Category: Music

Bill Drummond will make you soup

drummond_soupWhat is Bill doing? Making soup for the UK.

Bill Drummond has been involved in a number of what he himself calls “reckless schemes”. In 1992, at the height of his pop fame with the KLF, he and his partner, Jimi Cauty, exited the music business by “machine-gunning” the audience at the Brit awards with blanks, causing the composer Georg Solti to flee in terror. Two years later, as avant-pranksters the K Foundation, the duo burned £1m on the Hebridean isle of Jura. Drummond’s latest wheeze, however, is arguably his most surreal. He is visiting complete strangers and making soup for them.

It started like this: in May 1998, Drummond, whose culinary training consists of watching his mum in the kitchen, made soup for a “rabble of people” in a house in Botanic Avenue, Belfast. In January 2003, he made soup for some folk in Ewart Road, Nottingham. Then, in June last year, he took a map of the British Isles and drew a line across it, so it cut through Belfast and Nottingham and ended up at Ipswich. Drummond’s promotional flyers explain: “He made it known that anybody living on this Soup Line was welcome to invite him to their home to make soup for their family and friends. If asked why, Bill Drummond is likely to answer, ‘Because it is a friendly thing to do.'”

Details on the project are at Penkiln Burn. To ask Bill Drummond to visit your home to make soup, email soupline@penkilnburn.com.

1973 CDR 700 Go!

The CDRGO! Project has been putting together a series of yearly CDRs, in which the object is to fill up a 700MB CDR with mp3s of songs released in a given year. There’s no other guidelines – some folks went with hits, some with obscurity, some with both. I volunteered to do 1973 and here’s how it went:

  1. The Electric Company, “Third Season Theme”
  2. Alice Cooper, “Hello Hooray”
  3. CKLW radio babble – FM converter ad
  4. Queen, “Keep Yourself Alive”
  5. Black Sabbath, “Killing Yourself To Live”
  6. Blue Oyster Cult, “Hot Rails To Hell”
  7. Zior, “Entrance Of The Devil-The Chicago Spine”
  8. New York Dolls, “Jet Boy”
  9. David Bowie, “Watch That Man”
  10. The Stooges, “Gimme Danger”
  11. ZZ Top, “Jesus Just Left Chicago”
  12. Shocking Blue, “In My Time Of Dying”
  13. Joe Walsh, “Rocky Mountain Way”
  14. Franco Battiato, “Aria di Rivoluzione”
  15. Don Cherry, “Trans-Love Airways”
  16. Neu!, “Fur Immer (Forever)”
  17. Faust, “Krautrock”
  18. Area, “Le Labbra Del Tempo”
  19. Magma, “Mekanik Kommandoh”
  20. Ocho, “En Tropicana”
  21. Rare Earth, “Smiling Faces Sometimes”
  22. Jerry Reed, “Lord Mr. Ford”
  23. Charlie Daniels Band, “Uneasy Rider”
  24. Electric Light Orchestra, “Showdown”
  25. Pink Floyd, “Us And Them”
  26. Kevin Ayers, “Decadence”
  27. Fleetwood Mac, “Hypnotized”
  28. Al Kooper, “(Be Yourself) Be Real”
  29. Todd Rundgren, “Zen Archer”
  30. The Kinks, “Sweet Lady Genevieve”
  31. ABBA, “Ring, Ring”
  32. Deep Purple, “Woman From Tokyo”
  33. The Who, “Sea And Sand”
  34. Genesis, “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight”
  35. Amon Duul II, “Apocalyptic Bore”
  36. Roxy Music, “Mother Of Pearl”
  37. King Crimson, “Easy Money”
  38. Vicki Lawrence, “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”
  39. Dolly Parton, “Jolene”
  40. Charlie Rich, “Behind Closed Doors”
  41. Beach Boys, “Trader”
  42. Golden Earring, “Radar Love”
  43. Slade, “Cum On Feel The Noize”
  44. Little Feat, “On Your Way Down”
  45. Roy Harper, “Bank Of The Dead”
  46. Serge Gainsbourg, “Des Vents Des Pets Des Poums”
  47. Scott Walker, “Any Day Now”
  48. Stealers Wheel, “Stuck In The Middle With You”
  49. Kris Kristofferson, “From The Bottle To The Bottom”
  50. Lee Hazlewood, “Poet, Fool Or Bum”
  51. Buffy Sainte-Marie, “Why You Been Gone So Long”
  52. Marie Osmond, “Paper Roses”
  53. Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly With His Song”
  54. Lou Reed, “The Bed”
  55. John Cale, “The Endless Plain Of Fortune”
  56. Sandy Denny, “Solo”
  57. “Live And Let Die” movie radio spot
  58. Johnny Pate, “Brother On The Run (Opening)”
  59. Herbie Hancock, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door”
  60. James Brown, “Down And Out In New York City”
  61. New York City, “I’m Doin Fine Now”
  62. “Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man soundtrack
  63. PFM, “Photos Of Ghosts”
  64. Bruce Springsteen, “Incident on 57th Street”
  65. Tangerine Dream, “Circulation Of Events”
  66. Agitation Free, “Dialogue And Random”
  67. Gabriel And Marie Yacoub, “Pierre de Grenoble”
  68. Gong, “Other Side Of The Sky”
  69. Mike Oldfield, “Tubular Bells Part 1”
  70. KFRC radio babble “Mick Jagger car giveaway”
  71. The Rolling Stones, “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”
  72. Eloy, “Future City”
  73. Neil Young, “L.A.”
  74. Steely Dan, “My Old School”
  75. Joao Donato, “Chorou, Chorou”
  76. TM Productions, Interkey promo spot
  77. Nazareth, “Razmanaz”
  78. Rory Gallagher, “Walk On Hot Coals”
  79. Hawkwind, “Orgone Accumulator”
  80. Can, “Future Days”
  81. David Essex, “Rock On”
  82. Ann Peebles, “I Can’t Stand The Rain”
  83. Sly And The Family Stone, “In Time”
  84. Betty Davis, “Game Is My Middle Name”
  85. Suzi Quatro, “Skin Tight Skin”
  86. Sylvia, “Pillow Talk”
  87. Jimmy Cliff, “Struggling Man”
  88. Stevie Wonder, “Living For The City”
  89. Donny Hathaway, “The Slums”
  90. 24-Carat Black, “Food Stamps”
  91. Fela Kuti, “Alu Jon Jonki Jon”
  92. Kraftwerk, “Kristallo”
  93. Leny Andrade, “Nao Adianta”
  94. Risken Finns, “Barnen Fragar Annu Efter Dig”
  95. Lucio Battisti, “Ma E’ Un Canto Brasileiro”
  96. The Gimmicks, “Att Fa Resa”
  97. Tom Waits, “Martha”
  98. Gladys Knight And The Pips, “Midnight Train To Georgia”
  99. Sweet, “Little Willy”
  100. Brownsville Station, “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah”
  101. Johnny Cash, “Oney”
  102. Alan Price, “Look Over Your Shoulder”

Threw together a cover too. Hooray for 1970s retrofuture! (and microgramma font)

1973_front

The Lovetones / Brian Jonestown Massacre at Spaceland on 1 May

Out of the dozen-odd times I’ve seen BJM, the past two gigs have been among the best. The current line-up iteration gives Anton some needed band stability and the new songs are pretty great. Openers The Lovetones (who’s Be What You Want album was released at the gig) played a terrific set of stuff from the new album along with a couple old Drop City songs. They’re touring the western US right now – go check them out.lovetones200305

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Primal Scream @ Canes, San Diego

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Saw Primal Scream at Canes in San Diego last Friday. One hell of a brilliant show of ridiculous over the top rock and roll excess that wound up the relatively small audience into a pack of happy pogo’ers. More shows should be like this. The set list was wisely limited to the last three albums (with a couple of exceptions) and on the whole I preferred the live sound to the studio albums – which isn’t the first time I’ve said this.

No Kevin Shields though – he was out for the US shows this time. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be back on the next tour, since I missed seeing My Bloody Valentine out of my own stupidity (“oh I’ll catch them next tour”). However any day you get to hear Mani on bass is a good day indeed.

I love seeing shows at Canes. It’s a little non-descript beach club in San Diego that just gets some amazing shows – Spiritualized and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Mogwai and Bardo Pond. Never really gets crowded and the sound is great.

The Breeders at the Detroit Bar last night

GREAT show last night. Apparently it was a warm up show for a South American tour next month so it wasn’t announced and was completely free. The set list was wonderfully anarchic with a couple of new songs, couple old ones, and a couple things I didn’t recognize that were crowd requests. Any day you get to hear “Gigantic” is a good one.

breeders2003