It was a pleasure meeting you. What's your name?

I’m turning into an irritable old bugger…

I’m breaking my recent gig fast next weekend by making a trip over to Bristol and catching the venerable, if barking, reggae legend Lee “Scratch” Perry, his first gigs in this country for a good few years (seven I think).

So I thought I’d put together a little mix of some my favourite tracks by the old nutter and had started work on this. But then having mentioned it to some of the cronies I stand next to at The Home of Rugby, it became clear that everybody has their own Upsetter favourites, and that as his output is just massive, we all knew albums that the others didn’t.

So, anyway, I’m thinking I’ll use the iTunes Genius function to throw up a few random Upsetter gems.

And that’s when it all went pear-shaped…

I won’t go into details, suffice to say a combination of a new computer, lost passwords and bloody iTunes made it all very frustrating… The air was blue…

Anyway, here’s a fairly random Upsetter Lucky Seven, which ideally will introduce you to seven new (and appropriately goofy) insights into the mind of a fine old Jamaican eccentric.

Hold of Death (title track of a 1993 album)

The Dragon Enters (from Kung Fu Meets the Dragon)

Django Shoots First (a single I think, I have it on Bashment)

Santa Clause (from Repentance)

Having a Party (from Scratch Came, Scratch Saw, Scratch Conquered

Black Bat (No idea where from originally, but I have it on an album called Original bass)

Noah Sugar Pan (from Heart of the Congos)

Upsetter Lucky Seven

Here’s a video of an interview the man did in Austen, which made me chuckle…

Of course, as more than one person has pointed out to me, the whole gig could go very wrong …

Scream blue murder 'cause you need something for the pain...

Dunno why this post has taken so long to put together (apart from the obvious, that is…)

One of the people that occasionally pops into this eminent organ is a feller who calls himself Devoted Hooligan, and has a damn good blog himself. He recently posted a link to an album called Fandom & Faction which featured local bands and singers. As he is based in Bristol, not a million miles from the old city, and as it featured a couple of artists I’ve seen (including dear old Men Diamler), I thought I’d give it a go. There’s some good stuff on it.

Babel

Including this band of groovy folkers...

Babel are five musicians from the Bristol area, who contribute a track called Pearl St Raga to Fandom & Faction. I see the word “Raga” and I think of Davy Graham straight away, a comparison which is over-flattering but gets you to the right area, if you know what I mean. It’s a track which has violins and a vaguely Indian feel to it, as you’d expect, but, driven on by a busy drummer, rhythm guitars and liberal amounts of clapping, it also really swings.

Pearl St Raga - Babel

Pearl St Raga is taken from a mini album from 2007 and there is another album released since, called Crooked Timber , both of which are available from Emusic, here, and which I’ll download in the near future. The last release from them seems to be in 2008, but they’re still gigging, as this review from February of this year confirms. I imagine it would be a good evening…

In the meantime, here’s a rather nice video of “Made Your Bed” from YouTube.

There are a few other videos available too, including one for Pearl St Raga, which I can recommend.

Once had a heart, could not be told...

Here’s some mouth-watering news…

Will Sheff of Okkervil River has coaxed some material out of notorious acid-casualty and genuine legend, Roky Erickson, and a bona-fide album is due to be released in the next couple of weeks in the US (another couple of months for us Brits, I’m afraid). Apparently the record features new stuff and some archive songs recorded in Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. We’re going to hear a fair bit about this in the next month or so…



Wow…

Didn't mean to disappoint you

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

And, yes, I know my behaviour’s been abominable, simply intolerable – I just breeze back in here without so much as a by your leave. (I don’t call, I don’t write…).

But, hey ho, you knew that about me when you first got involved, right?

Anyway…

Erland & the Carnival

(File this one under “Not breaking any new ground”, to use a Coleser-ian device…)

When you know people have been banging on about a band for a while, it’s easy to feel like you’ve missed your chance, that the ship has sailed, and that you didn’t really want to catch it anyway.

Well, everywhere I turn people seem to be raving about Erland & the Carnival, to the extent that a Mercury nomination seems inevitable… What with a number of other “difficulties” (for instance, there’s some sort of Blur / Verve connection that I can’t be bothered to investigate…), I’ve been putting off any investigation at all.

Anyway, turns out they’re rather good…



(With apologies to Mr Ashby, why do I never listen?)

The younger, cooler member of the family has just drifted in, and when I tried to suggest he might like this, instantly replied

“Sounds boring…”

No telling some people, eh?