And We’re Done #keepingitpeel

Well there we go, that’s my contribution to Keeping It peel for this year.
12 hours, 13 sessions, and my most productive day of blogging since, well, last year’s John Peel Day.

We had sessions from Boards of Canada, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Prolapse, World of Twist, The Sultans of Ping, The Afghan Whigs, Teenage Fanclub, Biffy Clyro, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Dawn of the Replicants, Lungleg, The Olivia Tremor Control, Spiritualized and ac acoustics, along with some ramblings from me.

You can find all the sessions from this year and last by clicking the keepingitpeel tag, hopefully you’ll find and old favourite in there, or something you might have missed first time round.

Remember to visit the Keeping It Peel website to find out what other blogs, podcasts and the like have been doing today.

Now, go and listen to something new.

Keeping It Peel - a.c. acoustics #keepingitpeel

This will now go back in the cupboard for another year

Right then, last session, I think I’ve assaulted you enough for one day.
Back to Scotland for our final session, with a.c. acoustics. I’m never sure if that should be uppercase or lowercase, all one word, or with punctuation, so I’ve made a guess. They were a band that always threatened to bother the mainstream, but in the end never did. What they did do before splitting in 2003 was leave behind a quartet of cracking albums in the shape of Able Treasury, Victory Parts, Understanding Music and O.

Both Stunt Girl and I Messiah Am Jailer made it into the Festive Fifty in 1996 and 97 respectively. Both are ace songs.

a.c. acoustics - John Peel Session 03.03.2003
1. A Bell Of Love Rings Out For You
2. Hold
3. Clone Of Al Capone
4. 16.4.2010

Other than a quick round-up post to follow that’s me done with the Keeping It Peel Posts for this year. Remember to swing by the Keeping It Peel website to see what others have been up to.

Keeping It Peel - Spiritualized #keepingitpeel

Nearly time to put away the wee Peel Session image for another year, only one more session to go after this one.

For this one I am once again kicking all pretense of being a Scottish music blog out the window to pick another of my favourite bands ever.
I was a latecomer to Spiritualized. Up until Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space I knew the name, but not much else. That album though was released a mere two days before my 18th birthday, and was promptly bought with birthday money, and listened to on repeat on the new stereo that my parents got me as a present for much of the summer, when I wasn’t off enjoying the gap between school and university, and enjoying the novelty of legal being allowed to buy booze and 18 rated videos. A bit of working backwards whenever I had some spare cash filled in the gaps, going as far back as some of the Spacemen 3 stuff.

I’ve said it about a couple of albums today, but Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is another one of those records that if you have ears, you should probably own. The irony of me becoming near addicted to a heavily drug themed album has never been lost on me either.

Spiritualized - Peel Session 07.01.1992
1. Angel Sigh
2. Feel So Sad
3. Smiles

Keeping It Peel - The Olivia Tremor Control #keepingitpeel

I’ll likely not get an excuse to shoehorn The Olivia Tremor Control into the blog until this time next year, so what the heck, let’s squeeze them in.

The Olivia Tremor Control are another one of those bands I hadn’t thought about in ages, until a few months ago when I heard there was new material on the way. That sent me scurrying to listen to their back catalogue again for the first time in a long time, and wonder why I’d let them slip my mind so much. Dusk At Cubist Castle and Black Foliage are both cracking albums. The first new material from them, recent single The Game You Play Is In Your Head, Parts 1, 2 & 3 suggests that the band’s return is no bad thing either.

The Olivia Tremor Control - John Peel Session 18.03.1997
1. I’m Not Feeling Human
2. Suite One
3. Suite Two
4. Untitled

Keeping It Peel - Lung Leg #keepingitpeel

Before I carry on, just a quick mention that Fresh Air Radio are having a Keeping It Peel celebration of their own. Assuming this posts at 8pm as scheduled they are just kicking off, and you can listen live here. Don’t worry, you can go listen to that and come back here later, I won’t mind.

It has mostly been white boys with guitars up till now, so before I get shouted at here’s some, err, Scottish girls with guitars. They make an almighty noise, enjoy. As my pal Last Year’s Girl might say “shouty girls FTW”.

Lung Leg - John Peel Session 29.01.1995
1. Palmolive
2. Small Screen Queen
3. Lungleg
4. Edith Massey
5. Kung Fu On The Internet
6. Blah Blah Blah

Keeping It Peel - Dawn of the Replicants #keepingitpeel

Miss a chance to post a load of Dawn of the Replicants songs? Not a bloody chance!
Along with Dogs Die In Hot Cars, Dawn of the Replicants are one of my favourite Scottish bands starting with the letter D. Oh, and Deacon Blue obviously. Wait, De Rosa and Dananananaykroyd. There’s more bands beginning with D than I thought there were when I wrote that sentence. Never mind, let’s carry on.

Stealing a quote from elsewhere: “Swamp rock, pop, glam-rock, electro-girlie, jazz, doo-wop, nasty ass blues, hip hop, redneck and experimentalism,’ is how Dawn of … describe their music. But then their founder members used to be music journalists, so their love of genre-checking is forgivable. They’re also right.”

These days Paul Vickers can be found doing all sorts of stuff, on his own and sometimes with The Leg. Roger Simian is one half of The Bird and the Monkey. I’ve had them penciled in for a blog post for a while, which I will get to eventually, but in the meantime consider this a quick plug for them, visit their website for loads of stuff.

Four Peel Sessions, and one entry in the 1999 Festive Fifty. All the sessions, and one from Pluto Monkey, are available to download for free from the DotR website here, so I’ll just pick a couple of songs from each to stick below.

Dawn of the Replicants - John Peel Session 12.08.1997
Diggin’ Bear
Fatal Firework

Dawn of the Replicants - John Peel Session 28.04.1998
Skullcrusher
Windy Millar

Dawn of the Replicants - John Peel Session 25.04.1999
Candlefire
Fearless Vampire Hunters

Dawn of the Replicants - John Peel Session 17.10.2002
Rhinestone Cowboy
Rockefeller Center 1932

Keeping It Peel - …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead #keepingitpeel

We had a couple of Scots in a row there, so time to check in on some friends from across the pond again.
I’ve sort of lost track of …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead as time has gone on. I’ll always pick up a new album they release, but often they get listened to a couple of times and forgotten about a bit. I do regularly go back to their first few though.
I have a weirdly vivid memory of buying the debut album, on vinyl, in the record shop that used to be downstairs in Flip in Glasgow, many years ago. I’d only heard Richter Scale Madness, and vaguely knew the name, but that song and that album cover were enough to inspire an impulse purchase. Not one I’ve regretted.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - John Peel Session 05.02.2002
1. Invocation
2. Another Morning Stoner
3. Baudelaire
4. Richter Scale Madness
5. Homage

Keeping It Peel - Biffy Clyro #keepingitpeel

How about something nice and quiet for you to have your dinner to? How about no.
I can generally take or leave Biffy, but the stuff at the start of their career is the more takeable, and Jaggy Snake is good stuff any way you dress it up. Suppose the second session track might fall into “topical” territory, but I didn’t notice that till I was about hit hit “post” on the session. Fun cover version too.

Biffy Clyro - John Peel Session 22.01.2004
1. There’s No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake
2.Liberate The Illiterate (A Mong Among Mingers)
3. You Can Go Your Own Way
4. With Aplomb

Keeping It Peel - Teenage Fanclub #keepingitpeel

Best way to follow that last post, featuring one of my favourite bands? Do one with another of my favourite bands.

If you don’t know who Teenage Fanclub are then get yourself to Google and/or a record shop right now. We’ll wait for you to come back.

Bellshill’s finest can do no wrong by me. The alarming part is that I was only 11 when this session happened. Goodness I feel old now.

Teenage Fanclub appeared twice in the 1990 Festive Fifty, and three times is the 1991 one.

Teenage Fanclub - John Peel Session 28.08.1990
1. God Knows It’s True
2. So Far Gone
3. Alcoholiday
4. Long Hair

Keeping It Peel - The Afghan Whigs #keepingitpeel

Bored of this image yet? Tough luck, I’m not done.

Aye, we’ve pretty much tossed sticking with Scots well out the window for Keeping It Peel, letting me instead post bands that I wouldn’t normally. To say that the Afghan Whigs are a favourite of mine is a bit of an understatement. Greg Dulli is pretty much a musical hero. He was the driving force behind the Afghan Whigs, the only musician other than Dave Grohl to play on the debut Foo Fighters album, faked being a Beatle along with Grohl, Thurston Moore and Mike Mills for the soundtrack to Backbeat, teamed with Mark Lanegan as The Gutter Twins, stuck out a couple of solo records, and can now be found heading up The Twilight Singers. To my ears he has never released a bad record. You can disagree, but be warned it may end in a fistfight.

The Afghan Whigs would often through a cover version or two into their live sets, and stick them on the b-sides of singles, so it seems fitting that this session has a pair of covers, Revenge by Patti Smith and Easily Persuaded by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, along with two songs from Gentlemen, another one of those albums that anyone with ears should have a copy of. Actually, all girls should be issued with a copy of Gentlemen on their 13th birthday and sent to listen to it with the warning “this is men, stay away from them”, teen pregnancy rates would plummet. I do personally like Black Love just a wee bit more though, it was my first Afghan Whigs album, so it claimed the spot in my heart before the others had a chance to.

Afghan Whigs - John Peel Session 22.02.1994
1. Revenge
2. Easily Persuaded
3. My Curse
4. What Jail Is Like

Aye Tunes

Breathing air since 1979

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