Cold turkey - and you stink of CHEESE!

Editorial note - Big Boy Pete does not appear in this sPazAmp. Sorry. I just happened to be listening to it when I was typing the title. Sue me, bitch.

---



Today's shuffle is sponsored by the humble mojito. Although mine look better than that one. And taste better (and not just because mine are real and that one's just a picture. Mine taste better than the real one that is a picture of. Obv). Because I am the Master Barman. Feel my wrath.

Go on. Feel it.

Thanks.

Anyway...


1. Nick Cave and the Sad Beads - The Weeping Song
Dude, think of proper fucking titles for you songs. Lazy tossrag. Plus, we'll have no sodding weeping on a post sponsored by bloody mojitos (not actually bloody. The twist isn't the addition of tomato juice, that would just be weird). Nice enough, not my favourite, pleasant in a slightly trundling way. One of a huge batch of songs he cooked up at the same time from the exact same ingredients. Hence them all sounding largely the same. Yeah, we get it Nick. You're unhappy about something.

2. Desert Sessions - Jr. High Love
Quite frankly arse. He even mentions one at one point. Although strictly speaking, he says 'ass'. As well as 'cunt' and 'fuck' and 'yeah'. Never been entirely convinced of the worth of the whole Desert Session bollocks. If anything is like, REALLY good, I bet they save it for their own record.

3. Supersuckers - Gato Negro
About the time they took the Rolling Stones advice and redecorated the entrance to their garden. The advice was the choice of colour, not the actual action of painting a gate, obv. Also obv. is the fact that I'm whispering out of my anus. I have no idea what it's about, and to be honest I don't rightly care, either. A bit piss, really. Noisily and enjoyably so, but nevertheless a bit piss. 3/10 must try harder.

4. Fannypack - Seven One Eight
Poor counting skills. But I'll ignore that because it's ace. In a way that it is beyond my abilities to describe (not really, it's just an excuse not to as I'm too busy chairbopping).

5. Roxy Music - Would You Believe? (BBC Sessions)
Hell yes I would, dude. Unfortunately, it's not the original version and is thus missing the teeny tiny moment of drum magic. I'm not going to describe it here because I'm not listening to it. But it's dead good.

6. Soft Cell - Born to Lose
I sometimes wonder just how many copies of the Soft Cell albums Jarvis Cocker and Pulp had, and just how often they listened to them. Poor, overlooked Soft Cell. Should be miles more famouser.

7. The Animated Egg - "T"omorrow
A bit of a groovy instrumental wig-out with a stupid title and bits of about eighteen tunes stolen from other people. Alright, in its way.

8. Bryan Ferry - Party Doll
From his painfully overlooked "attempt to crack America" masterpiece (he failed, like, but it is still a masterpiece of pop perfection), "In Your Mind". Probably about rubber dolls. He has form for it, the big perv.

9. The Fabulous Wailers - Out of Our Tree
Nothing to do with Bob Marley. Thank the tiny music gods. Like The Sonics, only better.

10. Alice Donut - She Loves You She Wants You It's Amazing How Much Head Wounds Bleed
Sleazy jazz filtered through a really dirty sieve. One that's been used to filter other, really disgusting things. And then fired at a prism made out of something unsettling. A bit like Cows, with added tune. Well, it has a trombone on it and is a bit weird. I suppose that's the end of any real similarity between the two. Soz.

11. Crooklyn Clan - Be Faithful
Phun, Phat and with a phucking scary phideo. There should be more songs this enjoyable and more videos with people with absolutely massive heads that shout a lot (even when interviewed in the real).

12. Jesus Lizard - Gladiator
David Yow blotted his copybook (assuming he has one. Not entirely sure what a copybook is) by slumming it with Shellac. The FOOL. Your own band is so much better!

13. Terry Davidson & the Hurricanes - Hurray for Hazel
Terry sounds about 10. He seems to really like Hazel, too. But Hazel who? Blears? Irvine? Nut? A bit of an odd twist of the usual sixties teen garage thing. I suspect Bowlie in general would love it, not that you'll believe me (or are even reading this).

14. I Love You - Hang Straight Up
A tiny bit psychedelically-infused hearty, cheery, mighty melodic rock (with a tinge of prog) from the early nineties (with the expectedly tremendously clean production and quite splendid guitars). I love this album so much. I don't think they did another. I'm not really sure - you try searching for them. Not easy with a name like that, I can tell you. Which I just did. Primo!

15. Anna Oxygen - Hypertension
Someone else with a lot of Soft Cell records. As much as I love this (and that is a LOT), everytime I hear it I can't help but think of the Electro band that Vince Noir joined in the first series of the Mighty Boosh. Not a bad thing, but it does bring a rather inappropriate smile to the chops. I wonder if she knows Johnny Two Hats.

16. Wombles - Remember You're a Womble
But I'm not, dude. I just pick up litter because I like it. I use for my nest.

17. BREED77 - La Ultima Hora
All metal should be this good. And sung in Spanish. EL RIFF!

18. Golden Earring - Radar Love
That'll make Mark a happy man, then. Well, provided that he doesn't mind the lovin' being provided by hairy dutch drumkit jumpers. I heart this song.

19. Harry Chapin - Cats in the Cradle
GET THEM OUT! THEY'LL ACCIDENTALLY SMOTHER YOUR CHILD! Seriously ace (the song, not smothering children with pets).

20. The Solarflares - Lifetime in One Season
If I have to tell you lot how arse-shatteringly good Graham Day (and all his bands) is/are, then I will cry. Or possibly go on a big murderous cementhead-targetted maiming spree. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.


So there you go. A load more words for you not to read. Here I sit, with fingertips perceptibly shorter than they were when I started, slogging my gutlets out to bring some musical light into your benighted sonic slums (Solarflares! Harry Chapin! Wombles!) and what do you do? Chuff all. You just sit there wasting your eyes by not reading.

On your own eyes/ears/whatevs be it.

Hmph.

BYE (obv.)

sPazAmp's back - ALRIGHT!

I have an anecdote relating to a television, Michael Barrymore, and THAT song. Don't make me recount it, i may do a little sick in my mouth.

---



Chaos Eel. Scourge of the high seas, low lands (particularly Belgium), medium level rivers, aquariums and branches of Pets at Home everywhere. Sowing discord, unrest, uncertainty and kelp wherever he/it/they go. He/it/they has five heads. He/it/they are here to endorse the Art of the sPazAmp shuffle and by special request of Out of the Blue.

But enough tittle tattle, on with THE CHAOS.


1. Monster Magnet - Nod Scene (The Resin Scrapers)
Right up Chaos Eel's watery, discord filled street. It's the version from the original EP rather than the LP (like that means anything to you lot, cementheads), so it's rawer and pleasingly frayed about the edges. Unfortunately this is paid for by Dave Wyndorf not being able to sing yet and the thing not quite being as immense and overbearingly enveloping as the finished version. I'd muse about whether I prefer this version or that version, but to be frank I really don't think you a flying eel's toss about the matter. Oh, and I suspect it to be about The Drugs.

2. Zoffy - White Room
Mental friends of Kawabata and the lovely AMT loons. For all I can tell, it may well be a cover. I suspect it is. Imagine the Cream song in disguise. A very heavy disguise. The musical equivalent of a wig, false 'tache, comedy glasses with fake nose and a new head. The level of disguise generally only accomplished by John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in Face/Off. I'd say, on the whole, it's an improvement.

3. Upsilon Acrux - Bicycle Race
Two covers in a row! The level of disguise is similar to that employed by Zoffy. It's fantastic. I think Queen would be mortally offended if they heard it. Especially Mrs. Roger Taylor, the drummer.

4. NoMeansNo - Oh no! Bruno!
Sort of like The Ramones as filtered through the slightly perverted (not in a sexual way) musical prism of the Wrights and Wrong. Which means it is very nearly infinitely better, of course. They have an appealing and unmistakeable way with their instruments and a knack for making even the most apparently straightforward song sound slightly disconcerting. I heart them.

5. Thee Headcoats - Beach Bums Die
Billy Childish absorbing the Beach Boys and regurgitating them as a barely there-fi, medway garage paean to murdering nobs loitering by the sea. Splendid.

6. The Kleptones - Love Song for Yoshimi
Mix of hip hop and the Flaming Lips tune. Even this version makes me incredibly sad on account of my Dad developing a liking for the original. He didn't really keep up with modern music, and it was quite a singular event for him to pick up something that way. Very sad. Don't want to talk about it.

7. Reverend Horton Heat - I'm Mad
Mad? He sounds bloody livid. In his singular Horton-a-billy fashion, of course. Which is a very good fashion for him to do things in. One day he may get the acclaim he deserves, but I won't be holding my breath (not least because it's unlikely to happen in the next couple of minutes, and anything much longer than that and I'd have to start breathing again for health reasons).

8. The White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers
is no different to the air anywhere else. Unless you have magical fingers, Jack. Which you don't, you bassoon. Ridiculous title, faintly uninspiring lyrics, decent tune. Yep, it's the White Stripes alright.

9. Tim Hardin - Rolling Stone
Not about Charlie Watts. No, Tim, you are not a Rolling Stone. Nor are you a Beatle, a Kink or a Small Face. You are, in fact, a middle of the road, mediocre, overrated tree-kissing hippy.

10. King Uszniewicz & his Uszniewicztones - Satisfaction
Talking of the Rolling Stones, this is a cover. High percentage of them tonight. Which would only be of interest if you had some kind of Excel spreadsheet tracker of such matters, which would be frankly odd. They couldn't carry a tune in a speciall copperbottomed tune carrying bucket. Quite wonderfully and unintentionally off key. They think they're the best band ever. And in a strange way they are, but not in the way they think.

11. The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?
Yes, yes I do. Give David Essex his head back.

12. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I Send My Love to You
Thanks Bill. I'll send you some mild affection back by UPS.

13. Singing Loins - Black Girl
Racists. Not really, they just aren't wimps and kept the actual title of the song that everyone else calls "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" when they cover it (they didn't change the lyrics either).

14. Half Man Half Biscuit - Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo
A song deserving of a better title. And a better chorus. The rest of it's great, something of a favourite on an album of favourites.

15. The Savoys - Can it Be
A tremendous fuzzed up original garage era minor classic. Helped along by the fact that the singer sounds like he is trying to invent the vocoder effect without using a vocoder.

16. The Move - Fire Brigade
Possibly my favourite variation on The Move's one tune. Except perhaps for Curly. The differences are so miniature that it is hard to quantify a discernible difference in level of appreciation. It's all good, as they say.

17. Cai - La Roca del Diablo
Flamenco tinged Spanish take on mid period Floyd-style prog. Every bit as good as that sounds.

18. The Cramps - The Crusher
Do the hammerlock, you turkeynecks!

19. Tindersticks - Rented Rooms
One of the ones where he sounds just a little bit too much like Vic Reeves in club-singer mode, which is a little off putting. Fortunately he reigns it in and it remains a lovely song.

20. Girl Trouble - Spin Out!
Awesome. The magic of Girl Trouble and movie-era Elvis song combined in one glorious package. Chaos Eel approves, and how.


So yeah. That's about it, really. Adios, cementheads.

FUNNY TITLE!

AMUSING INTRODUCTION!

---



Jesus totally loves my shuffles.


1. Unsane - Release
Jesus loves Unsane, too. The dude totally has taste. A veritable pinnacle of Unsaneness, this.

2. Tom Jones - Not Responsible
At least he admits it. Well aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllright. Although I've just had it pointed out to me that he is responsible for being bright orange. And leathery.

3. The Bunnys - Land of 1000 Dances
Not actually singing rabbits.

4. Man ... or Astro-Man? - The Man from F.U.C.K.Y.O.U.
Well, really. How rude.

5. Wipers - Tragedy
Not a cover. Unfortunately.

6.Terrorvision - Superchronic
I tried to go and see Terrorvision once, but ... oh I can't be bothered telling it again.

7. Bert Convy - Monster Hop
Time magazine ran a poll and voted this the best song in the world EVER. By someone called Bert Convy. It is BLOODY tremendous, though. I think he used to present game shows in the fifties and things. Should have spent more time making songs about dancing monsters if you ask me.

8. Rajput and the Seypoy Mutiny - Flower Bed
Tree shagging hippy weirdos.

9. Ludacris - Pimpin' All Over the World
Totally UnScary Massive Haired Rap Dude alert. International jetset poncing off immoral earnings. Lovely.

10. Hüsker Dü - Helter Skelter
In your FACE, remaining Beatles. And the dead ones, too.

11. Inspiral Carpets - Two Worlds Collide
Lyrics that would make an eight year old cringe, but I still love it.

12. Hypnomen - Zipgun
I think they're Swedish. Or do I mean Finnish? I'm not sure now, I've confused myself. Still good though, wherever they're from.

13. Action Swingers - Song
Comment.

14. Anti-Nowhere League - Nowhere Man
It has the same tune as all their songs on the first album. Which means it's good.

15. Afghan Whigs - Debonair
Genius. As you should well know by now, fools.

16. ODB - Rawhide
Mental Rap Dude ahoy! Poor ODB :(

17. Reverend Horton Heat - Jezebel
It's really good. Can't think of much that needs to be added, really.

18. Bentley Rhythm Ace - Let There be Flutes
And let there be tubas, too! And accordians, and sackbutts, and musical squids!

19. Mark Lanegan - Little Sadie
Is smaller than Humungous Sadie.

20. Len Bright Combo - Swimming Against the Tide of Reason
One of a handful of songs that, when I'm listening to it, I'm convinced is the best song in the world, ever. And not even Belle & Sebastian's thievery can stop that. It's just too good!

Be seeing you. Take care. You too. You have my ear. Speak, citizen. What's new with you? Stop talking! [/oblivion]

I SPEAKED A TRUE!

Arnie did say that. In a deleted scene from Raw Deal. Roll out the barrel, the barrel of old sPazAmps! Gorblimey! Stone the crows! And stone Mother Brown, and her detestable cockney knees! Get in!

---

I've just spent a moment listening to the youtube at the head of my previous dismal entry into this cavalcade of dross. And, safe in the knowledge that very few of you (with the occasional notable exception) have listened to anything of an even vaguely comparable quality in the intervening time, I feel emboldened to do another shuffle.

I should probably warn you that it was Marlon's de facto leaving do tonight (knowing Marlon, he may not show up for the last couple of days next week, but then reappear weeks later demanding drinks and dodging rounds as if nothing had happened. But that's another matter altogether), so me starting this at a quarter to one after that much cheap rum and this much available reasonably priced bourbon is probably more an endurance test for me than anything else. Don't say you weren't warned, cement heads.

Oh, yeah. Youtubeness. Made a right rod for me own back here. Now, whilst I can't possibly ever hope to top el trio from the last one (at the risk of impinging on my own shuffledom, there is little in the musical world that can make me melt, go weak at the knees and/or want to hug a fat middle aged Mexican man than at least fourteen points in that rendition of Malagueña Salerosa), I figured I'd give you something along the same lines to gawp at. Big hat. Big song. And yes, that is Bobert Bodriguez on the guitar, there. It's sexy where El Trio makes me weak for other reasons. The original, non-live version is even better (and has one tiny weak-knees moment, too).



Anyway. On with the endurance test.


1. Solomon Burke - Keep a Light in the Window
Unless it's a lava lamp, in which case don't bother you lampological tatvert.

2. Inspiral Carpets - Gimme Shelter (Peel Sessions Version)
I'm not entirely sure there is a version other than the Peel sessions version. Doesn't matter really, as it piddles all over the Stones. Mainly because the Stones are bunch of parent snorting coke addled talent vortices. Apart from Charlie, who is (and always has been) a reliable, cue-hitting unthrilling and dull rattler of traps.

3. Hüsker Dü - Never Talking to You Again (Live)
For most of it, none of them sound like they could give the slightest arse about the whole thing. Fortunately I can, and even more fortunately they still sound like utter dishevelled musical sex singing it, even when not arsed.

4. Soft Cell - Born to Lose
One of many songs that Pulp made it all too obvious that they had listened to at some point. Oh, and Marc Almond manages to slightly ruin it by being forever a smidgen past the acceptable drama mark. As he does with everything, ever.

5. Bloodrock - D.O.A.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The finest musical example of dying in a bizarre and massive plane crash, and then singing about it whilst lying to the gradually cooling corpse of your nearest and, most recently, dearest. Also, it usual features me singing me little lungs out (as it suits my range splendidly well), but not today. Not least because it isn't the Fuzztones cover version.

6. Neil Diamond - Oh, Mary
I think she knocked her cup over and ruined his favourite rug, hence Neil's exasperation. I inserted the comma myself, just to support this bout of pointless typing. I love the song really.

7. Flower Travelling Band - Spasms
It's ace, and not like writing "spasms" on the front of your IB50 claim form as at least one Incapacity Benefit claimant did. Another came in citing their principal incapacitating factor as "tremors". I mean, really. I'm not a medical expert but fucking hell, even I'd be able to tell if someone was being perpetually attacked by giant sand-worms/kevin bacon. Also, I've listened to loads of songs between this and the last one listed, I just haven't been paying attention due to distractedness. Soz.

8. Barry Dennen, Ian Gillan, some random dudes and a bunch of music - Trial Before Pilate (Including the 39 Lashes)
How terribly Eastersome. And also, rather fucking awesome. If Barry Dennen had recorded an album of him being overwrought, sneering and entirely Pontius Pilate, I'd have bought it. About nine times. Also, it's an aid to counting. It's all good, dude. Also, when Barry Pilate really bellows "DIE! - IF YOU want to" like he really means it, I feel like I'm having a tiny bit of music sex. It's the best thing ever. Honest.

9. Scissor Sisters - Return to Oz
The demo type version from the not released pre-first album album. Regardless of the version, it still remains as one of my all time favourite songs. It's like Elton John had a massively fertile orgy with the tune he'd always sought to write and Pink Floyd. With fluffing by Roxy Music.

9. The Buff Medways - You're Out the Band, Sunshine
Well, I dint want to be in your bloody stupid band anyway, dickface.

I did really. Sob.

Also, I can't count, apparently.

10. I Love You - Jesus
Seriously, it's the bandname and the songname, not just my Easterly explosion of uncontrollable faith. What makes it worse it that its a really wonderful song. I don't really love you Jesus! Not because you aren't loveable, but because I don't believe you existed, at least not in the way the Bible keeps pretending. Glad we got that one cleared up.

11. R.E.M. - Try Not to Breathe
Self-important, over-produced and dreadfully over-sung bollocks with sub sixth-form poetry lyrics. I loved it when I was 21 or so, mind. Either way, it's pretty shit advice. Unless they're filling your room with Zyklon B or something. I wouldn't put it past them, the nutters.

12. Alice Donut - In My Head
Not in mine, apparently, as I went off and did a rant about television somewhere else instead.

13. Mudhoney - Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More
Splendid song. Rubbish title if you think about it just that little bit too much. Which I suggest you don't, as I've sort of spoilt the song and appalled myself simultaneously.

14. Ian Dury - Sweet Gene Vincent
It's more than a bit good. Use your ears. Im not doing all the work for you.

15. The Damned - Problem Child
It's Problem Child, by The Damned. And, therefore, pretty good but not great. I really want to go to bed, does it show?

16. Theme From Danger Man
Probably better known to you cementheaded philistines as "that music off of Mark and Lard". Indeed.

17. Elvis Presley - The Wonder of You
I love the Elvis. I kind of hate this song a bit. I'm only typing this to hasten the end of this exercise in pointless sleep-avoidance.

18. Johnny Cash - The Streets of Laredo
Are in Laredo. Well done.

19. The Czars - Get Used to It
Possibly a bit twee. I don't care. It's a wonderfully important song to me, and simply listening to it sparks from me a multitude of thanks to the person who introduced me to it. That the person in question would have little idea of the impact of their suggestion only serves to make the outcome all the better. Thanks.

20. Dead Kennedys - Halloween
Blah blah blah its fucking fantastic blah blah it isn't halloween anymore dude blah blah did I mention quite how fucking awesome it is blah blah I did? blah blah how many times? blah blah about nine other times? blah blah wow.

Bye.

I LIED AGAIN

I'm paraphrasing Arnie there. I don't think he ever said those precise words. Anyway, sorry for the lack of a February Superbean calendar. It will show up, it just might be a little late to get any February style calendar action out of it. Unless you like to colour them in retrospectively, or something. In which case, you are a DEMENTED FOOL. Still, as long as you stay inside the lines with your colouring, who am I to judge, drokk it? Ha ha, I'm so clever.

Well, no, I'm not. I've just spent far too long recently filling my spare time with re-reading of 2000ad comic strips, by stomm. Which is probably why I haven't been feeding the world much needed beanial date trackers.

Anyway, to kill a little bit of time I find trying to claw it's way out under the cover of darkness, I'm going to fill in with a couple more elderly sPazAmps. Hopefully, one day, I might catch up completely and get to do a new one.

---

Hello. I'm about to do the sPazAmp shuffle, and to celebrate, here are three rotund Mexicoans in silly hats singing a lovely, lovely song in black and white.



El bloody splendido, I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway, enough of the good and on with the tat.


1. Theme tune to The Prisoner
If you've seen The Prisoner, then you'll know the tune. On account of it being the theme. It's even better with the credits, because then you get to see the 1960s vision of the future - the one where everything is still on paper and stored in old fashioned filing cabinets, but put there by flimsy looking robot arms. One piece at a time. Slowly. A terrifying dystopian vision of a human replaced by machinery world, oh yes. Or oh no, depends which way you look at it.

2. Karen Wheeler & The Gents - Wait 'til I'm Sixteen
One for Fred, this. Don't tell the bloke to wait, Karen, tell him to stop hanging round the playground or you'll tell the police.

3. Chingon - Malagueña Salerosa
Best song in the world. As endorsed by his chingonic goodness, Superbean. And me. And the three chubby Mexicoans at the top of the post. With Bobby Bobdriguez on guitar. Sod the sPazAmp, I'm off to buy some cowboy boots and a sombrero. Not really (although I might have a peep on eBay).

4. System of a Down - Everytime
From the Toxicity II bootleg of the Toxicity sessions. Most of them turned up on Steal This Album in slightly better form and with different titles. I think this one became Nügüns. Why am I telling you? You couldn't care less. Bloody cementheads.

5. Brian Auger - Fool Killer
Bit harsh, Brian. I mean, they irritate me too but I don't go round murdering them to death. And if I did I certainly wouldn't do it in a jazzy Georgie Fame style.

6. Ian Dury - Plaistow Patricia
Abridged anecdote. Lou Reed, tour, support, annoying tossbag Lou, last night, Lou patronises his support on stage, Ian dedicates the following song to Lou by way of thanks, and then launches into the quite marvellous intro. "Arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks..."

7. The Mummies - Whitecaps pt. I
Whitecaps...waves as tall as MEN. I miss the Mummies. I wish they'd come back. Or hadn't gone away.

8. The Tamrons - Wild Man
Slightly above average garage punker from the 60s. Which means it appears on more or less every single collection or series of collections. Which, subsequently, means I am a little tired of it.

9. Palace Music - Tonight's Decision (and Hereafter)
He has a beard, you know.

10. Bad Karma Beckons - Big Boy Blues
Plenty of bands have had two drummers, but how many have two singers (that always sing the exact same things at the same time)? "If you wanna get a shock put your finger in my socket". Perverts.

11. GLC - Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do
Or "wappers", as P. Xain would have us believe.

12. The Squirrels - Betsy
Betsy the exploding cabbage patch doll came to me on my birthday, betsy the exploding cabbage patch doll was a present from the IRA. Betsy wanna hold you, Betsy wanna hug you, like a little teddy bear. One of my favourite birthday dollies went and put me in intensive care. Quite. It's the version from the Nardwuar compilation, so it's the rockin' garage reworking with the bits nicked from that "classic" rock/hair/metal song. I can't remember which. I bet Ian would know.

13. Tim Hardin - It'll Never Happen Again
Bet it will.

14. Screaming Trees - Look at You
I don't think it would be right for me sully such a glorious song with my inane babbling. So I won't.

15. Ghostface Killah - Marvel
Sup, Scary Rap Dude. With a hint of the RZA Scary Rap Dude, too. Bargain!

16. Nirvana - Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle
Possibly my favourite off the album. Perhaps because it sounds like it should be on Bleach instead.

17. April March - Theme from Lime Cafe
Pleasant.

18. Sexton Ming & Billy Childish - Oma-Laka-Wee
Don't you know that I am boss - OMA LAKA WEE.

19. Fabienne Delsol - I'll Wait For You
Cheers love. I should be out in six to eight with good behaviour.

20. Chaka Demus & Pliers - Twist & Shout
I can think of few better ways to end a shuffle. I'm off to listen to this, "Tease Me" and Bitty McLean's "It's Raining" over and over until I collapse from exhaustion.

See you!

Strawberet Berry

I really ought to dig the beret out again, it hasn't seen nearly enough wear recently. Not since the Frank Spencer Blues Explosion gig, tbh be honest. Anyway, enough of that nonsense, we have sPazAmp nonsense to attend to. And how!


I has a haircut. To celebrate this fact, I shall presently embark on a sPazAmp. I've dumped sPazTunes in favour of sPazAmp due to shuffling all my music over to the new HDD. However, as a result of this, there is only about a fifth or so of the music to choose from (20gb or so). Furthermore, as I tend to categorise along genre lines and have diligently been moving the files a folder at a time (and in order), the available selections are somewhat particular. In short, be prepared for a high probability of Nick Cave songs (seeing as he constitutes 1/20th of the available songs by size).

Christ that's a boring paragraph. I reckon as I'll start again.

I has a haircut. I'm doing a sPazAmp, there aren't a great variety of songs, deal with it, cementheads.

That's better.


1. 13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me
On a regular shuffle day, it would look like a fix having this first. However, given that one of the few folders I've moved in its entirety is 60s Garage and also given that this song appears in there about nine times, then it's less surprising. It's also still one of the finest songs in dom. I'll not be wittering about it now, I've put my more considered thoughts on the matter down elsewhere (very possibly repeatedly).

2. The Mono Men - Burning Bush
Perverted pyro-rapists.

3. Lula Cortes e Ze Ramalho - Maracas de Fogo
I know I've missed off many and assorted accents, but I'm a little too tired to care. Besides, it's a song about maracas made of airborne water droplets, and that's just silly (in a good way).

4. The Bambi Molesters - The Wedge
The finest Croatian twangsome surfmerchants in the whole wide world. And don't let anyone tell you any different.

5. The Squirrels - Seasons in the Sun
Most of the first half is gloriously off key, then it speeds up and manages to morph into The Hustle. What's not to love?

6. The Mummies - Whitecaps
Parts I and II joined together in a glorious feast of BudgetRock(tm) perfection. Rusty Spoon Music ((c) JamieC) par excellence.

7. Driving Stupid - Horror Asparagus Stories
Toad! Toad! A big old Toad! Road! Road! Middle thereof! Fucking wonderful, and I don't say that lightly.

8. Mad Violets - I Can Hear the Grass Grow
I don't care how good your song is, or how horribly underrated your 80s take on all things psychey with a girl singing was, the fact is that no, you can't. You just can't. It's impossible. Nobody has ears that clever.

9. Knights of the New Crusade - He Has Risen
My God is alive! Sorry about yours! Still magnificent, and I won't shut up about it until you are all Saved.

10. The Mono Men - Took That Thing
The first song I ever heard by The Mono Men (bought on impulse thanks to being on Estrus and having a Coop-like cover), still one of the finest songs my ears have ever fondled and recorded from my very own blue marble vinyl 7''. Which I've since had to sell. Not every story has a happy ending, bitch.

11. The Reatards - You Fucked Up My Dreams
Yeah, well you can't spell. So we're even.

12. Bango - Inferno No Mundo
One of the best songs I don't understand the words to. And that's a pretty fucking big category, let me tell you. Which I just did. Cheers!

13. The Monsters - Gozilla
Their go-go-garagetastic paean to their favourite simian-tinged web-browser.

14. Naz Nomad & The Nightmares - (Do You Know) I Know
Alright! HUH! Get outta my way! The only proper song on the album that isn't a cover, and it sounds more twisted 60s garage than the actual covers. I like it! (that last bit is also a lyric, not just an oddly excited exclamation from me).

15. Earls of Suave - Stranger in my Hometown
If songs were all limited to five seconds in length, then this would possibly be my favourite song ever. Unfortunately, the other one hundred and forty four seconds of the song aren't anywhere near as good.

16. The Third Bardo - Five Years Ahead of My Time
You weren't even five minutes ahead of your time, you average gimps.

17. The Sonics - Psycho
If you can think of a better song, then you are an earless cementhead. Or just possibly not in the mood for gloriously spasticated drumming.

18. Los Peyotes - Fuego!
Without doubt, this is the most impeccably crafted cover of an Arthur Brown song by an Argentinian garage band. And I don't say that lightly.

19. Zacherle - Happy Hallowe'en
Dude, it's so totally not hallowe'en anymore. I don't care how ace your voice is. Sweet.

20. The Fuzztones - D.O.A.
I love the Bloodstone original, but I possibly love this even more. As basic premises for songs go, the musings of a dying aircrash victim lying on a slab next to the corpse of his splattered girlfriend shouldn't really rate that highly. And yet, and yet. It's bollock-nibblingly fantastic. Rarely has a song suited Rudi's occasionally overblown voice so well, and rarely has a hammondy type organ been employed to such precisely affecting effect. Or something. I have little idea what I'm blarbling on about, but I do know that this is one of my favourite songs to wholeheartedly sing along with when I'm certain that no one is in earshot (i.e. in the house or in a five mile radius). Like the Earls of Suave song, it has you hooked more certainly than your own bodyweight in crack after five seconds (try it [the song, not the crack] and you'll see what I mean). Unlike the Earls of Suave song, it gets better and better from then on, with the opening bars merely serving as a taster for the rampantly overegged and resplendently entertaining melodrama to come. Or it might just be a middle-aged bloke with a stupid name covering songs in a style that went out of fashion twenty years before the rest of his band could string two words together. It really doesn't matter, and I care just a little bit less than that. I love it, and so should you. If you know what's good for you.

Yeah. Bye.


Oh, yeah, not bye. Hang on.



It's The Mummies, obviously. And it's wonderful. And so is JamieC for making me aware of it (he secretly loves them. And other rusty spoon music too). And for inventing the term "Rusty Spoon" music. And for sending me a beret. And rum. But I digress. Everyone should watch it, and marvel at how music should be enacted.

Really bye this time.

I LIED

More sPazAmping from days of yore, to fill the aching void between one Superbean calendar instalment and the next. Enjoy, landlubbers.

I did a sPazTune last week. The internets etted it. I've been in mourning for a week, but now I'm BACK, bitch!

Yes, I'm back, and I'm back in a beret, courtesy of JamieC. I'm wearing it now. So far in the last five minutes I've pretended to be Frank Spencer, Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot (off of Curiosity Killed the Cat), a mediaevel bishop sort of thing, a man wearing a massive flat cap (possibly one of the Goodies during the black pudding thingy show), a Royal Marine, Wolfy/Citizen Smith and a generic French stereotype person. Possibly an onion seller. So very versatile, the beret. How I love my beret.

Don't believe that I'm wilfully sPazTuning whilst wearing a beret? What do you want, blood? Huh? HUH? What? Oh, proof? Oh, yeah, proof, that I can do. Here's me enjoying my beret in a variety of ways (two). Except they aren't here, they'll be at the end of the post, won't they. So look down there, and gaze in awe, wonder, appreciation and possibly mild disgust.

In the mean time ...

1. Bruce Springsteen - Independence Day
In which Bruce grunts, groans, strains and poos out from his previously constipated musical anus a grittily wrought fraught ballad about Will Smith saving the earth from alien menace with the help of a the president. Played by someone or other. Who cares, it was a stupid cocklicking film anyway. Unlike this song which isn't a) a film or b) in anyway cocklicking. Unless, of course, you happen to believe that "cocklicking" in this sense means really pretty fucking good. In that case, it IS cocklicking, and mightily thus. So cocklicking in fact that it is Bill Clinton's favourite [s]intern[/s] song. Or at least it was before he went all haggard, grey faced, thin and eighty-years-old looking. He's gone off it since then. He's gone off the song, too. Ha and, to a lesser extent, ha.

2. Daniel Johnston - Love Enchanted
In which Daniel starts out as if he is intent on impersonating Alex Harvey, of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band fame. It really is quite uncanny, for about twelve seconds. To anyone else, this would be bare and stripped back and other annoyingly cuntish terms employed by cuntish people writing about cuntish music. For Daniel, it's limb-severingly over-produced and cram-packed with sweeping and lush orchestrations. Twice then I mistyped "lush" as "lusch" which is both the German outlet of seaweed and poo masquerading as bath products and an affectionate French term for drunken German soldiers, as everyone knows. Obviously.

3. Boogie Down Productions - 9mm Goes Bang (Instrumental)
In which KRS-1 waxes lyrical about his tiny exploding cock. Curiously, it's an instrumental on which there is a lot of singing. In Christopher-1's world, "instrumental" means "with all the words except quite a lot of them, the chorus in particular, taken out".

4. Elvis Presley - It's Only Love
In which Elvis opines that "she had no recipe for love". No, but she had the recipe for a deep fried tiramisu, nutella, lard and aubergine pie sandwich with barbiturate sprinkles. Which is why you died lardily on the shitter, Elve me old chum. He died as he lived - mystified that something so inordinately huge had emerged from something so small. And also on the toilet.

5. Tom Jones - Weeping Annaleah
In which Tom makes up names for girls he wants to sing to. It's quite good, as is a lot of the stuff that doesn't ever make it onto the three hundred and four bazillion best ofs released each and every month of every year. Unfortunately, the arse-melting majority of public awareness of Tom is limited to a) the same twenty or so songs cycled through on the three hundred and four bazillion best ofs released each and every month of every year, b) the fact he is Welsh and c) made of orange leather. It really isn't fair.

6. Run DMC - They Call Us Run DMC
In which Run, DMC and (in a non vocal way) Jam Master Jay babble on for three wonderful minutes that "they" call "us" "Run" "DMC". Yes. Because it's your name. The name YOU chose for your band. That's why they call it you. What did you expect? That they were going to call you Stetsasonic? That's someone else's name, fools. You've made your Run DMC Name bed, you should be prepared to lie in it and pull up your Run DMC Name sheets up under your chins and sleep a peaceful snuggling sleep. Probably best not to include Jam Master Jay though, not since he got deaded. Ruin your sheets, that would.

7. Hal Blaine - Vibrations (August)
In which Hal Blaine (he's doing the drums, I think) makes up titles that bear no relation to the instrumental song that they are attached to and then tries to pass the hokey nonsense off as a concept album by putting a different month in brackets after each of them. He thinks it's psychedelic. He's wrong. It's twaddle, simple twaddle (although sporadically entertaining twaddle).

8. The Cramps - New Kind of Kick
In which Lux Interior makes the wild boast that he has found a new method of imbuing momentum in an object through the medium of his lower limbs. He also (with the aid of the rest of them) covers and improves someone else's song, as was his wont. And his will. And Nick Knox is still the best name for a drummer ever invented, and always will be. Until Sticky McHitter joins a band, of course.

9. Ministry - Burning Inside
In which Alien Jourgensen (you're fooling no one, Alain. You're from earth and we all know it) generously applauds the meritorious effects of the liberal imbibement of Gaviscon. Or possibly Preparation H. Or some mad anti-cystitis thing, perhaps. Although it's probably best not to imbibe the latter two. Topical application would be perhaps the order of the day. And he does it all in a live fashion, which is so much better than the studio version that it makes my feet ache just to mentally compare them. In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up (Live) has been scientifically proven to be one of the best albums ever recorded to drive to. If you want to end up driving at 100mph+ with wild staring eyes, a demented rictus of loathing plastered across your chops and angrily hunched over your steering wheel exuding waves of contempt and disdain for your risible fellow motorists, that is. What a great album it is. I'm going to listen to it all after this sPazTuning episode.

10. Man ... or Astro Man? - The Man from F.U.C.K.Y.O.U.
In which Man ... or Astro Man? (it's Man, not Astro Man. You're no more from space that Alain is) spell out rude words because they're a right bunch of nonces.

11. The Pretty Things - London Town
In which The Pretty Things babble on some verbal turdage about some tiny rat-infested hamlet down south over some thoroughly average semi-folky, three-quarter jangly, entirely plodding "music". Not their high point, all things considered.

12. Phantom Surfers - Besame Mucho
In which the Phantom Surfers say they have a lot of Besames. In a twangly surfoid stroke mariachi orgy of guitar fondling instrumental ecstasy. Whatever the fuck that means. Who cares when the shit is this good. Whatever the fuck that means.

13. The Jailbirds - Snakeskin Suit
In which eighties Garageists (the proper kind of garage that is, not the other, new kind. Let's not have that whole thing again) The Jailbirds bang on about how great their new snakeskin suit is. Yeah, great. If you're very long, thin and have no limbs.

14. The Move - When Alice Comes Back to the Farm (Stereo Version)
In which The Move laugh at Roy Wood's facial hair and contemplate an impending rural bestial orgy. In stereo.

15. Southern Culture on the Skids - Galley Slave
In which SCotS lament (in a jaunty, entertaining and above all mostly instrumental fashion) the plight of a poor soul condemned to trail around room after room of paintings and explain them to disinterested tourists. And, to top it all off, to really rub big grains of spiky, poisonous salt into the poor chap's festering metaphorical wound, they miss an "r" out.

16. Boris - Dyno-Soar
In which Boris dedicate a slice of their soul-improving, brain-pickling, toe-polishing, massively-rocking and vastly-wonderfulling heavy rock side to their favourite prehistoric beast, the pterodactyl. Possibly. I haven't got a clue, really.

17. The Who - Mary Anne with the Shakey Hand (Alternate Version)
In which The Who assert that someone called Mary Anne does better wanks because she has Parkinson's. Earth to The Who - there's a reason why this is the alternate version. IT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT AS GOOD AS THE OTHER ONE. If it was, it would've have probably been the actual version. Wankers. And how!

18. Offspring - Self Esteem
In which the Offspring reveal another of my closely guarded guilty pleasures to a world filled with spite and ridicule. To which I say "fuck off!" and shake an angry fist, angrily and with much anger. It also quite wonderfully skewers the very people who latched onto to it as some sort of anthem for their own oh-so-dreadful and pain-filled cossetted, pampered and generally over-privileged excuse for lives. You haven't felt real pain until your wealthy, professional parents have ripped your soul in two and removed all reason for your presence on the planet by not getting you the Saab convertible with the heated leather seats for your 17th birthday. Go an write something pseudo-meaningful about it on your schoolbag in tipp-ex. Then fuck off and get run over by a big massive truck with spikey wheels. Then get together with your friends and form Radiohead. I feel I have wandered off the subject somewhat. I've spanned the genres. They call me the genre-spanner [/boosh]. Anyway, I like it and I like it a lot. So there.

19. Isaac Hayes - Never Can Say Goodbye
In which Ike proves himself to be a massive liar in the very first line of the song. Stupid big scientologist.

20. Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
In which Robert Plant proves that wailing like a complete tart about some nonsensical vikings, ice, snow, hot springs and valhalla need not stand in the way of recording your second best song ever and one of the finest songs in the history of nonsensical tart-like valhalla wailing.

So there you have it. A lot of songs and me in a beret. I hope this one doesn't get etted by the internets. If it does, I may eschew sPazTuning forever more.

T'ra.

Yeah, so no pictures. Like the title says, I'm like Arnie in that film. I LIED.