“Sunshine came softly through my window today”. So said David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd on live TV commentary, early in England’s second Test Match against the West Indies at Trent Bridge this month. The Donovan quoting pundit also indulged in an on-air berating of Ian Botham for his ignorance of “a big music night last night”, in reference to a gig involving Happy Mondays and the Inspiral Carpets. It went something like “not heard of the Carpets Beefy? ‘Saturn 5’?” As if these are the very tunes on the tips of the nation’s collective tongues. On the surface he’s a droll Cricket pundit a couple of steps removed from Geoff Boycott but his cultural reference points begin at Mark E Smith and branch out from there. His contributions to the Cricket coverage are a delight, not that this latest series has needed any help, basking in glorious sunshine for the second match the West Indies have been significantly more competitive opponents than predicted, even though England have already taken the honours. So we kick off this month by toasting summers late arrival via a cricket theme and a nod to the supreme musical taste of David Lloyd (and if you’re wondering why a sportsman/commentator liking good music is such a big deal consider this, Glenn Hoddle, when manager of England, used to play his team “a bit of Kenny G to relax them”). Further on there’s a nod to a couple of musical giants who we lost this month, Robin Gibb and Donna Summer. Mostly though, there’s been an overwhelming air of sunkissed joy to the music Essex Boy Review has been enjoying this past month, I hope you get a taste if that too!
Soul Limbo – BOOKER T. & THE MG’S (indelibly linked to the cricket coverage in the UK, which is just as well because I don’t like cricket, I love it...yeah!) / Saturn 5 – INSPIRAL CARPETS (from the raging ’96 Tears’-alike electric keys of the intro to the pounding singalong chorus, this late period Carpets track is indeed one of their best, a good call Bumble) / Sunshine Superman - DONOVAN (perfect summer music) / Soul Vibrations – DOROTHY ASHBY / Save Me – NINA SIMONE / Dirty Paws – OF MONSTERS AND MEN (some impressively rousing Folkish-Pop from the Indie ranks of Iceland) / Can’t Get None Of Your Loving Baby – THE UNKNOWN MOD BAND (not sure if that’s their name or just a statement of fact, great tune though) / Leave Your Body Behind You – RICHARD HAWLEY (if Bumble hasn’t picked up on this fella then he wants to, it’s right up his street I should think...but I’m not going to underestimate the great man, in fact he and Richard Hawley are probably drinking buddies) / Cowboys Don’t Get High – THE MEMORIES (caught by the fuzz) / It’s About Time – THE BEACH BOYS (From the underachieving and largely underappreciated ‘Sunflower’ album) / The Mountain Dogs – STEALING SHEEP (The kind of perfect pop that no radio station seems to be able to accommodate amidst the deluge of processed shit major labels still get away with churning out) / What’ll It Take – GRAHAM COXON (hey Bumble, us Southerners are capable of a bit of spiky, edgy melodic grit too you know, check this mop-topped jazzer out for size!) / When Your Garden’s Overgrown – PAUL WELLER (superior song of detachment, apparently Syd Barrett is part of the subject matter) / Would You Believe – THE HOLLIES (are the Hollies criminally left off the top table of sixties bands? harmonic elegance like this would seem to suggest they are) / Answers On A Postcard - PUGWASH (if you’re going to lean heavily on XTC, ELO and The Beatles then you’re surely going to produce music of a superior grain, Pugwash are clearly up to the task) / To Love Somebody - THE BEE GEES (for the already sadly missed Robin Gibb) / Life’s A Beach – DJANGO DJANGO / In Summer – JANE WEAVER / September – THE SHINS (there is simply no truth to the suggestion that The Shins have smoothed out their music to detrimental effect on their latest album, they’re as melancholy and sharp as ever) / Red Moon – LAURA GIBSON / Free – DENIECE WILLIAMS (I can often be heard spouting my considered opinion that the Punk era was a little over-rated musically, my argument based around my belief that after the top-of-the-tree acts like the Pistols, Clash and Buzzcocks there’s very quickly a lot less essential stuff to be found than you’d expect while a lot of the other celebrated names from the era aren’t really Punk music at all. However, I am more than prepared to concede after watching the BBC4 re-runs of Top Of The Pops that the impetus for Punks arrival was almost burning. Seriously, anyone who thinks pop music is bad now should go back and witness the drivel the pop kids of 1976 and ’77 were being fed. In amongst the emergence of the tiresome MOR Disco we’ve been shown, the odd slice of true class has stood out; this number one from 35 years ago is one such track) / Country Song – JAKE BUGG (talking of class, this tune is currently used in a Greene King advert and if you didn’t know better, you’d swear it was made by some beardy, sweater wearing folky perched on a stool and released on some shit-hot rare private pressing, not a hip young gunslinger who wouldn’t look out of place in an Oasis tribute act) / I Am A Motherless Child – IKE & TINA TURNER / Miroirs: V.La vallee des cloches – ANNA VINNITSKAYA / Slims – NEIL COWLEY TRIO (the three piece return with immediacy, hooks, grooves and a good deal of wallop) / Radio Song – ESPERANZA SPALDING (if only radio really was as life changing as Esperanza tries to tell us it is, I can’t imagine Kiss FM inspiring music of such inventiveness and Soul but I suppose it’s nice to kid ourselves occasionally and let hope spring eternal) / Cups – LULU & THE LAMPSHADES (think I mentioned this tune in a previous playlist, it deserves another play) / Cruel – ST.VINCENT / Baby’s Got A Bad Idea – JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE / Hypocritical Kiss – JACK WHITE / Same Way From The Sun – MIGHTY BABY / A Daisy Through Concrete - EELS (has any band captured the absurdity in life’s moments of hope and beauty as acutely as the Eels?) / Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings – FATHER JOHN MISTY (from the former Fleet Foxes drummer J. Tillman) / Cadastral Survey – RYAN TEAGUE / Fly On Strangewings - JADE / Montauk – RUFUS WAINWRIGHT (the man whose Father wrote ‘Rufus Is A Tit Man’ for him really ups the ante in the songs to/for my children stakes; this is both goose-bump inducingly lush and in possession of a genuinely fresh song writers perspective) / Fresh As A Sweet Sunday Morning – BERT JANSCH (what a suitably warm track this is, lovely lovely lovely) / I Feel Love – DONNA SUMMER (Most things labelled ahead of their time are in fact merely of their time; this though reached so far into the techno future that it barely feels like we’ve caught up. RIP Donna Summer)
Eclectic Warrior May 2012
