Dana Gillespie - "You Just Gotta Know My Mind"

Trallazo mod-pop. Es una versión de Donovan que nunca grabó. La descubrí leyendo el 50.000 reasons de John Carney dedicado a Fay Hallam. Rev-Ola reeditó el disco hace poco

Dana Gillespie was a music lover from an early age: "I discovered the blues when I went to the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962 and also to see the Yardbirds at the Marquee Club. I was in my early teens and hadn't heard anything like it before."
In 1964 she recorded her first single for Pye, with Donovan on guitar and became a regular on the folk circuit along with friends Donovan and David Bowie. She recalls: "I was doing folk because I couldn't afford a band and I hadn't found my musical niche". In those early years Dana got to know many of the top bands and people in the music business, appearing on Ready Steady Go and other cool TV shows of the era along with the legends of the British pop explosion.

In 1967, she made this album, Foolish Seasons, a Psychpop/Swinging London/Folkrock masterpiece. Featuring the rare Donovan song, "You Just Gotta Know My Mind," which should have been a smash mod hit, (and also includes the guitar of JIMMY PAGE!!!), and two fantastic Billy Nicholls covers from his much celebrated and legendary Psych/Softpop gem, 'Would You Believe.' Arranged by the great Mike Vickers and produced by Wayne Bickerton (World of Oz, Jackie Lomax, Pete Best Four, The Rubettes), this is one of THE great missing links of 1960s pop....Dana was to make one more album for Decca, morphing seamlessly into a more blues based style, before becoming a star of London's West End theatre: the first run of Jesus Christ Superstar (playing Mary Magdalene), The Who's "Tommy" (playing the Acid Queen) and the rock Othello, "Catch My Soul". She also appeared with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Kenneth Willams in the film "The Hound Of The Baskervilles" and starred in Ken Russell's "Mahler". A number of roles in latter-day Hammer films and more experimental arthouse movies are also fondly remembered. As a singer she moved to RCA Records and made ‘Weren’t Born A Man’ and ‘Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle’, under the aegis of David Bowie, whose management, Mainman, also took care of her career. A period in the US was spectacularly ended when Bob Dylan invited her to appear on his 1997 UK tour.

Dana continues recording recording successfully today, specialising in her first love, emotionally expressive blues music. This sumptious reissue of her classic first album is LONG overdue!!

el Tributo de Morr Music al pop de Nueva Zelanda

DISC 1:

1. Lali Puna - I Like Rain (Jean Paul Sartre Experience)
2. People Press Play - Kaleidoscope World (The Chills)
3. Tarwater - Death And The Maiden (Verlains)
4. It's A Musical - All My Hollowness To You (Tall Dwarfs)
5. B. Fleischmann - Not Given Lightly (Chris Knox)
6. The Go Find - Pink Frost (The Chills)
7. Guther - Glide (Chris Knox)
8. The Wooden Birds - Afternoon In Bed (The Bats)
9. Butcher The Bar - Bee To Honey (Tall Dwarfs)
10. Sin Fang Bous - I Think I'd Thought I'd Nothing Else To Think About (The Chills)
11. Borko - Up In The Sky (Jean Paul Sartre Experience)
12. Masha Qrella - Pink Frost (The Chills)
13. Saroos - Prisoner Of A Single Passion (Graeme Jefferies)
14. American Analog Set - Anything Could Happen (The Clean)
15. Bobby & Blumm - On An Unknown Beach (Peter Jefferies)
16. Contriva - Light (Chris Knox)
17. ISAN - Harmonic Deluxe (Robert Scott)
18. Electric President - You Forget (David Kilgour)

DISC 2:

1. Benni Hemm Hemm - Stoffeise
2. Radical Face - Wandering
3. Guther - New Science
4. Sin Fang Bous - Nothings
5. Seabear - Singing Arc
6. Butcher The Bar - Snakes
7. Surf City - Kudos
8. Electric President - White Noise
9. It's A Musical - In Case Of Harmony
10. Seavault - Cornfields
11. Populous - Zodiac
12. Saroos - Dubstar
13. Tarwater - Captain
14. ISAN - Happy Chord Whore
15. Bobby & Blumm - Take A Sip
16. B. Fleischmann - Aldebaran Waltz

Not Given Lightly - A Tribute To the Giant Golden Book Of New Zealand`s Alternative Music Scene


Are sounds sent on a journey they come back in echoes. This compilation is widely traveled - around half of the world and to another time. To the 1980ies when just in New Zealand the archetype of what was called Indie Pop later on was pressed on vinyl and soon defined a new way of how Indie pop has seen itself, concerning sound as well as attitude. "Flying Nun", "Xpressway", "IMD" or "Corpus Hermeticum" were the names of the labels, The Clean, The Chills or Tall Dwarfs the names of the bands. Pop songs or rather hits were born in garages and pressed on screen printed seven inches. A relevant music culture beyond a big and global music industry was thought and lived. Maybe just because it has not reached New Zealand before.
There was a promise in songs like "Not given lightly" by Chris Knox or "Pink Frost" by The Chills. And this promise was heard. In the US Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth referred to New Zealand's Alternative music scene directly. In Germany artists as well as label runners adapted this DIY-idea. Markus Acher, who is part of this compilation with "Lali Puna", played together with Graeme Jefferies. Suddenly, LoFi was present everywhere. And last but not least Morr Music would not have been thinkable without this DIY-idea. Even if the musical means and forms differed in the meantime New Zealand was carried in the heart. "Since a few years", says Thomas Morr, "I have begun to play Flying-Nun-records more often. The songs are simply too great, it would be a pity to leave them to a specialist's knowledge only." Now the Morr Music family has made them to their own in a fantastic way.
Morr Music has recorded its own being and becoming in conceptual compilations twice before. In 2000 "Putting the Morr back into Morrissey" defined the way of how Morr Music sees itself. Besides, it defined the aesthetics of a genre that was called Indietronic once. "Blue Skied An' Clear" - a homage to the British band Slowdive - set to music the status of individual as well as collective sound biographies within the Morr universe.
Now there is "A Tribute to the Giant Golden Book of New Zealand's Alternative Music". It is here partly because the world goes in circles, because this timeless music fits perfectly in a time in which the production conditions of pop music are radically restricted last but not least because of economic conditions. But there is no reason to complain about - this can be learned from the records of that time, too. Particularly because the laptop is heir to the four-track recorder today and at least the sounds have all the freedom possible. "Not Given Lightly" is the archaeology of an atmosphere of breaking up. The latter - consciously or unconsciously - resonates too within most of Morr Music releases. "Not Given Lightly" is an affair of the heart, not only for Thomas Morr. Almost inevitable that with Surf City a young band from New Zealand has meanwhile put its name down on the Morr Music map.

Interesantes entradas en el blog de Chickfactor

Una exposición del indispensable fotográfo Richard Avedon; un documental sobre Vasthi Bunyan; el dibujante Chris Ware (su "Catalogo de Novedades Acme" -Mondadori- es el comic del mes en el Rockdelujo) en el New Yorker; el estreno de su página en flicrk http://www.flickr.com/photos/gailochickfactor/ y muchas más cosas son algunas de las entradas recientes en el blog de Gail Chickfactor. Indispensable

Oído el de God Help The Girl

El lp no me ha dicho mucho, salvo ""I´ll have to dance with Cassie" y el single:

Ama: gratis su nuevo lp

El grupo de Javier Sánchez (la Buena Vida) vuelve ya fuera de Jabalina (ahora en los enanos gigantes, donde graba Fernando Alfaro). El disco lo podéis COMPRAR AQUÍ o si preferís, descargarlo aquí gratis, aunque si te gusta y lo deseas, puedes hacer un donativo vía Paypal

Más info: http://amamusica.info/

MOMUSeando

En el último RockdeLujo hay una entrevista a Ibón Le Mans en la que se confiesa adicto al blog de Momus (ya somos 2) ("suelo mirar su blog, donde habla de todo, desde arquitectura a cultura japonesa, pasando por un post sobre los aspectos positivos de la crisis económica").

En sus últimos post habla sobre su miedo a volar, e incluye anécdota española. El pobre viajó en ¡Spantax!, una ya extinta compañía mallorquina que no tenía muy buena fama precisamente ( http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spantax)

(" I'm pretty sure I took no flights at all between 1975 (when my family flew back to Scotland from Montreal via Air Canada) and 1988, when I flew with Alan McGee and his band Biff Bang Pow to Spain on a dodgy charter flight operated by a company called Spantax. At 15, on the Air Canada flight, I wasn't nervous at all. But 28 year-old me flying to Spain was terrified. For the return flight, I wandered off alone in Madrid airport (flying always makes me broody and solitary), bought wax ear-plugs, and sat watching the planes taking off and landing, amazed that each of them succeeded. On the flight I had ear plugs stuffed into my ears and tissue filling my concave sunglasses. It was the next best thing to general anaesthetic. I vaguely heard McGee tell someone: "It's no great loss; he's not a big talker anyway." At one point I peeped out of the window and got an incredibly beautiful view of provincial France. Not a cloud was in the sky, and the plane was perfectly smooth.)"

También me ha hecho gracia que ha descubierto por internet un dibujo sobre él que no le gusta nada porque dice que ¡se parece a Tintín! (ver foto). A mi en cambio me gusta y mucho.

Finalmente anuncia que Cherry Red TV le ha entrevistado y que en pocos días colgarán la entrevista en la web y que hay una sátira sobre su blog en twitter (para partirse) de un personaje que firma como Twit_Opera (en vez del click opera de su blog) con foto incluida parodiándolo con parche pirata en el ojo. Momus naturalmente disfruta con ello...

En fin, que este Momus me divierte y entretiene un montón

"The Melody Haunts my Reverie" y Pacific Street

No me había fijado pero los de Pacific Street tiene en su myspace esta frase del famoso ¿cuadro? ¿ilustración? pop de Roy Lichtenstein como lema

Lee Hazlewood "Cake or Death" (2006)

En el blog de Everett True (The Legend!) hay un post en el que recupera un antiguo artículo que escribió para Plan B Magazine (RIP) en el que reinvidicaba el último lp que grabó Lee Hazlewood. Acabo de esuchar el disco y es sorprendentemente bueno e incluye colaboraciones (duetos) con sus, ejem, nietos. Esto es lo que dice Mr.True de él: http://everetttrue.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/plan-b-the-archives-4-lee-hazelwoods-final-album/

La foto, también sacada de dicho blog, es impagable

Trashcan Sinatras - "In the music"

Nuevo lp.

Aquí lo han colgado gratis: http://donteatheyellowsnow.blogspot.com/2009/06/trash-can-sinatras-in-music.html

Este fue el single de adelanto

Tracey Thorn & Jens Lekman "Yeah! Oh yeah!" / Laura Cantrell "Cowboy on the Moon"

Merge Records cumple 20 años y para celebrarlo publica "Score! 20 Years Of Merge Records: The Covers!". En ella, una veintena de grupos que no son de Merge versionan otros tantos artistas de la historia del sello. La mayoría son grupos indies-alternativos de USA versioneando a grupos indies alternativos de USA (y un par de Nueva Zelanda), como era de esperar. Pero hay dos canciones que se apartan del tópico inherente a Merge: Por un lado, Laura Cantrell hace una versión muy bonita de Lambchop (me gusta más que la original) y Tracey Thorn nos cuenta desde su blog en myspace su contribución:

"Here is some new music at last - it's the cover of Yeah! Oh Yeah! by The Magnetic Fields, which I recorded last summer with Jens Lekman for the 20th anniversary compilation put out by Merge Records. Over the last 20 years Merge (based in North Carolina) have put out records by some of our favourite indie artists, from Arcade Fire, through M Ward and the Magnetic Fields, to East River Pipe and American Music Club. I was flattered to be asked to take part and, as you know, I need little persuasion to raid the Stephen Merritt songbook. Though I was very tempted to cover East River Pipe's gorgeous song Druglife, which opens with the memorable line, "Hey! Where's my pills? They were sittin' on the windowsill".
Anyway, I haven't heard the whole Merge compilation yet (there is one on its way to me apparently..) but I nevertheless recommend you to check it out.
And as for my album, yep, the recording is finished, and the mixing about to begin, so with any luck I will soon be able to put some of that new stuff up here too.
More soon, xx