Saturday, March 24, 2007

Current Buns No.19

Ok, enough about stoopid sci fi TV shows, whether or not they have eye candy or perplexing plot details. There's a new Wilco abum on its way. And what can I say that you won't expect? You know I LOVED the last, live album and that the band's revitalised line-up with Nels Cline may be the best gigging band in the WORLD right about now. This one, under the lovely title of Sky Blue Sky, is a mellower, less experimental offering than Ghost Is Born. The krautrock tendencies have been shorn in favour of Allmans-style twin lead action, subtley decorated with Cline's jazz filigree and still bearing the rusty scars of Jeff Tweedy's Neil Young-alike manglings. It's ace. Buy it in May. You heard it from the Garuda...clever Americans.
Talking of Ol' Neil. I 'm still reeling from the one-two of his finally liberated 'Archive' releases (heralding the BOX in the autumn, Shakey fans). Both Fillmore 1970 (with the Horse) aand Massey Hall 1971 have the stamp of greatness on them. I've upset so many Americans in the past couple of years by not buying into the curmudgeon's latest waxings. God knows, I wouldn't moan if I didn't truly believe that he still has the power to come up with the goods again. I love the man. I was a member of the fucking FANCLUB for a while ferrchrissakes. But when you hear the full versions of ''Cowgirl In The Sand'' or ''Down by the River', or his early rendition of ''See The Sky About To Rain'', well...it just makes you realise how far he's letting us down these days.
I even got a copy of Journey Through The Past the other day, for the very first time. And even THAT, the most-maligned and disowned album he ever released (his argument being that it was a soundtrack that Warners released without his permission after shelving the film it acccompanied), sounds awesome compared to most things. Even the church choir bits that don't even have him on them and the recorded-off-the-TV Buffalo Springfield clips! Wayward genius, indeed.
Anyway it's ALL better than the other so-called major release that's been squatting in my consciousness over the last few days (due to shared offices I can't avoid this stuff sometimes. Blessing AND a curse etc) - the Sound Of Silver by LfuckingCfuckingD Fucking Soundsystem. Good god. James Murphy, if you're reading this, I hope you end up being feted as a top producer and you have to work with vacuous pop c*nts like Madonna and Robbie Williams, polishing their empty, worthless, nothingness into cool-sounding stuff that twenty-somethings can ignore and bray over in Shoreditch clubs. I shall say this only once. It's not cool to repeat everything 50 million times over a relentlesss faux-white boy disco post punk approximation. For those of us who are old enough to actually remember the early 80s this is all very, very stupid. Dumb Americans, indeed. Urgh...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It's okay Garuda - punk funk reivalism is so dead. It's all about the Pentangle at the mo! I was walking through Clissold Park last Suday and tripped over 17 Burt Jansch lookilikies in the space of 5 minutes! They were double stopping like there was no tomorrow, pausing only to drink from bottles of Nookie broon. It was beautiful...Gawd I do hope girls start to dress like Jacqui used to - I love that look!