Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

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Time travel: 1978
2007-09-27 17:16:00
By 1978 I was one messed-up kid. The only thing that kept me happy was music and football. I spent prodigious amounts of money on records, financed largely by the largesse of my dear grandmother and chance discoveries of cash in places I had no reason to explore (theft is such an ugly word). Needless to say, I did get caught for my creative means of funding my rapidly growing record collection. The punishment, other than a generous dose of corporal discipline, was confiscation of said collection. So for a while -- it might have been weeks, but felt like months -- I depended on taping music from the radio more than I did before. I had also discovered the joys of '50s rock 'n roll (Gene Vincent was my favourite of that lot) and '60s music. In late 1977 I had become a Beatles fan after listening to side 3 of the red album; "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" made me fall in love with the so-called Fab Four, and it remains my favourite Beatles song. As for contemporary music, punk h...
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Time travel: 1977 - Part 2
2007-09-25 17:02:00
When we parked Any Major Time Machine yesterday, my father had died and the beastly Roland had been shoved out of the way so that I could hold close the lovely Antje to the romantic strains of Mr Rod Stewart. As we resume our journey through 1977, we find Any Major 11-year-old becoming obsessed with music. Where the teen magazine Bravo used to be a cursory presence, it now became my bible. The posters, coming in three sizes, became subject to negotiation in the bedroom my younger brother and I shared. We had worked out a deal whereby our choice of posters would alternate weekly. And so the Bay City Rollers and fake-Red Indian Winnetou resided side by side. Things came to a head when one week the double-sided "superposter" featured a sub-BCR outfit called the Dead End Kids, in colour, and Jimi Hendrix in monochrome on the reverse. Brother thought the DEK gimps looked appealing, I thought Hendrix -- of whom I knew nothing -- looked as cool as Mr Ice the freezer salesman waiting for wi...
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Time travel: 1977 - Part 1
2007-09-24 11:47:00
1977 was a seminal year. In June my father died suddenly, a significant event in anyone's life. In mine, it turned things upside down (and, boy, it turned me). 1977 was also the year when I began taking pop music more seriously, beginning roughly as of September that year. Rather than music arbitrarily scoring the soundtrack to my childhood, I would to a large degree decide what music should accompany me in my youth (of course, the random selections on radio, TV, fairgrounds, school discos and so on would leave me exposed to often poisonous songs which continue to haunt me). My increasing sophistication would become apparent only in 1978, however.In 1977, I also discovered the life-changing properties of the hard-on, of the selective and involuntary variety (you needed to know that, right?). I had my first slow dance and my first French kiss -- a lot of action for an 11-year-old. Lest anyone ascribe precocious Casanovaean tendencies to me, I should hasten to point out that this wou...
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Time travel: 1976
2007-09-22 14:14:00
After a major service, Any Major De Lorean is ready to time travel again, continuing my series of 1970s nostalgia as we wing over to 1976. As ever, the songs here are selected purely on strength of their ability to evoke my experiences of that year, much like a smell can transport one back to a certain time. So, my 1976: it was a hot summer; my brothers and I were packed off to a church summer camp (which I hated) for the first time; I left primary school and came to a school I came to despise; and Christmas was great. In other words, it was all pretty boring.Abba - Fernando (live).mp3If it was 1976, there had to be Abba. I recall buying the "Mamma Mia" single for my elder brother, and would have posted that. But I suspect everybody who has any interest in Abba will have that already. Instead, here is a 1977 live recording of the other inescapable Abba hit of 1976: "Fernando", a song that had a magnificently naff video.Maxine Nightingale - Right Back To Where We Started From.mp3Rel...
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Cheer up
2007-09-20 17:51:00
In the southern hemisphere, spring has sprung. It's two days before payday. I've heard the new Foo Fighters album, and like it so much it may well become my favourite of Grohl's gang (even if "Erase Replace" is crap). Payday is looming on the horizon like the sunrise after a torrid night. There are many reasons to be of good cheer. So here a few songs that cheer me up:Foo Fighters - Cheer Up Boys (Your Makeup Is Running).mp3The post needs a theme song, and it was either David Ford's great "Cheer Up (You Miserable Fuck) or this fine rocker from Foo Fighter's brandnew album (thanks to Serenity Now, by the way).Hello Saferide - I Was Definitely Made For These Times.mp3I utterly love Hello Saferide. This is the new single, the first to be released in the UK (the single also includes "The Quiz", one of the finest songs of this decade, and I'm not exaggerating; direct download link). The track references the Beach Boys and has an exuberant Motown feel to it, with the handclaps. Play...

Halloween comes early
2007-09-13 16:02:00
I have prepared a mix CD-R for a brandnew blog I'm helping with, on the theme of Halloween (I made a cover, too, to show how "creative" I am). So, get in early for the celebration of the feast day of All Saints, with all the pumpkins and trick-and-treating, even in parts of the world where there is no tradition of such things.Tracklisting:1. Eels - Marie Floating Over The Backyard (2005)2. Clem Snide - Evil vs Good (2001)3. Jim Stafford - Swamp Witch (1973)4. Stan Ridgway - Camouflage (1986)5. The Go! Team - Phantom Broadcast (2005)6. The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (1968)7. Procol Harum - A Salty Dog (1969)8. Johnny Cash - Hung My Head (2002)9. Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue - Where The Wild Roses Grow (1997)10. Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (2005)11. Mazzy Star - Taste Of Blood (1990)12. Imogen Heap - Getting Scared (1998)13. The Cure - Close To Me (acoustic) (2001)14. Springbok Nude Girls - Baby Murdered Me (1997)15. Foo Fighters - Hell (2005)16. Marilyn ...
More About: Early , Allo

Show some love for Jens Lekman
2007-09-10 15:11:00
When I found out a couple of months ago that Jens Lekman was going to release a new album, the butterflies in my stomach were tripping like hippies on an amphetamine-aided acid trip. I was turned on to Lekman's music in 2005 by his utterly glorious Oh Jens, You're So Silent, a compilation of EP tracks (our man has issued copious numbers of EPs). I still prefer it over his fine full debut, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog (2004).And so I approached Night Falls Over Kortedala with much indulgent good will. I was delighted when Jens started off in vintage Scott Walker-mode (for all his vocal limitations, Jens is Scott's natural indie heir) on "I Remember Every Single Kiss". I tapped my toes, aggressively out of rhythm for all the excitement, when "Sipping On The Sweet Nectar" revealed itself as a Philly Soul groove incorporating strings that belong to the theme of a ’70s TV cop show. I loved "The Opposite Of Hallelujah", which I had heard before, for maintaining the happy ’7...
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Music for bloggers Vol. 3
2007-09-07 12:36:00
And some more love for other people's blogs. As always, if your blog isn't on here but you think it should be, there will be more music for bloggers yet. And, as always, let's boost Any Minor Dude's hit quotient, even if he is a bit lax about updating it. He put up a great new post of Khoisan cave paintings. The lad was a bit annoyed that The Guardian blogrolled my blog (on August 18), but not his... Please open links by right-clicking and opening a new window or tab; I'd hate to lose you.girlonatrainThe public transport utilising girl writes one of those personal blogs that usually appeal only to the blogger's friends. Beth's off-beat wit, likability and the twist of playlisting each post gives this blog great entertainment value. As a bonus, occasionally Beth (one of the lovely souls who leaves comments to my posts) uploads music, including a bootleg of last month's Rilo Kiley gig in Manchester. The Kevin Devine song is about a guy on a train who imagines a female passenge...
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Show some love for Rilo Kiley
2007-09-05 18:26:00
In an interview with Incendiary magazine in 2006, Rilo Kiley 's frontwoman Jenny Lewis spoke about "selling out":"I try not to covet the music that I love, I’ve done that in the past, where something becomes popular and then suddenly I don’t want to go to the shows anymore. I think selling out is a lewd point when the music stays the same. So if the music is pure, then why not offer it out to the people and give them something better than, you know, Fall Out Boy or other crap that’s on the radio."Rilo Kiley's new album, Under The Blacklight, puts Jenny's answer to the test. Having moved to a big label, the new CD is unabashedly poppy and commercial. I love Rilo Kiley, I thought the previous album, More Adventurous, was a work of beauty. And now there was this '80s referencing Jenny-as-Debby-Harry gig, one on which only two tracks sound like traditional Rilo Kiley. In my review of the album, I asked: "Can there be an accommodation with old and new fans? Will the old fanbase ...
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Pissing off the Taste Police with Billy Joel
2007-09-02 16:09:00
Billy Joel is the big kahuna in the Pissing off the Taste Police stakes. I’ve copped hideous abuse for confessing my love for some of the music of Billy Joel, without embarrassment (because apologising for enjoying certain music is for losers). Oh, I can see why people might hate Billy Joel’s music, or even the man. “River Of Dreams” and “We Didn’t Start The Fire” are appalling and should never be heard again. When I say I like Billy Joel, I’m talking about his golden years, stretching from Turnstiles (1976) to Songs In The Attic (1981), with the patchy Piano Man (1973) and 1982's The Nylon Curtain (and perhaps some of An Innocent Man from 1983) bookending that phase (and ignoring 1974's Streetlife Serenade, except for its fine title track). And even then, there are some tracks that leave our man open to abuse: the overplayed “Just The Way You Are”, for example, or almost all of 1980’s rubbish Glass Houses. And yet, there is so much that Joel’s haters tend ...
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