently reviewed but actually rather ace new LP from The Soft Pack, tracks from two download LP’s you can buy to aid the relief effort in Haiti and various other top tunes/horrible noises depending on whose side you’re on.

Joey Riot -“Forget The World”- (12″) (Lethal Theory)
Waylon Thornton and The Heavy Hands – “Color TV” (LP – “Yours Truly”)(download from whitemoon.com)
Liquid Stranger – “Aftershock” (download EP -“Steel Trap”) (Interchill)
Errors – “Sorry About The Mess” (LP- “Come Down with Me”) (Rock Action)
Northern Portrait – “What Happens Next?” (LP- “Criminal Art Lovers”) (Matinee)
The Widdler – “Haitian Relief Dub” (download v/a LP “Dubsteppers For Haiti”) (Betamorph) (for Â£12.99 at Juno Download – all proceeds to the Haitian Relief Fund)
Kid Sputnik – “Meep” (download v/a LP “Monome Community – Haiti 2010”) Get it here
Blue Sabbath Black Fiji – “Ejaculation, Ejaculation” (download complation “WHNZ:3:EHKI”) download here
The Soft Pack – “Down on Loving” (LP- “The Soft Pack”) (Heavenly)
The Soft Pack – “More Or Less” (LP- “The Soft Pack”) (Heavenly)
The Soft Pack – “Parasites” (LP- “The Soft Pack”) (Heavenly)
The Tenth Dymentions – “My Love For You Is Growing Wild” (v/a LP – “Soul With A Hole Vol 1”) (Peanut Butter Wolf)
Harlem – “Pissed” (LP- “Hippies”) (Matador)
Caitlin Rose – “Docket” (EP – “Dead Flowers”) (Names)
Loops Haunt – “Joplin” (7″) (Black Acre)
Joshua Rifkin – “Maple Leaf Rag” (LP- “Scott Joplin Piano Rags”)(Nonesuch)
Four Tet – “Plastic People” (LP- “There is Love In You”) (Domino)

When Big Joan Sets Up 14/01/10 – Pink Lips and The Flaming Floyd

Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs - The Dark Side Of The Moon

After last week’s snowbound cancellation this week, When Big Joan Sets Up emerged from the frozen wastes of Kippax like a big emerging thing to bring you Oaklahoman psychedelic legends,The Flaming Lips‘ radical reinterpretation of Pink Floyd‘s 1973 gazillion selling opus, Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety.

This fact has led to me and Albert Freeman putting our not inconsiderable heads together to come up with other “classic” LPs that we’d like to see reinterpreted. Above the clamour of “haven’t you sad bastards got anything better to do?” (the answer to which is, he probably has, I definitely haven’t) we came up with the following:

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