Tag Archives: phil cope

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)

When Big Joan Sets Up 23/12/10 – The Night Before The Night Before Christmas

Christmas reminds us we are not alone. We are not unrelated atoms, bouncing and ricocheting amid aliens, but are a part of something, which holds and sustains us. As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same. Christmas shows us the ties that bind us together, threads of love and caring, woven in the simplest and strongest way within the family.
Donald E. Westlake

Even an old Scrooge like me can’t argue with that. Happy Christmas.

Arize – “Jingle Dub” (download)
Wax Audio feat George W. Bush – “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (7″) (Metal Postcard)
The Wedding Present – “Step Into Christmas” (v/a LP – “A Lump Of Coal”) (First Warning)
The Aggrovators – “Santa Dub” (v/a 3 CD Set – “Trojan Christmas”) (Trojan)
Sonic Youth – “Santa Doesn’t Cop Out On Dope” (v/a LP – ” Just Say Noel”) (Geffen)
John Prine – “Christmas In Prison” (LP – “Sweet Revenge”) (WEA)
Freddie Mitchell and his Orchestra – “Jingle Bells Boogie” (LP – “The Chronological Freddie Mitchell 1949-1950”) (Classics)
Cromtech – “Deck The Stix/Crestnobs on Open Filmor/Chanukob O Chorukab/Clomtad Is Here/We Wish You Xmas/Jorpeel Bells/Winter Wonderland” (7″) (Troubleman Unlimited)
The White Stripes – “The Reading Of The Story Of The Magi/Silent Night” (7″ -“Merry Christmas From The White Stripes” (XL)
DJ Primo – “Merry Christmas” ( v/a download LP – “Gabberbox – Hardcore X-Mas Party Volume 1”) (5th Gear)
The Wailers – “Christmas Spirit” (LP – “Merry Christmas From The Sonics, Wailers, Galaxies”) (Etiquette)
Man Or Astroman – “Frosty The Snowman” (v/a LP – “Happy Birthday Baby Jesus Volumes 1 &2”) (Sypmpathy For The Record Industry)
The Fall – “Hark The Herald Angels Sing” (5cd Box – ” The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004″) (Castle)
Belle and Sebastian – “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (er..taped off John Peel by me in 2002)
The Tamlins – “Silent Night” (v/a LP – “A Yard Style Chrsitmas”) (VP)
Nat King Cole – “The Christmas Song” (LP – “The Unforgettable Nat King Cole”) (EMI)
The Yobs – “May The Good Lord Bless and Keep You” (LP – “The Yobs’ Christmas Album) (Captain Oi!)

and for the nostalgic amongst you . here’s the week before

Niney The Observer – “Blood and Fire” (LP – ” Roots with Quality”) (17 North Parade)
PJ Harvey – “Written On The Forehead” (download single) (Island)
The Gasman – ” Ionic Suffix” (LP – “Powerpoints”) (Planet Mu)
The Wave Pictures – “Now You Are Pregnant” (EP – “Johnny Helms Sings”) (Moshi Moshi)
Groundcover – “Taiwanese Noise Clinic 1” (CDR – “Psychobass) (Self Released)
Unknown – Untitled (12”) (Knowone)
The Fall – “No Xmas For John Keys” (LP -” Totales Turns (It’s Now Or Never)”) (Rough Trade)
Survival – “Alien” (12″) (Dispatch)
Magrudergrind – “Incapacity Reigns” (EP – “Crusher”) (Scion A/V)
Napalm Death – “You Suffer” (7″) (Earache)
Electro Hippies – “Mega Aramageddon Death Pt.3″ (7”) (Earache)
Scientist and Shackleton – “Hackney Marshes Dub” (LP – “Scientist Launches Dubstep Into Outer Space”) (Techtonic)
Bardo Pond – “I Don’t Know About You” (LP – ‘Bardo Pond”) (ATP)
Tha Pope – “Jungle Juke” (v/a LP -“Bangs and Works Volume 1”) (Planet Mu)
DJ Killa E – “Star Wars” (v/a LP -“Bangs and Works Volume 1”) (Planet Mu)
DJ Lil Rome and DJ Young Tellem – “Kill Da Circle” (v/a LP -“Bangs and Works Volume 1”) (Planet Mu)
Fay Hield – “Banks Of The Nile” (LP – “Looking Glass”) (Topic)
Martyn – “Left Hander” (12″) (3024)

When Big Joan Sets Up – 18th and 11th November – Twos Up

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I could, of course claim that I have a rich and fulfilled life, which is so brimming with exciting invites to top soirees full of movers and shakers, wherein we drape ourselves langourously across luxuriosly appointed chaise longues while sharing unimaginably witty bon mots ( too much French?) about the affairs of the day while being fed grapes by impossbibly beautiful Bolivian supermodels that I simply couldn’t find the time to update this blog – but the truth is, I’m a bit lazy – so here are the last two weeks’ tracks

18th Nov:
Weekend – “All American” (10″) (Mexican Summer)
65 Days of Static – “Tiger Girl – The Wishful Thinking Edit” (EP – “Heavy Sky”) (Hassle)
Vybz Cartel – “Dancehall Hero” (Promo)
Mordant Music – “Inn Ohm The Lake” (7″ – “Study Series 003 – Welcome to Godalming”) (GhostBox)
Dads – “Sex Theft” (EP – “Hat Creek”) (Katorga Works)
Merchandise – “Loss” (LP – “Strange Songs In The Dark”) (Katorga Works)
Ray Keith – “Something Out There Blade Runner Dub Mix” (download EP “Digital Dread Volume 2”) (Dread)
Laura Marling – “Blues Run The Game” (7″) (Third Man )
Jackson C. Frank -“You Never Wanted Me” (LP – “Jackson C. Frank”) (Columbia)
Autopsy – “The Tomb Within” (EP – “The Tomb Within”) (Peaceville)
The Fall – “Latch Key Kid” (LP – “Imperial Wax Solvent”) (Sanctuary)
Mincemeat or Tenspeed – “Points and Lines” (LP – “Strange Gods”) (ZUM)
Milky Wimpshake – “Itchy Feet on a Tuesday Night” (LP – “My Funny Social Crime”) (Fortuna Pop)
Marika Papagka – “Galata Manes” (LP – “The Further The Flame The Worse It Burns Me”) (Mississippi)
Muddy Waters – “Trouble No More” (LP – “The Anthology 1947-1972”) (Chess)
Lake Radio – “Heaven’s Gate” (download EP – “Planet Earth About To Be Recycled” (Bandcamp)

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When Big Joan Sets Up 4/11/10 – A Huge Evergrowing Fat Bloke That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld

Hey popkids, tonight’s prgramme featured the whole second side of the Orb’s collaboration with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour plus the requisite collections of howls, thumps, beats and twangs that have caused it to be ignored by the people of Bradford for four years now. Onward…

The Cut In The Hill Gang – “Let’s Get Funky/Black to Comm” (LP – “Mean Black Cat”) (Stag O Lee)
Aidan John Moffat -“Number On My Hand” (7″ EP – “Ten Short Songs For Modern Lovers”) (Chemikal Underground)
J Rocc – “Party (Boogie Man Remix) (12”) (Stones Throw)
Gregory Isaacs – “Stop Taking” (LP – “Gregory Isaacs Meets Roy Francis At The Mixing Lab”) (Mixing Lab Production)
Gunslingers – “Condor’s Radiant Spaw” (LP – “Manifesto Zero”) (Acquarius)
Bo Diddley – “Gunslinger” (LP – “Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger”) (Chess)
Helmet – “Miserable” (LP – “Seeing Eye Dog”) (Work Song)
The Fall – “Jawbone and The Air Rifle” (Box Set “Peel Sessions”) (Strange Fruit)
Capone – “Back To Detriot” (12″) (Test)
iShitRobots – “Black Transgender Cripple Midgets on Nazi Unicorns” (EP – “Doom”) (Independent)
The Orb feat. David Gilmour – “Spheres Side: Es Vedra / Hymns to the Sun (reprise) / Olympic / Chicago Dub / Bold Knife Trophy” (LP – “Metallic Spheres”) (Columbia)
Bunji Garlin – “Zoom Zoom (Promo)

When Big Joan Sets Up 19/8/10 – Now Reduced to Stealing Ideas From Radio 2

We’re not above the petty theft of intellectual property on When Big Joan Sets Up and so we’ve nicked an idea from Brian Matthew’s Sounds of the Sixties on Radio 2. A fine programme, if only for the fact that for every cracking Small Faces album track and Northern Soul stomper that he plays,there’s a shit Petula Clark b-side which provides excellent ammunition against the “they don’t write them like they used to” brigade. (The answer to this question, by the way is “Yes they do, you just stopped listening and started buying fucking Jamie Cullum CD’s from Asda”)

Anyway, Bri does an unending A-Z of The Beatles, so I thought we’d do an A-Z of The Fall which started this week with the fine “Australians In Europe”.

Next week, snooker on the radio. Quack quack oops.

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When Big Joan Sets Up – 12/8/10 – Doris Day on the Kop

Epic tunes passing the 8 minute mark from Endless Boogie and Un, new stuff from Peverelist and Marnie Stern , the chillwave revolution continues with Teen Daze and yet another new Lee Perry LP – All this and Doris Day’s tribute to Liverpool F.C. – You missed it again, didn’t you?

Mr Oizo and Garpard Auge – “Rubber” (12″) (Ed Banger)
Endless Boogie – “Top Dollar Speaks His Mind” (LP- “Full House Head”) (No Quarter)
Dave Bartholomew – “The Monkey Speaks His Mind” (LP – “The Big Beat of Dave Bartholomew”) (Crescent City Soul)
X- Tension – “Dynamite Sounds” (EP – “Dynamite Sounds”) (Destruction)
Marnie Stern – “For Ash” (download)
Teen Daze – “Neon ” (EP – “Four More Years”) (Arcade Sound)
Lee Perry – “Used To Drive A Tractor in Negrile” (LP – “Revelation”) (Megawave)
The Muleskinners – “Backdoor Man ” (EP- “Knockout R&B”) (Acid Jazz)
Knife Fight – “Mass Hysteria” (EP – “Isolated”) (Painkiller)
Astral Planes – “Doris Day” (EP- “Sit Still Child”) (Lucky Number Nine)
Doris Day – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (LP – “You’ll Never Walk Alone”) (Columbia)
DJ Nate – “We Can Work This Out” (EP – “Hatas Our Motivation”) (Planet Mu)
Un – “Can of Beans” (Download LP – “Honest Strings – A Tribute to The Life and Work of Jack Rose”) (Jack Rose LLC)
Peverelist – “Better Ways of Living” (12″) (Punch Drunk)