Mark Eitzel Plays American Music Club - Me and Mr Jones

A little taste of Marks upcoming tour. Just Mark Eitzel singing and Marc Capelle playing the piano.

Marks wonderful cover of Me and Mr Jones

Mark Eitzel Live 2009

The ever wonderful Mark Eitzel is touring with Marc Capelle. They will performing American Music Club Songs, some covers and some new songs.

They is a good post on Mark Eitzel's blog.


Sat 7/18 New York, NY at Le Poisson Rouge
Sun 7/19 Hudson, NY at Jason’s Upstairs
Mon 7/20 Hoboken, NJ at Maxwell’s
Tue 7/21 Boston. MA at Lizard Lounge
Wed 7/22 Albany NY at Lindas at WAMC
Thu 7/23 Rochester, NY at Lovin’ Cup Cafe
Fri 7/24 Buffalo, NY at Marty & Susan’s House
Sat 7/25 Baltimore, MD at Metro Gallery
Sun 7/26 Chapel Hill, NC at Memorial Hall Theatre w/ She&Him & Wye Oak (part of the Merge XX celebration)
Mon 7/27 Arlington, VA at IOTA Club
Tue 7/28 Philadelphia, PA at Johnny Brenda’s
Wed 7/29 Brooklyn, NY at Bell House

Mark Eitzels upcoming tour for his new solo album looks a bit like this.

04.10.09 Exeter -Phoenix
06.10.09 Winchester – Tower Arts Centre
07.10.09 London - St Giles in the Fields
08.10.09 Brighton – The Basement
15.10.09 I-Milan, House Concert
16.10.09 I-Massa Carrara, Tagomago
17.10.09 I-Turin, House Concert
18.10.09 CH-Zurich, El Lokal
20.10.09 Karlsruhe, Jubez
22.10.09 L-Dudelange, Centre Culturel opderschmelz
23.10.09 B-Brussels, AB Club
24.10.09 B-Brugge, Music In Mind Festival
01.11.09 NL-Utrecht, Ekko
03.11.09 Bristol – St Bonaventures
04.11.09 Birmingham – Glee Club
05.11.09 Manchester - St Margaret's Church
07.11.09 Edinburgh – Cabaret Voltaire
08.11.09 Newcastle – Cluny 2
09.11.09 Leeds - Brudnell Social Club

The National - The Runway (Live on Q TV)

Wonderful new National tracked titled The Runway has arrived on youtube via Q TV. It's graceful, aching, hushed, whisky bruised and deep rooted in melancholy. I can’t wait for the new LP on the back of this. The fragile beauty of the track looks like it’s going to be a classic!

Steven Wells RIP

It was sad to hear of the passing of Steven Wells ex NME scribe. He died on Tuesday after a three year battle against cancer. He was found to be suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma three years ago and despite the disease going into remission, he later contracted stomach cancer.

He was a firebrand and full of fury and polemic when writing for the NME first as Susan Williams and then later under his own name. He took on the pomposity of musicians, class and homophobia. He was a champion of the Manic Street Preachers and clashed with Shaun Ryder and Bez from the Happy Mondays about their blatant and sickening homophobia. I can remember reading the piece at the time and being both angry at the Happy Mondays and glad someone had taken them to task about it. He also found time to write about football, American Sports Culture,TV and media and his battle against cancer plus this one..

It such a shame thats the NME is currently so vanilla, inane and flat.

May he Rage in Peace

Here are some of the tributes:

Pitchfork
NME
Guardian Sport
Guardian - James Brown
Clash

Some examples of Steven Well’s work
Happy Monday and Steven Wells

Free Momus Downloads

Free Momus


I have just discovered that Momus(Nick Currie) has posted up all his Creation era LPs free on URU Web. The LPs come with some wonderful notes for Momus himself explaining the inspirations and the music behind the tracks.

They have been up since Christmas but somehow I missed them!

Here is Nick Currie's statement

“"Okay, this is quite a big decision, but I've taken it. Six Momus albums -- the ones I recorded for Alan McGee's Creation label between 1987 and 1993 -- are out of print. Creation doesn't exist any more, and in theory Sony owns the rights to these albums, but isn't doing anything with them and probably never will. In the meantime, only Russian pirates are profiting, charging punters for illegal downloads.

So, during the rest of December, I've decided to release mp3s of my six Creation albums here on Click Opera, for free. Think of it as a sort of Creation Advent Calendar, with a new old Momus album every couple of days. If you're the sort of person who likes to donate to the artist when you download, do it here. But it's not really necessary; these albums paid for themselves long ago. Think of this as a Christmas present. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

- Momus”


I love The Tender Pervert, it is one of my favorite LPs of all time. The word play and the music sit so well together, the themes are close to my heart and I am sure Jarvis Cocker spent a good few years listening to it. I Spy by Pulp bares an uncanny resemblance in my mind to The Homosexual by Momus although the Momus track bites much harder, it is simply amazing even if Neil Tenant told Nick that it didn’t have enough melodic hooks!

Download the LPS here:

Momus Free Downloads

Some late 80s Momus!

The Caretaker - V/Vm Test White Death

The Caretaker (James Kirby) has a wonderful blog History Always Favors the Winners. They are links to various media articles, interviews and free downloads.

One is this beautiful V/Vm Test album - White Death.

This is the text for the album.

"For nearly a year-and-a-half, the twenty five men and one woman aboard the Saint Anna endured terrible hardships and danger as the icebound ship drifted helplessly north. Convinced that the Saint Anna would never free herself from the ice, Valerian Albenov and thirteen crewmen left the ship in January 1914."

V/Vm Test - White Death

Snatch Tapes 30th Anniversary Tape

The wonderful DIY sound art producer Snatch Tapes have a free release on their website to mark their 30th Anniversary. It has two tracks to download and record to tape. Labels and cover art. You can also send your tape to them for them to frank and record as a collectors item.

I am a lover of the cassettes and find them a wonderful source of field recordings and untraceable music.

Snatch Tapes describe the music on Carriage Returns.

"Focussing on music and voice-overs originally recorded for various film and video projects Carriage Return weaves a fragmented narration concerning ghost sightings, car crashes, ley lines and hidden bends in and around Bluebell Hill in Kent, England. Mixed with the spoken words is prepared piano, VCS3 synth, circuit bent Casio, shortwave radio, pots and pans and the usual melodic cacophony we have come to expect from Snatch Tapes."

Well Worth a listen and I am off to record mine onto tape tonight.

Snatch Tapes - Carriage Returns

Free Clash Magazine Download

Bought a copy of Clash to read on the train back from London the this week. I always find something worth the cover price in terms of new music. I can live without the Enemy - heavens they are so dull and the interview is riddled with the inconsistencies of youth.

Tom Clarke goes out of his way to point out how normal he is and how he wanted the new record to sound like they do live. Then in the next breath talks about the backward drums and reverb on one track and how much he loves Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. Hardly a live sounding records!

The free download they are current offering is rather wonderful.

Its worth the short download time just for Bleach - Mondays. Sisters Jennifer and Katherine O’Neill fashion a garage band storm with its nagging riff and soring vocals its a little bit of heaven for free.

Worthy mention to the bassline remix of the Virgins track Rich Girls that swirls and sways on top of well a spongy bassline and a wobbler!

You can go get it all here - June Cross Section Download

Good work Clash!

International Record Shop Day April 18th 2009

I love record shops. They are one of my favorite places to spend time. When I say record shop I mean local record stores not huge chains. I have seen the rise and fall of Our Price (where I once worked), Fopp (well most of them) and Virgin/Zavvi(eaten alive by HMV) in the last five years or so. Bath used to have a great collection of record shops from the second hand vinyl treasure trove (Nashers, 10:15), indie chains (Replay and Reckless) and chains (two Our Price, two Fopp, MVC). All that is left is a terrible HMV, a wonderful specialist Jazz shop Broad Street Jazz and a cool shop flogging dance music on vinyl - Drop Records.

I mention all this because of International Record Shop Day. A day to celebrate the wonder of the record shop.

"This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Franscisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April."

There will be all manner of goodies on sale on the day including limited edition 7" vinyl, The Flaming Lips, Mute Math, Oasis and Green Day!

There is a list of the stores in the UK taking part here: Record Store Day UK

Time Travel with Wire Magazine

I had a great find on Sunday in Lyme Regis in Dorset. In the Sanctuary bookshop I discovered a huge bundle of old copies of Wire.

For the sum of £15.00 I have four years of the magazine to work through reading reviews, interview and generally running backwards through time and electronic music.

First couple I have read through have had a great interview with Mark Hollis,Disco Inferno and a wonderful piece on John Oswald and The Grateful Dead/John Oswald Grayfolded which I have since downloaded from emusic.

All great stuff. I am in magazine heaven.