Category: Apropos of Nowt

FOTS-POD#23 - “I Just Called To Say I Robson’d You”

Episode 23 of the Friends of the Stars podcasts breaks new technological ground, being the first recorded entirely over Skype.

Campbell, Craig & Executive Producer Robson discuss a variety of topics, including Campbell’s brief stint as the Milk Tray Man and his dalliance with a make-up artist called Kindly. The boys then push the boundaries of Voice Over IP technology by trying (and failing) to make beer appear over the internet. There is also a lot of bickering and swearing.

Listen:

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TRACKLISTING:

Blindness - The Fall
Ridin’ In my Car - She & Him
Night of the Long Knives - AC/DC
That Makes It Tough - Buddy Holly
I Can’t Stand The Rain - Ann Peebles
Every Day As We Grow Closer - Alex Chilton
Louisiana 1927 - Randy Newman
Tennessee Blues - Bobby Charles

DOWNLOAD FOTS-POD#23

LINER NOTES:

Blindness - The Fall
Especially for anyone who doesn’t believe the recent chat that Mark E Smith is putting out great, career-high stuff at the moment. I must admit I was one. A few too many late 90s, early naughties dawgs put me off the scent. But I’m like a Bisto kid again with The Fall. MIGHTY

Ridin’ In my Car - She & Him
Don’t tell the Missus but I reckon I may have fallen in love with Zooey Deschanel. This from her and M Ward’s terrific second LP. Her singing really reminds of someone - suggestions on a postcard because I can’t for the life of me place it. What I do know is she is legit. I love her style - not brassy or sassy but just confident and classy.

Night of the Long Knives - AC/DC
They’ve never done a Best Of - criminal really because lots of sniffy people who dismiss AC/DC as metallers would probably then realise that they are one of the greatest rock n roll bands, of all time, no comebacks, period. Question is, would this awesome tune even get on it?

That Makes It Tough - Buddy Holly
Just got the Complete Buddy Holly studio recording box set. Buddy Holly is awesome. AWESOME. Again, purists get sniffy about some of the overdubbing that went on with his demos after he died. Like this one. BUT, excuse me but this sounds like Highway 61 Revisited. Also shows you what an incredible artists Buddy Holly would have become through the 60s. Hard to grasp just how further amazing he would have been

I Can’t Stand The Rain - Ann Peebles
Ann Peebles is a fine singer but what really marks her out from the Southern Soul crowd back then is the fact she wrote the tunes. Now, that’s fine and dandy if those tunes are pleasant ditties. But Ann wrote “I Can’t Stand The Rain”…  as you can plainly hear, that tune kicks your face off.

Every Day As We Grow Closer - Alex Chilton
I don’t know much about this tune. I think it’s a post Box Tops and pre Big Star Alex Chilton solo thing. Anyway, see my thoughts about Alex Chilton below. This tune is really beautiful and probably meant absolutely fuck all to him. Whattaguy. x

Louisiana 1927 - Randy Newman
Every POD I do seems to need Randy Newman. I love him so much. This one is just so beautiful and quietly angry, righteously angry, I can barely believe how great it is. If you need to get into the vibe, think of Katrina and then remember this was recorded 30 years before it. Then get righteously angry yourself.

Tennessee Blues - Bobby Charles
Where to begin? One of the very greatest songwriters to take a breath. Walking to New Orleans? See You Later Alligator? This tune is from his eponymous LP, very hard to find these days, which was recorded up in Woodstock with guys from The Band in the early 70s. This is basically Triple XXX Catnip for me.
By the way, this and the two previous tunes (and the customary  secret track at the end) are a ramshackle, free association tribute to the recently late, very  great Alex Chilton & Bobby Charles.

New Orleans is the right flavour for these blues.

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Pop Art

Here’s a fun video we came across. French band Hold Your Horses have borrowed heavily from several classic works of art for their “70 Million” video.

(and here’s the link for those reading the feed)

Botswanan Guitarist.

From the marvellous ‘Intercourse With Biscuits’ blog. They say “Absolutely loving this Botswanan guitarist. The technique is really intriguing. Apparently, it’s common there to deliberately ditch two strings.”

A Cardboard Record Player.

Made by the clever folks at GGRP, this cardboard record player would probably destroy your vinyl collection, but it’s rather sweet and, obviously, I want one really bad.

A Dog That Looks Like Jeff Lynne

I took loads of pictures at Crufts today, but this is my favourite.

Let’s Kick Some Ass…

It’s a little know fact, this, but every Renaissance Man since Pongo Waring himself has had a deep appreciation of the action movie genre. Imagine how chuffed we were, then, to receive this link from fellow renaissance man Paul McGhee:

Incidentally, Paul’s blog Gold & Popcorn is a fantastic read.

Feed Him Flapjacks

BEARDS!

Possibly the most apropos of nowt thing ever posted on here (and that’s saying something), here’s our name spelled out in BEARDS…

X-Factor Silence…

Last year I was occasionally writing about X-Factor here, as do most other Country/Folk artists on their own sites.  This year, I’ve kept reasonably quiet on whole thing. There are two reasons for this…

1) It’s a lot more fun to participate in the live bile-fest that occurs each Saturday night over on Twitter

2) The nice folks over at Holy Moly do a much better job than I ever could. Matt Edmondson’s videos in particular are well worth a gawp at.

For those that hate X-Factor: Don’t worry, it finishes soon.

ELO Spaceboy

I love ELO. I think they rule. One of my many half-arsed ambitions for the future of Friends of the Stars is to make a record with Jeff Lynne. That would be awesome. Anyway, some bloke just made a new animation starring the ELO spaceship. Here it is… 

 

Hats off to Jon Bounds for the find