Day 20 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you listen to when you’re angry...

Song 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry...  – ‘Remember Me’ – British Sea Power

British Sea Power

‘Angry’ seems a bit of a blunt word to describe an emotional state.  I don’t often get angry on its own; it’s normally tinged with frustration, bitterness, sadness or something more destructive.  This song is a cathartic one though.   The music and lyrics seems to be railing against something and sometimes ‘something’ is as much focus as you want your anger to have.  There are some great songs that say ‘f**k you’ to unfaithful or requited lovers (‘Like a Rolling Stone’ by Bob Dylan springs to mind) but that’s a bit too precise for when you’ve just had one of those days.  I probably have as many good breakup records as love songs, which is kind of sad, but it’s these intense emotions that often seem to inspire good songwriting and art.  At least they give you something to say.  The grit around which the pearl forms.  But this isn’t one of those songs.  And it’s one I can listen to anytime.

British Sea Power - Remember Me

British Sea Power are an old school sort of an Indie band.  They’re very self-consciously arty, filling their music with references and allusions to obscure people, places and events.  There’s a song on their second album, ‘Open Season’, about Larson B, an Antarctic ice shelf that became detached and floated off.  There aren’t many other bands who’d want to tackle a subject like that.  I think that British Sea Power’s reach sometimes exceeds their grasp.  They’re not as interesting musically as they are in interview but I like their ambition.  They're a great live experience too.

British Sea Power - Oh Larsen B

David Millington

20^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 19 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song from your favourite album...

Song 19 – A song from your favourite album...  – ‘Cut Your Hair’ – Pavement





Like favourite songs, I don’t really have favourite albums any more but Pavement were my favourite band for about 5 years and this was my favourite album of theirs so we’ll go with it.

Pavement - Cut Your Hair

I could have picked half a dozen songs but ‘Cut Your Hair’ is probably the most fun if you’ve not heard the band before.  It bounces along nicely, the lyrics are fairly typical, with the odd memorable line, the odd line that makes sense and a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t.  Pavement were always criticised for sounding too much like The Fall but I always found it easier to like Pavement records than Fall ones. 

I lent a Pavement album to a classic rock purist once and he hated it.  It was all out of tune, the timing was off and the songs are unfocussed and jump around a lot.  I can't really disagree with anything he said.  The difference is perhaps that I like the unpredictability and the way that the songs sometimes create moments of beauty despite themselves and not because of themselves.  There are some songs in my list of 30 that I think you'd have to be mad not to appreciate.  This is not one of them, but if you do then great.  There's one more of us and one less of them.

David Millington

19^th April 2011

Nottingham

Pavement were the kings of ‘Lo-fi’, a style that was popular in the US at around the time of grunge.  It was similar to grunge in that it was a type of music that anyone could make and that didn’t require you to be a virtuoso to play it.  It was always more art-school and College based than grunge.  It was never as popular, never crossed over and I think has aged pretty well.  Blur were said to have been very much influenced by Pavement prior to their recording their 'Blur' album of 1997.  Other bands you might want to try in this style were Sebadoh, Archers of Loaf, Guided by Voices, Sammy, Small 23 and the Derby based Bivouac.

Guided by Voices - I am a Scientist

Day 18 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song you wish you heard on the Radio...

Song 18 – A song you wish you heard on the radio...  – ‘Emily Davison Blues’ – Grace Petrie

Grace Petrie

I have actually heard Grace Petrie on the radio but only once.  I’d got in late from an evening’s carousing and popped on the radio whilst making a bacon sandwich to hear a song called 'Farewell to Welfare' on Tom Robinson’s 6 Music show.  This song is equally good.  I really like that it’s a political song, I like the passion and the tune and it makes me want to sing along or maybe learn to play it.  The video shows Grace playing the song live outside Nick Clegg’s consistency office in Sheffield.

Grace Petrie - Emily Davison Blues

Grace Petrie’s a singer-songwriter from Leicester.  She’s supported Frank Turner and Mark Morriss (of the Bluetones) as well as having played the Summer Sundae festival in Leicester, Nottingham’s Gay Pride Festival and the Billy Bragg curated ‘Leftfield’ stage at Glastonbury in 2010.  Following a great reception there, she’s since shared the stage with Billy Bragg himself and Emmy the Great.  I wish I could tell you more about Grace Petrie’s work but I’ve not managed to get hold of a copy of the album yet.

Emily Davison

The titular Emily Davison was the suffragette campaigner who was trampled by King George V’s horse Anmer at the Derby in 1913 and died as a result of her injuries four days later.  She had a return train ticket to London and a ticket for a dance that evening and it has been speculated that she hadn’t intended to become a martyr for women’s suffrage and had wanted to place a suffrage flag on the King’s horse so that it would ‘fly the flag’ as it crossed the finishing line.

Davison had previously been arrested for attempting to hand a petition to then Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and had spent a month in prison as a result.  She had two subsequent spells in prison, both of which ended after she went on hunger strike.    Her third spell saw her in Strangeways Prison, sentenced to a month’s hard labour.  On this occasion the prison authorities decided to force-feed Davison and in an attempt to avoid this, she used prison furniture to barricade the door of her prison cell. A prison officer then climbed a ladder and after forcing the nozzle of a hosepipe through a window, filled up the cell with water. Davison was willing to die, but before the cell had been completely filled with water the door was broken down.  James Keir Hardie, the leader of the Labour party, protested against this treatment in the House of Commons and Davison was awarded damages against the prison officers.

Davison’s action on the racecourse and subsequent death didn’t shock public opinion into giving women the vote, with typical perversity they were more concerned about the health of the horse than of Davison.  At the time of writing, with a couple of weeks to go before the AV referendum, it’s interesting to see indifference with which that vote is held, when 98 years ago a young woman was prepared to risk everything to gain a voice in the governance of the country.

One of Emily Davison’s favourite sayings was ‘Rebellion against tyranny is obedience to God’ which I rather like.

Grace Petrie’s website is here...

David Millington

18th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 17 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song you hear often on the Radio...

Song 17 – A song you hear often on the radio...  – ‘Need you Now’ – Cut Copy

Cut Copy

This song’s been getting some fairly heavy play on 6 Music recently (‘heavy play’? Check me out, like an American or something).  It’s got a real 80’s feel about it, like an OMD song but with a more 90’s production.  I've had a couple of listens to the album and it reminds me of 'The Beloved'.  Not necessarily a bad thing, just a bit more old school than I want.  When you remember stuff from the first time it's hard to get as excited about it the second time.  Old influences are fine (necessary and inevitable) but they don't seem to be doing too much new with them.  It seems to have had some good reviews though so who knows.

Not much else to say about this.  It's a song I hear a lot on the radio that I think is really good.

David Millington

17^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 16 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song you used to love but now hate...

Song  16 – A song you used to love but now hate...  – ‘Step On’ – Happy Mondays

Happy Mondays

The Happy Mondays were part of the ‘Madchester’ scene that was the first scene I hooked onto as a teenager.  Their second album ‘Bummed’ was a much sought after copied tape (being unobtainable in Doncaster’s record shops) and it’s still a fairly weird and wonderful free-wheeling helter-skelter ride of strange rhythms, riffing guitars and sing-song rhymes.  It was an album that didn’t sound like much else, at least to my untutored teenaged tabs.  ‘Wrote For Luck’ from ‘Bummed’ was the first track that crossed over, scraping the bottom reaches of the top 40 before the ‘Madchester’ EP gave the movement its name and the group their first appearance on Top of the Pops.

‘Step On’ was the first single from their third album ‘Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches’.  I’ve the 12” of it kicking around somewhere.  It’s much more of a full on dance record, the guitars relegated to a supporting role.  It’s a big fun party record.  So why do I hate it?

I suppose I heard it one too many times at one too many discos. It still gets wheeled out regularly at any Indie shindig you care to attend and I’m so tired of hearing it.  I also have to be honest and say I’m a lot less in love with Mondays that I used to be.  What seemed crazy antics from a bunch of lovable rogues (very much the NME portrayal of the early Mondays) now looks like a bunch of out of control chancers who’d be no fun to spend any time with.  Take the music away from them and they’d be people you’d really want to avoid.

‘Bummed’ is still a fine record though and I’ll dance to ‘Wrote for Luck’ anytime you want to play it!

David Millington

16^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 15 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that describes you...

Song  15 – A song that describes you...  – ‘The Bluest Eyes in Texas’ – A Camp

Nina Persson of 'A Camp'

Well this song doesn’t describe me exactly but, again, it’s one that I could have written so we’ll go with it.  This was a really difficult one to choose.  There are lots of books that you read or songs that you hear where you think ‘I can really identify with that character’ but not many where you think ‘that song summed me up’.   I quite like that too.  It’s good to feel that you’re unique and special and that no-one else quite sees the world the way that you do.  Perhaps it’s a bit ego-centric, but I think that some degree of this is good for you and your self esteem.

It can be an uncomfortable feeling when you do come across something that strikes a bit close to home.  Having never seen a rom-com that borne any resemblance to a relationship I was in, I watched ‘500 Days of Summer’ a little while ago off the back of some good reviews and fine cast.  I found it struck unerringly close to home.  It did make for a really affecting film that’s really stayed with me and also a film that, because of this, I’m not keen to watch again.  It was cathartic but being so closely engaged with the characters can be hard work.  So songs that describe you can be a mixed blessing.  Having someone shine a light on you can be illuminating, but too much light can leave you dazzled and exposed.

500 Days of Summer - Trailer

Anyway, the song!  It’s by ‘A Camp’, who were a side project of Nina Persson of ‘The Cardigans’ and Mark Linkous of ‘Sparklehorse’ was also heavily involved, with song writing and production.  I think their debut album is fantastic and I was amazed when it didn’t garner a lot of ‘album of the year’ nods.  I much prefer it to anything that The Cardigans ever did.  The country tinged sound is warm and cosy that and makes Nina Persson’s vocals sound all the more aching and soulful than they ever did on the sometimes slightly clinical Cardigans records.  The song ‘The Bluest Eyes in Texas’ is actually a cover of a song by the American C&W group ‘Restless Heart’.  It was used on the soundtrack of the film ‘Boys Don’t Cry’.  It’s a pretty standard sort of a song but the unpretentious backing really works and Persson’s voice goes right through me.  Beautiful.

A Camp - The Bluest Eyes in Texas

Honourable mentions must go to ‘Rise’ by Josh Rouse and ‘Cheer Down’ by Malcolm Middleton, both of which describes bits of me (and lots of you I expect) but as I couldn’t find decent versions of them on Youtube, I went with A Camp.  And I did find one or two other song in my search but they’re a bit too personal.  There’s only so much honesty we should be comfortable with.  That bright light again...

Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse committed suicide just over a year ago.  The Sparklehorse albums are all excellent and well worth tracking down.  RIP Mark Linkous.

Sparklehorse - 'Happy Man'

David Millington

15^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 14 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that no-one would expect you to love...

Song  14 – A song that no-one would expect you to love...  – ‘Back For Good’ – Take That

Take That

The first version of Take That, the one than ran in the early 1990’s, were responsible for some really terrible records.  My evidence for this is their records.  I recommend you take my word for it and don’t go playing them again.  They’re not as good as you remember and your ears will owe me a debt of gratitude.  Their version of ‘Relight my Fire’ was tolerable and did get some serious play in my ‘Green Machine’ DJ days, but of course it was a cover and they had assistance from the mighty Lulu.  Ironically, it was only by the time they were splitting up that they seemed to find their song writing feet.  ‘Back for Good’ is a really good pop song, as was ‘Never Forget’ (which also had a pretty savvy video as I recall) and I don’t think any of the Robbie Williams solo material came close to being as good as either of these two songs.

Someone signed me up to the Take That mailing list sometime in 1994.  And oh how I laughed as I received full colour A5 postcard after postcard from Gary, Mark, Howard, Jason and Robbie through the post.  I never did find out which joker was responsible for this.  Someone also bought me ‘Back For Good’ as a CD single for my birthday that year as a continuation of the joke of the decade.  I actually didn’t mind as I rated the song and felt justified when it was the NME’s single of the year that Christmas.

Of course Take That’s singles since re-forming have been really good.  I’m not sure what’s changed over the years but I don’t think it’s coincidence that they upped their game once they had to start appealing to an older demographic and had to start competing against the likes of Coldplay, Snowpatrol and a host of other ‘proper bands’.  I’ve always thought that ‘girl bands’ singles have been much much better than those of boy bands.  I don’t think Westlife or Boyzone managed a single decent song between them (and if they did I expect it’d be a cover) whereas The Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, Sugababes have all produced some really great pop.  My theory is that teenage girls (probably younger than that these days) will buy any old rubbish if they fancy the singers, but they’ll only buy girl bands if they’re any good.  Likewise, when Take That reappeared, they were aiming at their old fans who’d grown up and would need more from their albums than just an excuse to buy calendars and tickets of 30 something men posing moodily.

So, teenage girls will buy any old rubbish and girl bands have better songs that boy bands because they have to.  Balanced sexism.

David Millington

14^th April 2011

Nottingham