Jem's Music blog does just what it says on the tin - it's all about music. Stuff he's listening to, bands he's seen, bands you ought to see and listen to, and anything else he wants to talk about - all music related.
Took a trip to Leigh-on-Sea on 29 August to see some good friends. Whilst there, Richard Baxter took me to the Lee Brilleaux bench - a proud moment indeed. Earlier - whilst having lunch in Old Leigh, Wilco Johnson walked by. All in all - a bit of a 'feelgood' day!
This is the cover of a CD compilation I put together for a Swiss gentleman recently who had no knowledge or experience of popular music culture. Full stop! A real challenge on the track choice, but here's what I included - Deep Purple: Smoke on the Water, En Vogue : Free your mind, Stevie Wonder : Superstition, Neil Young: After the Goldrush, The Zombies: She's not there, Talking Heads: Once in a lifetime, The Beatles: She loves you, The Rolling Stones: Brown Sugar, Led Zeppelin: Whole lotta love, The Beat: Twist n Crawl, Michael Jackson: Billie Jean, Johnny Cash: Personal Jesus, Emili Sande: Clown, Blur: Parklife, Suzanne Vega: Marlene on the wall, Cat Stevens: Moonshadow, Lulu: Shout, Paulo Nutini: Pencil full of lead, David Bowie: The man who sold the world, and Free: All Right Now. A sad testament for a 30-year old, but my hope is that this will go some way to setting things right! "Where words fail, music speaks" is a quote from Hans Christian Anderson. Words failed me at the admission, so I'll just let the music speak. It's always worked for me!
OK - here's the final part of this series and the song choices for days 17 through 31.
[17] 2-TONE: The Beat's 'Twist & Crawl' [18] MOTOWN: Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' [19] GRUNGE: Nirvana's 'Smells like teen spirit' [20] AMERICANA: Shovels & Rope's 'Hail Hail [21] BRITISH INVASION (1st wave): Rolling Stones 'Get off of my cloud' [22] CHRISTIAN ROCK: Delirious? 'My Glorious' [23] CLASSIC ROCK: Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the water' [24] SOUL: Marvin Gaye's 'I heard it through the grapevine' [25] ROCK N ROLL: Little Richard's 'Good Golly Miss Molly' [26] RAP/INDIE: Mok's 'Rufio' (released 26.3.13) [Mok Shop pic above from their merc store at the Haunt - 28.3.13] [27] FUNK/SOUL: James Brown's 'Get up offa dat thing' [28] GARAGE ROCK (1st wave): The Troggs 'Wild Thing' [29] GLAM ROCK: The Sweet's 'Ballroom Blitz' [30] SAMBA: Carlinhos de Cuica's 'Tia Doca' and [31] ZYDECO: Clifton Chenier's 'Louisiana Blues'
Stop press - starting on 5 April only on Facebook (and here) 'JemsMusic A-Z'. 26 songs from 26 bands over 26 letters in 26 days
Those of you following Facebook will have seen all these already from my daily posts. But, in case you missed them - here's the song choices for days two through sixteen.
[2] BLUES - Elmore James' 'Dust my broom' [3] DANCE - Underworld's 'Born Slippy' [4] JAZZ - Chris Barber's 'When the saints go marching in' [5] METAL - Iron Maiden's 'Run to the hills' [6] AOR - Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' [7] THRASH -One Minute Silence's 'I wear my skin' (see vid above) [8] ELECTRONIC - Leftfield's 'Phat Planet [9] BLUES ROCK - John Mayall's Bluesbreakers' 'All your love' [10] R&B (the original version) - Fats Domino's 'Blueberry Hill' [11] CLASSICAL - King Henry VIII's 'Greensleeves' [12] FOLK - Steelye Span's 'Thomas the Rhymer' [13] PROG ROCK - Yes' 'Yours is no disgrace' [14] PUNK - The Sex Pistols' 'Anarchy in the UK' [15] DUBSTEP - 2562's 'Walkover', and [16] FUSION - Herbie Hancock's 'Chameleon'
Part III sometime around the end of the month together with something about the theme that'll follow for April 2013.
Whether or not Ed Tudor Pole is actually related to King Henry VIII is neither here nor there - I've never really been that sure about him. However, support over, Stiff Little Fingers delivered a blistering set with two encores at Brighton's Concorde II on 8 March. The angst is still there even if with the onslaught of middle age. And the latter was a predominant feature of the very appreciative audience - punks one and all even 35 years on! Excellent stuff.
