“I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent.” Taylor Caldwell

Pulpfusion – “Christmas Time Is Here Again” (download EP “Wishing You A Silly Christmas”) (Big M Productions)
Lightnin’ Hopkins – “Christmas Blues” (v/a LP ” Merry Blue Christmas”) (Fuel)
The Tamlins and Trinity – “Silent Night” (v/a LP- ‘A Yard Style Christmas”) (VP)
Jacknife – “Santa Never Forgets” (v/a LP “Happy Birthday Baby Jesus Volumes 1 and 2”)(Sympathy For The Record Industry)
Hands and Kness – “James Brown Died On Christmas Day” (7″) (Self Released)
James Brown – “Soulful Christmas” (LP- “Funky Christmas”) (Spectrum)
The Fall – “Blue Christmas” (download “Pod Fodder Volume 140”) (http://burningworld.blogspot.com/)
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band – “There Ain’t No Santa Claus On The Evenin’ Stage” (LP – ‘The Spotlight Kid”) (Reprise)
DJ Deval – “Deck Da Halls (Deval’s Yuletide Rinse Out)” (v/a LP -“Christmas Turkey”) (High Days Grammaphone Productions)
Kate Rusby – “Cranbrook” (LP – ‘While Mortals Sleep”) (Pure)
Kate Rusby – “Joy To The World” (LP – ‘While Mortals Sleep”) (Pure)
Kate Rusby – “Holmfirth Anthem” (LP – ‘While Mortals Sleep”) (Pure)
Kid Cholesterol – “Christmas At Holly’s” (download) (Heavy Duty Booty)
Catlin Rose amd Keegan Dewitt – “You Never Come Home For Christmas” (v/a LP “For Folk’s Sake 2011) (bandcamp)
Phil Ochs – “Christmas In Kentucky” (LP – “A Toast To Those Who Are Gone”) (Rhino)
Otis Redding – ‘White Christmas” (7″) (Atco)

In the way that some people look forward to Christmas, or the start of the football season – in the eyes of your humble DJ, the sky is always a little bluer, the birds sing a little more sweetly, and the smiles on the faces of the lickle children are little wider when there’s a new Fall LP to be played.

Hell, I even accidentally heard 10 minutes of Chris Evans this morning in a cafe and didn’t feel my ususal urge to send him an envelope dipped in Anthrax.

5 tracks from their new masterpiece “Erstaz GB” were featured tonight with 5 more to follow next week. By which time the LP will be out and the streets will be throning with smiling citizens all entoning “I had to wake up the cat , to feed the fucking dog” in their best Mark E Smith voices.

The Source – “Yeah,Yeah,Yeah (Party Catani Mix)” (EP -“What Have I Done?) (Renegade Masters)
The Fall – “Time For Chang” (LP – “Ersatz GB”) (Cherry Red)
Macka Diamond – “Mother Man” (LP – “Don’t Disturb Mi”) (VP)
Byetone – “T-E-L-E-G-R-A-M-M” (LP – “Symeta”) (Raster-Norton)
Girls Of Porn – “Shed Blaster” (EP – “Party Chicken”) (Lo-Fi Kabuki)
The Johnny Otis Orchestra feat. Pete “Guitar” Lewis – “Midnight At The Barrelhouse” – (LP-“The Johnny Otis Story Volume 1 – Midnight At The Barrelhouse 1945-1957”) (Ace)
Fade – “Repugnant” (download) (Proximity)
The Fall – “Laptop Dog” (LP – “Ersatz GB”) (Cherry Red)
The Fall – “Nate Will Not Return” (LP – “Ersatz GB”) (Cherry Red)
The Fall – “Greenway”(LP – “Ersatz GB”) (Cherry Red)
Warren Zevon – “Werewolves Of London” (LP – “Excitable Boy”) (Rhino)
The Blanche Hudson Weekend – “Then You Tell Me” (LP – “You Always Loved Violence”) (Squirrel)
Skoal Kodiak – “The Borrower” (LP -“Kryptonym Bodliak”) (Load)
Glen Jones – “Twenty Three Years in Happy Valley or Love Among The Chickenshit” (LP – “The Wanting”) (Thrill Jockey)
The Fall – “Cosmos 7” (LP – “Ersatz GB”) (Cherry Red)
Wolfgang Voight – “Fresko 1” (v/a LP – “Air Texture 1”) (Air Texture)

and as I’ve been listening to The Fall LP all week I didn’t post a tracklisting for last week’s programme so here it is.

Slimmah Sound and Lyrical Benji – “Into The Ark” (LP – “Firm in Jah”) (Roots Tribe)
Splattered Entrails – “Swarm Of Virrulence” (LP- “Nauseate”) (Blast Head)
Brilliant Colours – “Hey Dan” (LP – “Again and Again”) (Slumberland)
A Winged Victory For The Sullen – “Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears” (LP – “A Winged Victory For The Sullen”) (Kranky)
Killer – “Shaker’s Cut” (download LP – “Hardtechno Destroyer Volume 5) (Technosforza)
The Spartan Dreggs – “The Charcoal Burner’s Lament” (LP – “Forensic R & B”) (Damaged Goods)
Little Axe – “Come Here Dog And Get Your Bone” (LP- “If You Want Loyalty, Get A Labrador”) (On-U-Sound)
Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra – “Skyliner” (LP- “The Best Of Charlie Barnet) (Grammercy)
Phace and Rockwell – “Rat Race” (v/a LP-“The Way Of The Warrior”) (Shogun Audio)
The Spartan Dreggs – “The Physics Of Blown Sands and Desert Dunes” (LP – “Forensic R & B”) (Damaged Goods)
Balam Acab – “Await” (LP – “Wander/Wonder”)(Tri-Angle)
Bo Ningen – “Jensei Ichidokiri” (7″) (Stolen Recordings)
Hype Willams – “Rise Up (Copeland PMT Club Mix) (12”) (Second Layer)
Merital Family feat. Tiger, RM and Que – “Wanga Gut” (download) (Da Wiz/Sniper)
The Spartan Dreggs – “The Fighting Temarare” (LP – “Forensic R & B”) (Damaged Goods)
Stylus and Audio Junkie – “Valve” (EP – “Stylus and Audio Junkie Volume 1”)(Broken Stylus)

Historians will tell you that the late seventies was the era of punk wherein the cultural hegemony of soft rock nonsense was rent asunder and the charts became a writhing mass of snarling, spitting two minute bursts of glorious noise and Rick Wakeman and his caped ilk were well and truly fucked off for good.

The actual charts of 1977 were curiously catholic affair, dominated by a mix of country (‘Lucille”), disco (“I Feel Love”) , musical theatre (“Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”), fit blokes off the telly (David Soul’s actually rather ace “Silver Lady) and topped off by the always cheering sound of an ageing multi- millionaire making himself ever richer by singing about a chunk of Scotland that he owned.

Into this confused melange came a record which had been picked up by inexplicably popular Radio 2 breakfast show host Terry Wogan of a provincial brass band playing an instrumental version of a 1911 song about a Cornish Folk tradition called “The Floral Dance”

At 6 years old I’d never heard music like this, huge and soaringly beautiful replete with harrumphing tubas and sonorous trumpets and cornets , it made all the other music which blared out of daytime radio sound well, a bit shit.

This was the start of an abiding affection for brass band music and the B and R in particular which led me to The Lowry last Tuesday for – to my intense shame , my first live encounter with them, thanks to leading folk band The Unthanks with whom they are currently touring.

Accompanied by fellow brass nut Laura Rawlings and trying not to feel out of place at a gig where you are greeted on entry by a deeply pleasant lady who tells you to “Enjoy the show” instead of a joyless skinhead in a high visibility vest muttering into a headset, we settle into the rapidly darkening Lowry.

At this point the B and R file onto the stage , resplendent in their appealingly purple jackets , each carrying with them a gleaming instrument that sparkles under the lights. -also standing proudly but unobtrusively at the side of the stage, is their Yorkshire Regional Champions trophy – as if there aren’t enough bloody trophies already in Manchester.

The Unthanks file on after and in the kind of noncommercial gesture that befits a band whose love of the music far outshines the usual tour business of plugging the LP, start an achingly beautiful version of “The King Of Rome” – a song which they have yet to record themselves but will be familiar to anyone who has heard June Tabor’s wonderful version on the “Aqaba” LP. This song, an apparently true story of a man from Derby who loses a prized racing  pigeon in a storm, only to have it return to him after he has abandoned hope of ever seeing it again, is underpinned by the gently thrumming accompaniment of the band and by it’s conclusion I am struggling not to burst into tears. And we’re only three minutes in!

The remainder of the performance , split in to two halves with an interval in the middle (there’s posh!) takes in tracks from The Unthanks’ fine current LP “Last” along with ones from 2009’s “Here’s The Tender Coming” and a spellbinding version of my favourite of their tracks “Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk” from their previous incarnation as Rachel Unthank and The Winterset.

Along with this they do a version of Ewan Mccoll’s “Nobody Knew She Was There” which leads me to the brink of blubbing once again and a lovely “My Lagan Love”, sung as a solo by Niopha Keegan, (on the right in the picture ) and all the while the B and R send out life affirming plumes of warm brass which compliment the songs perfectly.
Typical of the unselfishness of The Unthanks (who more than once declare their personal joy at working with The Brighouse and Rastrick) the B and R also get a couple of solo turns one of which is called possibly “Northern Fantasy” and encompasses “Bobby Shaftoe” ” The Blaydon Races” and, bookending the piece “On Ilkley Moor Bh’a Tat”. Despite not being given to spontaneous displays of regionalism,during the latter I have to restrain myself from standing to attention and loudly proclaiming my Yorkshireness to a startled crowd.

Not only a night of wonderful music then , but also thanks to the sheer warmth and good naturedness of the performers a genuinely moving experience which if you happen to read this before Thursday I urge you to participate in when the tour reaches Leeds Town Hall.

I am at this very moment scouring my finances to find a way of purchasing a Tuba so that I can stand under the windows of  prominent record label executives parping tunelessly in the small hours until they agree to pay both The Unthanks and the B and R fantastical sums to make an LP together.
As we set off home, Laura with characteristic insight, summed the night up perfectly ‘It was like spending two hours in the world , the way it should be”

Yes, due to a combination of technical mishaps and bone idleness the sleeping giant that is When Big Joan Sets Up has been absent from this blog for far too long. So how’ve you been? Did you miss me? Oh well , if that’s your attitude…

Raffertie – “Visual Acuity” (EP – “Visual Acuity”) (Ninja Tune)
Mind Eraser – “The Way Is Shut” (2 x 7″ “Brutal Supremacy”) (Painkiller)
Augustus Pablo – “Armagideon Dub” (LP – “Message Music – Digital Productions 1986 -1994”) (Pressure Sounds)
Big Bill Broonzy – “Goodbye Baby Blues” (LP – “One Beer, One Blues”) (Brownsville)
DJ Diamond – “Pop The Trunk” (LP – “Flight Music”) (Planet Mu)
Jacuzzi Boys – “Cool Vapours” (LP – “Glazin’) (Hardly Art)
The Duprees – “You Belong To Me” ( v/a LP – ” The Golden Age of American Rock and Roll – Volume 2″) (Ace)
Sickness -“Back To Xanadu” (7″) (Freak Animal)
P.Dubbz – “Broke Out In A Riot” (download – “Riot Riddim”) (Icesis Productions)
Icesis Bling – “Da World Gone Crazy” (download – “Riot Riddim”) (Icesis Productions)
Cocteau Twins – “Pearly Dewdrops Drops” (7″) (4AD)
Echo Lake – “Another Day” (7″) (No Pain In Pop)
Lee Noble – “Contempt For The Beach” (LP – “No Becoming”) (Sweat Lodge Guru)
The Routes – “Do What’s Right By You” (LP – “Aligator”) (Dirty Water)
Les Kellies – “Erase You” (LP – “Les Kellies”) (Fire)
Popol Vuh – “Schnee – Thomas Fehlman’s Flow Edit” (LP -“Revisited and Remixed 1970-1999”) (SPV)
Extra Happy Ghost! – “Mercy, Mercy” (LP -“Modern Horses”) (Saved By The Radio)
Mariachi El Bronx- “Matador” (LP – ‘Mariachi El Bronx II”) (Ato)
Jeff Mills – “Homing Device” (LP – “2087”) (Axis)

and while I’m in the mood last week’s programme celebrating the 100th release on national drum and bass treasure Ram Records looked like this…

The Wind Up Birds – “Popman” (7″) (Sturdy)
Sub Focus – “Stomp” – (v/a download LP – “Ram 100”) (Ram)
Skint and Demoralised – “Maria, Full Of Grace” (LP – ‘This Sporting Life”) (Heist or Hit)
Don Corleone – “Istanbul Dub” (LP – ‘Don Corleone Presents Dub In HD”) (Don Corleone)
No Hope Kids – “Fuzzapocalypse vs. Mechagodzilla” (EP – “No Hope Kids”)(nohopekids.bandcamp.com/album/nohopekids-ep)
Algernon Cadwallader – “Pitfall” (LP – ‘Parrot Files”) (Self Released)
Wilkinson – “Refugee” (v/a download LP – “Ram 100”) (Ram)
Ralph Stanley – “John The Revelator” (LP – ‘A Mother’s Prayer”) (Rebel Records)
Don and Juan – “What’s Your Name?” (7″) (London)
Pupajim – “Double Lock” (download single) (Maffi)
The Shirks – “Cry, Cry,Cry” (7″) (Grave Mistake)
The Smirks – “UK-OK” (7″) (Beserkley)
Margaret Dygas – “41” (LP – “Margaret Dygas”) (Perlon)
Laura Marling – “Sophia” (download single) (Virgin)
Zola Jesus – “Vessel” (download single) (Soultrain Transmissions)
Tiwitine – “Tiwitine” (v/a LP – “Ishumar 2 – New Tuareg Guitars”) (Le Chant Du Fauvres)
Mind Vortex – “Generator” (v/a download LP – “Ram 100”) (Ram)

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 →