It's that time again, where The Sound and the Fury Podcast presents the monthly playlist.
This month we have a selection from all the albums we've listened to privately, as well as selections from the albums and artists we have featured here on the blog.
What you can expect to find on here includes:
New tracks from Billy Bragg, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Iron Reagan, Melbourne Ska Orchestra, Nick Moran, Walk off The Earth, Vance Joy and Nightmare Air
Classics from Van Halen, White Stripes, Young Rascals, The Who, The Stone Roses, Split Enz, Pulp, Promises and Motorhead
Great Aussie tunes from Neon, Something for Kate, Chad Morgan, Paul Kelly, The Porkers, Powderfinger, Sticky Fingers, Effigy, Rogerthat, and Tamam Shud
A new track from Dave Grohl's Sound City project featuring Australian ex-pat Rick Springfield
Avant Garde weirdness from Painkiller, Michael Finnissy, Marco Capelli, and Apocalyptica
Here's a great song from a now-obscure Perth band who shone brightly and briefly in 1996.
They left behind one great LP "On High Street" and a couple of great singles, of which this is one.
Stylistically they had a retro yet modern grunge sound with heaps of melody attached. They sounded a little bit like Bob Mould, a little bit like Teenage Fanclub and, I didn't realise it until I saw the video for the first time the other night, they looked one hell of a lot like Oasis. I was pretty horrified to see that actually - the clip looked like a recreation of the "Definitely Maybe" LP cover.
Still, despite the fact they folded in 1997, this song still rocks. Enjoy today's Sunday Session: "Restoration" by Header.
I've been listening to a heap of the new Australian digital radio stations recently. We don't get digital radio in this area mind you, but you can listen to them all via the interwebs.
One station that has caught my ear is a Melbourne station called Aussie Digital. You can listen to it here. They play all Australian music all the time. You can't really go wrong with idea, I reckon. I turned it on this morning and the one song that jumped out of the speakers at me was this one: Lemonsuck by Pollyanna.
I'll talk more about Pollyanna on here in a later post. For now, I wanted to share the music with you. Enjoy!
This is the first of a new ongoing series of posts about covers - remakes, or remodels of songs first written and/or performed by other artists.
First off the bat is South-African born keyboard player Manfred Mann.
Manfred Mann started making a name for himself in the London Jazz scene in the early 1960s, but he formed a pop group and was swept up in the whole British Invasion of the 1960s.
That was all good except, as a jazz performer, he was more used to improvising, or spontaneously creating his music, not actually consciously composing it. The Beatles changed the game and wrote their own hits. Other groups were soon expected to do the same.
Manfred's band did a lot of covers. They were probably most famous for doing Bob Dylan covers, and over the last 50 years of music recordings, he's recorded stacks of Dylan songs. Indeed, Mr Dylan himself has said (in the 1960s sometime) that of all the bands that have recorded his songs, he likes Manfred Mann's the best.
The original pop band went through two incarnations before folding in late 1968. He then formed an avant garde jazz rock band called Manfred Mann Chapter Three for two low selling LPs of original material, before reincarnating once again in a more streamlined Jazz/Progressive Rock quartet called Manfred Mann's Earth Band in 1971. Earth Band is arguably Manfred's most successful incarnation and musically the most satisfying, in my view. They again recorded many Dylan tunes, scattered throughout their voluminous discography.
However, in 1976 they raised the ire of Springsteen fans when they had a hit with "Blinded By The Light". Bruce Springsteen had had a major hit the year before with "Born To Run", but there were a number of fans who were there from the get-go, with some treasuring the first Springsteen album with almost God-like renown. Those who love the "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." album hated Earth Band's cover with a passion.
It would probably disturb them to know that the Earth Band actually recorded three of the nine tracks on Bruce's debut. Only "Blinded By The Light" was a hit, and it was a radical recasting of the original to the point where the two versions hardly resemble each other.
The other tracks they attempted were "Spirits in the Night", which they did twice with two different vocalists (the first version with Mick Rogers singing was better) and "For You". The two versions of "Spirits" are identical except for the vocal track and they are very similar to the original. However, it was more rhythmically regimented and lacked the boozy swing of the original.
"For You", on the other hand, slows down the tempo and tightens the arrangement significantly, making more powerful and forceful than the original. Bruce's version, to my ears, sounds like a band playing too fast for its own abilities and that they are falling over themselves trying to keep up. Earth Band's version focuses on the power of the lyric and backs it up with a crunching rhythm that is goose-bump-inducing.
See for yourself and tell me which one you prefer. Here below is the original of "For You" by Bruce Springsteen, and the Earth Band remake.
For me, as much as I liked the original, the remake is my favourite.
Judging by the picture, you'd assume this is a band that believes in the dictum "the more, the merrier". Judging by the amazingly euphoric, joyous and happy sound they make, the assumption is totally correct.
The band is called the Melbourne Ska Orchestra. They're not exactly about to win the award for the "Most Creative Band Name". Then again, they do what it says on the package: There's anywhere between 25 and 30 members (that qualifies as a bit more than just a band to me), they play ska (well, duh!) and they're from...
...wait for it...
...Melbourne!!!
I discovered this album by means of a happy accident. I was browsing through a Spotify playlist I'd subscribed to and the MSO was on this list, so I checked them out on a whim. The first track was a stellar funky interpretation of the "Get Smart" theme and that was it for me - I knew I had to play the entire record cover to cover.
If fun and joy could be tangibly correlated, it would sound like MSO. Their tight, sharp, bouncy arrangements leave plenty of room to breathe. 30 musicians can make for some very crowded music at times, but this is one act that avoids that problem. The music is executed with a lack of pretense. It is music created by a group of like-minded people for the fun of it, as opposed to self-inflating their egos.
No matter what is happening, you just can't help but smile while you're listening to this music. The Sound and the Fury Podcast heartily recommends the Melbourne Ska Orchestra.
Below is their brand new self-titled debut album. Enjoy!
Vocalist for Aerosmith and American Idol judge Steven Tyler has a birthday today (26th March). So it is timely that I present to you the soundtrack to his autobiographical memoir "Does the Noise In My Head Bother You?"
This playlist contains 138 songs named in the book, including many songs that Aerosmith made famous, tracks from his previous band Chain Reaction, and many of the songs he grew up listening to.
You do not have to have read the book to enjoy the music. However this playlist provides a fascinating insight into the man, his music and his influences.
