Recommendations - OCTOBER 2010

Can’s Flow Motion

My introduction to Can came in 1990. I was living in a Hammersmith squat, and one of the other residents was a scouser called Ian Lloyd. Known in the house as “Ian Lloyd, Unemployed And In A Void”, he resumed his teen glue sniffing habits in the winter and made everyone feel a little weird. He told us all about Can and we used to sing Mother Sky all together in his filthy room quite a lot. Especially on Fridays. By the way, I recently found out that Scousers are named after Scouse, a stew of lamb or beef, thick and dry enough that a mouse could walk over the top of it. Isn’t that interesting. Well I thought so.

Ralph Lundsten album

This is the first RL LP I have owned and I only now own it because a bloke called Sneaky Pete turned up at the Spitalfields fair with a small plastic bag of euro electro madness that was all terrifyingly underpriced. Lundsten was definitely onto something, although I’m not sure what it was. He was a true electronic pioneer, his musical timing is a bit timeless and his ideas are really quite fascinating. Shame the LP is cut so quietly. Ralph currently lives is Sweden, in a town called Nacka. I’m desperate to go there. I’d quite like to go up the Alpha Ralpha Boulevard too, but not on my own. This album also needs to win an award for looking so utterly horrid.

Lorelei Sings Hoagy Carmichael

Lorelei seems to be one of those invented characters that’s actually three girls all singing at the same time. I know there are other examples of this kind of thing, I just can’t think of any at the moment. This was all put together by Stan Butcher, and is a bit hit and miss, possibly sold about two copies when it came out and even the sexy shot of young girl in long, modern kinky boots in an old rocking chair failed to improve sales. The version of My Resistance Is Low is not bad though.

The Vi Velasco Album

The Japanese like this album a lot. I think it’s because she’s quite pretty (they’ve always been fans of lovely ladies on LP sleeves), there are some very cute background bossas and she can sing a bit, and it all sounds really great and then you realise that she’s actually not that good and does sound a bit like a pre op tranny. It’s most bearable and easy though and she’s had a few late night spins recently round here. And a few in the car.

Mrs Shufflewick

While we are on the subject of men / women (again), here’s Mrs Shufflewick. I found out that many of my comedy heroes were heavily influenced by him / her, and I’ve only recently managed to find a copy of this LP – and I believe there are others. Apparently he / she used to spend a lot of time at a pub called The Cock And Comfort. But not much time at the Comfort end of the place. This LP used to belong to a man called Guy, 13 Station Parade, East Street, Barking. If any one lives nearby can they go and ask if he wants it back.

Derek writes: I had the privilege of seeing Mrs Shufflewick shortly before he died performing at the Black Cap in Camden Town. Look I'm not gay right but I know a man who is. He looked exactly like this picture. Anyway I can't remember jokes but for some reason I've never forgotten this Shufflewick one: A Scotsman is sent to court and comes up before the judge. "What is this man charged with?" asks the judge. The prosecuting council replies "He is charged with the heinous crime of having sexual intercourse with a cat your honour". Immediately the judge cries "Case dismissed!". The prosecutor is aghast "Your honour how can you dismiss this case, the man is charged with a serious crime?". The judge replies "In all my years on the bench this is the first time I've heard of a Scotsman putting something in the kitty." Oh please yourselves.

Electronic Evolutions

Absolutely insane versions of classic and less classic film themes played on various electronic boxes. The Girl From Ipanema is especially great as when they get to the bit where it goes “each one who passes goes blah” they really cut loose on the blah bit and it really works well. It started me thinking what other track could be abused in the same way.

Pizzas And Bongos

Irving Fields is the man behind this daft concept. Well it’s not really a concept, and there are very few bongos anywhere to be heard. It just seems like an excuse to play Italian style piano cheek, with a very distant bongo rhythm. And that pizza on the front look terribly old fashioned, more like something you’d find in a child’s nappy that on a table in a restaurant. Having slagged it off a bit, the music is quite engaging in a Liberace style, you know, all confident and charismatically played with lots of very unnecessary whizzing up and down the scales a lot. Not the sort of album you’d want to hear on a ship.

Marisol

Heaven knows when I bought this, possibly about 20 years ago. It has been hanging out with a whole bunch of old LPs I have stored in a small garage in the East. I went there last week and dug about and Marisol caught my eye so I rescued her. It must have been the shades she’s wearing, and that lovely blouse. It’s also one of those LPs on Decca’s micro budget Eclipse label, and I didn’t realise she’s a talented actress and singer too. Wow! Anyway, I got it home, and had a really good listen, twice in fact. Only then I realised it’s utter shit and so I sold it. Someone in Spain bought it.

A Funny Blue Italian Library Album

A Funny Blue Italian Library Album: A few weeks ago I got called into Flashbacks, the record shop in Islington. They said they had just got a load of library LPs in and wanted me to price them for quick sale. When I started looking through them I realised it was the old sale stock from Jazzman Gerald’s. I immediately thought he’d been raided, but then they explained he’d sold them his entire stock of 2nd hand jazz, funk, soul, soundtrack and library LPs. He’d had them for years and really needed the space they were taking up. As requested I priced them all cheap and then for about the next two weeks kept getting emails from people saying “Just been to Flashbacks, found some superb library music really cheaply”. But no one bought this one, because I did.

This Superb Beatnik Jazzy girly record

It’s hard to beat a Buy It Now when it works in your favour in every possible way – right record, right price, buy it right now. It also works very well when that Buy It Now record has been produced by Teo Macero.

The Recordings of Chris Watson

A few people have been on my show and played Chris Watson things – especially the Big Cat Sleeping Up Tree one. I first heard about him in about 1995 when a mate of mine was doing a music course at Goldsmiths and kept going on about this bloke who put a microphone in an animal carcass in order to record the sound of vultures eating. “Yeah, right” I thought back then. Now look at me.

New Directions

This is an odd British jazz record, and it’s a Lansdowne one too. Nobody really knows about this one either. I’ve no doubt it will turn up on a blog with a free MP3 within about a month.

Music Time

Finally managed to find a better copy of this to replace the mauled one I have owned for some while. So now I can hear it all nicely without horrific skips and jumps, the sort of horrific skips and jumps you only associate with records involved in divorces or those previously owned by kids. There is a track on this I adore, all about potatoes. I sort of melt a bit when I hear it, but then I am a sucker for a good potato, especially those of the Maris Piper variety. I vaguely recollect this TV programme.

Sarah Miles – Where Am I?

I’ll tell you where you are Sarah, possibly in the bathroom drinking your own wee wee. Well that’s what I heard. And shame you didn’t make any more spooky folky singles like this one.

The Arthur Lowe Album

Never knew this even existed, and I would have thought over the years I’d seen just about every WRC recording ever made. Apparently not. Anyway, this boat loving hero of mine made this magical album, singing wartime classics and enjoying himself while doing it. What I really like about Arthur Lowe is that he turns up all over British cinema and TV all the time. Only the other day I saw him in This Sporting Life, in an old episode of Coronation Street, and as the reader in an old Jackanory.