Springsteen - Glastonbury

Well The Boss was just incredible. Sadly the BBC coverage was not up to his standards! Most of the middle of the set was not broadcast, maybe they will catch up on i[layer but I doubt it. They were kidding on they were broadcasting the set live and that is clearly not the case as even some of the encore tracks were omitted from the "live" broadcast. 12 songs in total to be aired by my reckoning.

No worry it was an awesome set and the reaction has been incredible.

In the UK highlights here...you may not be able to access this outside the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lkq00/Glastonbury_2009_Day_2_Highlights_Part_Two

Here is the full set list

Not Broadcast:
1.Coma Girl (by Joe Strummer)

Broadcast:
2.Badlands
3.Prove It All Night
4.My Lucky Day
5.Outlaw Pete
6.Out In The Street
7.Working On A Dream

Not Broadcast:
8.Seeds
9.Johnny 99
10.Ghost of Tom Joad
11.Raise Your Hand
12.Because The Night
13.No Surrender (with The Gaslight Anthem)

Broadcast:
14.Waitin' On A Sunny Day
15.The Promised Land
16.The River

Not Broadcast:
17.Radio Nowhere
18.Lonesome Day
19.The Rising

Broadcast:
20.Born To Run

Not Broadcast:
21.Hard Times

Broadcast:
22.Thunder Road

Not broadcast:
23.Land Of Hope And Dreams

Broadcast:
24.American Land
25.Glory Days
26.Dancing In The Dark

Forgotten Album Friday #4, Lou Reed - The Blue Mask

For even a casual listener of Lou Reed this is a simply stunning album with moments of raw power and a jagged edgy sound to match lyrics which are visceral and personal. It comes at the end of a really fallow period for Lou Reed and he had been dropped by Arista. His somehat infamous advert for Honda Scooters got him the funds to get an incredible band together with Robert Quine (Richard Hell & The Voidoids), Fernando Saunders and Fred Maher providing fantastic backing with no overdubs. The result was his best album since Berlin and was not equalled until New York. Rober Quine later played on Lloyd Coles first solo album which Fred Maher produced following the latters stint on Drums to the follow up Legendary Hearts.

Key tracks:

My House
The Blue Mask
Average Guy
Waves of Fear
The Day John Kennedy Died

Ray Lamontange and Josh Ritter

It has just been announced that Josh Ritter will be supporting Ray Lamontange on rays upcoming tour including a date in Edinburgh on September. In my opinion those roles should be reversed but if you are going along do not miss the support act!

here is a clip of Josh performing with Glen Hansard guesting and then the video for Girl In the War.

Eno and Byrne - Everything that happens will happen today

I have finally managed to get a copy of this CD today after a fruitless search for the vinyl edition. On a quick run through the album is excellent and highly recommended to fans of David Byrne in particular.

Even better news is that you can listen to the album here:

Now removed but check his web site.

And some live tracks here:

Now removed but check his web site.

Bruce Springsteen - My Fathers House

The quality of the video is terrible, the quality of the intro and performance are legendary.

Beck Covers Velvet Underground

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

Beck has covered the Velvet Underground classic "Sunday Morning" as part of his new Record Club Project.

You can download an mp3 here:

http://files.earmilk.com/upload/mp3/Sunday%20Morning%20Cover.mp3

Thanks to earmilk for the pointer.

Forgotten Album Friday #3, Justin Currie - What Is Love For

This is not so much a forgotten album as one that did not really got noticed in the first place despite tremendous critical acclaim. The album is moody, melancholy, wonderfully produced sounding lush yet sparse at the same time.

Justin Currie's masterpiece. There is not a bad track on this album, and a couple of real crackers left off it!

Key Tracks:

What Is Love For
Goldust
Where Did I Go
No Surrender

and how on earth was this a b side - Let It Be Me

God Help The Girl

As I posted a couple of weeks ago this new project of Stuart Murdoch looks very interesting indeed and here are some previews of the tracks which I hope you will enjoy:

David Byrne Edinburgh Playhouse

Tickets on sale now, 8th August show, brilliant.

If Bruce Is Good Enoough for Strummer!!

From the Guardian:

"In the mid-90s, Strummer was asked for his thoughts on Springsteen for a TV project. The answer came in the form of the fax revealed here: "Bruce is great ... if you don't agree with that, you're a pretentious Martian from Venus"! The respect was mutual; Springsteen was quick to pay tribute when Strummer died in December 2002 , describing him as "one of the greatest rockers of all time" .

Whats is nice about the wee note is that the block printing Joe uses is exactly the same as the lyric insert on London Calling.

Jeff Buckley -

Lots of Jeff Buckley things happening, I guess as it is the 15th Anniversary of Grace coming up! There is as you probably know yet another version of Grace coming out this time live versions from TV performannces "Grace around the World - deluxe edition", due any day I think in the UK. The press release tells us:

Executive produced by Mary Guibert (Buckley's mother), GRACE AROUND THE WORLD focuses on previously unreleased live performances circa 1994-95, in concert and television locales ranging from the U.S. and UK, to Germany, Japan and France (where Buckley was the #1 best-selling international catalog artist in 2008). Accompanying the 108-minute GRACE AROUND THE WORLD DVD will be an audio CD counterpart.

A special limited-edition deluxe package of GRACE AROUND THE WORLD will also contain the one-hour documentary DVD, Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley, thus totaling 169 minutes (nearly three hours) of Jeff Buckley footage for his fans. In advance of this summer's 15th anniversary of the release of Grace, Buckley's landmark debut album (August 1994.

Also a film biopic is in the offing:

The producers of Mystery White Boy, the Jeff Buckley biopic that was announced in 2006 and has been progressing slowly since, have named Jared Leto, James Franco, James Marsden and Robert Pattinson as contenders for the lead, according to Australian newspaper, Courier-Mail.
Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert, who for years had refused proposals for a biopic about her late son's life, hand-picked a team to move forward with the film in '06. Michelle Sy, who had recently produced the J.M. Barrie biopic Finding Neverland, was Guibert's first recruit. Together, Guibert and Sy enlisted young screenwriter Brian Jun (Steel City) to write a script and were expecting a draft that fall.

Public details about the film's progress have since been kept under wraps, but it now seems that the plans Guibert made three years ago have been revised. Screenwriter Ryan Jaffe (The Rocker) has replaced Jun, and IMDb now anticipates a 2010 release for Mystery White Boy.

Otherwise, the mystery of Buckley lives on. So much of Buckley's allure is wrapped up in the unknown, from the sweet haunting of his unfinished discography to the persistent secrets of his 1997 drowning, that it is only fitting that most details about the film remain obscured.

Forgotten Album Friday #2 Lone Justice - Lone Justice

For me this is the album where the Country / Country rock, call it whatever you will, started. The album was released in 1985 when you may recall the diet was a pretty standard one of soft rock and synth pop. If you think of the artists that were present at Live aid you will pretty much get the idea.

This album was raw, edgy and has elements of straight rock, country, country folk etc etc. Since this album Maria McKee has of course gained a rightful reputation as a great songwriter although she has sole writing credit on only one song. The lead single was Ways to be Wicked written by Tom Petty and there were contributions from Little Steven and Bryan McLean as well.

If you like her solo material try this - I don't think she beat it.

Key tracks

Ways To Be Wicked
Dont Toss Us away
You Are The Light
Sweet Sweet Baby (I'm falling)

here is a clip from the OGWT

not a music post - outstanding speech by steve Jobs

Sorry I simply could not resist, what a marvelous speech by Steve Jobs, take the 15 minutes!

Springsteen Performs Fade Away In Stockholm

Amazing performance if you consider that this is unrehearsed and had not been played by the E Street band since 1981. Ropey quality and Bruce needs to work ion the intro!

Gasoline Heart

When I was in Florida this band were getting a big push and I see on their web page they are actually from Orlando so that explains it!

I think they are quite good with a bit of Keith Richards, Tom Petty influences in there (possibly!)

The band is now offering a free download of Cucumber Riot, a collection of both new and old songs. According to Paste Magazine, the album is “a compilation of four songs from their first record, three songs from their most recent EP and three songs from their upcoming LP, Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be, due out June 23 on P is for Panda.”

You can get it here:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/register_and_download/gasoline_heart