» Listings for 2023

1. 2023 Albums Thing #018 - Beastie Boys “Solid Gold Hits”

   Posted on 10:29am Sunday 29th Jan 2023

   Yes, a compilation, the first of a few we’ll encounter. Sometime in the early 80’s my folks went on holiday to the USA. While in New York they bought some records for me that looked interesting. One was a punky little combo called the Splash Cats (no idea what happened to them) and the other was some weird sounding thing with guys talking on the phone called “Cookie Puss” by the Beastie Boys. Did I like it ? Not really and I sold it sometime later!

   Eventually I came around to the Beasties. What hooked me were the singles from the album “Ill Communication”. My brother got the gig as a VJ on MTV’S 120 Minutes show and both “Sure Shot” and “Sabotage” were on “heavy rotation” on MTV at the time.

   This album is really just a collection of singles and choice album tracks and it’s all I need. It’s also a perfect soundtrack to the Beastie Boys Book which is a great read. The Beasties were equal parts groovy and plain old silly. Nothing wrong with that at all.

   Sure Shot - https://youtu.be/JhqyZeUlE8U

2. 2023 Albums Thing #017 - Siouxsie & The Banshees “Ju Ju”

   Posted on 6:03pm Friday 27th Jan 2023

   In between “The Scream” and here Siouxsie and Steve Severin (they being the core of The Banshees) had lost half a band (Kenny Morris and John McKay), picked up a temporary guitar player (Robert Smith) a drummer of fearsome prowess (Budgie) and hired a guitar player whose name should be celebrated as one of the greats of our era, I do, of course, mean the great John McGeogh. There had also been 2 more albums “Join Hands” and “Kaleidoscope”.

   By the time we reach this point and “Ju Ju” the line up of Sioux, Severin, McGeogh and Budgie were on their 2nd album together. What you need to know about this record is that McGeogh and Budgie are on another plane of musicianship here. The skill, inventiveness and sheer power in their playing is breathtaking.

   I can’t dissect too much what drummers do except to say that what Budgie does on this album ain’t like anything I’d heard any drummer do before. As for McGeogh…well you can take all your guitar players of any stripe, Blues bores (I’m looking at you Claptout), metal fretwanking speed merchants, all of them, McGeogh’s playing on this album is simply one of the greatest guitar performances ever committed to tape.

   There are 2 killer singles inside the first 3 tracks (“Spellbound” and “Arabian Nights”) and on songs like “Monitor”, “Sin In My Heart” and “Halloween” McGeogh and Budgie drive this album along helping take Siouxsie to places she’d never reached before.

   Every kid wanting to play drums or guitar should listen to this album so they know there is an alternative to the written in stone “guitar gods” and that drumming went elsewhere after Bonham etc. And if you have never heard this album, what are you doing reading this ? Go grab a copy…NOW!

   Monitor - https://youtu.be/0sMC3qugQPM

3. 2023 Albums Thing #016 - Siouxsie & The Banshees “The Scream”

   Posted on 4:45pm Thursday 26th Jan 2023

   Imagine, if you would, that there is a somewhat controversial band out there. They are being regularly written about and feted by the music press but they are as yet unsigned to any record label. The only way you could get to hear them would be to go to one of their (mainly) London based club gigs or, and let this sink in once you’ve read it, by listening to Radio One !

   For that is the position those of us not old enough to schlep down to London to see them found ourselves in, the only way we could hear Siouxsie & The Banshees in 1977 was by listening to the sessions they were recording for John Peel’s late night Radio One show. Could you imagine Radio One even considering that idea now ? John Peel even lobbied to get BBC Records (home of the themes to Dr Who, Grandstand, Goon Show classics and those sound effects albums to which The Jam paid homage with “Sound Affects”) to sign them. So when they finally did get scooped up by Polydor and released “The Scream” in 1978 it was a pretty big deal.

   The album was preceded by the single “Hong Kong Garden” which was something of an impressive debut. But the album was another thing altogether. The Banshees had been together and gigging now for 2 years. Knowing what I know now the band had used those 2 years to get better, write new songs and these were what they wanted the world to hear, not just stuff from 2 years ago. So while the songs from the Peel sessions were here (Overground, Carcass, Suburban Relapse, Mirage and Metal Postcard) there were newer, more intricate songs that were a step on from those. 

   Strangely the album opens in a similar fashion to “The B-52’s” kinda fading in with non-vocal female voice(s) in an almost operatic style. Then we are hurled into the thundering “Jigsaw Feeling” a real tour de force of a song to open with. In between here and the end we get the Peel session favourites, a spiky cover of The Beatles, the albums one low point “Nicotine Stain” and then there is the closing, almost 7 minutes long (sacrilege in Punk-dom) “Switch”. It starts slow, it speeds up it jumps around in tempo and style and never does it feel like it is 7 minutes long. This band hand spent 2 years we’ll, moved on from the Punk maelstrom and were going to very interesting places (to be continued…)