The Soundtrack To My Life. 07/06/2012.

Here’s what I’ve been filling my ears with over the past few weeks…

“The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends”. (2012).
Artist: The Flaming Lips & Their Pals.
Why You Should Get It: Over to you Wayne…

“Locked Down”. (2012).
Artist: Dr. John.
Why You Should Get It: Because although he’s usually off of his head on heroin, Dr. John has released the best album I’ve heard this year so far!
Here’s the teaser…

“Two Sides Of Dave Van Ronk” (2002).
Artist: Dave Van Ronk.
Why You Should Get It…

“The Day The Earth Stood Still” (OST). (1951).
Artist: Bernard Herrmann.
Why You Should Get It: Bernard Herrmann does it yet again! This score is well worth tracking down. It’s very unusual in that it’s scored for electric bass, electric violin and…TWO THERMAINS! Why do you need two theramins? One for treble and one for bass of course! Makes perfect sense and it also sounds GORGEOUS…

“Tadpoles” (1969).
Artist: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Why You Should Get It: Because it’s insane. All of it. It’s just insane music made by an insane band for insane ears…

“Kill Bill: Volume 1” (OST). (2003).
Artist: Various Artists.
Why You Should Get It: Quentin Tarantino has outstandingly good taste in music. Every song in every single one of his movies is a stunner. From the “Kill Bill” soundtrack I’d say that this is my favourite:

“Kill Bill: Volume 2” (OST). (2004).
Artist: Various Artists.
Why You Should Get It…

“Preliminaires” (2009).
Artist: Iggy Pop.
Why You Should Get It: The strangest Iggy Pop album to date, “Preliminaires” even includes Iggy singing in French! Definitely worth a listen or two…

“Moondance” (1970).
Artist: Van Morrison.
Why You Should Get It…

“Early Takes: Volume 1” (2012).
Artist: George Harrison.
Why You Should Get It: An outtake and demo collection, it’s mainly just Harrison and an acoustic guitar or two and it mostly sounds like he’s sitting right beside you…

Here are some of the albums I listened to recently which, for one reason or many, just didn’t do anything for me:

* “Stars And Satellites” (2012) – Trampled By Turtles.
* “God Told Me To” (2012) – John5.
* “Celebration Rock” (2012) – The Japandroids.
* “Live In Berkely” (2009) – Bob Dylan.

Balls & Noise.

I’ve found myself listening to opera recently.
No reason really.

Michael at work told me all about Puccini so I’m gonna investigate him soon because Michael says that when it comes to opera, Puccini is the very man!

I’ve also been making my way through a Stockhausen boxset and last week I got lost in every Sufjan Stevens’ record back to back but sometimes,
I just want Dirt & Rock & Roll. I’m talking about amps turned all the way up to 11.

It seems to me that fewer bands today are making any music with real balls and noise. There’s great new music out there made by millions of interesting artists but in terms of Hard, Loud, Dirty, Rock & Roll, who is there?

Here are 10 of the ballsiest records I own:

Neil Young: Live Rust. (1979).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)‘.

Iggy Pop: Lust For Life. (1977).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Sixteen‘.

Nirvana: In Utero. (1993)
Ballsiest Track: ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter‘.

The Beatles: The White Album. (1968).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Yer Blues‘.

Black Sabbath: Paranoid. (1970).
Ballsiest Track: ‘War Pigs‘.

Rob Zombie: Hellbilly Deluxe. (1998).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Living Dead Girl‘.

Muddy Waters: Hard Again. (1977).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Mannish Boy‘.

Little Richard: Here’s Little Richard. (1957).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Long Tall Sally‘.

Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II. (1969).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Heartbreaker‘.

The Stooges: Raw Power. (1973).
Ballsiest Track: ‘Search And Destroy‘.

I recommend getting all of those albums.
Especially “Raw Power” by The Stooges.
That record’s a monster!