Oh for the normality of proceedings to be restored! Another head bender which actually required more preparation than I am normally used to/prepared to put in. The title sums up the majority of my choices but did take the opportunity to run out a few tracks  from some greatest hits albums that would otherwise gather more dust.  So here we go pop-pickers:

1. This Mortal Coil –Song to the Siren.

From 1984’s ‘it’ll end in tears’. I’m conscious this album was on its way to DRC once, but never made it for reasons I forget. Obviously a Tim Buckley cover, but one of the few covers that I would willingly agree improves upon original. A precious little jewel in my collection which is only allowed out when I feel it is appropriate to share the emotions it screams (but very quietly). Changed my view of what music was meant to be about. I could actually sense the track quivering in its sleeve that it had to be let out in same company as Jello Biafra. However, all this welling up of emotion can be quickly dispelled by laughter when you clock Robin Guthrie’s hair in the extremely 80’s video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mUmdR69nbM

Rob listened: We’ve established that I don’t know Tim Buckley. I also had a block on This Mortal Coil despite following several of their label mates and parent bands. They were too 4AD, if you know what I mean. I knew this, and it’s lovely, a gauzy bed for Liz Fraser’s luminous voice. Not knowing the original must, I imagine, lessen the impact.

Tom listened: Obviously fantastic, possibly better than the original, this must be one of the most identifiable covers of the 80s; one of those rare events where the song becomes owned by the magpie.

Nick listened: I’ve owned this record for years but barely ever listened to it; this is really good, but, like the Tim Buckley original, after having it hyped for so many years I eventually found it a little underwhelming.

2. T Rex – 20th Century Boy.

Failed a late fitness test for singles world cup but this track from greatest hits album deserved an airing. What a riff, followed by an increasing wall of sound approach. Interesting artist who spanned mercurial talent, to hosting his own children’s TV show.

Rob listened: I’ve been troubled by Bolan at various times in the past. My flatmate Clive used gleefully to play some awful nonsense of his about Unicorns and mermaids and other such bollocks. This was sufficient to stop me ever going beyond the standard radio play singles. All of which counts for shit as soon as this crunching riff stomps in and the song begins its rockin’ rollin’ boogie.

Tom listened: I like Marc Bolan well enough and always enjoy hearing his hits whenever they occasionally crop up on 6 music or desert islands discs or whatever…but I do find the singles a bit indistinguishable. It’s all more or less the same song but that song happens to be a good one.

Nick listened: Just a great pop single by a great pop star.

3. The Who – Baba O’Riley.

Time to get  ‘Back with another of those cock rockin’ beats’. Innovative, creative and we used it to open the 2012 Olympics, 41 years after first release. Stands the test of time, though the fact Mr McCartney closed the ceremonies, does weaken that argument. Spent many years believing the title referred to an Irish baby, really proves research pays off.

Rob listened: The Who are another almost total blindspot. I’ve seen Tommy and own Quadrophenia, but before I got to either of these my feelings were shaped as an impressionable young lad by seeing Roger Daltrey shilling for American Express. I love loads of bands who credit The Who pretty heavily, but for whatever reason, they leave me pretty cold. I get why you’d like Baba O’Riley but I just don’t.

Tom listened: I’ve been on the verge of buying Who’s Next on numerous occasions, I’ve even walked up to pay for it but put it back when something in the rack caught my eye on the way to the checkout. Of course, Baba and Won’t Get Fooled Again are pretty much ubiquitous and I am not sure they quite live up to their reputation but, that said, this is still a great song that I always enjoy hearing.

Nick listened: Perfect single; crazy synth loop, crazy drums, crazy violin solo. Great fun. Loved it for years.

4. REM – Begin the Begin.

Simply, before ‘Green’ when it all started to go horribly wrong. Their fourth album and they weren’t afraid to play with a more powerful/muscular sound  and a vocal talent coming to the fore.

Rob listened: Perfect. I finally got to see REM play in Cardiff a couple of years before they hung it up ‘These Days’ the song that follows this on Life’s Rich Pageant hit me so hard, had such an irresistible undertow pulling me back to younger days that I cried my eyes out. ‘Begin the Begin’ is everything that was great about mid-80s REM. Forceful, beguiling, nagging, sensual and packed with oblique hooks. It gets no better in my view.

Tom listened: Life’s Rich Pageant is my favourite REM album, yet it is one of the few early records I don’t actually own. I had LRP on a cassette whilst at university and spent many a happy hour wandering the streets of Sheffield with this blasting on my walkman. Hard to pick a favourite from the record, it’s a shame Graham didn’t save it and play the whole thing at a later meeting.

Nick listened: It’s alright, I guess. Maybe you had to be a certain age at that time? I was 7, so, y’know.

5. Roachford – Cuddly Toy (a la Alanpartridge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ei0-wq9AqQ)

Since I saw the film I have not been able to get this song out of my mind. To rediscover that I owned the album with the track on came as a joyous surprise.

Rob listened: Alan Partridge is a scholar of rock the likes of whom we at DRC can only (and often attempt to) aspire regularly.

I present exhibit A:

“’Sunday Bloody Sunday’. What a great song. It really encapsulates the frustration of a Sunday, doesn’t it? You wake up in the morning, you’ve got to read all the Sunday papers, the kids are running round, you’ve got to mow the lawn, wash the car, and you think ‘Sunday, bloody Sunday!”

Tom listened: I liked Alan Partridge for a series or two but feel somewhat bewildered by the esteem he is held in by my fellow DRC members. Unfortunately, if you don’t find Partridge all that funny, all you’re left with is Roachford!

Nick listened: This is great urban pop; way better than REM!

6. Paul Weller – Broken Stones

The Modfather has had barely a mention at DRC as far as I can recall. Played this track from Stanley Road because I liked it, even the others didn’t.

Rob listened: I gave my future wife a copy of this album on our first date. Not because I liked it, but because she mentioned Weller, I had a review copy, and I was massively allergic to it. I remain so.

Tom listened: I’ve never quite worked out what my problem is with Paul Weller…but for some reason he makes my skin crawl. He does look like an afghan hound but I don’t think that’s the main sticking point.

Nick listened: He’s clearly very talented, but there’s just something a bit ‘heritage railway’ about how he writes songs and records them, post The Style Council. It’s like ‘artisan bread’ when you just want Mighty White.

7. The Jesus and Mary Chain – Sidewalking

1. 20^th Century Boy reinvented for the mid 80’s, loud and scary. Sits menacingly on the Barbed Wire Kisses compilation.

Rob listened: I still remember the first time John Peel played this and was so struck by it that he dragged the needle right back to the start and played it again. I was blown away not only by the song but perhaps even more so by the notion that music, this sort of music, could affect someone so very much. I love Sidewalking and I loved the Mary Chain but this song’s most lasting effect on me was caused by Peel’s reaction to it. I’ve been looking for those moments ever since.

Tom listened: The last great Mary Chain song. Sidewalking is undeniably wonderful and should have heralded a bright new direction, but instead we were treated to the turgid heap of crap that was Automatic. One of the most disappointing albums ever!

Nick listened: Never heard this before, but it was great. Might pick this compilation up. Or just download this one tune…

After 60 rounds I thought it was time for a change. The idea was to bring songs from albums that you had no intention of playing either because they were inconsistent in quality or too long. Many has been the time that I have reached for a long lost but cherished record in order to check it out for DRC purposes only to discover that what I thought was unparalleled magnificence actually amounts to a couple of killer tracks, a bunch of OK stuff and a clunker or two.

In the event I played 6 songs from albums that are way too long to come in under our 1 hour limit; three from albums I wouldn’t bring because they are only sporadically brilliant, two from albums I like all the way through but don’t think I’ll play at record club and one ‘joker’ for which I was allowed to bend the rules (thank you, oh gracious leader) from an album I have wanted to play ever since we started the club but seriously overuns. Let’s just say that I was well and truly Jelloed by this point and couldn’t bear to miss the opportunity.

Here they are:

Song 1: Red House Painters – Katy Song (from Red House Painters (Rollercoaster))

The only Red House Painters’ album I own is a bit of a curiosity – two near faultless sides of vinyl (1 and 3) and two others that, to my mind, are each marred by harrowing and a tad indulgent 10 minute long dirges. So whilst the highs are very very high indeed, the lows stop Rollercoaster from being the classic it so nearly is. Although I love Grace Cathedral Park, Mistress (both versions), Dragonflies, Down Through and New Jersey it’s always been Katy Song that takes the breath away. Rarely has melancholia been rendered so sweet yet Mark Kozalek manages to maintain a heroic resolution throughout the song’s 8 minutes ensuring that it never strays into self-pitying singer songwriter nonsense. Exquisite.

Rob listened: Beautiful. I have even worse tunnel vision than Tom when it comes to this, one of the 3 Red House Painters albums I own and probably the one I know least well. Because I can never get past ‘Katy Song’. I barely know the rest of the album. There’s something utterly beguiling about Mark Kozelek’s approach and delivery which circumvents the easy jibes you could throw his way. His songs, like his voice, are trapped as if in thick honey, sitting in front of you almost stationary but progressing, forming something. ‘Katy Song’ is never less than intoxicating.

Nick listened: Never heard this before, but it was lovely, and I shall be seeking it out to listen to again.

Graham listened: As Tom’s choices all followed Jello, there was a fair degree of ‘light and shade’ going on each time Tom played a track. I recall relaxing and enjoying this track.

Song 2: Tim Buckley – The Earth is Broken (from the Dream Letter compilation)

When I started collecting music more seriously during my time at university, it seemed as though Tim Buckley’s star shone brightly out of every corner of the music press. Each week interviews or album reviews mentioned Buckley’s music, especially (no doubt helped by This Mortal Coil’s go at Song to the Siren – more on this to come!) the album Starsailor. So when Dream Letter was released I immediately purchased it, excited by the prospect of what lay within.

Well…it was certainly good value for money housing, as it does, almost 2 hours of folk songs, polite applause and (very) plummy introductions. But the trouble is that Buckley, at times, seems to find it impossible to rein himself in and, curiously, when his amazing voice goes too big it loses its power to astonish and just becomes a bit of a chore. However, about 2/3 of the album is great and although Buzzin’ Fly is pretty much undeniable, the intimacy and the vocal gymnastics of The Earth is Broken is as astonishing as the title of the song is prescient.

Rob listened: We’ve discussed the pre-punk 70s before. As well you know, they did not exist for me until a time when Tim Buckley’s records were breathtakingly unavailable, a time after I’d been badly scarred by the death of his prodigiously talented son. So, apart from the odd snatch here and there, this is the first time i’ve sat down and listened to one of his songs. It was lovely. There’s something mesmerising about one person simultaneously exerting bewildering control over a guitar and a voice, and like John Martyn and Joni Mitchell, who I’d like to blithely assume were his great mates, Tim Buckley clearly has the magic.

Nick listened: I remember once bonding with some old guys in a pub who were deep in conversation about the album this is from. This ins’t one of the tunes I remember the most (I’ve not listened to it in a dozen years, probably), but it’s pretty gob-smacking as a performance document front-to-back, and this was lovely to hear again after so long.

Graham listened: Enjoyed listening to this and left DRC far more up to speed on Mr Buckley than when I arrived.

Song 3: Joanna Newsom – Good Intentions Paving Co (from Have One On Me)

Question: How can an album of 124 (!) minutes length be amazing from front to back?

Answer: It Can’t!

We talked a lot about this on the night (well for about the seven minutes that the song was playing) but, for me, Newsom could have had a stone cold classic on her hands if someone had been around to tell her to ditch about half the material from Have One On Me. There are some songs on this album that are tedious beyond belief. There is also music as incredible as anything I’ve ever heard. Good Intentions Paving Company falls squarely into the latter category, a complex beast that works perfectly as it segues through its many guises but, crucially, remains compelling and downright beautiful throughout its stay. An incredible song – please can we have more of this sort of thing on the new album Joanna?

Rob listened: Tom may be technically correct, but the way he phrased this question on the night was ‘Can a triple album ever be amazing front to back?’ The answer to this slightly different question is of course ‘Yes’ as we refer you to ‘The Seer’ by Swans. I’d argue that last year’s Knife album had a pretty good go too although ‘Shaking the Habitual’ was much more deliberately eclectic and challenging, less apt from listening right through from soup to nuts. Neither were 124 minutes though. so that’s one to you, for the time being. I love Joanna Newsom, and whilst I love ‘Have One On Me’ pretty hard – just the fact of its existence brings a rare smile to my face – I have to confess that I often leap straight to ‘Good Intentions Paving Co.’ It’s a wonderful song, one which at one point i’d convinced myself was a Pynchonesque romp through 200 years of American history, before I lost my grip on it once more, never to be regained. My view is that without the wild, ungraspable variety, Newsom’s moment of pure sweetness would not be so effecting, so I have no problem with the rest of the record, but I was delighted to sit and listen to GIPC all the same.

Nick listened: Love the idea of Joanna Newsom, but seldom listen to her, because, y’know, 17-minute songs about *insert token mention of ‘spelunking monkeys’*. Very glad she exists, etcetera, etcetera.

Graham listened: Bit like Nick, I know she is well regarded etc., but just not for me really.

Song 4: Sufjan Stevens – I Want To Be Well (from The Age Of Adz)

Although (unfairly) maligned by some, Sufjan pulled out all of the stops in 2010 and released an album that, unless I am missing something, is his masterpiece. Gone is the whimsy and meanderings of some of the weaker moments of Michigan and Illinoise, much more ambitious and far-reaching than Seven Swans and not really fey at all, The Age Of Adz is an album to wallow in – as Bobby Gillespie espoused: don’t fight it, feel it! I like all of The Age Of Adz, I don’t really hear any of the flaws that some commentators have suggested are present and I would have liked to have played the album at record club…but it’s 74 minutes long. Luckily, I Want To Be Well distills what the album is about into 6 and a half minutes of sonic exploration, electronic assault, sweet vocals…and invective! Don’t believe the naysayers, this is brilliant music.

Rob listened: I clearly parted company with Sufjan Stevens just at the point where he was off to do more interesting things. I liked ‘Illinoise’ and ‘Michigan’ well enough, although not as much as I was told to, but equally there were things in each that really got my hackles up. This sounded much more opaque and that’s a good thing by my reckoning.

Nick listened: Don’t quite get Sufjan, bar some of his Christmas songs. I own this album and it’s… busy, and opaque. Perhaps more time is needed.

Graham listened: Another unknown for me but really enjoyed this one.

Song 5: Underworld – Dirty Epic (from Dubnobasswithmyheadman)

20+ years on, this album just shouldn’t work. And for a long, long time I assumed it didn’t. But in the last couple years Dubno has been a fairly regular feature on  my turntable, its breezy grooves and indie dance crossover (crucially, always a little bit more dance than indie) landscapes wearing much better than many of Underworld’s contemporaries from this time. Unlike some of the other albums I chose on the night, Dubno holds up pretty well throughout its 74 minutes playing time, the peaks (Hmmm Skyscaper I Love You, Cowgirl, Spoonman, M.E and Dirty Epic) being just that little bit better than the rest. In the end my choice came down to a toss of a coin (actually, I got my nine year old son to choose) between the gargantuan Hmmm Skyscraper and the slightly more colourful and engorged Dirty Epic. But in actuality I could have selected any of the above 5 songs and been equally happy and excited with my choice.

Rob listened: I had a friend at the time who lurched from being a 4AD collecting purist into a rabid Aphex/Warp collector. ‘Dubnobassiwithmyheadman’ was his gateway drug and I thought he’s lost his mind. Even after I’d come around I never quite got with Underworld. There’s something disconnected about them. Neither weird enough to be intriguing or forceful enough to be transportational. Still, this was good to hear after many years and by the time it wound its way to the final couple of minutes it had built up a head of steam behind a sly little melody line.

Nick listened: This album should work, and it does work, and it’s brilliant, and techno full-lengths from the mid-90s are one of my favourite things in the world (and all, pretty much, too long to play at record club). This is brilliant and I love it, etcetera, etcetera.

Graham listened: Underworld are the only band of that genre and era that I have any connection with. This is because ‘born slippy’ mentions Romford, nearby where I was dragged up. Because of the depth of this connection, I feel disqualified from venturing any opinions on this.

Song 6: The Minute Men – It’s Expected I’m Gone (from Double Nickels On The Dime)

I didn’t intend to play this at the start of the evening but a combination of Jello Biafra’s D Boon-like vocals and having a sliver of time left from my 40 minute allocation led me into the murky world of rule breaking . You see, I fully intend to play DNOTD at the club at some point as it’s amazing. But it’s also very very long, hard to grasp on any one of your first 100 listens, exhausting, bewildering, funny and many other adjectives. In a way I wish I had been patient as, in isolation, It’s Expected I’m Gone makes as much sense as a smoked kipper on a ski lift.

Rob listened: I’ve spent time looking for this and never found it and so have avoided catching up with in on Spotify, preferring to be deferring. It was great, everything I would have looked for in a record 20 years ago, punky, shouty, jazzy, wrong and right. Let’s face it, some tastes never change. A winner.

Nick listened: Never heard this before; it wasn’t quite what I expected. Can’t quite remember what it was like though; should have written this up earlier… Think I enjoyed it…

Jello Biafra is, or was, one of the guiding stars of my universe. I feel guilty that he’s fallen from my firmament. Although I love his records as dearly as I ever did, I’ve lost touch with what he’s done in the last ten years as i’ve become more and more of the chickenshit conformist he always warned me about. Perhaps I knew I wasn’t living up to his expectations. It’s not you Jello, it’s me. I’m sorry. I genuinely feel bad about it.

Biafra is most famous for his time as lead singer of San Francisco punks Dead Kennedys, but the musical collaborations and long string of solo spoken word albums were arguably even more powerful and, as it happens, more prescient about where we were all headed.

Biafra had his naysayers who considered him anywhere from a strident hectorer to a hysterical doom-monger. Neither were fair criticisms and now, the records he released around the turn of the 90s are very, very funny – they always were – very penetrating and, pretty much, very right.

Musically they are a varied bunch, although most share a desire to crack your skull open, but throughout runs Biafra’s amazing voice, an insistent cross between Daffy Duck and a Dalek. I suspect that music is primarily a means of delivery for Biafra. Each song carries a wild payload of hotwired facts and delirious conjecture. But when the musicians he’s with match the intensity of his singing, the results are spectacular.

1. Dead Kennedys – ‘Pull My Strings’ (Recorded live in 1980, Released 1987)

Pull My Strings is a song the Dead Kennedys only played once, on 25 March 1980. The organisers of the Bay Area Music Awards thought it would be great idea to invite some local punk rockers along to their bash to give a little credibility to the proceedings. Enter Jello Biafra, East Bay Ray, Klaus Fluoride and drummer Ted. The band rehearsed the song they were asked to perform, ‘California Uber Alles’ and when they took the stage that evening they cranked out the first few bars, then, having walked on stage wearing white shirts with black ’S’s painted on the front, they stopped playing and pulled around black ties to form dollar signs before telling the audience precisely what they thought of them. ‘Pull My Strings’ swerves into an evisceration of the New Wave scene which was getting into bed with the music industry, selling out the aggression and political bite that the Kennedys cherished in return for radio play.

Biafra believes in pranksterism as a political and social tactic and ‘Pull My Strings’ is the sound of someone taking his opportunity. When it would have been easier to do what was asked and scrabble a few inches up the greasy pole, Dead Kennedys rip into a pastiche of ‘My Sharona’ by crossover one-hit wonders The Knack before leading the audience in a singalong “Is my cock big enough? Is my brain small enough? For you to make me a star?”

Lard – ‘The Power of Lard’ (1989)

After Dead Kennedys split in 1986, amidst their prosecution (failed) for alleged obscenity, Biafra and members of Ministry formed Lard. ‘The Power of Lard’ is the lead-off track from their first EP. It blew my mind when it first came out and it still delivers a hell of a jolt. The band shifts from tribal pounding to a nervy skitter and finally into a piledriving industrial thrash whilst Biafra slices through with an electrifying sermon lurching from cultish entreaties “Lard is the Om! Lard is revolution!” to yuppie pastiche to twisted headlines from a degenerate culture. It’s a terrifying, overwhelming psychedelic whirlpool that never fails to suck me in.

Jello Biafra and D.O.A. – ‘Full Metal Jackoff’ (1990)

Whilst working on a film soundtrack Biafra collaborated with both DOA and NoMeansNo, in the process finding partners for his next two albums.

‘Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors’ is four direct chunks of steely speed punk plus a great cover of ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’ and then, across the whole of side 2, ‘Full Metal Jackoff’. It’s Biafra’s widescreen epic (“Mein Kampf! The mini-series!”), spinning out from a black-windowed mobile crack lab circling the Washington DC Beltway to take in the whole of an America under an undeclared ‘Narco-Military’ dictatorship, slowly being crushed by the bootheel whilst drugs are pumped into the ghettos to pacify the poor, deliberately stoking poisonous sectarianism. It’s an astonishing achievement, a song genuinely worthy of a movie adaptation. DOA riff away, slowly ramping up the pressure over 14 minutes whilst Biafra paints the bleakest possible diorama, his voice no longer comic but chilling. The intensity builds and builds and builds and the end result is as thrilling as it is horrifying. By the closing chants of ‘Ollie for President – He’ll get things done!’ you’ll want to run and hide.

Jello Biafra and NoMeansNo – ‘Bruce’s Diary’ (1991)

The second spin-out collaboration was ‘The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy’ recorded with existentialist provocateurs and Alternative Tentacles stalwarts NoMeansNo. The record is frenzied and hilarious by turns, from the Space Shuttle panic of the title track to the Wild West escapism of ‘Ride The Flume’ and on into the urban nightmare of ‘Chew’. ‘Bruce’s Diary’ is an out-of-step jazz-punk number told from the perspective of a spook spying on an entire population. It starts with surveillance

No one ever sees me/Yet I know all of you/ It’s sort of like a small town/When your whole lives are on my computer

then swerves into political and social control

A lethargic population/Is the key to our control/Who’d rather watch someone’s life on TV/Than participate in their own

Mentally they feel helpless/Physically they just give up/We priced the healthy food so high/They can only buy soda pop

A housebroken bee colony/That goes home after 5/Too burnt and glazed to threaten us/With purpose in their lives

And on it goes…

We melt you with acid rain/Keep you poor for economic gain/Convince you your biggest threat/Is drugs and terrorists

They don’t even have to be real/Just find a face, make up a crime/Run sensational headlines/Works every time!

The people must not realize/They are being manipulated/For them to be manipulated effectively

We give ’em things to worry about/Buying clothes and losing weight/Your lack of curiosity/Is the key to our success!

And of that sound familiar?

When this record came out, it sounded like hyperbolic and often hilarious exaggeration, so wild it was relatively easy to laugh off whilst fuelling the dismissive view that Biafra was a tin-hat-wearing conspiracy nut. Now, in an age where we accept that we are being spied upon by our own governments, we’re terrified of other people in case they want to kill us, we’re assailed by images of bodies and things we are supposed to want and told that consumer spending can be the key to economic progress, then let’s reflect that the of the words above only the reference to ‘acid rain’ sounds dated. This song was written in 1991 before we’d even heard of the internet.

Tumor Circus – ‘Take Me Back Or I’ll Drown Our Dog (Headlines)’ (1991)

Biafra’s collaboration with scuzzy sample wranglers Steel Pole Bath Tub was perhaps his most darkly persuasive in its sound. This rattling number stitches together genuine newspaper headlines into crazed non-sequiturs, constructing a cracked mirror to reflect the media’s complicit role in distracting the masses:

Designer beef/Surfing for Christ/Horse molester must be stopped/Police kill man to stop suicide/City burns, Party goes on!

Headlines! I wanna hear some/Good News! Even if it’s a lie/Scandal! For me to graze on/Entertain me tonight! 

Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon – ‘Love Me I’m A Liberal’ (1994)

‘Prairie Home Invasion’ was, of all things, a country and western meets psychobilly album. It’s pretty great. Biafra is perhaps less direct, at least as concerned with creating an authentically bonkers american folk vibe as hitting his targets full on, but when he hits he scores. See the point blank pro-choice anthem ‘May The Fetus Be Aborted’.

My favourite track was always ‘Love Me I’m A Liberal’. Lyrically it’s a straight update of the Phil Ochs classic and credit for most of the best lines goes to Ochs, but it’s performed with such brio by Jello, Mojo and his band the Toadliquors that it raises a smile even as you realise it’s probably you he’s knifing in the front.

So there you have it. A terrible choice for Devon Record Club, where scabrous noise tends to fare badly and lyrics are the last thing we want to concentrate on. Nonetheless, Biafra is an important figure for me and whilst I wouldn’t have wanted to choose a specific album, Tom’s compilation theme gave me the perfect opportunity to share the Virus.

And hey, Biafra! We should get reacquainted.

Tom listened: Although we had carte blanche to choose whichever songs we liked, Rob’s chronological tour through Jello Biafra’s recordings was a stroke of genius. Not only did it allow me to become acquainted with the surprisingly eclectic discography of the Alternative Tentacles main man but also it allowed him to cherry pick from a vast array of music and, I suspect, in this case Rob used the opportunity to paint Jello in the best possible light. Songs were bright, exciting and refreshingly accessible, lyrics obviously irreverent and witty and it certainly helped to have Rob set the scene for each song so expertly. I thought Full Metal Jackoff in particular was exceptional and its 14 minutes fairly flew by in a rush of intense energy and ever more unhinged vocals.

As someone who had the required lone Dead Kennedys’ obsessive whilst in the sixth form (who seemed to hog the stereo and ‘treat’ us to Fresh Fruit and Rotting Vegetables as often as he could), I was particularly surprised at how unlike that most of the music Rob played us sounded.

A great idea for a future theme Rob, I can think of a few recording artists in my collection that could well benefit from similar treatment.

Graham Listened: As we went round the table with our choices, I have to say I was feeling initially nervy when we stopped at Rob’s turn each time. As time went past the sense of foreboding diminished and each track was more intriguing than the last.

I have avoided Mr Biafra since 1984 when the obligatory fellow 6th former in my year tried to convince me that the Dead Kennedys were the most important band in the world and forced me and many others to listen to their music. Sadly he became ostracized from the entire 6th form as his determination to convert us got stronger and stronger. Wonder what ever happened to him? Expect he formed a band.

Clearly someone who has important things to say and possibly good foresight into  the way the world is going/has turned out. ‘Full Metal Jackoff’ was brilliant and everything to do with the live performance and imagery of ‘Pull my strings’ was inspired.

Nick listened: Did one of those stupid Buzzfeed quizzes the other day about ‘which 80s hardcore shouty American underground rock dude are you’ and, because I ticked all the anti-capitalist answers rather than the drug hoover answers, I got Jello Biafra. I was way too young to know anything about The Dead Kennedys at the time, and they’ve not been an act I’ve sought out since for numerous reasons (being British, not being into much hardcore, etcetera), but I pretty much thoroughly enjoyed everything played on Rob’s list, and, moreover, agreed with it all ideologically pretty strongly. We could really do with more of his ilk now. Really.

‘Album of the year’, always a difficult one for me.  This year even more challenging given the record breaking 5 options I had to pick from. Hands down would be Hookworms, which Rob played earlier in the year. Nick inspired me with These New Puritans and The National, while I made a mistake with Boards of Canada. All this points to Tom not yet being forgiven for the stunt he pulled when introducing Al Green earlier this year.

I don’t own any other Arctic Monkey’s albums having never really felt the need. Liked the well known singles but never felt there was a substance that needed to be explored. But having heard extracts fom this I took the plunge and felt well rewarded. Being pretty transparent in my tastes, the first things that hit are the guitar licks of ‘Physical Graffiti’ era, cleaned up in a no need to ‘rock out’ way. The evidence for this being my daughter listening in the kitchen on her knees, in an an attempted power slide with her acoustic guitar gripped in a way which bodes well for NOW86 to be leaving her cd collection very shortly.

Mainly dirty, grubby style and lyrics but plenty of commercial appeal, which I am still a sucker for. Ends beautifully with John Cooper Clarke’s words on ‘I wanna be yours’, “And let me be the portable heater that you’ll get cold without”.

The Hookworms would make me want to be in a band if I was a teenager, the Arctic Monkeys just made an album I really liked.

The prospect of our ‘Album of the Year’ meeting for 2013 had been causing me some concern for some time. Come November I had precious few records that I could have realistically taken as my album of the year: Bill Callahan’s Dream River was probably at the top of my pile but we’ve already had our fill of Bill; not that you can ever have too much of him in my opinion, but it shows a certain lack of breadth to have three records by the same artist within the space of three years. And besides, it’s not as good as his previous two solo albums, or his last two (amazing) efforts as Smog. Other albums I have acquired from 2013 have largely been disappointing for me: Parquet Courts is a tired rehash of early Pavement, bafflingly revered for some inexplicable reason; Kurt Vile’s latest is some way off the brilliance of Smoke Ring being overlong and meandering; Phosphorescent’s Muchacho is pleasant enough but hardly album of the year material and John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts starts off so strongly but peters out in its second half. To my mind the best record I had heard from 2013 was Rob’s Pinkunoizu thing but I could hardly bring that. Then, at the bum end of the year, as the forums began to gear themselves up to listmania (lisztomania?) I struck gold…twice.  One of the two albums I am saving for another meeting so more of that at a later date. The other is John Wizards’ self-tilted debut. Neither album made much (if any) impression on the album of the year lists. I guess I am just becoming ever more out of touch! But for sheer life affirming joyfulness John Wizards takes some beating.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the fact that our tastes share much common ground, my album of the year is kind of the polar opposite of Rob’s emptyset record. Whereas his record is all bright melodies and colour and…oh, hang on, I may have got that the wrong way round! Rob’s album is the absence of music, it’s the sound of what’s left when some alien species has beamed down to Earth and removed everything but heavy machinery. In contrast, John Wizards is crammed to overflowing with music. Ostensibly comprising of 15 ‘songs’, the album sounds more like 200 ideas spewing forth from a very active (ie hyperactive) brain. There’s so much going on on John Wizards’ debut that I find myself worrying about their sophomore effort already…not only will it be hard to match the genius of this album but surely they can’t have all that many ideas left? There are, after all, only so many permutations of notes on a scale and most of them have been used here! So I guess I should just enjoy it while it lasts, something that seems to happen that little bit more with each new listen.

Maybe it’s the mathematician in me, but I love albums like this. Albums which require work, that are like a puzzle, where it takes time just to work out where one song ends and another one starts and then to gradually realise that what sounded at first like a set of disconnected motifs actually do hang together as ‘songs’. Albums like A Wizard A True Star or Alien Lanes or Mark’s Keyboard Repair or, even, Smile which has recently (completely by coincidence) been my album of choice in the car and is slowly revealing its worth despite sounding abysmal during those early plays. But, unlike all of these records, John Wizards sounded glorious on a first listen. A glorious mess. There’s nothing really that jars, the way the songs develop, the movement between sections, is never abrupt and each part of every song could be fleshed out into a 15 minute jam and I would be quite happy to listen to it. And whilst Nick played us some Syrian wedding music that had just a whiff of Western production values detectable, John Wizards’ African roots ground the album in someplace unique but the African influence is subtle and used sparingly so that, whilst at times it sounds a bit like Junior Boys crossed with Ladysmith Black Mambazo at other times it might just sound like Junior Boys. It all adds up to something fresh and, to my mind, unique and highly addictive. The perfect antidote to those emptyset blues!

Rob listened: I spent a fruitless and frustrating couple of minutes this evening trying to describe ‘R Plus 7’ by Oneohtrix Point Never, another of my favourite records of 2013. It’s a dizzying blizzard of a thing, blinking from one stanza to another, apparently teleporting in and out of entirely different tracks. There’s no way on this earth that it should work, but it’s beautiful and moving. To some extent, I could have saved us all the bother had Tom gone first instead of last. I hadn’t heard of John Wizards before tonight, but, crudely put, it’s ‘R Plus 7’ played on real instruments rather than a laptop. Perhaps not quite so deliberate – there are flows and dissolves across the record, but ultimately both artists are getting away with an approach which should spell disaster, at least in part through their energy and attention to delicious detail. I loved it. If this is what a post-internet global music sounds like then for now it sounds pretty good.

Oh it looked so easy when Rob set the  theme  of a UK No:1 album. I sat firmly on my laurels having estimated 50 or so CD and vinyl albums to choose from after a quick scan of the possibilities. Then came the crunch of getting them together and making a choice. In a matter of minutes I proved to myself that I sat high on the “commercial whore index” by having a collection of stuff that I hadn’t played for years and certainly had no intention of playing at record club without body armour. Add to the mix some work issues requiring a prompt getaway, I opted for some novelty choices (what ever did happen to Terence Stoke-on-Trent D’arby?) which included the above. This was rescued from my parents record collection at some point in the late 90’s and is in pretty much the state of the thumbnail above.

Thinking we would only last a couple of tracks, we eventually finished up with the whole of side one as the precise, yet syrupy voice of Karen Carpenter began to wash over us. Growing up, Carpenters seemed a strange MoR/TV special/Pop type crossover that were to despised by any spotty youth taking music seriously. I taught my self to ignore them, which wasn’t easy given there huge radio and TV coverage in the 70’s. Little did I know that as a brother and sister, behind the scenes they were enduring drug and  lifestyle issues, a world away from their clean-cut image.

Not sure if some of these songs count as guilty pleasures or whether years of radio bombardment have just weakened my defences really. The arrangements are so crisp on ‘Weve only just begun’, ‘Ticket to ride’, ‘Rainy days and Mondays’, ‘Goodbye to Love’, Yesterday once more’, and Karen’s voice just eases you back in the chair.

Highlight of the abridged listen was a reminder of the nuts guitar solos midway and on the ‘outro’ of ‘Goodbye to Love’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nooeMrCws-A. Simply creams anything Richey Blackmore ever came up with!

 

Scanning the list of 1000 UK Number One albums was surprising. Some extraordinary records made it to the top of the charts and some dyed in the wool classics never troubled the number one spot. Counting down the list I reckon I have around 100 of the chart-toppers. That’s way more than I was expecting but when this theme suggested itself there was only one record I was going to bring.

‘Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!’ was Frank Sinatra’s tenth studio album, released in March 1956. When Record Mirror published the first ever Top 5 album sales charts on 28 July that year it was at number one. It’s a collection of classic songs by the likes of Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin) given a expansive, swinging orchestration by band-leader Nelson Riddle. It’s pure pleasure.

I don’t know a huge amount about Sinatra, as a performer, as an innovator, as an singer of other people’s songs. This is the only album of his that I own. According to musicologists, Sinatra practically invented the phrasing of pop vocals. I can’t put that into perspective and it’s almost impossible, 50 plus years down the line, to hear the breakthrough directly, but it’s still easy to pick up on the delicious way he sways and curves his vocal delivery around the rhythm of the music, apparently allowing the beat to lead and follow as if he himself were the fixed point, the heart beating away at the centre of each song.

The accepted wisdom is that Sinatra was the master interpreter of other people’s songs. Again i’m not quite sure how to fit that into a useful context, but what comes through on ‘Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!’ is the ease and pure self-assurance with which he takes possession of the material. It’s as if the songs are names on his dance card and, one at a time, he picks them up and whirls them around the floor like no-one ever has before. He’s the coolest guy in the room and he knows it.

Post-Whitney we are asked to accept that the best vocalists are those with the biggest fireworks, the most serrated melisma, the most pneumatically powerful lungs. Sinatra stands directly against this anabolic orthodoxy. His voice is relaxed and unshowy with an underlying hint of hard confidence. Sure he was the biggest star of his time, at least until Elvis muscled in, but when he sings he vibes real life.

Listening to this record it’s easy to be lulled by its smooth embrace and begin to take Sinatra’s unembellished delivery for granted. At this point we must say a rare thank you to Robbie Williams (who, in a nice little coincidence, delivered the 1000th number one with an album of swing songs) for providing the perfect reminder of Sinatra’s skill.

Back in 2001 I reviewed Williams’ first swing revival album ’Swing When You’re Winning’ and it was listening to his version of ‘It Was A Very Good Year’, on which he dares to split the vocals with Sinatra, that brought home to me just how very good a singer Sinatra was. Williams takes the first two verses and spreads his vocals around like margarine, smearing his way across and around his lines, adding little curlicues and flourishes. Then Sinatra takes the microphone and it’s impossible not to feel the gaping difference in control, in depth, in richness. His first words are spine-tingling and his verses, about ageing, are absolutely masterful.

Listen for yourself, and then listen to ‘Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!’

Tom Listened: It’s time for a rant! Using the most tenuous of links (Sinatra to Williams to X Factor), I aim to go some way towards purging myself of the deeply unpleasant aftertaste of sitting through Saturday’s final. On the face of it, this has very little to do with Songs for Swinging Lovers…but bear with me!

My kids are at that age where watching X Factor seems like a good thing to do. Unfortunately, their Dad is at that age (and has been for..his whole life probably!) where it is a deeply disturbing and discombobulating experience. It’s not solely the inanity of the judges, the dreadfulness of the acts, the shallowness of the experience, those hollow platitudes (you know, the fact that everyone ‘loves’ everyone else), that the 10000 strong audience boos Gary Barlow (the only judge intelligent and/or brave enough to offer genuinely constructive criticism and, not only that, to do so in a polite and erudite way (and he gets booed for it!)). No, this is all deeply depressing admittedly, but the thing that gets me more than anything else is the acceptance that this is all just fine. My wife thinks it’s all just harmless fun. But I’m not so sure. X factor sets the agenda for a not insignificant proportion of the population and if those levels of insincerity and artifice are to become the norm….heaven help us!

Robbie, bless him, provides the bridge from the real to the X factor. One listen to It Was A Very Good Year and the origins of our current perilous state can be identified immediately. Not only does the man have the arrogance to think that he can sing alongside Sinatra and come out with at least a score draw, but his singing is so forced, so egotistical that it is a wonder that his followers didn’t decide there and then to spend the rest of their record money on the real deal instead of this reedy voiced egomaniac from Stoke. How could anyone prefer Williams to Sinatra? Alright, they sound a little different but who would want to trade the authenticity, the talent and THAT voice for it’s pale modern appropriation. But maybe that’s what is wanted these days. A modern take on those old classics that aims to sound like it really really means it, but ends up a soulless, hollow pile of crap. And then goes on to win X Factor!

Rant over. That’s better.

Graham Listened: Simply masterful. Something about listening to the vinyl added to the experience. I can safely say that as Nick was absent!

To commemorate the 1000th British Number 1 album – the mighty Swings Both Ways by Britain’s finest – Mr Robbie Williams, Rob set the beastly theme of bringing a British Number 1 to Record Club. As my eyes ran down the list on Wikipedia, I became ever more acutely aware of just how much I have avoided the more popular end of the music business over the years – to such an extent that, even including the 10 or so Beatles albums I own (none of which are contenders for Record Club) my grand total languishes around the 3% figure. And of those 30 or so albums, many are by artists that have already been represented in our previous 58 meetings or are albums that have actually been brought already…or are rubbish! Thankfully, The Pretenders’ debut album is tremendous and was a British Number 1 and is by a band that has barely had a sniff of a mention at record club thus far.

Which, for me, is baffling. Not because we haven’t been talking about it at Record Club per se, but because it simply isn’t a record that gets talked about very much at all. The Pretenders seem to inhabit a kind of musical appreciation twilight zone – the singles are liked (but, perhaps, not revered – after all everyone fawns over Fairytale of New York these days, but 2000 Miles is a pretty amazing Xmas song too and barely gets a mention) and the albums are generally disregarded. Indeed, I only bought the debut album a couple of years ago, mainly because I love Brass In Pocket and felt that my collection was incomplete without it. But the album offers so much more than  a couple of well known hits and a bunch of filler.

In fact the first six tracks of The Pretenders may have you thinking that someone at the record factory has slipped in a record by a different band altogether. The album kicks off with the high octane and really pretty nasty Precious (complete with one of the most convincing ‘fuck off’s I’ve ever heard on disc), through the staccato riffage of the exhilarating Tattooed Love Boys and the quite brilliant The Wait (which starts off sounding like the succeeding jangly Stop Your Sobbing but soon takes the listener somewhere much more dark and menacing and unexpected). Fourth track Space Invader is an eye opening instrumental that, considering its name, doesn’t sound dated at all. It’s a surprising start to the career of a band that went on to have a string of pop hits throughout the next decade and reflects a group that is brimful of ideas and punkish energy. The change in The Pretenders’ sound over time must also be partly due to the drug related deaths of two of the original four band members in 1982 – guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bass player Pete Farndon. Perhaps they were the grit in The Pretenders’ oyster from which the subsequent pop pearls were formed.

Certainly, the band The Pretenders were to become can be much more clearly heard on the second side of the album – maybe this was where Chrissie Hynde was allowed to flex her song-writing muscles more fully – the compromise to side one’s bluster. As soon as the initial twangy guitar of Kid’s initial motif kicks off it is clear that The Pretenders are much more multi-faceted than the first side of the record suggests. As well as thrilling and raucous, the flip-side of the album shows that sweet and melodious also come easily. And that’s the thing….it all seems so effortless. Kid is a brilliant song in its own right but the fact that it is followed the brooding and smoky Private Life (surely Grace Jones’ most famous song) then the pure pop of the glistening Brass in Pocket and then the St Vincent blueprint of Lover’s of Today makes the variety of side 2 almost as unexpected as the hard-hitting nature of side 1. But The Pretenders see fit to round things off with a return to where they kicked things off. Mystery Achievement is a classic rocker and a fine and (unsurprisingly) unusual way to end an album.

For all its lack of convention (the sequencing, the swearing, the lack of a unified sound), The Pretenders works brilliantly and just goes to show that sometimes the music that rises to the top of the charts can also be challenging, unpredictable…and absolutely magnificent. Just need to go and check out those other 970 possibilities now! Maybe Celine Dion ain’t all that bad after all.

Rob listened: It was great to hear this for the first time. What a strange band The Pretenders were, or at least how strange they seemed then, when I was 8, and how oddly they fit into the pop landscape in hindsight. This record bristled and hustled and combined pop punk sheen with Chrissie Hynde’s uniquely cool tension. Loads to love about it. I’ll be keeping an eye on the second hand racks.

Graham Listened: Really odd that I have never listened to this album, or in fact any whole Pretenders album. Always liked the sound but never felt need to investigate further. Really an album of 2 halves, but each are cracking.