Category Archives: When Big Joan Sets Up

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

When Big Joan Sets Up – 5th July “Our Matthew’s not been well, he’s had to go for an Autopsy”

This genuine thing, overheard on a bus, is my tenuous way of telling you that this week’s When Big Joan Sets Up flung open the gates of Hades to let in the mighty Autopsy and their new LP ‘The Headless Ritual”. Very much the anti Mumford and Sons

Pilgrimage – “Ra88” (EP – “Pilgrimage”) (pilgrimagefl.bandcamp.com)
Pixies – “Bagboy” (download)
Glenn Jones – “Blues for Tom Carter” (LP – “My Garden State”) (Thrill Jockey)
Autopsy – “Slaughter At The Beast House” (LP – “The Headless Ritual”) (Peaceville)
The Black Dog – “Atavistic Ritual” (LP – “Tranklements”) (Dust Science)
Derrick Morgan – “Rasta Don’t Fear” (v/a LP – “Good News”) (King Spinna)
Tingle In The Netherlands – “Prostitute’s Handbag – Atomizer Mix” (tingleinthenetherlands.bandcamp.com)
Del Shannon – “Runaway” (7″) (London)
Dr Peacock with Hyrule War – “Runaway” (GGM) (download)
Autopsy – “When The Hammer Meets The Bone” (LP – “The Headless Ritual”) (Peaceville)
Deap Vally – “Creeplife” (LP – “Sistronix”) (Island)
Trinity – “Jah Time Now” (LP – “Eye To Eye”) (Irie-ites)
Arctic – “Shook” (EP – “Shook”) (Coyote)
Autopsy – “Flesh Turns To Dust” (LP – “The Headless Ritual”) (Peaceville)
Congo Natty – “London Dungeons” (LP – “Jungle Revolution”) (Big Dada)

When Big Joan Sets Up – 27th June 2013 – A Tingle in Yer Netherlands

WBJSU bursts back onto Untitled Noise with swag from last weekend’s All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival and three tracks from the wonderful Tingle in The Netherlands whose fine LP “Why Can’t You Write Something Nice For A Change” can and indeed should be had from here http://tingleinthenetherlands.bandcamp.com

Mira Jean Clarke – “Swing Low” (V/A LP – “Time Will Make A Change”) (Mississippi)
Winter Bear – “Jump In The Fire” (7″) (Hozac)
Clipping – “Story” (LP – “midcity”) (http://clppng.bandcamp.com/album/midcity)
Tingle In The Netherlands – “Forest of Cocks” (LP – “Why Can’t You Write Something Nice For A Change”) (bandcamp)
Amon Amarth – “We Shall Destroy” (LP – “Deceiver of the Gods”) (Metal Blade)
Pangea – “Viaduct” (12″) (Chestplate)
Hamadth Kah – “Ce Weeti” (V/A LP – “Laila Je T’Aime”) (Mississippi/Sahel Sounds)
Body/Head – “Unreleased 1” (Soundcloud)
DNA – “Not Moving” (V/A LP “No New York”) (Antilles)
QQ and Venomous – “One Drop” (download single) (Stashment Productions)
Tingle In The Netherlands – “The Housewife’s Lament” (LP – “Why Can’t You Write Something Nice For A Change”) (bandcamp)
Klute – “Best Bit’s Not Over” (12″) (Commercial Suicide)
Jimmy Lee Williams – “Hoot Your Belly Give Your Backbone Ease” (V/A LP – “Sticks Over Your Shoulder”) (Mississippi)
Tingle In The Netherlands – “I Lost My Heart To A Starship Cleaner” (LP – “Why Can’t You Write Something Nice For A Change”) (bandcamp)

Best of BIFF playlist

During the recent Bradford International Film Festival, several BCB DJs provided additional evening entertainment in the cafe area. I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of some of the tunes we played. The tracks in the playlist were contributed by the following DJs:

1-5: Albert Freeman (@albfreeman)
6-10: Maria Spadafora (@BloodyNoraDJ)
11-14: Phil Cope
15-19: Jenny Harris ((jennyjetharris)
20-24: Griff
25-29: Patrick Thornton (@Selection_Box)
30-34: Simon Ashberry

Selection Box Shows 254 & 255: Ol’ Blue Eye Is Back

Yes, well done, do a joke about the colour of his eyes then use a black & white photo. Idiot.

In case you’ve been hiding under a glam rock for the last few months you can’t have helped but notice that music journalists and highly-successful BCB disc jockeys with up to 3 listeners alike have been getting into something of a froth with regards to the new album by a young man from South London. The Next Day, David Bowie’s first album since Reality in 2003 was released this week following something of a biscuit game by the great and the good among musos, among whom The Independent‘s Andy Gill referred to the new Jones long-player as “The greatest comeback ever.” Clearly the likes of Greg LeMond, Bobby Ewing, and, this week, FC Barcelona have something of a claim themselves to this title, but to argue whose was the best is a pointless task partly because it is a largely meaningless phrase and partly because I’m not entirely sure what a “comeback”, in musical terms, actually is. To comeback to something you surely have to have indicated that you were, by choice or by default, stopping doing whatever it was that you were doing in the first place. I recall no such suggestion from The Thin White Pensioner. Admittedly, 10 years between albums is something of a significant gap – particularly for someone who not only released 14 albums in 13 years between 1967 and 1980, but some of those albums were the most influential records of all time. A couple of the records after were a right load of old pelt as well, but we’ll skirt over that. However, for whatever reason our pop idols are more pop idle than they used to be – whereas releasing two albums in a year was not uncommon in the 1960s and 1970s, we think little now of artists taking 3 or 4 years between releases, which really begs the question as to why they aren’t generally a good deal better than they were 30 years ago. Continue reading →

Eclectic Mainline 7 March 2012

Albert Freeman, yesterday.

And lo, did I feel the bearded hand of Uncle Travelling Albert on my shoulder, informing me that he was returning from his global jaunt and that my stint in the coveted Electic Mainline chair (a decorative castered sedan with attachable caviar tray) was in its last throes.

 

Sadly, due to a misunderstanding between himself and a helmeted law enforcement officer regarding a holed-out turnip, a pair of malfunctioning trousers, a series of primal yelps and the back seat of an omnibus, Phil Cope was unable to co-present with me once more and the show progressed as a Thornton-only concern. Contributions to his bail should be sent in the form of cash directly to me in a brown paper envelope and without out a word to the Inland Revenue.

Still, despite the dearth of Cope’s lovely Pontefract brogue there were plenty of terpsichorean treats to fill the programme. Here be the monikers what be done gone given to them as rudimentary identifiers, and meanwhile I’ll scuttle back off to my Midnight griefhole with a chair made out of razorwire. Thanks for having me.

Eclectic Mainline 7 March 2012 (listen again here)

1. PJ Harvey – On Battleship Hill
from: Let England Shake

2. Meta Marie Louise featuring Max and Momo – Gramma’s Flower Pots
from: Sunny Spots

3. Chairlift – Met Before
from: Something

4. Cavacha Bariba – Adiza Claire
from: Le Super Borgou de Parakou (various artists)

5. Kate Walsh – Le Jardiner
from: The Real Thing

6. Band of Skulls – Bruises
from: Sweet Sour

7. Bonobo featuring Andrea Triana and Dels – Eyesdown
from: Black Sands Remixed

8. Joan As Police Woman – Run For Love
from: The Deep Field

9. Robert Ellis – Comin’ Home
from: Photographs

10. Spoek Mathambo featuring Yolanda – Let Them Talk
from: Father Creeper

11. Erik Friedlander – Tabatha
from: Bonebridge

12. Gang Gang Dance – Chinese High
from: Eye Contact

 

Patrick Thornton presents Selection Box every Monday at Midnight.

Eclectic Mainline 22 February 2012 & 29 February 2012

 

Phil Cope has yet to follow the example of Richard Herring vis-a-vis facial hair.

When Albert Freeman proferred his chair to myself and Phil Cope (one sat on the other’s knee since you ask) he did so with the promise that we would ensure that his commitment to a weekly blog about his show would also follow.  What Albert foolishly failed to check was whether myself and The Mod Oliver Hardy were in fact hiding cross keys behind our backs, which as everyone knows is the legally-binding get-out clause for any promise made publically or privately and is sadly a manouevre often abused at weddings by men intent from the start on being serial adulterers.

 

So, I have welched on this agreement made betwixt Freeman, Hardy & wally and thus have to use one blog entry to catch up on two editions of Eclectic Mainline.  The first saw Cope & I playing catch with such political hot potatoes as Adele’s sac of living tissue in which she nurtures her young Brit Award eggs, the appropraicy of Paul Weller’s tie knot and the manner in which a radio wireless show can disobey the rules of the space/time continuum.  In summary: we titted about again.

Ding dong Dingle, where chair?

Sadly, such titting was reduced to a solo practice for last week’s show and Mod Laurel was forced to go it alone as, due to the constraints of that there time that they have these days, Phil was unable to join me.  You may think that recording an hour of radio together per week is not that restrictive in terms of the ticky tick tock of clocks, but if you are thinking this it just goes to show what a wretched and naive specimen you are.  You are clearly failing to take into account the work that goes into ensuring that our voices are being pushed out of radios, computer speakers, iPods, phones and various other devices accross the World simultaneously.  Everyone says that Father Christmas is amazing for managing to get around every household in the World in a single night once a year, and yet we manage to be inside thousands of radio machines all at the same time, wittering nonsense about hair dos and Cain Dingle off of out of Emmerdale Farm.  You don’t get that without at least half an hour’s preparation time, I’ll tell you now.

Anyway, here’s the track-listing, brought to you via the twin media of the written word and contemporary dance, although only one is visible here:

Jagwar Pirates' Full Total Complete Bronzage

 

Eclectic Mainline 22 February 2012 (listen again here)

1.  Adele / Prophet Arise Riddim – Dubbin In The Deep

from: unreleased

2.  Steinvord – Maelstrom

from: Steinvord

3.  Alex Chilton – Come On Honey

from: Free Again: The “1970” Sessions

4.  Field Music – A Prelude To Pilgrim Street

from: Plumb

5.  Paul Weller – That Dangerous Age

from: Sonic Kicks

6.  New Age Steppers – Conquer

from: Love Forever

7.  Liechtenstein – No Idealists Left

from: Fast Forward

8.  Jagwar Pirates – Rocket Surf

from: Full Total Complete Bronzage

9.  Chairlift – Sidewalk Safari

from: Something

10.  Soap&Skin – Wonder

from: Narrow

11. Twin Sister – Gene Ciampi

from: In Heaven

12.  Tesfay Taye – Selame

from: Ilita!: New Ethiopian Dance Music (various artists)

Those Darlins: what's not to like?

 

Eclectic Mainline 29 February 2012 (listen again here)

1.  Liz Green – Hey Joe

from: O, Devotion!

2.  Afro Beat Bariba – Abakpe

from: Le Super Borgou de Parakou (various artists)

3.  Tom Waits – Raised Right Men

from: Bad As Me

4.  Emporium – Mindbender

from: Another Planet: The Best of Emporium

5.  Crybaby – When The Lights Go Out

from: Crybaby

6.  Those Darlins – Your Bro

from: Screws Get Loose

7.  Dave Davies – Do You Wish To Be A Man

from: Hidden Treasures

8.  Amadou & Miriam featuring Santi Gold – Dougou Badia

from: Folia

9.  Leonard Cohen – Amen

from: Old Ideas

10.  Grinderman – Palaces of Montezuma (Barry Adamson Remix)

from: Grinderman 2 RMX

11. Bowerbirds – Death Wish

from: The Clearing

12.  Saint Etienne – Tonight

from: Words & Music

 

Patrick Thornton presents Selection Box every Monday at Midnight

Phil Cope presents When Big Joan Sets Up every Wednesday at Midnight

Eclectic Mainline 15/2/2012: Another Fine Mess You’ve Got Me Into

Your regular EM host Albert Freeman is off for a few weeks on a mission to save stranded vegan wasps from a concentration camp in deepest Antasia, so myself and the venerable Phil Cope – the Mod Laurel & Hardy – are sitting in for a total of four weeks in return for lurid bodily favours which would make a street girl vomit into an ashtray.

I seem to recall an off-air agreement betwixt your hosts that if I did all the technical hoohah this week, Phillip would do the blogging honours. Ah cannae see the relevant entry*, so I’ve done the honours on his behalf and will make sure to smash all the teeth out of his head as a punishment for reneging on such a deal. It also gives me carte blanche to shove up these compare & contrast images of the two of us – coincedentally taken entirely independent of each other and without prior knowledge of the existence of either, which Phil hates as he thinks it makes him look like a blind Womble.

* Although, in fairness, I took home the tracklisting which might have made it difficult for him, but I must just smash his teeth out anyway for my own amusement.

Here’s the tunes that we poured onto the airwaves like aural soup into your listening ear bowls:

 

Eclectic Mainline 15 February 2012 (Listen here)

1. Those Darlins – Screws Get Loose
from: Screws Get Loose

2. Lambchop – Gone Tomorrow
from: Mr. M

3. Hookworms – Medicine Cabinet
from: Hookworms EP

4. La Makina Del Karibe – El Maki Man
from: Kosmik Chankleta

5. Cate Le Bon – Falcon Eyed
from: Cyrk

6. Jack White – Machine Gun Silhouette
from: Love Interruption 7″ single

7. EQ Why – Back 2 Dis
from: Let Me See Your Footwork

8. Alabama Shakes – Hold On
from: Boys & Girls

9. Liz Green – Rybka
from: Bad Medicine CD single

10. Metronomy – Corinne
from: The English Riviera

11. Shearwater – Breaking The Waves
from: Animal Joy

12. The Fall – Cosmos 7
from: Ertsatz GB

13. Ital – Doesn’t Matter (If You Love Him)
from: Hive Mind

 

Patrick Thornton presents Selection Box every Monday at Midnight.

Phil Cope presents When Big Joan Sets Up every Wednesday at Midnight.

When Big Joan Sets Up 12.1.12 – MMXII GBV

Well as it all went royally tits up for the first prgramme of 2012 – Happy new year and all that. 2012 gets of to a magic if belated start with the three tracks from the long awaited new Guided By Voices LP “Let’s Go Eat The Factory” alongside loads of other new year treats. In the words of brother Lightnin’ “Dont let it git away,boy”

Lightnin’ Hopkins – “Happy New Year” (4 CD Set – “Texas Thunbderbolt”) (Proper)
Morphy – “Ragga Spindle” (EP – “I Dubbed The Sheriff”) (Translation)
The Blind Shake – “Man Leaves House” (LP – “Seriousness”) (Learning Curve)
Jon Convex – “Closer” (10″) (Convex Industries)
John and Tom – “Lonesome Yodel Blues # 2″ (7”) (Third Man)
Jeff The Brotherhood – “Whatever I Want” (7″) (Third Man)
Miss Omega – “Know My Name” (EP – Know My Name – The Remixes”)(Studio Rockers)
J- Rocc – “PNK” (EP – “Stay Fresh”) (Stone’s Throw)
Ilyas Ahmed and Liz Harris – “I” (EP -‘Visitor”) (Social Music)
Skream – “Indistinct” (EP – “Skreamizm Vol.6”) (Tempa)
Guided By Voices – “Imperial Racehorsing” (LP – “Let’s Go Eat The Factory”) (Fire)
Guided By Voices – “Either Nelson” (LP – “Let’s Go Eat The Factory”) (Fire)
Guided By Voices – “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” (LP – “Let’s Go Eat The Factory”) (Fire)
Fats Domino -“You Done Me Wrong” (The Imperial Records Singles Collection Volume 2″) (Ace)
D-Struct – “Starport” (download) (T3K)
Hookworms – “Teen Dreams” (EP -“Hookworms EP”) (Gringo)

2011 and all that.

As New Years’ Eve darkens and the braver among us hurry to tie up the paperwork on that second mortgage that will enable us to afford a taxi home after midnight tonight, it seems appropriate to reflect on the year.

Watching those Review Of The Year prgrammes that clutter up the TV schedules like discarded Christmas crackers has been a particularly harrowing experience this year as events seemed to lurch from natural distasters to riots to economic meltdown and optimism has become a commodity as rare as a repentant banker.

So dispiriting was the bulk of the news this year that I found myslef watching the Royal Wedding coverage, with it’s endless interviews with dead eyed identikit nuclear family units in plastic Union Jack bowler hats who “got up at 3.30 this morning to come down from Nottingham because it’s a once in a lifetime experience” just to see someone on the news who appreared to cheerful about something. Although I’m still mystified as to why all the men seemed to have taken their jumpers off and tied them louchly around their shoulders as if this wasn’t a universally agreed sign of an unalloyed twat.

In the midst of this tumultuous year there were times when making radio programmes packed to the rafters with noise and confusion seemed somewhat peripheral to say the least, but as I staggered through my 40th year on the planet , music remained one of the only things that could sustain my soul against the vicissitudes of a world where Peter Andre is allowed to be on the telly and, I reasoned if it could sustain me, then there was an outside chance it could do the same for others

This is a list of my favourite LP’s and tracks which started off at about 200 LP’s and 200 tracks but has been whittled down to the following records which made us momentarily forget that Jeremy Clarkson is alive.

Goodnight 2011. it’s been unreal, and if you have trouble getting to sleep don’t forget that 2012 is the year of the Olympiczzzzzzzz… Continue reading →

When Big Joan Sets Up 29.12.11 – Guitar Frenzy Night!

Christmas presents broken already? Only the Toffee Pennies and Orange Creams left in the Quality Street tin? Chitty Chitty Bloody Bastard Bang Bang on the TV? – This week Big Joan took it upon itself to enliven this most perineal of weeks with a dozen guitar blow outs from 2011 plonked right in the middle of the prgramnne without tedious DJ chat, Feel the fuzz!

Batida – “Yumbala” (EP – “Yumbala”) (Ghetto Bassquake)
James Ferraro – “Fro Yo And Cellular Bits” (LP- “Far Side Virtual”) (Hippos In Tanks)
PJ Harvey – “This Glorious Land” (LP – ‘Let England Shake”) (Island)
Badboe – “Stop, What’s That Sound?” (v/a download LP – “Funk Against Fascism”) (Cult Music)
White Ring – ‘Hey Hey, My My” (12″) (Handmade Birds)

BIG JOAN’S GUITAR FRENZY
Apache Dropout – “Radiation” (7″) (Mexican Summer)
Pygmy Shrews – “AM Breakout” (LP – “You People Can All Go Straight To Hell”) (Jack Shack)
Deadbeat Beat – “I Think You Stink” (Cassette – “When I Talk To You”) (Self Released)
Blasted Canyons – “Fries Yr Eyes” (LP – ‘Blasted Canyons”) (Castleface)
Cosmonauts – “Flowerbomb” (Cassette – “New Psychic Denim”) (Burger)
The Barrercudas – “Baby, Baby. Baby” (LP – ‘Noctournal Emissions”) (Douchemaster)
Kids On A Crime Spree – “Trumpets Of Death” (LP – “We Love You So Bad”) (Slumberland)
Total Abuse – “Rotting Foil” (LP – “Prison Sweat”) (Post Present Medium)
The Wax Museums – “Jackoff Rat” (LP – ‘A Zoo Full Of Ramones”) (Tic Tac Totally)
The K-Holes – “Speedy Greedy” (LP – “The K-Holes”) (Hozac)
Amateur Party – “Simpatico” (LP – “Truncheons In The Manor”) (Rorshach)
Fleshlights – “The Biggest Mistake” (LP – “Muscle Pop”) (Twistworthy)

Flex and G-Star – “What A Gwan” (7″) (DJ Frass)
DJ K-Rlos – “Night Rhythm” (EP -“Vol.2”) (Sinthetic)
The Orioles – “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” (3 CD Set – “For Collectors Only”) (Collectables)