Shocking Blue

A few years ago, while generally idling and listening to the radio, I discovered what is now one of my favourite tracks, 'Send Me A Postcard'. It's two and a half minutes of blistering Acid Rock, with a full voiced female singer. Being convinced I was listening to Jefferson Airplane, I was a little surprised when I found out who it was; Shocking Blue.

Here's the track with someone's home made attempt at a video (Not Mine).



Formed in 1967, they were from Holland and had a few hits in their homeland before their worldwide breakthrough, 'Venus'. The band was fronted by the powerful Mariska Veres, who many at the time compared to Grace Slick.

I had to hear more so I got hold of one of their compilations and was even more surprised when I found Nirvana's 'Love Buzz' from the album 'Bleach' was originally Shocking Blue's too. Too many tracks on their compilations are a little weak for me to recommend them, unless you're a real fan, but no worries. 'Send Me A Postcard' appears on Ladytron's Softcore Jukebox compilation, a real eclectic mix of some of Ladytron's personal favourite tracks plus a couple of their own. The bold ones are must haves.

1. "Soon" - My Bloody Valentine
2. "Hit the North, Part 1" - The Fall
3. "What's a Girl to Do" - Cristina
4. "Peng" - Dondolo
5. "The 15th" - Wire
6. "Blue Jeans 2.0" - Ladytron
7. "Saviour Piece" - Snap Ant
8. "Big" - New Fast Automatic Daffodils
9. "Feel Good Hit of the Fall" - !!!
10. "Teenage Daughter" - Fat Truckers
11. "Hey Mami (Sharaz Mix)" - Fannypack
12. "Manila (Headman Remix)" - Seelenluft
13. "You Got the Love" - The Source/Candi Staton
14. "Crazy Girls" - Codec and Flexor
15. "Oops Oh My" - Ladytron
16. "Send Me a Postcard" - Shocking Blue
17. "Twins" - Pop Levi
18. "Some Velvet Morning" - Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra

This Week I Will Mostly Be Listening To... Foals

My favourite ever band this week has to be Foals. After seeing their video for 'Balloons' twenty odd times, I saw them perform live on the BBC's 'Later With Jools Holland' and am now hooked.

I realise there's a bit of a buzz surrounding the band at the moment with many pronouncing them the new saviours of Indie rock. That's obviously taking it a bit too far, but they're certainly a refreshing change from the current crop of whining generic Indie Pop soundalikes. The first thing I notice is that this is Dance music. Think of thumping The Rapture beats meeting the complicated Math Rock of TV On The Radio and you'll get some idea.

I'm not sure if it's just me but I hear echoes of Two Tone era ska with their off kilter beats and saxophones on their studio recordings. After seeing a few live clips it's clear that they can play, although how well they'll manage with larger venues remains to be seen.

According to their interviews they're promising a more experimental approach for their new album, which was actually produced by TVotR's Dave Sitek. Certainly one to watch even if they don't save Indie.

Muppets v Sesame Street

I always divide the world up in to two distinct groups. Those who prefer The Muppet Show and those who favour Sesame Street. Anyone who has no opinion I generally ignore. I myself would always go for muppets. I always found Sesame Street too full of learnin' and stuff, while the muppets was all for laughs. Plus I always found Big Bird a little sinister.

It was only fairly recently, during a regular drunken Muppets v Sesame Street debate with a friend of mine that I discovered how much I'd missed out on. I was blown away when he sent me this YouTube Vid of Stevie Wonder playing 'Superstition' live on Sesame Street. This is funky in the extreme and not a furry critter in sight.

Here Come The Girls

Sometimes I despair at advertising. Ad execs are always ready to pick the bones of real artists' work and regurgitate it for mass consumption. How many pieces of classical music does Joe Public know that weren't discovered through some media campaign? Not many I'll bet. Mind you if that's the only way we're gonna find out about it, perhaps that's not so bad. Anyway how else would we get to hear about fantastic new products like Cillit Bang. Three cheers for TV ads.

Watching the new Boots commercial (below) got me racking my brains trying to remember where I'd heard the music from. I'm sure I must have heard it in Bar Rumba or somewhere, but never new the name. One google later and there it was. 'Here Come The Girls' by Ernie K-Doe is the funky track in question, reasonably familiar to the old Northern Soul crowd but most famous for his 1961 R&B hit, 'Mother-In-Law'.



Anyway I tracked it down on New Orleans Funk Vol.1: the Original Sound of Funk 1960-1975, and was pretty easy to find on Soulseek. It's a good collection (not exceptional) of solid funky grooves, with many recognisable as Hip Hop breaks. Highlights for me were Chuck Carbo's 'Can I Be Your Squeeze', and Aaron Neville's 'Hercules'. If you collect funk compilations then you'll already have most of these tracks but if you're looking for an introduction to the New Orleans funk sound you can't go wrong with this.

Purely Perfect Punk Power Pop

While accidently watching MTV today, I noticed a not so recent interview clip featuring Pete 'Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo' Doherty. When asked if there was any song that he wished he'd written, everyone's favourite heroin addict just about managed to reply "'Another Girl, Another Planet' by The Only Ones". Well he may be a skanky twat but he certainly couldn't have picked a more worthy tune.

Released in 1978, it was highly regarded by critics at the time but wasn't a hit. You can now find it on soooo many compilations from that era, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up their debut album, The Only Ones. The group is often referred to as a Punk band but I think their sound has just as much in common with Badfinger and Big Star. The track is 3 minutes of pure pop genius and should be mandatory at every indie disco. In fact it's such a strong track that even Blink 182 didn't manage to ruin it.

Oh, and it's about heroin. Enjoy!

Psychedelic Dream

My first exposure to Edgar Froese's Tangerine Dream was in 1985 when a friend of mine forced me to listen to the 'Risky Business' soundtrack. I was not exactly thrilled, but quite enjoyed the track 'Love on a Real Train' (cleverly used in Noah Baumbach's 'The Sqid And The Whale' recently). I ended up taking the CD home with me, and promptly forgot of it's existence. If you're reading this Tony, I've still got it mate.

It wasn't until 5 years later, when hearing their superb 1974 album 'Phaedra', that I began to be drawn in. This trancey, electronic trip full of revolutionary sequencer effects with plenty of moogs and mellotrons was right up my alley at the time and I had to find more. I found something quite different.

Playing their 1970 debut 'Electronic Meditation' for the first time was the closest thing to a religious experience I'd ever had. It was instantly clear to me that this was a rock band, but a rock band doing something entirely other-worldly. Tribal tom-toms, groaning cellos, dancing flutes, crashing guitar chords and church organs, all competing but somehow complementing each other. Check out the standout track, 'Journey Through A Burning Brain', a twelve and a half minute free-form rock jam subdued at first but ultimately building into a blazing psychedelic freakout.

I didn't realise at the time that of course this album didn't come out of nowhere and there is even a genre(s) that it fits into. The overall sound and the experimentation can be likened to early Pink Floyd (particularly 'A Saucerful of Secrets), and many other German bands at the time were doing similar things. This was my introduction to Kraut-Rock or Space-Rock or Avant-Garde Rock or whatever the hell you call it and I couldn't get enough.

The first four Tangerine Dream albums show a marked difference to anything that was released later, on Richard Branson's Virgin label, and are hugely underated in my opinion. All four are present on the compilation Nebulous Dawn: the Early Years as well as rare extra tracks 'Ultima Thule parts 1 & 2', and both sides from The Ones' (Froese's previous band) 'Lady Greengrass' single. It won't be everyone's cup of tea but I couldn't be without it in my collection.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of.... Theft?

The story of the Sony Bravia Bunnies has done the rounds recently. In a nutshell, Sony launched the advert which shows a New York street becoming overun by hordes of play-doh bunnies to a Rolling Stones soundtrack. Kozyndan, an illustration company, claims that this concept is a complete rip-off of one of their panoramic paintings. You can read one version of the story here.

Detail of the Kozyndan painting

You'll have to make up your own mind on this one but personally I'm just happy to hear one of my favourite Stones tracks, 'She's A Rainbow'. However it should come as no surprise that this song was hardly original, itself being heavily influenced according to Keith Richards, by the magnificent 'She Comes In Colors' by Arthur Lee's Love (from the classic 1966 album 'Da Capo').

Have a listen to it here with accompanying animation from iwait4u, and see if you can also detect a similarity to Madonna's 'Beautiful Stranger'. Come to think of it The Walkmen's 'We've Been Had' reminds me of 'She's A Rainbow'. Seems there's nothing new under the sun.