Influential Albums

Only two of these remain in my floating favourite albums list but these are the albums that were the most influential and formative to me. Presented as a single image and list so this can slide seamlessly away into the depths of the algorithm (now there's a good prog album title....)

Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust

A mate at school, Luke, was ridiculously into dance / rave / happy hardcore. He played me this whilst we were messing around programming BASIC games on his ZX84 at his house. Something stuck, I played it incessantly at Steve who was a massive Oasis head at the time. Sorry.

Nextmen - Amongst the Madness

First or second year at university, a house party with Big Kev's mate Simon somewhere in Milnsbridge/Golcar. I never realised rap music could be this consistently lyrically clever. Also memories of Brett and Rory playing some of these at one of Nabs' house parties (the best).

Dreadzone - Second Light

On balance, still my favourite album ever. Probably. Heard "Litle Britain" on some random chart hits mix tape of the time. Such a fantastic blend of reggae, dub and dance. Happy, optimistic and beautiful. Britain today is a power. Ideas, experiments, imagination. I wish. Brings back memories of driving back along the A55 from Wales climbing adventures with the sun setting over the sea.

Future Sound of London - Dead Cities

Fresh off playing Wipeout 2097 at Sher's house with the thumping techno soundtrack. Dark and interesting, showed me that music didn't have to follow convention. We. Have. Explosive.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Everyone's gotta have a Floyd album in there somewhere right? This was the first one I heard (from an old girlfriend's mate) and I had no idea music like this existed. Started me off down the road of prog.

Queen - Greatest Hits II

This one is the "my dad only had a few decent albums and this was one" choice. We had the VHS video of all the music videos too. Innuendo is still a cracker and I still know most of the words to the entire album. Guaranteed to wind up Haydn.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland

Who records an entire album in crazy time signatures, without it being jazz, but with it being amazing and tuneful with album artwork that evokes the best bits of mid 90s computer games and then gives the whole thing away for free? Gizz do, that's who.

Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation

Fuck's sake, I'm tryin' to write a fuckin' tune man...

Dave Brubeck - Greatest Hits

Memories of Unsquare Dance being on in Charlie's Jetta as we zoomed off on some random Venture Adventure, brake discs overheating coming down Hardknott Pass, the starriest sky I've ever seen. Thanks for getting me into jazz club.... nice.

Thanks for the nudge Bryan.

Gig Report: Beehoover @ Chunk, Leeds

or "Dad goes to a noisy metal gig"

Beehoover, a 2 piece German rock outfit, are one of my favourite bands at the moment with powerful riffs, great drumming, intelligent and surreal lyrics. As soon as I saw they were on a 10 day UK tour including Leeds I booked my ticket (only a fiver!) without a moment wasted. I knew Ben would be up for it as he shares an eclectic musical taste although his headbanging was restricted by virtue of a neck brace from a cycling accident.

Chunk is a fairly new Leeds music venue (by the sounds of it) with a DIY collective ethic. Sitting in an unassuming building next to a petrol station on Meanwood Road the room for the gig was fairly small. A slow cooker full of chilli and some not expensive tins of beer in the mini fridge in the corner reinforced the DIY side of things. Everyone was very friendly and there was a good atmosphere.

Bronzed

First band on were Bronzed, noisy, pretty tight, enthusiastic, shouty and with a drummer who gave it his all. A short set but one which you needed to draw breath after.

Girl Sweat

Next, after much setting up, plugging in and turning knobs was Girl Sweat. Very chaotic, a bit too loud (muchos compression) and powered by Buckfast tonic wine. A slow build up with densely layered sounds reaching a quite cacophonous peak. Will check out some of his other stuff but I would very much like to control the volume! 

Got chatting to a guy outside the venue, Chris, who put us on to a band called Bilge Pump, another noisy Leeds outfit who I'm going to have to check out. He also mentioned a singer called Karen Dalton who has also gone on the list. There was some quality Stoner Rock being played between the acts on tonight.

Unwave

Starting off sounding almost slightly discordant, Unwave quickly turned out to be really good with the lead guitarist rocking a 12 string for the entire set. Not sure who they reminded me of but a really good set.

Main event time.

Beehoover

Charging straight out of the blocks with the first track from their latest album Primitive Powers everyone was getting into the swing of things quickly. Thankfully, they played my favourite track "Stanislav Petrov" (after the Russian military officer who thoughtfully avoided all out nuclear war) and I may have danced quite a lot, looking like some loony dad who's got a pass out for the night. "Embers" from the new album was another highlight, it's soft intro putting you 

For a two piece band (bass/vocals, drums) they produce a veritable wall of sound. Ingmar rocks forwards (don't cockle! I can hear my mum saying) on his beer crate seat, throwing his arms at the FX pedals and Claus' arms seem to move in a blur around the drums.

It was a (too) short a set, I'd have loved for them to play for twice as long. I really need to go to more gigs, and will keep an ear out for what's happening at Chunk.

We chatted to Ingmar and Claus afterwards, they were both really cool guys. Claus spent a year at Huddersfield uni on the Mech Eng course whilst I was studying electronics there. I talked to Ingmar about why he wrote lyrics in English rather than German - "I think I'd piss myself if I read some of the lyrics in German!". Beehoover is a "hobby band" according to Ingmar, they both have full time jobs and live in different parts of Germany meeting in the studio for occasional rehearsals and communicating over the internet with ideas flying backwards and forwards. "It wouldn't be as true if it was full time, there would be too much pressure to perform" he said. I'm glad they have that artistic integrity, especially if they keep turning out such great music.

Tired and on a schoolnight, I took my leave from them and, with ringing ears and a sore back from too much grade 2 Dad-headbanging, I wound my way home through country lanes with their latest album on the car stereo.

Quietly.

Further Listening

Heavy Zooo - includes Stanislav Petrov

Concrete Catalyst

Primitive Powers - the new album, really good

All their stuff is available on Bandcamp

DJ Steve Davis? Hell yeah!

I had to check the calendar when I read this article in The Guardian about legendary snooker player and all round gent Steve Davis doing DJing at the Bloc Festival. It's not April 1st is it? DJ Steve Davis?

For it is he. Gent!

I was surprised to find out he was into prog rock, Canterbury and Magma. He has his own radio show on an Essex community radio station, Phoenix FM, where he and his co-presenter Kavus Torabi, a very interesting sounding musician, present The Interesting Alternative Show.

Being a big fan of Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone on 6 music I thought I'd have a listen to an episode of theirs.

Wow.

What a fab playlist! Prog, jazz, psych, French... stuff... wow (again). 20 minute epics and a threat to play Dopesmoker in its entirety on a 2 hour DJ set so you've only got 1 hour to worry about what to play = genius :)

Steve and Kavus have got a great interplay; there's an interesting article on the Independent website about how the two of them met.

This is definitely going down on my regular listening list along with the Freak Zone and Mike Harding's Folk Show. Ignore the fact that the studio is a tiny bit echo-y and the production isn't as polished as a BBC show because the music is fabulous and the commentary is insightful, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, amusing and - above all - interesting. I've picked up several new bands to listen to just from the first episode.

If you like the alternative, the challenging, the weird and wonderful then go listen!

Blind Dog

This is on heavy rotation at the moment, great for working to. Swedish stoner rock from 2000, sadly the band no longer together but what a great album.