Frank Turner: Daytrotter Sessions

A brand-new all-acoustic 2011 session from England's folkie road warrior, Frank Turner. On this session you get three tracks from England Keep My Bones'; a dramatically quieter, solo take on "One Foot Before the Other",  a fine, if not dissimilar, version of  "Sailor Boots" and an excellent  B-side, "Balthazar, Impresario". In addition, you get the Bragg-esque "You Can’t Choose the One That You Love", which is, I believe, previously unrecorded.







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Swingin' Utters: Here Under Protest (2011) PLUS FREE LIVE DOWNLOAD!)

Unusual for a Fat Wreck-Chords band, San Francisco's Swingin' Utters bring a dump track full of gravel to their performance. When it all hits home, on songs like "Teenage Genocide" from their debut album or "Brand New Lungs from their new album, Here Under Protest, it's devastating. While their work can sometimes seems maddeningly inconsistent, perhaps it's just the inevitable by by-product of having multiple lead singers (original front man "Johny 'Peebucks" Bonnell often surrenders the mic to guitarist Darius Kosk not to mention 2nd guitarist Jack Dalrymple as well bassist Spike Slawson, who is also the lead singer of Me First and the Gimme-Gimme's).

The stunning kick-of to the new album, "Brand New Lungs" sounds, despite the band's insistence that they're a street-punk band, like a modern, bleaker Agent Orange song.

Live at Vienna Arena (2011-09-19)

01 Brand New Lungs (Cuts In)
02 Taking The Long Way
03 Pills And Smoke
04 Untitled 21
05 Heavy Head
06 Stupid Lullabies
07 Bent Collector Of 1,000 Limbs
08 Kick It Over
09 Five Lessons Learned
10 Jackie Jab
11 Windspitting Punk
12 Time On My Own
13 Fifteenth And T
14 As You Start Leaving
15 Forward To Fun
16 Effortless Amnesiac
17 Scary Brittle Frame
18 No Pariah
19 Teenage Genocide
20 Catastrophe
21 The Next In Line
22 Fruitless Fortunes
23 Tell Me Lies
24 Dirty Sea
25 No Eager Man


HOMEPAGE

Let us know what you think of the Swingin' Utters in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the  Vienna Arena, 2011-09-19 link).

Lost Durangos: Evil Town (1986)

Lost Durangos were Vancouver's entry into The Cow-Punk 2000, a short-lived mid-eighties race to hype a new genre into the charts. Like the races' front-runner, Lone Justice's (more HERE) Maria McKee, Lost Durangos featured a highly-talented country song-bird, Kelly Brock, who'd go on to a lengthy solo career. Unlike Lone Justice, Lost Durangos came with a genuine punk legend in tow, one Mr. Buck Cherry former member of the Modernettes, Active Dog and Los Popularos.

 B & W photos from Alex Waterhouse-Hayward 's site

Another sharp contrast with many so-called cow-punk bands, would be in the songwriting department. A band like Lone Justice's song were written any number of band members and outside writers, diffusing their focus, whereas the hand of one superb song-writer, Greg Potter, makes Evil Town, one of the best things ever relegated to the 'cow-punk' pasture. Mel Brooks once claimed that, "Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together" but music writer Potter soundly proves the 2000 Year Old Man wrong. Each of these tunes is baited with an irresistible hook, part folk-rock, part country, part power-pop, all with plenty of drive. While the album's photos are pure forties noir, lyrically Potter keeps his feet planted in the urban reality that spawned the band. Even within that urban context, Potter infuses the album with enough biblical language ("Oh Lord, What an evil town", "The sins of the father are visited on the son", "My father's house has many mansions") to make the whole thing seem timeless. And it's that timelessness, each of the six songs here sound like it could have been written forty years ago or today, that makes this such a must-hear.

Kelly Brock (vocals)
Buck Cherry (guitar, vocals)
Paul de Bourcier (drums)
Greg Potter (guitar, vocals)
Matt Rickson (bass, vocals) 

A1         Evil Town                        2:59    
A2         Every Leaf's Gotta Fall     3:41    
A3         Sins Of The Father           3:46    
B1         Living Nowadays              2:46    
B2         Never Say How Far          3:52    
B3         I've Seen The Rain           3:47     

1986, Armadilo Records

So readers, let us know what you think of Lost Durangos in the COMMENTS section, which is where you'll find the Evil Town link.


P.S. For a nicer front and back cover scan go HERE!

The Cry: Self-Titled (1980)

This is a fucking great band-wagon jumping album. Music history is festooned with a myriad of such johnny-come-lately`s, who actually got it right. I was reminded of this fact by the laughable controversy over faux-indie songstress, Lana Del Ray, who`s career trajectory, hearteningly, argues that there`s still enough ill-gotten gain to be had in any music industry to bother faking anything. Well back in the late seventies as the disco bubble floated towards the punk rock pin, frantic record executives were signing anything that had simple hooks, choppy guitars and bad attitudes, the sort of thing they called, `New Wave`. This led to all sorts of laughable attempts for many a late twenty-something veteran to don a skinny-tie and a sneer and try their hand once again in the rock n` roll crap shoot. Sometimes, however, this gambit paid off, if only because a struggling musician nearing thirty probably had an even deeper well of anger then a spotty British eighteen year-old in the dole-queue.

One such veteran vying to hang ten on the New Wave, was former drummer of Calgary's' The Stampeders (they of `Sweet City Woman fame`!) Kim Berly who, like band-wagon-jumper extraordinaire Declan McManus, changed his name, his attitude, his look and his sound as a result of the cultural upheavals then occurring in New York and London. Like Mr. Costello, an angrier, more direct musical environment actually played to Berly-Fox`s strengths and the results, while no My Aim is True, still beat the tar out of the light-country-rock of his earlier work*.

So let's talk songs; the rockers like "Crackdown", "Last Laugh" and "Can't Get Close"  have an all-out, reckless intensity that reminds me of a Joe Strummer-fronted Stranglers, though "Little Sister" certainly does encroach on Elvis Costello and the Attractions territory



Despite keyboardist's Macpherson's prominence on the album's overall sound, his contributions, "You" and "Razors' Edge", are the two most typical 'new wave' songs herein. Fortunately, Fox's ballads equaled and possibly surpassed the rockers in their ferocity. When things slow down, Fox & co. offer no tenderness, not even the bleak kind EC put forth in songs like, "Allison". Instead we get a brooding, menacing take on The Kinks "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", the desolate "Who Cares" and the absolutely-burning "Guitar" which excoriates a lost comrade for turning his back on his  talent.




So here we have a neglected piece of music history created by a struggling musician with a deep well of anger who transcended charges of band-wagon jumping and truly got something right.


(Well, If you've red this far, and taken the time to listen, thanks. While I loved this album in high school, it wasn't one I won many converts to, though somewhat unusually, I didn't try, it felt like more of a personal thing).


If anyone has a copy of The Cry's second or thrid albums that they could rip and scan - MRML (And at least a few of its readers wouold be forever in your debt!

So what do you think of The Cry's New Wave band-wagonry? Let us know in the COMMENTS section, (which is where you'll find The Cry's S/T link*).

*Rip and scans courtesy of the fantastic site, Fade 2 Grey - go forth and visit the multitude therein!

V.A. Stortbeat (1978-1982) Volume Two

As my Canadian musical heritage quest deepens, I'll break for a nod to this blog's ever-green obsession with UK obscurities of the late seventies and early eighties. here's the second disc of this out-of-print collection of old singles that came from a DIY punk collective label called Strortbeat run by by members of The Gangsters and The Sods.

Disc Two

Runs/Teenbeats
- I'm never nervious (live)
- Nobody wants to know
- Bun in the oven
The Sods
- Snakes
- Work
Pete the Meat and the Boys
- Look what she's doing
- Superman
- Why should I care

Trendy Records
The Groove
- What am I gonna do about you
- I wanna be your pigmy
- Heart Complaint
- I'm in love

No label
Anti State Control
- Sniffing Glue Blues
- M.U.S.E
- 3rd World bomb
Gangsters
- Trouble (live)
- Weekend (live)
Rabits
- Romantic old sod
- Grab the haddock
Mirror Co
- Hit Single
- Beat City
Vertical Strokers
- Holidays
- Saturday girls
Rodger Milton

- My old man (backed by The Firm)

Let us know what you think of this collection of slightly-grubby obscurities in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the Stortbeat V. 2 link).