Thursday 19 January 2012

A perfectly executed bank robbery


The latest from Birmingham, Alabama’s Dan Sartain – his 5th studio album – is a perfectly executed bank robbery of a record. Get in, get the job done, get out again, no messing about. As the official press release says “13 tracks delivered in under 19 minutes! That’s an average strike rate of a new tune every 1 minute and 30 seconds.”

Sartain’s sound has been described as everything from rockabilly to punk to – memorably – “hillbilly thrash”. One review of his Dan Sartain vs The Serpientes record said it sounds “as if Jonathan Richman wanted to be Hank Williams instead of Lou Reed”, Which about sums it up.

From the very first chord of opener “Nam Vet” til its breathless conclusion a whole one minute and thirteen seconds later I was transported to the world of noisy gigs in sweaty wee clubs; in other words the best kind of gigs. For “Now Now Now” young Dan is joined by singer/guitarist Jane Wieldin of the Go-Go’s to deliver arguably the album’s strongest track.

The ghosts of The Ramones are never far away in this record; indeed Johnny and Dee Dee appear to be looking over Dan’s shoulder most of the time checking to see if he’s got it just right. And he surely has. Neil Young and Crazy Horse wouldn’t have too much trouble joining in too – tracks like “Swap Meet” and “Boo Hoo Hoo” ring with a primal energy which is completely out of step with much of the manufactured output we hear from at the moment. The fact that most of the songs sound very much alike is only a negative point if you don’t like the Sartain sound; and if you don’t like that then there’s something far, far wrong. I’m thinking of getting one of the lyrics on a t-shirt, track 9 in fact “Fuck Friday, Fuck Saturday, Fuck Sunday. Fuck you.”

Keeping it real. 5 stars.

Source: http://godisinthetvzine.co.uk (http://s.tt/15ivk)
Author: Bryan Gregg

Monday 1 August 2011

Don't stop believing...

Okay, that was a different kind of journey; this one's called I-Journey and it's where I'm at with the blogging right now:

Sunday 12 June 2011

The latest Wordle...



Hope I die before I get old...

Jings, it's a thought isn't it? Not the Who per se but the dieing and getting old bit.

I was having a shave in the shower this morning on my new wet'n'dry electric shaver thingy and was struggling to get anything resembling the closeness of a blade. Victor Kiam, where are you when I need you? Anyway, I digress...as I was trying to get the thing to take away that tricky bit under the chin, just at the top of the neck I was reminded of a visit, many many years ago to the old folks home my maternal grandfather was in.


My dad and I had gone along to see Grampa Michael - who used to drive a white beetle and wore a beige Harrington jacket (not always at the same time) - in a council run care-home in the South Side of Glasgow. He was getting on by this stage and had started to have real difficulty with the day to day stuff. He was in need of a shave so my dad got out Grampa's wee battery shaver and suggested I do the needful. I'm not sure how I old I was at the time but I remember finding it really tricky and dad & grampa having a wee chuckle to themselves about how you needed to get the skin taut and maybe press a wee bit harder with the shaver than you perhaps felt comfortable with. It's only now as an adult I realise how tricky shaving someone else actually is - it's hard enough doing me. But once again I'm digressing. The real point I was getting to is one which came to me under the water jets this morning as I remembered the episode: there's no way you're getting me into an old folks home. The reek of piss, the smell of cooking, the slow decline and the lack of dignity...no thanks.

I'm not suggesting the live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse bit - though two out of three as Meat Loaf reminds us ain't bad - but maybe a wee "dodgy handbrake near a cliff" moment might be called for when the time comes...