Evil

Is rock music evil? Of course not. But here's three tracks that literally are Evil - it's their title! First up, the song that inspired this post. I recently revisited Savages' monumental album 'Adore Life', which if you remember, was a record I got everso slightly excited about back in the day. This live clip is fantastic and reminds me (as if I needed it) just how intoxicating they are/were to watch. We've heard nothing from Savages as a band since this record, though no official word of a break-up. Let's hope they'll return soon.

Another record I became obsessed with was 'Holiday Destination' by Nadine Shah. She's also incredible live, so this clip should go down pretty well. A lot of people discovered Nadine through her astonishing performance at the 2018 Mercury Music Prize ceremony. Even more fell for her when they first heard Evil in an episode of Peaky Blinders. I don't care how anyone heard about her, the truth is everyone really should have Nadine in their life.

And finally, perhaps no surprise that Nick Cave would be in here somewhere. The second Grinderman album contained this beast of a track. As you'd expect, any live clip of this lot is rather special and this one is no exception. Yes, Nick is the focal point I suppose, but Warren really steals the show here, rolling around on the floor, howling like a wolf and hollering "EVIL!" like a man possessed.

Road Trip

This is the debut single from 180dB. The band comprises Savages rhythm section Fay Milton (drums) and Ayse Hassan (bass) with Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and Perfect Pussy vocalist Meredith Graves. Road Trip is a sort-of cover of Goldie & Skepta's track Upstart (Road Trip), only now it's a raging beast of punk petulance. Bloody brilliant it is too. An album is due in early 2019.

The Best (and Worst?) of 2016 (part 1)

Wow. What a year that was. Very possibly the worst year in popular music history, and politically... Oh just don't get me started. Yep, 2016 was fucking shite. It was but a week old when we had a new Bowie album, and things, briefly, seemed great. Then, two days later, the great man took one last flight on the great spaceship to the sky. And from that moment on, it all went downhill.

Look, I'm not going to get all maudlin here, but let's face it, we're all pretty fucking miserable right now, yeah? And scared out of our minds too, I'm sure. I had hoped there would be plenty of silver linings to write about here, but sadly, it's been pretty hard finding them. For me, 2016 will not go down as a vintage year. 2015 was waaaay better. When I look at some of the records I was really excited about hearing - The Joy Formidable, Pixies, Primal Scream, The Kills, PJ Harvey - I feel a little let down. I mean that Primal Scream album was just fucking terrible, really really unforgivably bad. The Kills record seemed devoid of tunes, and the others weren't awful but below the standards I had hoped.

Every year, I compile songs from my favourite albums of the preceding 12 months. I originally made double-CDs and gave them to people (before I realised most of them never gave a shit and didn't listen to them). In recent years I've made it entirely digital which meant I could expand the number of tracks I use from 40 to 50, and in the case of last year, to 60. This year, however, I struggled to get beyond 40, my worst tally this decade. Despite this though, there were rays of sunshine...

SAVAGES - 'Adore Life'
The second album by Savages just blew everything else to pieces. It still does. Record of the year by a country mile. Record of the decade, even. Shit - one of the records of my life. And no, I'm not overdoing it! Simply sensational in every single respect.

• Evil - Savages (from 'Adore Life')

ARBOR LABOR UNION - 'I Hear you'
Here's a band I had never heard of before Badger and SWC introduced them on JC's site, and for that I shall always be indebted to them. My best new band discovery of the year by far; a stupendous album, and this track in particular never fails to cheer me up and put a huge grin on my face.

• Mr. Birdsong - Arbor Labor Union (from 'I Hear You')

THE CORAL - 'Distance Inbetween'
Also one of my favourite records of the year was the startlingly-good comeback album by The Coral. I've always loved The Coral, but 'Distance Inbetween' totally surpassed any expectations I had for it. Surprise of the year, undoubtedly.

• White Bird - The Coral (from 'Distance Inbetween')

DAVID BOWIE - 'Blackstar'
Of course, we have to give this one a mention. Not actually one of my top 3 Bowie albums to be honest, but there's no denying it is an extraordinary piece of work, especially the title track. And my god, what a concept. Who else but Bowie could ever write a record about death, release it on his birthday and then die within 48 hours? A prophecy if ever there was one.



When you consider how ill he was, it's nothing short of a miracle that video even exists. Bowie: making the people of Earth's jaws drop right to the end. Oh, and stay tuned for a special week of posts starting next Sunday. That's all I'm revealing for now...

MINOR VICTORIES - 'Minor Victories'
Supergroups can be rather hit and miss, but for me, Minor Victories are a definite hit. Featuring members of Slowdive, Editors and Mogwai, this lot made a sensational dreamy debut, and in Scattered Ashes, one of the songs of the year too. I hope it wasn't just a one-off.

(I posted Scattered Ashes a couple weeks ago, so here's another track from the album instead.)

• Breaking My Light - Minor Victories (from 'Minor Victories')

A few more faves on Wednesday...

50 albums to take to my grave #44: Adore Life

"I will die, maybe tomorrow / So I need to say / I adore life."

If I was to die tomorrow, I sure as hell want to take something bang up to date with me. Choosing something that only came out this year should be a tough choice. But it's not. For without a moment's hesitation, I would grab 'Adore Life' by Savages and die happy. I'm not going to go on and on about how much I love this record - regular readers already know I adore this band (pun intended). If you need reminding, see here and here. I'll probably write more about it in my end-of-year round-up.

To be fair, I'm not really sure what else I want to say about 'Adore Life'. I've written a few paragraphs and promptly deleted them as they didn't hit the mark. But what I will say is - for a young band to put this out as only their second album, one of the most assured and striking records of the year, is a remarkable feat. Let's leave it at that for now.

With 'Adore Life' in my coffin, I can probably adore death.



This frankly astonishing video conveys all the intensity of the album in one single clip. Jehnny Beth is arguably the most compelling frontperson in rock right now. In some shots she looks like she's about to kick your head in. In others, she looks like she's about to fuck your brains out. Seriously, seriously great stuff.






BONUS: This live performance of Sad Person on 'Later...With Jools Holland' is also pretty phenomenal!

It Came From Japan #9: Bo Ningen

Two or three times recently, I seem to have taken my cue from Swiss Adam. And so it is again today. Last month, he posted this review of a Savages gig he attended in Manchester. Supporting that night were Bo Ningen, a noisy psychedelic Japanese band I had heard a lot about but wasn't overly fussed with the music I'd heard. Adam raved about them. I vowed to check them out a bit further and came across this:



Now it makes sense. What a phenomenal fucking racket! A 23 minute set consisting of just three songs? Guitars being swung around? A bloke in a dress?? Speaking of which, is it just me, or does lead vocalist Taigen Kawabe look more feminine than a lot of women I know? He even carries that dress off rather well, don't you think?

Clearly, Bo Ningen have to be caught live. It gives them much, much more room to go for it. That's metaphorical room, although the video clip above makes it look like they're playing in someone's living room. It's actually being filmed by a US radio station at the Icelandic Airwaves Festival in Reykjavik.  There's more energy in that tiny little space than in all the nuclear power plants across the world. Maybe Bo Ningen are going to save us all - a clean energy source and fucking bad-ass rock & roll. I'm sold.

Bo Ningen currently have three albums out, plus a collaboration with Savages (who are probably my favourite band right now), a 40-minute piece called 'Words To The Blind'. Your MP3 today is a single from Bo Ningen's most recent LP 'III', which also features the sensational Jehnny Beth of Savages.


Soundtrack:

• Nichijyou - Bo Ningen (ft. Jehnny Beth) (from 'III')

Go on then, you might as well have the video as well...
 

Just because... (an unexpected Thursday post)

So many people lapse out of music in their 30s. They just settle down, stop going to gigs, stop buying records and listen to horrid commercial radio stations, thinking Adele really is the future of all art as we know it.  When I turned 30, I had just discovered the White Stripes who had a monumental effect on me. I knew there and then I wouldn't be turning my back on music like many of my friends had.

Into my 40s and while still very heavily into music (as you know), I hadn't been blown into oblivion by an act since Jack & Meg in 2001. I thought they might be the last. But here I am, counting down to my 45th birthday, and I'm happy to admit I was wrong. I'm being blown away, time and time and time again by a band I've yet to catch live, but can't take my eyes or ears off whenever I see or hear them. Last night I watched this and once again *!!!BOOM!!!* Mind truly blown!

[[VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE]]

Like WOW! Swiss Adam recently had the immense luck to see Savages live. I'm still seething with jealousy. He reckons they are more of a live band than a studio act. He's probably right, but I'm still enthralled by their latest album 'Adore Life' to the point of obsession. Here though, even in the setting of a large empty studio, you can see what Adam means - they really show what a fucking brilliant band they are. Gemma Thompson is an artist. Her guitar is a pallet, the strings are paints, her hands are her brushes, her amps her canvas. She doesn't play guitar - she paints sound. Ayse and Fay are an astonishing rhythm section, their timing is impeccable. And Jehnny Beth is a stunning frontwoman because of the way she puts herself into her performance. Her eyes are intense, her hands are rarely still, and her voice scythes through the barrage of wonderful noise her bandmates concoct behind her. You can tell she truly means every single word she sings. Really.

OK, OK, I know - I'm smitten. But before anyone starts - it is NOT just because they are women. In fact, I don't ever refer to Savages as an 'all-girl band'. Aside from being a lazy cliche (as used regularly by the NME), it does Savages an enormous disservice. They are just a remarkable, astounding, extraordinary band. Being an all-female band is not a novelty these days, though the media would no doubt disagree. The thing is Savages excite me with what they do, not because of how they look. No, they don't do much musically that's particularly new - at least not to 40-somethings like us - but they're doing it in such a way that demands we dont just write them off as mere post-punk/art-rock revivalists. They are sooo much more than that. I've seen all male bands who have been making music for 10, 20, even 30 years who cannot compete with the sheer tightness and togetherness of Savages.

Phew - I need to calm down. I'm running out of superlatives to hurl at them. But I had to get this out, this sheer emotion at discovering that, even well into my fifth decade on this planet, I can still get so completely worked up about a band. This was never meant to be a carefully-worded, well thought out piece of writing, just a blurt of passion and sentiment. Forgive me. Normal service returns tomorrow.

Being Savaged

Different kind of post from me today. I just have to share my love of the new Savages track The Answer with you. Watch/listen to this and tell me it's not totally fucking awesome:



They have form. Here's their last single, the live 9-minute epic that is Fuckers. Seriously intense stuff.



There's definitely a bit of Siouxsie Sioux being channelled through Jehnny Beth. But as well as the voice, the sheer energy and uncompromising nature of the music and performance come through strong. They are primarily a live band. As if to prove the point (not that it needs to be proven), here's an extraordinary appearance on Jools Holland's show a few years back:



The band's second album is due in the new year. Probably on a par with Bowie as my most anticipated album of 2016. They are touring but as yet there's nothing scheduled anywhere near my neck of the woods. Here's hoping...

So you get your MP3 fix, here's a track from Savages' live EP 'I Am Here' from 2012. City's Full appeared on their studio debut the following year. Blinding!


Soundtrack:

• City's Full [live] - Savages (from 'I Am Here' EP)