Details have emerged of Pantha Du Prince’s latest album, Black Noise, which shsll be released through Rough Trade on February 8th 2010. This announcement comes as a bit of a shock, as Pantha Du Prince’s Hendrik Weber is known for making Techno and House records which don’t sit comfortably with the rest of Rough Trade’s roster. Despite a handful of tracks that include vocals, however, apparently there is no drastic change in sound.

One high profile vocalist that will appear on the record is Animal Collective’s Panda Bear, who has long been a fan of Pantha Du Prince who remixed AC track Peacebone back in 2007. Another collaboration sees Tyler Pope of LCD Soundsystem and !!! playing bass on the track, The Splendour. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out, as Weber’s last record, This Bliss, was one of my favorites of the last few years. Check out the Pantha Du Prince remix of Animal Collective’s Peacebone (below) and watch this space for more details on Black Noise.

Animal Collective – Peacebone (Pantha du Prince Remix)

Rough Trade have followed up their indie pop vol one compilation from a couple of years ago with a new round up entitled Rough Trade Shops – Indiepop ‘09. This compilation features bands previously featured on indiefy such as the Pains Of being Pure At Heart, Manhattan Love Suicides and Liechtenstein amongst others. Excellent stuff!

Play Rough Trade Shops – Indiepop ‘09

Unashamedly plagiarising yesterday’s totally novel idea of coming up with a list of the year’s best things weeks before the end of the year that you’re writing a list of things to represent the best things of that year for, Rough Trade just sent me an e-mail entitled ‘Albums of the Year 2009’.

This seems like an unnecessarily passive-aggressive act if you ask me, particularly from a record label that I’ve always had a relationship of, if not mutual respect, then unspoken tolerance. I put up a post yesterday listing what I think are my own favourite albums of 2009. In this post I was at pains to make clear the subjective nature of my list: the title referred to ‘favourite things’, with the ‘favourite things’ being implicitly things that were the ‘favourites’ of the author (i.e. me).

In short, it was clear that this was opinion, in no way based on the objective scientific calculations of intense laboratory experimentation. It was a lazy idea, just a bit of fun to maybe start a conversation, albeit not a very interesting one where your mind quickly flits to thoughts of defenestration or ways to fake a stroke. But Rough Trade responded almost immediately without so much as an acknowledgement of my original post. No, “oh, that’s interesting” or “hmm, yes, but you’ve forgotten to include the Animal Collective album”. No “well, here’s what we think”. Just a long list of “50 Albums of the Year”, arrogantly dismissing my list by refusing to acknowledge its existence, and then having the audacity to present their own list as some kind of divinely selected musical canon (like RT are a kind of indie Moses). It’s like casually mentioning to an acquaintance that you quite like Newsnight, them staring at you with a look of disdain for a few seconds, then turning round and shouting the names of National Television Award winners into your face.

 To add insult to injury, they’ve even included a list of links so I can buy the albums on their list from them. Presumably, they think I could do with a bit of brushing up, like I’m not hip to what’s cool or something. Anyone would think that my inclusion of an album from 1974 and 2 reissues suggested I’d run out of ideas.

 I mean, I haven’t actually listened to a lot of what’s on their list, or even heard of it to be honest. At least now I don’t need to: I can just assume it will all be over-hyped nonsense…

 Rough Trade’s Ten Favourite Albums, 2009:

 The XX – XX

The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin

The Horrors (yes, the fucking Horrors!) – Primary Colours

Fever Ray – Fever Ray

The Pain of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

The Leisure Society – The Sleeper and the Product of the Ego Drain

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Forest Fire – Survival

The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa

The only overlap between our lists comes at number 21 with Wild Beasts, thus intensifying speculation that they’re set to scoop  this year’s Vampire Weekend Award for Rousing Acceptance Rapidly Followed by Indifference and, Eventually, Hostility

Alela Diane, a Nevada City, CA native grew up on folk music, where picking and singing folk songs with her family was the equivalent of attending Sunday mass.  As she got of wandering age, she ventured off to Paris to write her first album Pirate’s Gospel, and has since released To Be Still in 2009 (Rough Trade), and recently a 10 inch EP – Alela and Alina (Alina Hardin) which came out this Fall.  It’s hard to put a label on Alela’s style of folk, but if I had to, I’d call it organic, meditative, with a dash of gypsy.  Alela’s storytelling ability is her strong suit – sending listeners to a place where time moves slow, snow stacks high, black and white goes to color and then back again, pirates reign, and mountains are KING.  Alela Diane will perfrom w/ Maykit at the Hi-Dive in Denver this Friday night, November 20th. The links below include a video of White As Diamonds (the single off To Be Still) from a spring ‘09 show in Brussels, and a download link for White As Diamonds.

White As Diamonds (download link)

You can’t help but love Bradford Cox. With every musician and their pet throwing around an album here, and a song there for free, it’s impossible to not appreciate the internet and it’s ability to distribute music. However, it’s a shame when musicians really limit their content to EP and LP releases, and while fans can only really be lucky and grateful for any extra material they may receive, there’s a common consensus – nay – expectation, that there should be a greater output of creativity as the internet has almost redefined the term ‘convenience’. It’s no secret that Cox loves sharing his works, with songs being released on the Deerhunter blog at an overwhelming rate. So, it’s really no surprise to see a bonus EP to accompany his second solo album, Logos.

more @ onethirtybpm

http://rapidshare.com/files/300777306/TlsSnd_LgsBnsDsc.zip
ou
http://www.mediafire.com/?l5nz0wkn1r5

A mail-order only compilation offered by New Music Express (NME) magazine, featuring artists on the Rough Trade label.

Radical at the time, this brought “post-punk” artists such as Buzzcocks, Cabaret Voltaire, Pere Ubu and Aztec Camera to a much larger audience.

As history has shown, things happening underground will sooner or later reach a critical mass and will “explode” into the public consciousness, tapping into what people are seeking, even though they may not be at the gravitational center. This is the pattern music takes as it moves from the underground toward becoming “popular.”

I suppose there’s a level of irony in disaffected youth making anti-establishment music that, at some point, is embraced by the very same establishment against which they rebel; by the time it reaches this point other forms of rebellion are already fermenting in this evolutionary process.

An essential piece of music history.

Part1//Part2

Info

I often look at musicians and wonder what events took place in their life to lead them to look the way they do and play the way they do. People aren’t born with costumes and beards and a certain style of clothing, they grow to be that way.

Just a thought.

(From L-R: the band)

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, a 10-piece from Los Angeles, to me anyway, play what I like to call ‘big-band folk rock’.


Their first full-length, Up From Below, is a marvelous effort of epic proportions. These uplifting sing-alongs have a sort of ‘family’ feel to them that hits you immediately and is very comforting. Another thing I noticed is that very rarely is there one person singing at a time on this album. These group vocals implore you to join in and dance around and jump and laugh. The level of intimacy achieved by large bands during performances is something that is pretty much unmatched by anything short of actually playing in the band you are currently watching/listening to at the same time. You could call it a feel-good album.

Yeah, that’s definitely what it is.

Website
MySpace
Purchase

That’s all. They released their debut kicker on In The Red.

how exactly do you pin down what counts as “fresh”? for music, i guess it usually means a new sound that’s original rather than purely derivative, something that basically sounds different, in a good way of course. listening to the xx, “fresh” takes on another shade of meaning. the first track that introduces me to romy madley croft’s voice is “vcr”, which sounds freshly opened, like something hidden from view finally seeing the light of day. i particularly like how the music gives the space for her duet with oliver to breathe, and it’s refreshing how each instrument, from the delicate xylophones to the vocals, makes itself comfortable in its own corner and leaves plenty of room for the others. and it’s fresh for me as a listener as well. whenever the song gets broken down to the simple line: but you, you just know, you just do, every break is punctuated ever so gracefully, like a moment that hangs mid-air in quiet assurance. - dan.

mp3: the xx – vcr

xx is now out on young turks.

Rough Trade har precis signat Warpaint. Verkar väldigt lovande, skönt psykadeliskt, hypnotiskt och vackert. En 5 spårs EP finns ute nu i USA (Exquisite Corpse)och släpps i Europa i November. En väldans fin alldeles ny video serverar jag medans vi väntar.

Mer Warpaint musik hittas på Myspace. Rekommenderar låten “Billie Holiday”.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with us, Pushing Pussy Records is the brainchild of me (me being Lindsay Lights), Twinkle Troughton, Tinsel Edwards and Sparkle Richards. For the first half of the 00’s we spent our time clocking up many miles in London’s live venues, me getting down and dirty with City Lights and them leading the charge as the core members of the Fairies Band. We shared a common passion for the thrill of crashing cymbals, howling feedback and heartrending melodies, but also a mutual irritation at the thinly-veiled sexism of this male-dominated scene.

To hell with it, we thought. And so Pushing Pussy Records was born.

The vision was simple. An open door policy to all bands with at least one girl. Collaboration with female DJs, artists, photographers. A monthly club night. A constantly expanding network of musicians and like-minded people. A community. A family.

The story began in the heady summer of 2007 with a double 7” EP, featuring City Lights, The Fairies Band, Fatels and The Johnsons. The launch night was one of epic debauchery at the Old Blue Last in the heart of our Shoreditch stomping ground – the venue packed to bursting, sweat dripping from the walls, bodies writhing on the floor, red lipstick smeared on the cheeks of every person there.

Within our first year we had championed hundreds of amazing bands, and we marked the anniversary with a 13-track compilation CD featuring the cream of the crop – and once again chose to mark the occasion with another party of the kind that Pushing Pussy was fast becoming famous for! The huge upstairs room of Brick Lane’s famous Vibe Bar was transformed with a cornucopia of delights – red balloons at every turn, the iconic Pushing Pussy lady immortalised on a huge banner, and cocktails courtesy of our aptly-named sponsor, Pussy Drinks. The party raged into the wee small hours, and as Emily Breeze howled her way through Folsom Prison Blues, and the Dirty Backbeats brought a taste of the circus to historic Whitechapel, there were reports of girls flashing their PPR-branded knickers at passers-by…

2009 brought a hiatus as we planned the next chapter in the Pushing Pussy story. But how to top everything we had done before, while still retaining the humour and passion that was such a key ingredient in the PPR pudding? We knew it would take something pretty special…

And so it came to pass that, on Monday 28th September, we unleashed our most exciting release yet on an unsuspecting world just waiting for something beautiful to get excited about! Two tracks each from the luscious Lovebirds and the perfect Palpitations, specially designed artwork courtesy of our very own Tinsel Edwards, all lovingly packaged in limited edition 7” vinyl, handstamped and numbered in a run of only 300 copies.

We launched with an in-store gig at the famous Rough Trade East – the bands played their hearts out, and with the assembled crowds realising that they had discovered their next musical love affair, Rough Trade’s first consignment of the record was sold out by the time the doors closed! In time-honoured Pushing Pussy fashion, bands, label and devotees old and new all headed to the Dragon Bar to celebrate, revelling in the knowledge that this truly was history in the making.

Since then the records have been selling like hotcakes, and the label has new fans popping up everywhere, from Mark Lamarr to Andy Weatherall. The Palpitations and The Lovebirds are busy doing what they do best, giving lucky audiences across London the chance to say they were there at the beginning – if you haven’t caught them live yet I suggest you get your skates on!

As for us Pushing Pussy girls, we’re planning ever bigger and better things for our lucky followers – so watch this space for news of more exciting EP events and our latest residency at the newly opened Blues Kitchen in Camden!

This album is an insight into a strange set of minds. I bought it in around ‘92 or so after hearing Swell Maps’ name dropped in the context of a variety of indie-pop and fanzine mentions of – very vaguely and very possibly wrongly – music that prefigured the Pastels and was ’shambolic’ before the whole post-C86 world of shambolicism became a going concern. Just looking at the sleeve and artwork raises some immediate questions:

• What/where is Marineville?
• What’s the significance of the burning home on the front cover?
• What are these songs all about – ‘Vertical Slum’, ‘Midget Submarines’, ‘Harmony In Your Bathroom’, etc… are they literal or some kind of bizarre set of metaphors?

I can’t answer any of these, but I like the fact that before even playing, this album has successfully generated a strange world of intrigue that seems both ramshackle (in the cut-and-paste styling of the inner sleeve collage, or the wide variety of recording sessions noted under each song’s liner notes) and oddly ‘complete’ (in the confidence to include a free 7″ containing four more songs, when the album itself already contains around seventeen). The band members have their performance names – Epic Soundtracks, Golden Cockrill, Phones B. Sportsman and so on – and the whole package suggests as much time sitting around devising plans and schemes as was spent creating the music. And that, of course, is how it should be – non-careerist music created by weirdo artists with a hidden, defined set of personal guidelines for doing so.

I wasn’t old enough to be interested at the time, but I wonder if other records were released in the late-1970s rush of invention that followed punk and led to so-called post-punk which share such a sense of invention, adventure and playfulness as this one? In a very small but somewhat significant way, I believe that this record and others like it paved the way for the entirety of the ‘indie’ scene that grew up in the ’80s and which is now, essentially, the mainstream. Naturally, this album’s on Rough Trade, who had a finger in pretty much every musical pie of note from the late ’70s through the mid ’80s. Respect.

Hágase un favor y vea el gran documental de la BBC “Do It Yourself – La historia de Rough Trade”, si no lo has hecho ya.
Desde sus humildes inicios como una tienda de discos pequeña llena con los registros de los propietarios Geoff Travis había traído de América, a su lugar como fuerza principal de distribución de música independiente y uno de los sellos más influyentes de la década de 1980.

Es especialmente interesante seguir el ascenso y caída (y aumentan) de un par de personas dedicadas que nunca quería ser parte de la industria de la música comercial, pero pronto se dieron cuenta que necesitaban éxitos, “Top of the pops” y contratos firmes para mantener su negocio en crecimiento.

Se trata de 88 minutos, pero hay un montón de cosas peores que usted puede perder el tiempo …

Web

Memory Tapes – Seek Magic (Rough Trade)

When Dayve Hawk appeared in the blogosphere last fall posting free tracks and mixes under the names Weird Tapes and Memory Cassette, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to his website by my friend Mat. With Weird Tapes, Hawk crafts sample-heavy party music, where he uses familiar samples that trigger vague memories of drunken parties from the past. The bottom line: the stuff is fun and catered towards uninhibited booty shaking. And at the same time, he was also putting out tracks under his Memory Cassette moniker, a more pop-oriented project of dreamy songs with a strong 80’s bent.

And now the seemingly prolific Hawk has released “Seek Magic” using the name Memory Tapes — where he weds the best aspects of his earlier projects with refreshingly awesome results. Instead of building tracks with layers of sound, the songs on this album are filled with catchy hooks, choruses, and refrains, in proper pop song fashion. Guitar licks reminiscent of New Order, and analogue synths suggestive of Aphex Twin are meshed together to smashing effect in “Green Knight” and “Bicycle”. The choruses of “Stop Talking” and “Graphics” are so infectious and hooky you’ll find yourself singing them for days. Album closer “Run Out” is a perfect come down track, it’s emotional and harmonious, and could easily be stretched out to ten minutes in length and I’d still want to play it over again.

“Seek Magic” is a first-class debut. Compelling, melodic, fun, nostalgic, and steadily climbing ever higher on my top ten for 2009. The bonus track “Treeship” is also a beautiful addendum to the album. Twenty minutes of chilled out ambience. Do yourself a favour and check out Memory Tapes now, as well as, all of Hawk’s nom de guerres.

Peace.

David Thomas (Pere Ubu) com Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Cassiber, etc), Phillip Moxham (Young Marble Giants), Mayo Thompson (Red Crayola), Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention etc) , Eddie “Tan Tan ” Thornton (Aswad, Rico and His Band, Trojans, etc)

É mole?

Dopo poco più di due anni dal suo primo, omonimo disco solista ritorna sulla scena uno dei capisaldi della musica pop inglese contemporanea, Jarvis Cocker ex cantante dei Pulp, compositore di quella “Common people” che ha fatto ballare tutto il Glasto Festival nel 95 e che verrà ricordato negli annali per essere salito sul palco del Brit Music Award in diretta durante la performance “messianica” di sua maestà Michael Jackson, gatecrashing polemicamente perchè infastidito dalla megalomania del king (evento peraltro quasi inesistente su youtube: boicottaggio?ndr).

“Cunts are still running the world” cantava polemicamente nella ghost track del suo primo disco contro i padroni del mondo: sono cambiate un pò di cose per questo skinny boy: lo stile in primis. Messi da parte giacca di velluto a coste, camicia scozzese rosso nera, moglie e viso sempre ben rasato, avanti barba, camicia azzurra e cravatta blu e vita da single, sempre dietro i suoi occhiali d’osso. Secondo, la musica e la location: Chicago, nell’ Electrical Studio di Steve Albini (Shellac, 2009) che, noto per tenere le frequenze voce equalizzate basse (vedi In Utero, Nirvana) predilige fare ascoltare ai suoi utenti una unica registrazione corale (live studio record) piuttosto che una serie di tracce assemblate. Il suono di questo disco, pop per l’accezione, è complesso e si muove dalle rock ballads (I never said I was deep) al blues elettrificato (Fucking song), fino a canzoni persino d’ambiente (Hold still, Slush) sostenuto dal classico scintillante suono della stratocaster (Caucasian Blues) supportata a sprazzi da sassofono che ricorda molto parte del rock dei 90s (Homewrecker), il classic rock della title track e Angela fino, infine, al pezzo conclusivo del disco, You’re in my eyes, una discosong che ricorda sprazzi di Gainsbourg.

Le parole utilizzate invece, hanno invece la solita acidità, ironia,pathos,  nel trattare elementi classici del repertorio di Jarvis: politica, l’amore per lo spirito femminile e per gli ultimi, la società dei consumi, il vuoto della cultura contemporanea di riferimento.

Sebbene in alcuni punti il nostro barbuto Jarvis sembri non riuscire ad entrare pienamente nella parte, la totalità del disco risulta impegnatatamente piacevole, spesso divertente, ma mai noiosa, qualità che certo non si addice per nulla allo skinny boy from Sheffield.

PS: Please, do not read the words whilst listening to the recordings.

So, The Idolator have decided that The Moldy Peaches‘ ‘Who’s Got the Crack?‘ is the 48th worst song of the decade. Sandwiched between LL Cool J’s collaboration with J Lo at 49 and Akon’s ‘Sorry Blame it on Me’ what this basicall prooves is that anyone can make a list, and they’re a pretty good way to generate interaction. I mean, I took this from Kicking_k’s Twitter feed, posted it here and then Tweeted it myself…so everyone’s a winner, right?

In their defence the Moldy Peaches recorded some of the most brilliantly bratty, shit-nosed songs of the early 00s. People will argue that Jeffrey Lewis is probably the true ‘genius’ of anti-folk, and rightly so, but Adam Green and Kimya Dawson combined the pure with the puerile to create the dumb-as-fuck brilliance of the self-titled debut album (the self-releases don’t count, or at least right here they don’t).

The problem with the Moldy Peaches isn’t that they were shit, it’s that they were hijacked…by the hipsters, by the movie industry…anyone you want to wave the finger at just stick ‘em *here*. Bands like the Moldy Peaches are meant to be low-key, hell – they were supposed to be fun! To take ‘Who’s Got the Crack?’ and write about what a bad record it is, is to fall for it. It’s barely situationism but there ands like the Moldy Peaches did, and still do, challenge the notions of good music, there is no good or bad…it’s just relative. Well, except for Muse…they’re just hideous.

If you’re still not convinced then check out ‘Nothing Came Out‘, covered in tape hiss and featuring possibly the most endearing lack of self confidence you will hear…for the next hour or so at least and, if that still doesn’t tickle your fancy then maybe this will.

Just don’t play that out loud at work…

The Raincoats (London, UK)
The Raincoats
Rough Trade, 1979

Discovery: This one sort of found me today. My favourite blog ever ever ever is probably Carrie Brownstein’s Monitor Mix. Not only is she super knowledgeable about music but she’s also super intelligent and super funny, and always manages to write about things I find interesting. The first paragraph of today’s post read:

“What is it about The Raincoats? If you haven’t heard of the band, now is the time. (It will be of help to you that Kill Rock Stars has just reissued the band’s first LP). If you have listened to The Raincoats’ music, then you know that the London-based late-’70s post-punk group — which has re-formed intermittently over the years and is currently playing another round of shows — has always inspired a sense of wonder and a sense of worship.”

I’m not going to paste the whole thing, which you can find here, but here are some of my favourite extracts:

“The Raincoats didn’t so much intrude on my world as make it shimmer. To hear the band’s songs for the first time was to light a sparkler in a room, each song a tiny, magnificent and uneven torch. The music had shape and then was shapeless, wonky edges with pure, glowing centers. I would listen and think, “How?”"

“It wasn’t until 1999 that I found the first Raincoats LP for myself [...] I was so excited, so very much in a state of shock and elation, that I ran back to the 40 Watt and called Calvin Johnson back in Olympia to tell him the news. Let it be known that I have never called anyone before or since to tell them that I’d purchased a record.”

History: The Raincoats formed whilst they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London in 1977 – they went through various line-up changes, but by 1978 they were an all-female group. This album is best known for their cover of Ray Davies’ ‘Lola’. It was re-released by Rough Trade in 1994 with liner notes written by Kurt Cobain, and again yesterday (13 October 2009) by Kill Rock Stars.

The follow-up to this album featured appearances from Robert Wyatt and Charles Hayward of This Heat.

Review: As I listened to this, I was thinking, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” – this is literally so difficult to put into words. One of the best things I’ve seen written about it was by aplasticfeast on RYM:

“And it’s so ramshackle. There’s none of that bullshit equilibrium you get so much of in other music. Whereas in some songs every instrument is perfectly in time with the others, and so creates the illusion of a fixed point moving in time, the fixed point here is entirely virtual. It is a strange attractor that all the voices struggle to reach or struggle to slow down towards. As such, all the instruments are always clamoring for that supreme unity but never attaining it. No one member of the band defines it, because there is a fierce egalitarianism in operation. Now isn’t that a much better metaphor for life than all the other music you’ve been taught to appreciate because of its simulated perfection?”

It’s entirely true. Everything here is messy. There’s rarely a great guitar tone or a strong beat or an uplifting melody (‘No Side to Fall In’ being a notable exception.) And yet everything sort of caves in from all sides to create this great overall sound- it’s fun and it’s playful but it’s also creepy and unnerving. The drums are produced in the oddest way- on some songs they pound from only one side of the speakers like they’re trying to stay disconnected and at other times they’re the only thing that sounds normal, with everything else freaking out in and around the beat. There’s this sincerity and pain in the vocals that mirrors the fact that all of these songs continue to fall apart, verse after verse, but it’s also a strong sound (you can see where Carrie got a lot of her vocal style from) which helps keep the crazy piercing violin (yes, violin!) and gut-wrenching guitar tones from tearing these songs apart. It sounds amateurish, yes, and it has charm because of that, but it’s all done with intent.

Practical information: Watch an awesome live version of ‘No Side to Fall In’ here.

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the incredible Part Time Punks minifest this past Friday night (8pm-3am) you can find some highlights below.  The LA blow-out that happened on Sunday had twice as many bands and The Raincoats are playing their hearts out in the Northwest to the Portland kids who’ve been waiting their whole lives for the event tonight.  I’m sure they’ll be receiving a very warm welcome.  With incredible performances by all bands, I was sad to see there isn’t any video of Savage Republic or Section 25 around yet.  Their cover of Joy Division’s “Shadowplay” was INCREDIBLE!

A wonderful account of the evening can be seen on the EAR CANDLE PRODUCTIONS BLOG.  For more information on the genius work of Michael Stock and his incredible feats of event organization see the PART TIME PUNKS WEBSITE.

From the Mezzanine edition in San Francisco of the Part Time Punks Minifest please enjoy some choice performance clips!

Viv Albertine (of The Slits) “Confessions of a MILF”

The Raincoats “Fairytale in the Supermarket”

The Raincoats “Shouting Out Loud”

The Raincoats “No Side to Fall In”

The Raincoats “Don’t Be Mean”

Viv Albertine (of the Slits) joined The Raincoats onstage for a lively performance of their cover of The Kink’s “Lola”

The Raincoats and Viv Albertine do The Slits “Adventures Close to Home”

Some video I took to give context of the “bigger picture” from the VJ booth while The Raincoats worked their magic

A “film within a concert” to wrap up the evening

In a historical context women have been marginalized or pushed out of the narrow spaces of music history they had been “allowed” to inhabit during their time.  With the exceptions of the more recent work of Lucy O’Brien’s She Bop I and II, Zoe Street Howe’s Typical Girls? The Story of the Slits and a few other works there came in 2007 the incredible The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era by Helen Reddington who cut her teeth on the front in various post-punk bands before becoming an academic.  An excerpt from the article link:

Before Helen Reddington joined a punk band in 1978 the 19-year-old Brighton girl was so quiet that the boys at school had thought she was a French exchange student. Playing a bass guitar that had belonged to the Buzzcocks, no less, in the group Joby and the Hooligans turned her life around. “I was a really shy person,” she says, “and getting into a band and getting up on stage completely changed the way I felt about myself and what I thought I could do.”So she was upset when she realised that her youthful experiences – and those of hundreds of other punk women – were being scrubbed from history. The only woman who ever seemed to be brought up in the context of punk was Siouxsie Sioux. Otherwise, all the talk was of the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Stranglers. “About 15 years ago I started reading books about punk,” she says, “and there was hardly any mention of the fact that loads of women were playing in bands. I thought, why hasn’t anybody mentioned this? And I suddenly realised that all the people who were writing about punk were men, and the fact that women were involved may not have seemed important to them, but it was totally important to me.”

Now an academic and musician, Reddington decided to write a book, The Lost Women of Rock. “I was waiting for someone else to write it actually,” she admits sheepishly. “I would rather not have bothered because I’m not very good at sitting still but I thought, no one else is going to do this if I don’t.”

- The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era is published by Ashgate

I hope that this aspect of music and history will continue to be investigated and documented by not only the people who made it happen and were THERE, but also by those who came to it a bit late however this did not stilt their passion for the music, the medium or the message.

Rough Trade Special.

Part 3

Parts 1 and 2 here.

Tracklisting:

Love Unlimited – ‘Under The Influence of Love’ (Mercury)
Metal Urbain – ‘Panik’ (Byzz)
Still Little Fingers – ‘Suspect Device’ (Rough Trade)
Subway Sect – ‘Ambition ‘ (Rough Trade)
Scritti Pollitti – ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ (Rough Trade)
Pere Ubu – ‘30 Seconds over Tokyo’ (Rough Trade)
The Fall – ‘Totally Wired’ (Rough Trade)
AR Kane – ‘Baby Milk Snatcher’ (…)
The Normal – ‘Warm Leatherette’ (Mute)
The Smiths – ‘Hand In Glove’ (Rough Trade)
The Smiths – ‘How Soon Is Now’ (Rough Trade)
Young Marble Giants – ‘Final Day’ (Rough Trade)
Hope Sandoval – ‘Butterfly Mornings’ (Rough Trade)
Low – ‘Just Like Xmas’ (Rough Trade)
The Jesus and Mary Chain – ‘Just Like Honey’ (Rough Trade)
The Libertines – ‘Boys In The Band’ (Rough Trade)
The Libertines – ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’ (Rough Trade)
The Strokes ‘The Modern Age’ (Rough Trade)
The Strokes ‘Under Control’ (Rough Trade)
British Sea Power – ‘Carrion’ (Rough Trade)
Belle and Sebastian – ‘I’m a Cuckoo’ (Rough Trade)
Adam Green – ‘Friends of Mine’ (Rough Trade)
The Hidden Cameras – ‘Boys of Melody’ (Rough Trade)
Fiery Furnaces – ‘Tropical ‘ (Rough Trades)
Oneida – ‘ Caesar’s Column’ (Rough Trade)
Sufjan Steven – ‘The Upper Peninsula’ (Rough Trade)
The Veils – ‘The Wild Son’ (Rough Trade)
Eastern Lane – ‘Saffron’ (Rough Trade)
The Strokes and Rgina Spektor – ‘Post Modern Girls’ (Rough Trade)
Jefferey Lewis – ‘Don’t Let the Record Company Take You Out To Lunch’ (Rough Trade)

Idlewild from Scotland are one of those really good bands that never really make it. Despite touring a lot, releasing six albums, being praised by Steve Lamacq and even after having a top 10 single in the UK (“You Held The World In Your Arms”), they just never really made it. And I assume they never will.

For years they were the best support act I had ever seen – in 2002, supporting Coldplay. Yesterday I saw them on their own for the first time, doing a small acoustic Instore at Rough Trade.

I was taken back to 2002/03 immediately, by that time I played their third album “The Remote Part” almost to death. I remember countless days walking to school with my discman listening to that album. I think I know all the lyrics by heart although I haven’t really listened to the album for years (until fairly recently, at least). I didn’t own the CD back then, I just had a burned copy and since these were the early days of copying CDs, something went wrong and the tracks had slight skips in them. The mp3s I imported from that CD still exist, I’ve never replaced them and in my mind those songs just exist with those skips.
“The Remote Part”, however, is simply a brilliant album in its entirety.

Only parts of the band, including lead singer Roddy Woomble and guitar player Rod Jones were at Rough Trade to play a very low down set with only two acoustic guitars and nothing else.

The 25 minute set included songs from the new record “Post Electric Blues” as well as classics like “American English” and my personal favourite “When I Argue I See Shapes” from their ten year old debut album “Hope Is Important”, a song I only discovered a few months ago and fell in love with. Roddy couldn’t remember its title when he tried to announce it, which lead the rest of the band to the assumption that it’s probably “When I drink too much cider” rather than a song about arguing and seeing shapes.

“I laugh at your conversational skills
or lack of”

Idlewild – When I Argue I See Shapes

Roddy tried pretty hard to look like Reinhold Messner, wearing clothes that looked as if he’d worn them for the past 3 weeks. I have hardly ever seen a singer that looked less like a rockstar – which might be the reason why the “big success” never came for Idlewild.

It was, however, a lovely show.

Rough Trade are following up their indiepop vol compilation with indiepop 09. It’s due to be released on November 9th 2009 (UK).

Rough Trade state that rough trade shops are officially psyched to be able to present our new cd, this one featuring some of our favourite bands of the current incarnation of indiepop, a genre that is very close to our hearts here at the shop, and one that is back with a bang. there are 25 zingers here, pains of being pure at heart, cause co-motion!, love is all and the vivian girls (moped girls exclusive on cd) have received a lot of press in recent months, and are familiar names to you, as are tullycraft, shrag and los campesinos! also included are newer names that will open a few ears, veronica falls, the girls at dawn, celestial and dum dum girls amongst others. established labels like damaged goods, elefant and fortuna pop! are joined by favourites from the us like whats your rupture?, slumberland and horizontal action. also included here is the boy least likely to’s ‘the summer of a dormouse’, an specially-recorded track that will also be released on limited edition 7inch on our instore label, for us records (forus40). this special gloss-packaged version of the comp. is available exclusively from us. this 25 track single disc compilation is lighter on its feet than our previous genre comps. we have streamlined the format to reflect the financial restrictions that the current recession dictates. the early 80s were a similarly tough time for the working classes, and it was in this environment that those original indiepop bands like my bloody valentine, the shop assistants, the wedding present and the jesus and mary chain created their music. hopefully the current hard-times will have see similar results.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1 tullycraft – the punks are writing love songs
2 the faintest ideas – nosebleeders on the track
3 love is all – wishing well
4 girls – morning light
5 vivian girls – moped girls
6 the girls at dawn – never enough
7 veronica falls – beachy head
8 cause co-motion – you lose
9 betty and the werewolves – david cassidy
10 pocketbooks – fleeting moments
11 los campesinos! – you! me! dancing!
12 shrag – hopelessly wasted
13 the boy least likely to – the summer of a dormouse
14 the school – and suddenly
15 play people – goes out
16 celestial – somedays we are
17 moscow olympics – no winter, no autumn
18 liechtenstein – security by design
19 minisnap – leave it to you
20 sad day for puppets – marble gods
21 dum dum girls – longhair
22 the legends – seconds away
23 the manhattan love suicides – clusterfuck
24 the pains of being pure at heart -103
25 the bobby mcgees – l.o.v.e/: a masonic youth

Pre-order from here.