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CLASSIC REISSUE THE VELVET UNDERGROUND The Velvet Underground & Nico (Polydon 00000
The Velvet's aesthetic was probably best captured by the beWigged lighting man at one of their Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows in 1967'. ‘It's ugly' said Andy Warhol. 'But it's beautifqu
Indeed so. Their debut may have sold poorly at the time but LOU Reed and co were looking beyond their Warhoiian quarter hour. It is one of those word-of-mouth- down-the-generations records that has inspired a million bands and WIN dOuthess continue to delight and ignite the imagination of many to come. In a word: claSSic. In menu- form: rock'n'rcll. love. drugs. alienation. sado- masochism. poetiy and mental breakdown.
Waiter. there's a fly in my Campbell's tomato SOLID. IRodger Evansi
JAZZ SV-JING J02 TENUTO Research & Development iJoz TenutOI COO
Joz Tenuto were the excellent swmg band behind last year's Swrng When Yer Ming/if with Chewm' The Fat funnyman turned crooner Ford Kiernan. It was a great album of silly covers. tight orchestration and it left Robbie's pale swing album for dead.
Now they are back With a more ia/z Influenced record of Instrumental covers. original material and a (:oiiple of old classics
114 THE LIST -'-r "i
featuring the vocal charms of Kiernan and somewhat inexplicably. BBC news anchor Jackie Bird. Things get off to a roaring start with tenor sax player Graeme Wilson's excellent composition ‘Chuck's 8400' followed by exquisne takes on Mingus ‘Moanin" and Cab Calloway's 'anie the Moocher'. Things do get a bit self indulgent towards the end but the big band feast is nicely rounded off by full blooded covers of Bernstein's 'West Side SIOry' and 'Auld Lang Syne'. Available from wwwioztenuto.com IPauI Dale)
PUNK
GREEN DAY Shenanigans iRepriseI 000.
t: (r:
,- - ,1 ) * Green Day xix/ere the proto—gonzo US punks. all style Ior lack of iti and bluster. three-chord mayhem they blasted out their relentlessly up tempo racket. They were diametrically opposite to the other great rockers of the day. Nirvana: ‘Basket Case' was a cheeky riposte to the moroseness of grunge. Who'd have thunk they'd have lasted long enough to Justify a B-Sides and rarities collection. and a full-on in your face grab bag it is too: Kinks covers. TV themes and their tried and tested punk thrash alongs. Even their off cuts piss on Blink 182. Sum 41 and their ilk. IHenry Northmorei
DISCO VARIOUS ARTISTS
Kenny Dope presents Disco Heat «Urban Theory) 0000
Anyone who saw Channel 4's superb three-parter detailing the history of house muSic Pump up the l/o/ume ‘.‘./IH know that those nights back in the late
ROCK IDLEWILD The Remote Part iParlophoneI 00000
Band in good songs shocker!
For the modern pop band there are certain requirements: laughs, tears, seething self-loathing, drunken regrets, scandalous trials, beer-splattered tribulations and tabloid scandal.
To be honest, ldlewild don’t seem hugely accomplished at this sort of ‘tits, bum, fanny - the lot’ kind of headline-grabbing. They seem in the unenviable position of having to let their music do the talking. Fucking lucky for them they’ve chosen to make such a truly magnificent album then, no?
There is a space in the music world at the moment for a great band who can deliver excellent, accessible rock music via adrenalised live shows but not be instantly reminiscent of some ‘classic’ act of yore. ldlewild do this and manage to avoid being pigeon-holed just by being a bit more honest, a bit more astute and a bit more imaginative than most.
Their previous two and-a-half albums have saw them progress exponentially from a Green Day with table manners to something altogether more expansive and expressive. Roddy Woomble’s lyrical abstracts demand multiple readings while their music embraces everyone from Bob Dylan and Captain Beefheart to Teenage Fanclub and Hiisker Dii but adds a wry layer of unexpected twists and
turns via Rod Jones’ dancing, spidery guitar lines.
‘Hiding Place’ and ‘Tell me Ten Words’ has the band knocking out a quick folk-pop set at Woodstock before they decant to Donnington for the hook-ridden pop-thrash of ‘Century after
Century’ and the 147 seconds of vitriol that is ‘A Modern Way of Letting Go’.
There isn’t really a bad track on this and closer ‘In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction’ is, well, pretty near perfect as octogenarian Glasgow poet laureate Edwin Morgan’s verse is cast into a choppy sea of plaintive guitar which erupts into wave after wave of six-string dissonance at its climax.
Maybe in a few years we can look forward to ‘ldlewild in 16-in-a-bed ketamine-lapdancer— beastiality shocker!’ But for now we can - to paraphrase Abba, nearly - be thankful for the music.
(Mark Robertson)
70s early 80s NY clubs the Left. the Gallery. Studio 54 and of course Paradise Garage put on possibly the most influential nights in the
evolution of dance muSic.
DJ Kenny ‘Dope' Gonzalez certainly knows his music histOry and here he pays homage to those celebrated club nights With a seamless mix album that contains rare beauties like Dexter Wansell's 'Life on Mars. Sylvester's 'I Need You'. Cerrone's 'Love in C Minor' and Azymuth ‘Jaz/ Festival. A delight
from start to finish. (Paul Dale)
ELECTRONICA POP SHIVAREE
Rough Dreams (Capitoll ooo
2lf there's one past gIOry this American trio are never geing to repeat. it's devising a title as good as that of their first album. / Oughta give you a Shot in the Head for Making Me Live In a Dump /ike This. Still.
there's plenty to recommend the less- inspiringly monickered Rough Dreams.
The opening 'Wagers' is a strange one. with
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