The Smiths - Glastonbury 1984 Full Audio

Below is a video of the audio of The Smiths performance at Glastonbury 1984. I don't know if it was filmed at all (these were the days before Glastonbury was the massive event it is today.) In 1984 the licence was for only 35,000 people compared the the 150,000 who now attend.

The Smiths were a controversial addition to the bill as they were deemed to be too popular by the hardcore new age travelers who were the core audience at this time. I think The Smiths managed only two top ten singles in their lifetime so it wasn't like putting on Duran Duran!

The gatefold photo from Hatful of Hollow was taken backstage at Glastonbury before the gig.



These are Johnny Marr thoughts on the performance:

"...When the Smiths played Glastonbury in 1984, we were slightly out of our element. Previously, we'd always played to manic, devoted audiences who were more like supporters at a cup final, but at Glastonbury we were playing to people who largely hadn't seen us before. It wasn't like when Jay-Z played, but we were very "urban" compared to the other acts. Our songs were so fast that we got through our first four in about the time it took for the other bands to finish their intro. Eventually, I did manage to instigate a stage invasion, which raised a few eyebrows. One fan was trying to climb on stage, I helped pull him up, and then a few more people followed, and all of a sudden we'd managed to turn it into a Smiths gig.

What people don't realise is how mellow and low-key Glastonbury used to be. It wasn't televised, and it wasn't a career-defining moment back then. You'd turn up to find just three fields – and they would be by no means full. You had a choice between the shit field, the field no one cares about, or the muddy one. Today's video screens would have seemed like an utter abomination.
Glastonbury's rise in popularity has a lot to do with rave culture. People were getting together in warehouses at the end of motorways just to avoid the police, and then they realised Glastonbury offered thousands of people a chance to get together legally. Suddenly, Glastonbury no longer seemed an outdated idea, whereas in the 80s, it had been caught between the ideals of the 70s and something which had yet to be defined.
Worst Glastonbury moment The first 10 minutes of the Smiths' performance in 84, because the sound got screwed up on stage. My guitar was coming out of the bass amp, and the vocals were, too. They pulled things together . . . by the time of the last song...."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/04/glastonbury-festival-memories

Set List

• Nowhere Fast
• Girl Afraid
• Handsome Devil
• This Charming Man
• William, It Was Really Nothing
• Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
• Still Ill
• Jeane
• Barbarism Begins At Home
• Hand in Glove

{FULL BOOTLEG CONCERT}-{The David Jones Tape}
CND Festival, Worthy Farm, Glastonbury, Somerset, England 23rd June 1984.

http://www.smithstorrents.co.uk/forum/

Kosmischer Laufer Krautrock Hoax?

From the first time I saw mention of the Kosmischer Laufer tapes something struck me as odd. Before I had even heard the tapes or read any of the interviews it all seemed a little lucky that someone had unearthed these tapes of training music for East German athletes and that they hadn't surfaced before now.

It has turned out to be a hoax but a highly entertaining, well presented and planned one. From the fake biography to the music itself the whole ruse is amusing. It great to see someone spend sometime exploiting the wholes in history and the internet to come up with something as "complete" as the fiction created around the music they had recorded.

Surely all artist and bands are to some degree a work of fiction and at least this showed a degree of imagination and elan sadly lacking from much of today's music scene.

Although not official confirmed as a hoax (why would you break the spell) it does appear to have been recorded by two electronic musicians in Scotland.  They run the label (well the Bandcamp Page) that contains the recording.

They also went to the trouble of creating a website, Twitter Feed, YouTube channel and Facebook Page for the "artist".


This is from the biography page on the main Kosmischer Laufer website:

"...In East Germany in the early 1970’s Martin Zeichnete worked as a sound editor for DEFA, (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft), the state-owned film studio. Like many young East Germans of the time he would listen furtively to West German radio at night and became infatuated with the Kosmische Musik or ‘Krautrock’ epitomised by the likes of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Cluster emerging from his neighbouring country. Martin, a keen runner, hit upon the idea of using the repetitive, motorik beats of this new music as a training aid for athletes.

After sharing his concept with colleagues Martin was taken from his studio to East Berlin, quizzed by the authorities about his ideas and, fearing the worst, was surprised to find himself put to work by the Nationales Olympisches Komitee immediately. Installed in a cold Berlin studio with the few electronic instruments the state could supply, (Martin asked for a Moog but was refused), he began one of the strangest journeys in music. Know to the government as State Plan 14.84L, Martin and his fellow musicians informally called it ‘Projekt Kosmischer Läufer’ (Cosmic Runner).

For the next 11 years Martin would be spirited to Berlin to work on tracks with little notice. He created hours of music fusing traditional rock instruments with synthesizers, early drum computers, tape slicing and looping techniques he and his engineer formulated themselves. His output included tracks for running at various paces, warm up pieces, ‘ambient’ music to play in gyms during training...."

You can discover the weird and wonderful world of Kosmischer Laufer  via the following links

• http://www.kosmischerlaufer.com/
• http://www.scribd.com/doc/146194346/An-Interview-With-Martin-Zeichnete
• http://www.youtube.com/user/elfajio?feature=watch
• https://www.facebook.com/kosmischerlaufer
• http://www.scribd.com/doc/143097449/UNKNOWN-CAPABILITY-RECORDINGS-Kosmischer-Laufer-Vol-1-Press-Release
• http://www.spin.com/articles/olympic-sized-hoax-lost-krautrock-warm-up-tapes-mysteriously-surface/
• http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/2013/06/09/kosmischer-laufer/

New Order Melbourne 27th November 1982 Full Show

A great video of an early New Order perform in Melbourne Australia from the 27th November 1982.Although the quality of video isn't great the performance itself is a joy. Early versions of songs, some great backing vocals for Gillian and a performance of the never official recorded or released Chosen Time.

It includes the first ever live outing of Blue Monday with full vocals.

Full track listing is as follows:

• Ceremony
• Ultraviolence
• Chosen Time
• Dreams Never End
• We All Stand
• Truth
• Your Silent Face
• Temptation
• Denial
• Blue Monday

Thanks to whoever uploaded this to youtube.

Aquarium Drunkard Dub Mixtape Download

A great set of dub reggae mixtapes over at Aquarium Drunkard. They started this series of mixtapes back in the summer of 2010 and are about to release the new one in the next couple of weeks but its worth going back and downloading the old versions as well.

The weather in England this weekend looks like the typical summer mix of sunshine and showers so there is no better way to bring some sunshine into your life that with some old school dub.

Below is the track listing for the first in the series

Big Youth :: Some Like It Dread
I-Roy :: Musical Pleasure
Hopeton Lewis :: Sound and Pressure
B.B. Seaton :: Summertime
The Heptones & Lee Perry :: Why Must I
Sly & Robbie :: Asian Roots Dub
King Iwah :: Give Me Power (Version 2)
Lloydie & The Lowbites :: Birth Control
Soul Directions :: Su, Su, Su
Max Romeo :: Sexy Natty
Burning Spear :: She’s Mine
Lee Perry :: Nuh fe run down
Bim Sherman :: Lightening & Thunder 12″
Wailing Souls :: Divided and Rule
Count Sticky & The Upsetters :: Dry Acid
Jackie Mittoo :: Stereo Freeze
Dennis Brown :: Whip Them Jah Jah
Dr. Alimantado :: I Killed The Barber
Lee Perry :: Soul Fire
The Flaming Arrows :: Weary Head
Black Uhuru :: Sorry for the Man
The Congos :: Feast Of The Passover
Ranking Joe :: Slave Driver

The page with all three current files is here - http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/06/13/bomboclat-island-soak-jamaican-vintage-volumes-1-3/

Bring the sunshine :)

Mark Eitzel Talks About Songwriting to Northampton Students

Mark Eitzel of American Music Club came to the University of Northampton and spoke to music students about song writing and many other things. Also contains some amazing performances by Mark.

Mark talks about songwriting in general, his songwriting process or lack of it,working with Peter Buck of R.E.M., why he uses real live in his songs and songwriting as art v songwriting as commerce, working in American Music Club (with special mention of Vudi's guitar playing). He also talks about the difference between songwriting with electronics and writing song's with guitars. He also talks about his favorite lyric writers name checking Nick Drake and Iggy Pop.

The crowd look a little confused by it all but then his back catalogue is confusing. 

Live songs are:

• Mission Rock Resort 
• I Love You But Your Dead 
• Firefly
• I've Been a Mess

The National Tiny Desk Concert - NPR

I am not sure if I have posted before about the wonderful series of Tiny Desk Concerts over at NPR (National Public Radio). A very simple idea, get a band or artist to turn up in their offices and perform a short gig behind a desk! It's like MTV Unplugged without the staging and rehearsals.

In the promo blitz that The National are currently undertaking they have recorded a session which is now live on the NPR website.

The band played a short four song set of tunes from the new LP:

• This Is The Last Time
• I Need My Girl
• Pink Rabbits
• Sea of Love 

They are great stripped down acoustic version with the band in fine form.

You can watch the whole thing here:

http://www.npr.org/event/music/190382702/the-national-tiny-desk-concert?autoplay=true

You can download the audio directly here:

http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/asc/2013/06/20130610_asc_thenational.mp3?dl=1

21 Cover Songs by The Decemberists

I am sure I have posted before about how much I love the Largeheared Boy and  A Radio Blog. It's mixture of music resources and those amazing Book Notes posts always make it a blog worth reading.

This last week they posted a link to 21 cover songs by The Decemberists. The list of cover versions includes some cracking stuff including Ask by The Smiths, Begin the Begin by R.E.M., Up The Junction by Squeeze and Bring on The Dancing Horse by Echo and The Bunnymen.

The complete list of cover versions is here:

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2013/05/daily_downloads_3394.html

Advance Base Tour Dates and Demo

One of my favorite LP of last year was Advance Base - A Shut-In's Prayer. It's great that he is touring in the summer and these dates include Europe include a date in Bristol at the wonderful Cube on Sunday 7th of July.

The list below has the European Dates:

Thu 04.07.13 Berlin (Germany), Haus der Berliner Festspiele (Foreign Affairs Festival)
Sat 06.07.13 Cambridge (UK), Portland Arms -- 4pm set
Sat 06.07.13 Reading (UK), Double Dot Bash -- 9pm set
Sun 07.07.13 Bristol (UK), Cube Cinema
Mon 08.07.13 Brighton (UK), The Hope
Tue 09.07.13 Edinburgh (UK),Sneaky Pete's
Wed 10.07.13 Glasgow (UK), Nice N Sleazy
Thu 11.07.13 Manchester (UK), Night & Day Café
Fri 12.07.13 London (UK), The Lexington
Sun 14.07.13 Kutna Hora (CZ), Creepy Teepee Festival

Owen Ashworth for he is Advance base has also uploaded my favorite track from the LP in its Garage Band Demo version to Soundcloud.

Disco Disco Disco

A have always loved disco and I am not ashamed of it. When I used to DJ the set would always include some disco or as it now termed Boogie. It seems as if Disco is making a renewed assualt on the musical mainstream. With Nile Rodgers adding his disco stardust to the new Daft Punk LP and Skream on the verge of releasing a big disco single this summer it looks like disco is back with a glitter ball bang.

There is a great piece in this weeks Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/may/31/disco-gets-lucky-daft-punk

Below is Skreams Disco Mix from last summer.

Skream (Disco Set) / Bestival Radio 2012 by Bestival Radio on Mixcloud