CD REVIEWS: 'TIL TUESDAY -COMING UP CLOSE, A RETROSPECTIVE (1982-88) and THE BOTH (2014)

Quick Quiz: What's the connection between these two CDs?

If this was a pub quiz, the question would be on the hard side. If this was a music quiz it would be easy.

The Answer: Aimee Mann.

And to those of you who said: who? your musical education is sorely lacking.

Til Tuesday (forget the apostrophe which is annoying) was Aimee Mann's band and she wrote, either singly or in collaboration, all the band's songs. You could call them intelligent pop-rock with great hooks, good harmonies, and great and very distinctive lead vocals from Mann who also played bass. If you can't afford all three albums (which I'm now regretting not buying instead of this compilation) then this compilation is essential. That said, apart from one big hit they never really enjoyed the commercial success they deserved.

Five years after the band split up, and due to contractual problems, Mann finally emerged in 1993 as a solo artist and proceeded to release, somewhat erratically, a series of excellent albums. Typically they enjoyed massive critical acclaim and lousy sales condemning the talented Mann to cult status. There is one compilation available but it was released by Mann's previous label and she is vociferous in asking people not to buy it. Her own authorised compilation has yet to appear. When it does, grab it.

Meanwhile you can enjoy her collaboration The Both with Ted Leo, another cult artist and one of whom I'd never heard. They recently toured together and enjoyed it so much they went into the studio and produced this excellent album. What makes it special is that it's a genuine collaboration. All the songs, apart from one by Phil Lynott, are co-written. Vocals are dictated by the song's content and harmonies are plentiful. Leo's electric guitar gives Mann's more laid back style a good jolt of energy making this a definite rock album rather than singer-songwriter territory and Mann adds substance to Leo's rockist style. The result, an album acclaimed by the critics, loved by everyone who buys it, and almost certainly doomed to mediocre sales. Me, I want them back in the studio together and I want Mann to release her authorised compilation of her solo work.

Basically, Aimee Mann is great. Give her a listen whether it's Til Tuesday, her solo stuff, or The Both. She's so good that her and her band appeared in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer where she was heard to say, "Man, I hate playing vampire towns."

MUSIC REVIEW: CANNED HEAT -LIVING IN THE PAST and UNDER DUTCH SKIES 1970-74

Canned Heat have been on the road for decades. Or rather versions of the band have. My agrument in this review is that the original band and the only one worthy of the name died when co-founder member Alan Wilson (above, left) died. 

I now have three albums of theirs, those named above and the superb and definitive (accept no others) compilation Uncanned which has an excellent accompanying booklet, packed discs of all their best known material plus oddities and unreleased stuff.

The vocals were shared by Bob 'The Bear' Hite (he was big and hairy) and Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson (who couldn't recognise a friend from two feet away without his glasses and I know exactly what that feels like). Hite's voice was gruff and bluesy the way you'd expect a big hairy monster to sing like when fronting a blues band. But Wilson had a very high falsetto, was a talented slide guitarist, but a fucking brilliant harp (as in harmonica, but you knew that already) player. Had he lived past 27 he'd probably be acclaimed as one of the world's greatest ever harp players. His fills when accompanying John Lee Hooker on the superb album Hooker'n'Heat sends chills down my spine.

A double vinyl album released in late 1968, it's now on a 2-disc CD. Unlike the original vinyl, this allows you to listen to both sides of the live 40 minute Refried Boogie Parts 1 & 2 without have to leave your chair, unless it's to run screaming out of the room. Only joking; it's actually better than I was expecting, but I'll get onto their endless boogie later.

The first seven tracks (side one) are a mix of blues covers, rewritten blues standards, and originals and in general it's pretty good. It opens with a good version of Pony Blues sung by Hite which is followed by My Mistake an original and haunting song written and sung by Wilson to terrific effect. Also included is their massive hit Going Up The Country. It's all very solid enjoyable stuff.

Parthenogenesis, the final track (side 2 of the vinyl), is 20 minutes long and one of the most astonishing pieces of music to come out of the 60's rock and blues bands. Consisting of nine segments, it's mostly instrumental and begins with a couple of pieces with Wilson on jaw's harp (the polite name for the jew's harp) which are dark moody sonic pieces concluding with and unbelievable version of Rollin' and Tumblin'. Wilson's up front again with a jaunty piece where he overdubs his harp playing four times and accompanies himself on guitar. Then there's Hite singing accompanied by John Mayall on piano. Swiftly passing over the drum solo, Henry Vestine overdubs his lead guitar five times for a slow feedback-laden piece which segues into a melancholy instrumental with Wilson's expressive chromatic harp accompanied by a sitar. The penultimate track is the full band playing behind Vestine's Albert Collins-styled lead guitar and it all ends where it began with Alan Wilson's atmospheric jaw's harp. The whole thing is just amazing as it shows how much subtlety and variety the band could play with and how they could go places you'd never expect. Much to my surprise, it isn't the pretentious load of crap it's been accused of but is in fact highly accomplished and I just love it.

Less than two years later Alan Wilson was dead and Canned Heat just wasn't Canned Heat any more. What you had left was this.

Canned Heat had always been known for their raucous adaption of John Lee Hooker's boogie which is fine and had its place but it wasn't all they were known for by a long long way. With the moderating influence of the immensely talented Wilson, they displayed a versatility and musical accomplishment. Wilson added the light and shade, a diversity of styles. Without him there was nothing but unsubtle renderings of blues-rock and boogie, endless, endless boogie.

RECENT AMAZON REVIEWS

5* review. Title: Early days.

There's a lot to recommend about this 3-disc, 82-track set but recommending it to anyone who hasn't heard Lightnin' before isn't one of them. If you want to dabble your toes in his recordings, then it's best to start with a single-disc collection covering his entire career. And if you like that then, and only then get this one.

Presented in approximate chronological order (not all of the dates can be traced precisely) from his first solo recordings in 1946 through to 1954 when he was churning out top rate accompanied stuff, this is a comprehensive collection of his early days. There's a good essay by Neil Slaven whose appearance here can be taken as the veteran Blues writer's seal of approval for this set. The sound is sharp and clear to my ears. At this price it's also extremely good value.

Basically, for anyone wanting build a comprehensive collection of Lightnin's music, this is a very good, and for what you get, cheap place to start. 

Post Script.

Since putting up that review on Amazon and listening to the CD a bit more I went looking on the All-Music Guide for stuff about Lightnin' and checked out some of his recommended CDs on Amazon. I knew there was a massive 7-disc box set with the title The Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings which turned out to be going for huge amounts of money (as in over a hundred quid new). I also noticed that Amazon were selling the entire set as an MP3 download for £14.99 which is a bargain by anyone's standards. Amazon do bargains like this -I checked for more- but not very often so they're worth grabbing when you can.

  Black & Decker FSM1600 Steam Mop (Kitchen & Home) 3 star review: Sound but not special.

It fits together easily enough which is a good start and it does heat up in 15 seconds as it states (possibly even less) so there's no hanging about waiting to get started. It's slim and, therefore, easy to hide away in a convenient space.

It works fine on newly deposited material (like cat food) but is harder work for something that's stuck solid. Overall it's handy gadget and isn't expensive as long as you remember that you get what you pay for. 

(NB: this was a freebie from Amazon Vine, as was the item below, so I didn't pay for it anyway.)

Argon Digital Radio With Ipod Dock. 5* review. Neat petite.

To be honest, I'm not much of a radio listener and the main attraction here was that it included an Ipod dock. This may now change.

Setting the thing up is absurdly easy and the short manual makes everything crystal clear -just like the sound from the radio itself. Tuning it in is a doddle and takes less than a minute. The Ipod dock aspect is fine as it recharges automatically and only takes a couple of presses of a button to get it into play mode. The controls are easy to use. In fact it's all so simple that you hardly even need to refer to the manual, though of course you should

It's extremely compact which means you can put it anywhere, as long as there's a socket nearby, and its black colour matches my Ipod. So basically I'm delighted with it. You want a DAB/Ipod dock combo? Look no further.

Post Script.
Mostly I get offered books (usually proof copies) and the occasional DVD screener copy (I have Beasts of the Southern Wild to watch), but now and then something really useful and this item was one of them.

CD: THEA GILMORE/SANDY DENNY - DON'T STOP SINGING

Thea Gilmore has achieved the impossible. She's created a new Sandy Denny album. Based on poems, first draft lyrics, and other fragments, Gilmore composed and arranged the music which results in ten songs which you can so easily imagine Sandy singing.

It isn't that Gilmore is copying Sandy, not that anyone could.  Her own voice is quite distinctive and strong enough that she doesn't have to anyway. The arrangements, music and choice of instruments, the way they are played echo Denny without imitating her. I could even say that Gilmore is channeling Sandy's spirit but that would be out of character for me so I won't in case anyone thinks I'm being sentimental. It's an understated, delicate piece of work which grows on the listener. In my case, a first play didn't have much impact, but with the second I suddenly heard with absolute clarity just how much of Sandy was there in this sincere tribute. Georgia, the final track, is about Sandy's baby whom she tragically never lived to see grow up and her, appropriately, Gilmore does sound the most like Sandy, something that is emphasised by a guitar sound which could have been played by Jerry Donahue on a Fotheringay track.

This is a very fine piece of work and a worthy tribute to someone I still regard as the greatest female singer to come from this country.

MUSIC (RETROSPECTIVE): PATTI SMITH: LAND and PENETRATION: THE BEST OF PENETRATION

I think I mentioned in another post that we'd recently been sorting out the garage where, among much else but not a car, I stored many of my books, CDs, DVDs, and graphic novels. In the process I found two boxes of CDs which I hadn't seen for a few years and were buried at the bottom of the piles of boxes of other stuff. Much of it hadn't been copied onto my Itunes and, in turn, my Ipod so I spent a couple of days doing just that, adding over 2,000 tracks. I also took the opportunity to weed through and add a whole lot to sell on Amazon Marketplace. along with a few DVDs, books, and graphic novels of which I'll be adding more over the coming weeks.

One of the CDs I particularly missed was this one because I think Patti Smith is/was one of Rock's greats. Some people believe, including me at times, that she's a pretentious twat. The two aren't mutually exclusive -just check out Babelogue/ Rock'n'Roll Nigger- and I think she's produced some absolutely fantastic music. The track(s) I've just cited are a perfect example. Opening with a poem/rant, apparently live with her seeming to sometimes stumble over words, as it builds in pace towards the end, the band comes in fast but at first low until it finally segues at a pace like a bat out of hell (sorry) into the song in which (and I have to use the word because of the context of the song no matter how revolting I find it) niggers are used as a metaphor for the outsider figure in which she names  Jesus, Jackson Pollock and Jimi Hendrix as niggers 'outside of society'.

The first CD is a good collection of her more accessible work, mostly recogniseable rock songs and mainly from the 70's, including her big hit co-written with Bruce Because the Night. To list the standouts would be list pretty much all the tracks so I'll just say it ends with a rather lovely and subdued cover of Prince's When Doves Cry. 

Unlike CD1 which was chosen by her fans, the tracks on the second are her choices and unsurprisingly are much more idiosyncratic, not worse just different. It opens with Piss Factory, not so much a song as a spoken monologue with piano and bass accompaniment. After that is a chunkachunkachunka Redondo Beach. A little later is a no compromises rock live 25th Floor. Folkie, hard rock, poetry, jazz, and all shades in between, this isn't to everyone's taste but it's a fascinating compilation.

Penetration were a little-known punk/new wave band and I think I'll introduce them by quoting in its entirety Allmusic's short piece about them. Copyright All-Music Guide.

The only summation one can make of the career of English punks Penetration is, what a disappointment. In 1977, Penetration released a classic chunk of punk rock defiance titled "Don't Dictate." With Pauline Murray's impassioned vocals (sounding a bit like X-Ray Spex's Poly Styrene) leading the way, this was a blazing piece of anti-authoritarian rant: loud, snotty, and proud. Sadly, it was to be the one song they remained best noted for (assuming there are people who still remember Penetration). The problem was that they traded in barely competent but energetic bashing and thrashing for a more "mature" new wave/"punk-ish" rock sound. As a result, their debut LP, Moving Targets, although it has its moments, never lived up to the promise of "Don't Dictate." Still, Pauline Murray was a force to be reckoned with. Easily one of the best singers to come out of English punk rock, she made the band interesting even when the songs weren't there, the production was overwrought, and the whole enterprise was terribly uneven. It was to the surprise of no one that by 1980 she was fronting a new band, the Invisible Girls, who based on Murray's strengths became known as Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls. Still, major success eluded Murray, and she later moved into singing more elegant, mainstream pop/rock, remaining one of England's best unknown singers. 

I don't particularly agree with all of the above but it's  not inaccurate either and at least they give Pauline Murray due credit. She should have been a star. But there's also a reason I've paired up Patti Smith and Penetration apart from finding them next to each other in the box and that alphabetically they're close to each other on my Ipod.

While undoubtedly inspired by the punk movement, this band from the Durham County hinterland were, I have no doubt and Pauline in particular, were also inspired by Patti Smith. One of the best songs on the record, and one of my favourite tracks ever, is their cover of Smith's Free Money.  Smith's original is hardly understated but Penetration, while pretty much copying her version, take it that further so that if the original slams you against the wall, this one knocks you right through it. 

Listening to one compilation after the other there are surprising resonances despite the difference being akin to that of the differences between a League Two football (soccer) team and a Premiership club (and that is the only football analogy you'll ever read here).