An album only a mother could love

My Mum and step dad came over yesterday, and I made them their dinner. I usually put some music on in the background, just in case I need to let my mind wander when my step dad is boring me shitless about the crane hire business or saying that we really should move to Turkey.

Yesterday I put Pocketbook's 'Flight Paths' on, because, after playing it to death earlier in the year, I'd not heard it for a couple of months. Of course it still sounded marvellous, but then I noticed my Mum tapping her fingers along to it whilst I went and put the apple crumble in the oven. Then a head nod. Then she actually tried to start singing along to it.

My Mum's record collection is virtually zero outside of Rod Stewart albums, and the ubquitous 'Endless Flight' by Leo Sayer (hang on, there's the link!), so this is regarded as something of a breakthrough.

Mum, if you're reading this, here is 'Summertime' to download. And sorry for swearing so much.

Piney Gir - The Yearling (Hotel Records)

I always had Piney Gir down as some kind of ironic line dancer, or something. I really shouldn't make daft assumptions like that, because 'The Yearling' is a quite lovely album.

Imagine, dear reader, a female George Formby singing to the regulars in a dusty bar in an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard. In waltzes Piney Gir (not literally) and regales them all with her slightly quaint, slightly kooky (please don't be put off by the 'k' word; she's not Tori Amos) songs about bumblebees and elephants and castles. Boss Hog would bloody love it.

Sometimes the songs here sound like Bugsy Malone misfits, other times they spook me out because they have a THEREMIN in them. And it's been a while since I heard a good theremin. But check it out in the sweet 'Of all the Wonderful Things'.

The best track here is 'Say I'm Sorry' which starts off nice a slow with a cracking bit of slide guitar, before all of a sudden launching into the chorus. How very modern. But it's the sort of pop song that we miss when Tender Trap are on one of their long breaks.

I didn't really expect to like 'The Yearling' at all. But I do, and what's more, now I can't get the theme tune to the Dukes of Hazzard out of my head. There are worse things in life.

You can download 'Say I'm Sorry' here.

Filipino Indiepop Scene Vol. 4 - Kissing Ballade

Last in the Filipino Indiepop Scene Collective's free downloadable albums is Kissing Ballade. It's another beauty, and you can download it here.

Track listing:

National Express - Can't Really Forget About Everything Skywritings - Serenity Serenade Archway

Close - Longer Farewell

Isobel - Daisy Tune

Spring Boutique - Candy Blue Skies

Outerhope - Lost In Numbers

Sunday Picnic Love Affair - Happy Lonely Day

Archaster - Kissing Ballade

Avalyn - 3.5 Blusher

The Wentletraps - Through You

Slumbook - Your Daily Routine

Love In Athens - Little Chains

Some Gorgeous Accident - Falling Fast

Grace Period - Can't Get Away From You

Dewdrop Fountain - Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Balloon Derby - Moonstruck

Slow Hello - Secret Sunset

That Lingering Feeling - Where The Fallen Leaves Were

Dress - Our Wakeful Dreams

Self-Portrait - The Unrequited Love Song

Goodbye Dakota - This One Decided To Stay (features lyrics derived from One by Jill Bliss)

I also happen to think that Balloon Derby is the best name for a band ever.

Liechtenstein - This Must be Heaven

Has anyone heard the new Liechtenstein song they've made available for free download? It's called "This Must be Heaven" and it's completely beautiful. As Marianthi said, it's like "being tickled on your neck by petals." The big twee-er.

Why aren't Liechtenstein bigger? Why don't teenagers have their photos on their wall (instead of... er, dubious thirty-somethings, for example)? Why shouldn't "This Must be Heaven" be this years Christmas number one?

Answers on a rose petal, please.

You can download 'This Must be Heaven" here.

Stop, look and listen

Downstairs, on the bookshelf, sits The Champagne Socialist single. It arrived in the post over a week ago, and it remains unlistened.

There comes a time in everyone's life when they're just too busy to remember everything. I think my brain reached saturation point some years ago, because although I can remember quite vividly what I did in August 1985, I have very little recollection of my movement last weekend.

Being busy got me thinking about things I never do any more. I don't go for bike rides any more. I don't hardly ever read books any more. And, perhaps most galling of all, I very rarely find time to sit down and listen to an album. Of course I still listen to music all the time - but it's usually whilst I'm doing something else like working or washing up or making the tea. You don't really take it all in then, do you?

When I was 15 or 16 I'd go out on a Saturday and buy a handful of records, get the bus home and sit in my room listening to them over and over again until I knew the words. And, of course, at the same time I'd memorise the sleeve notes. Everyone else did that, right?

Nowadays I sometimes don't even listen to new stuff. Not that I'm some kind of whirling social butterfly I hope you understand - more that the general drudge of life constantly gets in the way. Take the last three Morrissey albums for example; when I was a nipper I could name every song Morrissey and The Smiths had released in chronological order. Now I'd be hard-pressed to name a dozen songs off the last three records. Sure, I recognise them when they come on, but I'm not entirely sure what they're called, or even what album they're off.What have I become!

Everyone who loves or has loved music will surely recognise that sitting alone in your bedroom, in front of the stereo - possibly making a mix-tape, possibly not - was or is one of the most enjoyable things in the world.

Of course nowadays we have access to so much more music than ever before, but do we really listen to it all? Or do we just collect it? At the moment, I'm guilty of the latter, and that makes me a little bit sad, because falling in love with a record is still one of the best feelings in the world. It's intensely personal, but at the same time totally liberating because you realise that there must be other people out there that feel the same. And that feeling is all too fleeting these days.

It does come back, right?

There's too many questions here... and it's a silly thing to moan about really.

Lolly gagging

A friend of mine went on the demonstration against the BNP's Red White and Blue festival in Codnor, Derbyshire yesterday. For those that don't know, this is the BNP's annual get-together where by day they play harmless country fayre-style games, and by night they pack all the kids off to bed and get some charmless crackpot in as guest-speaker, chuck racism around like confetti, and end by Sieg Heiling Nick Griffin until midnight. Probably.

The left isn't very good at countering the BNP. It veers from tiny, anarchist kamikaze actions, to the more brain dead, and often arrogant auto anti-racism of Unite Against Facism (UAF), one of the SWP's many fronts.

UAF's main spokesperson is Weyman Bennett who routinely strolls in from London to one of these demos, dons his hi-vis jacket, consults the BNP, fights his way to the front and starts hectoring at everyone through his fucking megaphone, before starting a chant so mind-curdlingly embarassing that the boys of Cable Street must be furiously spinning in their graves.

Jamie said that exactly the same thing happened yesterday. And that he thinks "anti-facism is a waste of time." This is sympomatic of the malaise the SWP spreads over a huge number of socialists and communists it comes into contact with. Young, enthusiastic people join up with the promise of "claiming the streets" or "smashing the BNP" only to find that internal democracy in the party is non-existant, its leadership is arrogant and at times apolitical, it's sectarianism and wilful ignorance of the rest of the left arrogant in the extreme, and that they have to sell as many Socialist Workers as they can in Mansfield town cente on a Saturday morning to a disinterested public who only came into town to get some new work shoes.

The UAF/SWP is obviously claiming a huge victory against the Red, White and Blue festival. But then it claims a huge victory after every action. Bennett is quoted on the UAF site as saying:

"This was a great day for anti-fascists. We brought more protesters to Codnor this year than the numbers the BNP managed to attract to its 'festival' of race hatred. They had fewer people attending this year because the protests drove away their softer supporters.

That's maybe because at around £35 for a ticket, a lot of people couldn't afford to go along. Capitalism is going through one of its deepest crises. Not that UAF/SWP would take that into account, like.

But perhaps the biggest problem UAF/SWP has is it's complete ignorance of what its day-long demos has on the people living in surrounding areas. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to hear Bennett hollering through a megaphone all afternoon if I was trying to isten to the footy scores on the radio. Nor would I be too chuffed if I couldn't get to the chippy because most of the roads on there way there were blocked off.

UAF/SWP has no ties in any working class communities it parachutes into. And neither will it develop any if it continues to act in such a high-handed way. It refuses to join locally led demonstrations and even organised separate buses from Nottingham yesterday.

Until the SWP learns that shouting "Nazi!" at the BNP is never going to work; until it realises that working with working class communities in order to fight the BNP might just be a good idea; and until Weyman fucking Bennett stops rolling up to everything and relying on the police all the time, then its strategy will continue to fail. It'd be really interesting to find out how many people from Codnor were on the demo, actually, but that's for another day.

Still, Jamie got to meet Harpal Brar. That's always a bonus. The mad fucker.

Crayon Fields - Mirrorball video

There's something about Crayon Fields songs that make me want to go and wrap myself up in about ten cats. Here's the video for the most goregeous 'Mirrorball'.