I bought this album on Record Store Day back in April this year for a number of reasons:
1) Because I wanted to own a Between The Buried And Me (BTBAM) record
2) Because it was Record Store Day and I felt compelled to buy something
3) Because it was a double album at a decent price
and, 4) Because this vinyl is ORANGE!
Orange is definitely the new black.
It’s not an original BTBAM album but it was special release for Record Store Day and I’m certainly not disappointed with these covers.
I couldn’t go through the alphabet and miss out Iron Maiden, it would be criminal. Since they played two shows just last weekend in London I thought I’d go with their album Live After Death. Sadly, I couldn’t make either of the shows, but hopefully one day I’ll get the chance to see the legends play and at least with this album I can imagine what it was like.
Live After Death was released in 1985 and was the band’s first live album. It was recorded during their World Slavery Tour where the band toured almost solidly for nearly a year. Sides one to three were recorded over four nights in Long Beach, LA during 1985 whereas the fourth side was recorded in Hammersmith, London over four nights in 1984.
These Monsters are a local Leeds band who began as post-rock and have evolved into something more along the lines of punk. I believe this was their debut EP and is an extremely impressive piece of work. There’s no indication about which side is which so I picked a side and went from there.
During the record I researched the band a bit to see if I could find track titles and stumbled upon their bandcamp page. The EP is called …are ruining our childrens lives and as it turns out I had luckily started with the beginning of the album. (N.B. since writing this review the bandcamp page for this EP has been deleted but you can listen here.)
These Monsters integrate huge soundscapes amongst distortion, clean but heavily effect laden guitars and a jazzy saxophone melody line, like the icing on the cake. The band have since evolved into something a lot more punk-esque and seem to have lost the delicacy of post-rock, especially with the addition of vocals.
Greater Manchester based Inspiral Carpets were an active band from 1983 to 1995 before reforming in 2003. They produced inoffensive alternative, indie rock which was very much a part of the ‘Madchester’ scene during the late 80s to early 90s, alongside bands such as The Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses and The Fall. Devil Hopping was Inspiral Carpets’ final album before their split, released in 1994.
Sadly I didn’t get off to a good start with Devil Hopping as first track ‘I Want You’ really didn’t sound that good. It had a really tinny, headache worthy quality that I gathered was caused by the hi-hat and cymbals. Unfortunately these were relentless and after a while nearly ended up distracting me from the song. However, the indie rock chorus is relatively catchy and got me singing along by the end of the track. The lyrics are relatively simple: “I want you, Right now, And forever.” but happily fits their musical style.
Forgotten Vinyls: I never thought I would include guest posts on this blog but when I read Karin-Renate van der Graaff‘s review of the Plasmatics album New Hope For The Wretched I knew I’d have to include it. I’m all for powerful female frontwomen and surprisingly, before reading Karin-Renate’s review, I had never heard of Wendy O’ Williams. What a woman, to say the least.
The amazing pictures are all done by Karin-Renate herself and I hope you enjoy reading her review as much as me!
Last weekend, I nosed about in my mom’s records. I picked a random record, and played it. I was stunned! The record was New Hope For The Wretched by the Plasmatics. A band with a female singer, called Wendy O’ Williams. The record has some brilliant punk tunes that rock big-time! The picture below shows two New Hope for the Wretched albums. To vinyl collectors this might be fun, you can see more vinyl-colours and other labels here.
Make sure to get down to your local record store SATURDAY 20th APRIL and support your local store. Not to mention you may get your hands on some tasty, limited edition vinyl!
My two local independent record stores in Leeds Jumbo Records and Crash Records are going to have lots going on during the day, with performances from local bands and of course lots of new vinyl…
In Crash Records according to their website Dog Is Dead will be playing at 1pm and Evile at 4pm, whilst over in Jumbo they will have bands such as See No Evils, Maia, Lone Wolf, Jess Bryant, Serafina Steer, James Yorkston and Ukrainians who will be providing a soundtrack to your shopping.
Releases I’m really looking forward to are:
Between The Buried and Me – The Anatomy Of
Deftones – Live Volume 1: Selections From Adrenaline
Dio – Holy Diver (Limited Edition)
Opeth – Morningrise (Limited Edition)
Various Artists – Earache: The World’s Shortest Album
White Stripes – Elephant (RSD 2013 Edition)
![recordstore-day-poster-(2)[2]](https://forgottenvinyls.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/recordstore-day-poster-22.jpg)
And of course from my favourite record label: the Basick Records special releases of Chimp Spanner, Uneven Structure, The Algorithm and Skyharbor.
Full list of all releases can be found here: http://www.recordstoreday.co.uk/exclusive-products/2013/
Heart are a 5-piece 70s stadium rock group fronted by the sisters Ann (vocals) and Nancy Wilson (guitar). The band went three name changes before eventually settling on Heart in the early 70s; the final name change ties in with the sisters joining who, it seems to me, were the key to the band’s success.
Bad Animals was the band’s ninth studio album and, despite me not knowing Heart at all (not that I’m saying I have a huge knowledge of 70s/80s pop stadium rock, but I feel like I’d have least have heard of them), this album was their most successful record in the UK and in actual fact went platinum. The albums before this one were all very well received in the US and Canada and according to the band’s website they have sold over 35 million albums to date.
I believe this is my first concept album to feature on the blog, and what a brilliant one to begin with. Apparently the album was written partially in conjunction with the sci-fi author Michael Moorcock and is based upon the adventures of a particular character Elric Meniboné, Moorcock even contributes lyrics to one track on the album.
The genre: space rock. I’ve got images of Star Wars and Star Trek, aliens playing synths and spacemen rocking out in their space ships! Most definitely one of the best sub-genres I’ve ever come across.
“Like Star Trek with long hair and drugs” – Lemmy, Motörhead and former Hawkwind.
Hawkwind fit space rock to a T. Second track on the album ‘Shade Gate’ is instrumental and full to the brim of epic electronic futuristic sounds. I can hear the beeping of the control desk and the rush as the ships soars through space. The Chronicle of the Black Sword was in fact Hawkwind‘s fourteenth studio album. The band at this point in 1985 had reached just over their halfway mark and would go on to release twenty seven studio albums in total, along with nine live ones and fifteen compilation. On and off the band have been going for nearly 45 years, a pretty impressive feat if you ask me.
I’m going to start this review by admitting a huge error on my behalf: initially I though PJ Harvey was a man. Turns out I’m wrong and was very much mistaken.
However, me mistaking PJ Harvey‘s gender actually got me wondering on why she had gone for her initials and surname, rather than calling herself Polly Jean Harvey, for instance. It led me to think of a similar example in the case of the author JK Rowling who was advised by her publisher to conceal her first name in order for her books to appeal to young boys. (N.B. Interesting article here featuring other female authors who have done the same: Female Authors with Male Pseudonyms: A Practice of the Past?).
Did PJ Harvey do the same in order for her music to appeal to a wider audience? It is commonly known that the music industry is male dominated, so maybe this was a clever technique by PJ to avoid people jumping to conclusions before listening to her music. I’d hope it wasn’t and that she, unlike JK Rowling, did not get pressurised to disguise her gender.
Music is music and gender, in my opinion, should be cast aside when judging an album or piece. I could write an essay on this, but this is neither the time nor the place. However, it’s an interesting thought and one to reflect on and I’d also love to get PJ Harvey‘s opinion on this.
I met Rob Hayler last Friday during my shift in the Union Music Library. He is a fellow blogger from Leeds and can be found writing and reviewing at Radio Free Midwich. The reason why I’m featuring his blog is because Rob was part of providing the UML with a new section – yorkshire experimental music.
The new section will certainly be an asset to the library and help to expand our wide range of genres. Moreover, it supports local artists creating music of a genre that is not particularly well acknowledged. Fingers crossed I’ll find some yorkshire experimental on vinyl that I can feature here. Watch this space…
Read Rob’s article here: ‘Excuse me, can you show me where the yorkshire experimental section is please?’
Forgotten Vinyls 