Category Archives: When Big Joan Sets Up

Matters relating to Phil Copeâ€™s show, When Big Joan Sets Up, at midnight as Wednesday morphs into Thursday (UK time)

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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When Big Joan Sets Up 30/12/09 – Full Warp Speed

Greetings my plump, juicy lovlies, and as the fetid odour of partially digested sprouts begins to dissipate for another year, When Big Joan Sets Up picks up its boots and goes back to its roots with a contribution to Warp20 night.

A mix of classics and neglected gems from the dusty corners of the near faultless Warp records catalogue (we’re not going to mention Maximo Park as it’s Christmas and we’re in a good mood because we got gorilla slippers), alongside some of the banginest tunes from today’s new beat combos…

The Powdered Toastman – “Alley Oop” (12″) (Haunted House)
The Hollywood Argyles – “Alley Oop” (LP – “The Golden Age of American Rock and Roll Volume 2”) (Ace)
Bounty Killer – “Ungrateful Hellboy” (EP- “Raise Hell on Hellboy”) (Payday)
Vic Chesnutt – “Concord Country Jubilee” (LP- “At The Cut”) (Constellation)
These New Puritans – “We Want War” (10″) (Angular)

Big Joan’s Warp20 (Minutes) Mix

Chris Morris – “Club News” (LP- “Blue Jam”) (Warp)
Plone – “Plock” (LP- “For Beginner Piano”) (Warp)
Phillip Glass – “Heroes Symphony – (Aphex Twin Remix)” (LP-“26 Mixes For Cash”) (Warp)
Sweet Exorcist – “Testone” (12″) (Warp)
David Holmes – “Johnny Favourite” (12″) (Warp)
Sabres Of Paradise – “Wilmot” (12″) (Warp)
Kid Unknown – “Devastating Beat Creator (Dub Echo)”(12”) (Warp)

Liars – “Scarecrows on A Killer Slant” (LP-“Sisterworld”) (Mute)
Laura Cantrell – “I’d Be a Legend In My Time” (download from Lauracantrell.com)
Delphic – “Red Light” (LP- “Acolyte”) (Chimeric/Polydor)

When Big Joan Sets Up 24/12 – A big fat man with a beard – how festive!

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit,
He must be a communist.
And a beard and long hair,
Must be a pacifist.
What’s in that pipe that he’s smoking?
Arlo Guthrie

Happy Christmas bloggers, Here are the tracks from Wednesday:

Rage Against The Machine – “Killing In The Name Of” (LP -“Rage Against The Machine”) (Epic)
Lucky Soul – “Lonely This Christmas” (EP -“Ruffa Round The Christmas Tree”) (available free from www.ruffalane.com)
Sizzla – “Res A Dem” (LP- “Stand Tall”) (Yes)
Africa Hi Tech – “Blen” (CD – “Warp Sampler 2010”) (Warp)
Deiphago – “Subliminal Satan” (v/a CD – “Fear Candy 75”) (Terrorizer)
The Twerps – “Good Advice” (CDR – “The Twerps”) (Night People)
T-Model Ford – “Two Trains” (LP – “The Ladies Man”) (Alive)
Flore – “Feel Me” (12″) (Botchit & Scarper)
Morecambe & Wise – “Bring Me Sunshine” (LP – “EMI Comedy Classics”) (EMI)
The Fall – “We Wish You A Protein Christmas” (EP- “We Wish You A Protein Christmas”) (Action)
Sy and Unknown – “Move It” (12″) (Quosh)
Cliff Richard and The Drifters – “Move It” (7″) (Columbia)
The Soft Pack – “C’mon” (Download from Pitchfork.com)
Black Tusk Sound – “Sound Killin'” (12″) (Frozen O’s)
Bonny Billy and The Picket Line -“Ramblin’ Fever” (LP- “Funtown Comedown”) (Drag City)
Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood – “His Master’s Voice” (LP – “Dubsetter”) (Beatnik/On U Sound)
The Shurfine Singers – “Silent Night/11 O’Clock News” (7″) (Josie)

Fuck Cowell, we won’t do what you tell us!

I ‘ve got a problem (one of many you may say, but let’s focus here). I am, I have come to realise, something of a musical extremist. Basically, the purpose of my existence on the planet is to make radio programmes that traumatise and upset people who have conservatories and cappuccino machines and who laugh at A Question of Sport, and give some kind of hope to the beautful people who find all this stuff as ennervating as I do.

It’s a childish and ultimately futile aim, of course, but it is the only thing that stops me walking into the Stock Exchange with forty pounds of Semtex strapped about my torso, so it’ll have to do.

And sometimes it’s a lonely life, but not today.

For something has happened today that proves that there are 500,000 other like minded(ish) souls who have assaulted the bastions of banality and emerged victorious.

I speak of course of the people, heroes everyone of them, who have put a shouty records full of “fucks” and guitar noises that could strip a picket fence at 200 yards, into the Christmas number one slot.

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When Big Joan Sets Up 17/12 – The Ones That Got Away

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all round our house ..were piles of records that I hadn’t had chance to play during our brief midnight assignations throughout the year and LP’s that we should have played more tracks from so in an ultimately vain attempt to right this grevious wrong this week’s programme featured some of the ones that got away during 2009.

Yeah, it doesn’t rhyme, does it?

Zola Jesus – “Six Feet from My Baby” (LP – “The Spoils”)(Scared Bones)
Staff Benda Billi – “Sala Mosala” (LP -“Tres,Tres Fort”)(Crammed Discs)
Pelican – “An Inch Above Sand” (LP – “What We All Come to Need”) (Southern Lord)
Orgone Accumulators – “Walk Don’t Run” (EP -“Good Advice”) (Sultans of Swing)
G.G.King – “The Letter” (CDR – “Last of the Late Night Wiggers”) (Self Released)
Jah Wobble and the Chinese Dub Orchestra – “Dragon and Phoenix Dub”(LP – “Jah Wobble and the Chinese Dub Orchestra”) (30Hertz)
Tilthammer – “Harlequin Fluker” (EP – “Reflections”) (Overweight)
Public Image Limited – “Careering” (Download – “The John Peel Session”)
Lightspeed Champion – “Marlene” (Download single) (Domino)
Robbie Long and Stormtrooper – “Rock Out” (12″) (Thin N Crispy)
Playdoh – “Oh Jay!” (LP- “Playdoh”) (Winning Sperm)
Buzzer – “Teacher’s Pet” (7″) (Tic Tac Totally)
Jahmiga – “Whiskey” (7″) (Jahmiga)
The Shitty Limits – “Swallowed Whole” (LP- “Beware The Limits”) (Wallride)
Jacob Miller – “All I Want for Ismas” (3 CD set “Trojan Christmas Collection)(Trojan)