I (heart) £5

[shermarama]

In what I’m now more likely to think of as I (heart) NX style, Essential Music in Brighton is having a sale of ridiculous proportions. Everything in the usual back-albums racks is reduced to a fiver. For a fiver, I (heart) a whole lot of things, I tell you. Two Deep Purple albums for a start; the reissue version of In Rock has just become a kitchen album because first you get the whole album and then you get all the best bits done again, slightly differently, with musical fooling around inbetween. The Police’s Regatta De Blanc turns out mostly quite boring, I regret to say, but with a nice helping of schadenfreude in the middle resulting from a song they couldn’t possible release now. Sting singing in an awful American accent about how his life’s gone to bits today including his fine young son turning out gay. I bet they’ve all got well-polished disowning speeches for that one by now.

A collection of early Husker Du mainly makes me want to knock out a quick punk album of my own because that’s the sort of thing it would sound like. I’d never have bought Lamb’s Fear Of Fours otherwise, and it’s not going to be a regular stack-topper but I can see times when that’d be perfect. And, I finally bit some sort of teenage-throwback bullet and bought Gomez’s Bring It On. Worth having for Whipping Piccadilly, certainly, but as a whole I still wonder where all the adoring critics thought they were coming from, and going to, as I still think it does some interesting and unusual things but doesn’t have the confidence, or urge really, to go anywhere with them. It’s noodling, albeit of a usable standard.

Funny how 78 Stone Wobble still takes me back to the place and time I first heard it. On a walkman, in the weird bridging zone up by the old train yard, taking a back route to a tae kwon do class. Something caught my attention and made me want to explain to someone that it was interesting but not quite right, and then a few days later I saw a picture of the band in the Big Issue and nearly had a heart attack when I realised half of them were people I’d last seen playing Wild Thing badly in front of a bemused school assembly. Anyway.

What would you (heart) for a fiver? Anything that’s likely to be in Essential’s racks?

Comments

[aphroditemf.livejournal.com]

Hooray for Husker Du! I reckon you could also get Marquee Moon by Television for a fiver, and I picked up two Lou Reed albums for 5 quid each in shoddy HMV a few weeks ago.

The best thing the Police ever did was Landlord, the B-side to Message in a Bottle. The good thing about it is it doesn't sound like the Police.

[levez.livejournal.com]

My taste in music is all over the shop (except, I tend to shop on-line and have no idea what Essential usually stocks), but here's what you may be able to get for around a fiver. Possibly.

Sonic Youth - Confusion Is Sex. Nowadays they're increasingly middle-aged and noodly. Get this and listen to it on headphones in the dark when you're feeling superior. That's what I do anyway. Occasionally.

Boris - Amplifier Worship. Actually, I haven't a bloody clue how much this would cost, but if you like Sun0))) and Earth... er, this sounds nothing like either. But I was first introduced to all three at the same time. Boris sound like... one Japanese man playing avant-garde death metal. Mostly just drums, guitar, a bit of singing, and weird structures. Flood is good too, sort of like the above but more ambient prog-metal. But much more basic and pure sounding than that might suggest.

Anything by Brainiac, especially Bonsai Superstar. Weird, alt. rock brilliance. Familiar yet very different.

For some great rhythm work outside of metal, try The Jesus Lizard and Girls Against Boys, particuarly Goat by TJL and Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby by GvsB

You like doom? You heard Electric Wizard? If not, get Dopethrone. It's immense!

The Complicated Futility of Ignorance by Fudge Tunnel kicks all kinds of ass. Their other stuff sounds kind of sparse, but this is the chunky good stuff.

Everyone should own at least one Godflesh album. Oh, and the Jesu album is good too.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless. Wintery guitar feedback wonderland.

Morphine - Cure For Pain. My post-pub singalong bass & sax & drums love affair.

Er. Sorry,I just started listing stuff I like but never hear others playing, from the list in iTunes. Cough.

[shermarama]

Good crikey, I've never seen a recommendations list that includes so many things I own. That's probably a good thing, mind.

Sonic Youth - I've got, umm, is it called Goo or is it just the one where a song called Goo is the standout one, I can't remember from here, and Daydream Nation. I don't listen to either much but they have their place, usually while feeling obscurely displaced.

Boris, I saw supporting Sunn0)) once. I thought they were *great* in person but I was always disappointed in the recordings I bought, it seemed to be a very different band. In fact, here's my first ever post on LJ, going on about that gig at great length. Aww.

Brainiac I have never heard of nor heard owt of, I must investigate at once.

Jesus Lizard, man, one of my bandmates is a very big Jesus Lizard fan, one of my other bands thus sounds a lot more like them. I've heard odd bits and have been meaning to get a copy of Goat for sort of standing reference purposes for ages, that should have been something I looked up in that sale. Girls Against Boys I haven't heard much of though.

We know about Electric Wizard, yes we do. There was a while when they fell apart a couple of years ago when I was trying to arrange going down to Bournemouth to try out as bassist for what became Ramesses II. But the only contact I had was Mark Greening himself, and *man* is is connection to reality tenuous, so that didn't happen.

I have a very old home-recorded tape of Fudge Tunnel that now and then comes out and makes me wonder if I like it again. I can't remember what's on the other side but one side is Hate Songs in E Minor. Since I got into them through absolutely loving the Nailbomb album, I should probably try that first one sometime.

I own three Godflesh albums, and one of them's Love and Hate In Dub so that's all right.

My Bloody Valentine comes under stuff I've heard but didn't quite get, I think. Slightly different direction.

Morphine - yep, got that one, I'm never quite sure where it fits but.

I suspect we've probably got a few more bands in common at this rate. Hey, let's go for the burn straight away; are you the other person on the planet that's heard of Wool?

[levez.livejournal.com]

Wool? No, I've never heard of...

Oh wait -- I meant to say 'Yes, my favourite song by them is Kill the Crow, but I much prefer their ep Budspawn to the album Box Set. Although, Eden and Superman Is Dead both yeah, kick ass. Kick. Kick. Kick. Ass.

[shermarama]

*points wordlessly*
*jaw hits floor*

(You know, I haven't heard the EP, you never see these things about though actually I've never tried looking online. I just saw 'em supporting L7 in Manchester one time and loved them. And have been the cause of at least four people subsequently falling for the album. Muahaha.)

(You must, given all the foregoing, be aware of Goatsnake then. I got terribly overexcited when I heard about that.)

[levez.livejournal.com]

I would be happy to do you a copy of the EP if you like. I've never seen it in shops myself. A guy I knew about... ten years back had a copy, but that's about it. I managed to download it one day much to my surprise. It's very good, a lot more punky and hardcore than Box Set, but still filled with hooks and the same bass-led punchy style. I've never heard Scream, the previous band of most of them, but I'd be willing to bet they sound at least a bit like them.

I've er, never heard of Goatsnake. I don't keep up with rock and metal news really, alas. Other than what my best mate yells at me enthusiastically from his copy of Terrorizer -- "LOOK AT THIS PICTURE OF DEVIN TOWNSEND! LOOK AT HIS NOSTRILS! THIS IMAGE HAUNTED MY DREAMS! Now it will haunt yours. THEN MY MADNESS WILL PASS" -- being one of his more lucid mentionings. Sometimes I'll see mention on the cover of a band I like, but I'm totally turned off by a lot of the immature crap that comes with rock journalism. I have to scurry past Kerrang! with my head bowed, eyes averted.

(what with the Kyuss, Wool, L7, doom liking, we seem to have similar musical taste there -- but I like all kinds of crap so I'm gonna try and play it safe and say...)

What do you think of the Melvins?

[shermarama]

I shall see if I can get hold of the EP first, but if not I might take you up on that offer.

I know what you mean about the music press, I go through phases of picking stuff up, particularly web-based ones like the Organ, and then I forget about it again - I keep picking up new stuff now and then anyway.

Goatsnake. About four years ago someone was playing me a load of new stuff they'd got, and there was this band called Goatsnake, the music was the sort of very heavy blues-rock stuff that gets so low and farty it turns sort of doom-related and I thought, this is pretty good, and then the singer started up with an unusually clear and piercing voice for this style of music and I went "hang on..." and dived for the CD cover and it is that very Pete Stahl of Wool. Yeah.

Melvins is good. I hear they can be hit and miss live in the same way as the albums can be, but when I've seen them live they've been excellent and by sticking to the better-known ones I've mostly avoided the duff albums too. Except I bought Joe Preston. But yeah, the drummer in particular is one of my favourite. I recently saw an excellent female-fronted doom band from San Francisco called Acid King, they were amazing, and it turns out that the frontwoman is Dale Crover's missus which made pleasing sense.

[levez.livejournal.com]

If you like, I'll stick a miscellany of stuff up on-line for you to download at your leeezuure. iTunes randomly selected a couple of particularly find Girls Against Boys tracks that I reckon you'd be into -- also a couple of old Killing Joke tracks I'd be interesting to get your taken on. Some other stuff will occur to me too, I'm sure.

Organ, eh? I'll have to take a look for that. Occasionally someone will point me to some article at Blabbermouth and I'll then maybe scroll around the recent news; but I never bother going back for more. I really like rock and metal, but not exclusively, and all the 'Dio's second drummer forms new band with Rainbow's third bassist SHOCK NEWS' stuff is kind of boring.

Huh to Goatsnake. It'd be interesting to hear Pete Stahl over some doom stuff. I've always liked his voice for what he did with Wool. It reminded me kind of Scott Weiland but more kick-ass.

Heh, I've not heard of Joe Preston,but I can well imagine it being bad. You particularly want to avoid Snivlem. I think their most popular album is Houdini, which has a good mix of the different stuff they've done, but they've done some far more doom-y stuff elsewhere. Gluey Porch Treatments is supposed to be a really good slow Black Sabbath-esque affair but I imagine it's way too hard to get. I think Electroretard (or something) is said to be among the best of their recent stuff.

I'll have to keep an eye out for Acid King. I've yet to hear any female-fronted doom. The Dale Crover connection is enough for me, even if only by marriage.