S*M*A*S*H - (I Want To) Kill Somebody (12'') (1994) (@256)

Shouldn't a contemporary band update the lyrics of this song by putting the names of those who would "frankly, do it all again" and feel "responsibility but no regrets"?
Read here for the full story.

a statistician studies titian
the hand up his arse is a politician
red-headed women and a disraeli disposition
what lack of vision
i want to kill somebody

hold my hate like a knife to their throats
cut through every muscle
and breake every bone
i want to chop their fucking heads off
and stick them on a stake
that's the extent of my hate

its not that i want them dead
it's just this world would be a better place
if they had never existed
i want to kill somebody

a statistician studies titian
red-headed women and a disraeli dispoistion
what lack of vision
whoever's in power
i'll be the oppisition
i want to kill somebody

so i'm a hyprocrite
cos i don't believe in capital punishment
but here's my paradoxical quip
"the people who prescribe to it are
the people who should subscribe to it"
it's not that i want them dead
its just this world be be a better place
if they never existed
i want to kill somebody

margaret thatcher, jefferey archer,
michael heseltine, john major, virginia bottomeley
especially gill shepherd's got an appauling enemployment record
i want to kill somebody

i want to kill somebody
everbody knows somebody
i want to kill somebody
(don't you?)

i want to kill somebody
i want to kill somebody
i want to kill somebody

download link: here (mirrorcreator) and here (rapidshare)

Everything is OK

You can find more of the same here

The Clash - The Vanilla Tapes (1979/2004) (@256)

I couldn't miss to have a post about the best album of the last 30 years (and a month and a half), which was released... 30 years (and a month and a half) ago, by "The Only Band That Matters". Now, for the five of you who do not have this album, go out NOW and buy it.
This upload offers the legendary Vanilla Tapes, offered in the 25th anniversary edition of London Calling, which for many years were considered lost, until Mick Jones found them while moving to a new home. The Vanilla Tapes are rough rehearsal sessions of the tracks of London Calling, named after the London studio where they were recorded. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes: "The Vanilla Tapes are very good, at least when judged against the standards of rough rehearsal tapes. Keeping in mind that these are low-fidelity recordings mainly consisting of the band working out new songs, this is very enjoyable stuff. What's interesting about these rehearsals — and, excluding a stab at "Remote Control," all but five of the 21 tracks on The Vanilla Tapes are rehearsals of songs that wound up on the finished LP (some of these boast different titles: "Paul's Tune" is "The Guns of Brixton," "Up-Toon" is "The Right Profile," "Koka Kola" is expanded to "Koka Kola Advertising & Cocaine") — is that the Clash began with arrangements that were quite similar to the finished versions; they were a little ragged, sometimes a little slower, sometimes with slightly different lyrics (as on "London Calling" itself), but their sinewy musicality is as apparent here as it is on the vinyl. While it may disappoint some listeners that there are no forgotten classics among these five previously unheard songs, that doesn't mean they're not enjoyable. "Lonesome Me" has an appealing country bounce; given time, "Where You Gonna Go (Soweto)" could have been worked into a fine piece of white reggae, as could their reinterpretation of Bob Dylan's "The Man in Me"; "Heart & Mind" is a pretty impassioned, catchy piece of punk-pop that's distinguished by Joe Strummer breaking into the 101'ers greatest hit "Keys to Your Heart" in the coda. None of these songs are better than what wound up on London Calling, but they're all excellent outtakes on a CD that does qualify as a major historic find for rock historians."

download link (the booklet's vanilla tapes story is also included): here

Dagmar Krause - Tank Battles: The Songs Of Hanns Eisler (1988) (@256)

This post suits perfectly in order to continue the Island records tribute, since it is also connected with the previous post. Dagmar Krause along with Fred Frith (who collaborated in the fist lp of the Golden Palominos presented just before) worked together in Henry Cow and in the Art Bears; both groups are among the very few that combined progressive with a strong political agenda in their lyrics. Be sure to check them out; given the opportunity, I'll also choose one of their albums to upload.
Krause is one of the best voices of the last 35 years, full stop. As it is brilliantly described in allmusic, "admittedly, Dagmar Krause's quasi-operatic, very German style can take some getting used to, but she is a daring singer, unafraid to bend and twist her voice into knots or screech with uncontrolled passion and exuberance."
For the lp that is offered here, she covers songs of Hanns Eisler. It wasn't the first time she did so, since the Art Bears' first lp (Hopes and Fears) opening track "On Suicide" (originally "Über den Selbstmord") is written by Eisler and Brecht.
Although Eisler's ability as a songwriter was tremendous, his name is somehow overshadowed by that of Kurt Weil, with whom he shares a common history. They are both Germans, they acted in the same era and had a similar songwriting style, they both worked with Bertol Brecht and shared common strong anti-nazi beliefs which forced them to exile from Germany in 1933, to, finally, continue their careers in the US.

review link: here

download link: here (mirrorcreator) or here (rapidshare)

Golden Palominos - Golden Palominos (1983) (@256)

Speaking of 2009's reissues, and excluding for obvious reasons the Beatles ones, it was the Feelies' Crazy Rhythms that I enjoyed most since it urged me to return to one of my beloved albums of the 80's only to discover that it remains adorable and unique through its twisted simplicity.
The related upload is from the Golden Palominos, the brainchild of Feelies' drummer Anton Fier. From its first days, the group turned out to be more of a collective with core members being Frier, Bill Laswell and Nicky Skopelitis and different artist appearances on every album. In their first album, which is the subject of this post, we have also Arto Lindsay (with whom Fier had worked again in the Lounge Lizards), John Zorn and Fred Frith among others. With such tremendous line-up it is no surprise that the result is a unique blend of free-funk with no wave, early turntablism and that Zorn driven jazz-punk idiom.

review link: here

download link: here (mirrorcreator) and here (rapidshare)

Various - Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness (1997) (@256)

This is the second to last post about the albums, soundtracks, dvds etc I liked during 2009. So, one among the few exceptional releases of last year was the collaboration between Benjamin Gibbard (from Death Cab for Cutie/ Postal Service) and Jay Farrar (ex Uncle Tupelo/ Son Volt) for the soundtrack of the documentary "One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur". Although someone could argue that their music misses the beat that is embodied in Kerouac's work, my opinion is that their relaxed alt-country along with the lyrics that are taken directly from Kerouac's book succeeded to capture the writer's spirit. For those interested I'll strongly propose the deluxe edition which contains, apart from the soundtrack, a book with never-published photos of Kerouac, the Big Sur novel itself and the brilliant documentary which examines the period of Kerouac's life when he fled to Big Sur, away from the consequences of sudden fame he had experienced in the city, where he wrote the s/t book. Seminal artists such as Patti Smith, Sam Shepard, Tom Waits, S.E. Hinton (writer of Rumble Fish and Outsiders), Robert Hunter, Lenny Kaye etc. talk about Kerouac, while passages of the novel are offered in a beautiful way.

Based on that, this latest upload is an older collection of readings of Kerouac's works. The man behind both projects is the producer Jim Sampas, nephew of Kerouac; as you can notice, some of the artists contribute in both projects as well. Kerouac's passages are set against a musical background created by artists of the widest range which results in a sparkling presentation of Kerouac's prose and poetry. Equally, several actors and some of Kerouac's contemporaries lend their voices while the bonus is Kerouac himself, from a 1950s recording of "MacDougal Street Blues," backed by Joe Strummer.

Tracklisting:
01-Morphine - Kerouac
02-Lydia Lunch - Bowery Blues
03-Michael Stipe - My Gang
04-Steven Tyler - Dream: "Us Kids Swim Off A Gray Pier..."
05-Hunter S. Thompson - Letter To William S. Burroughs & Ode To Jack
06-Maggie Estep & The Spitters - Skid Row Wine
07-Richard Lewis - America's New Trinity Of Love: Dean, Brando, Presley
08-Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Helium - Dream: "On A Sunny Afternoon..."
09-Jack Kerouac & Joe Strummer - MacDougal Street Blues
10-Allen Ginsberg - The Brooklyn Bridge Blues (Choruses 1-9)
11-Eddie Vedder, Campbell 2000 & Sadie 7 - Hymn
12-William Burroughs & tomandandy - Old Western Movies
13-Juliana Hatfield - Silly Goofball Pomes
14-John Cale - The Moon
15-Johnny Depp & Come - "Madroad Driving..."
16-Robert Hunter - "Have You Ever Seen Anyone Like Cody Pomeray?..."
17-Lee Ranaldo & Dana Colley - Letter To John Clellon Holmes
18-Anna Domino - Pome On Doctor Sax
19-Rob Buck & Danny Chauvin as Hitchhiker - Mexico Rooftop
20-Patti Smith with Thurston Moore & Lenny Kaye - The Last Hotel
21-Warren Zevon & Michael Wolff - Running Through - Chinese Poem Song
22-Jim Carroll with Lee Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye & Anton Sanco - Woman
23-Matt Dillon with Joey Altruda, Joe Gonzalez & Pablo Calogero - Mexican Loneliness
24-Inger Lorre & Jeff Buckley - Angel Mine
25-Eric Andersen - The Brooklyn Bridge Blues (Chorus 10)

review link: here

download link: here

Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle - You've Stolen My Heart (2005) (@256)

This post comes as a reply to Nicolas, who left a comment on the previous post and filled me with envy for his presence in a concert of the Kronos Quartet with Asha Bhosle. The odd, yet fruitful collaboration between a classical quartet who have given us extremely interesting works in the past and the most famous Indian singer also serves as a top-class tribute to R.D. Burman. Finally, if for some of you the last two names are unknown, you can also check this older post.

review link: here

download link: here

OST - The Fountain (2006) (@256)

After the previous post that was dedicated to the best rockumentary of 2009, this one will be about the best soundtrack. That was The Moon by Clint Mansell. Mansell has turned out to be one of the most interesting film composers and his eerie music is an accompaniment that fits perfectly with one of the best movies of last year.
Equally impressive was his soundtrack for The Fountain, for which he collaborated with Mogwai and (again) with the Kronos Quartet.

review link: here

download link: here (mirrorcreator) and here (rapidshare)

Various - All Tomorrow's Parties 1.0 (2001) (@256)

This post is about the best rockumentary I've seen in 2009, which was about the festival All Tomorrow's Parties. It's a film that was released by Warp X (a subsidiary of Warp for which there is an ongoing tribute) and gives an insightful look at a festival that always brings us the cutting edge of today's music.


The trailer

So, this post's upload is a release that deals with some the groups of the bill of 2001's ATP, which was curated by Tortoise and Foundation.

Tracklisting
01-The Sea and Cake - Bird and Flag (remix by K Brown)
02-Prefuse 73 - Shitslime Garbage Can vs. My MPC
03-Broadcast - DDL
04-Calexico - Piker Sam
05-Yo La Tengo - Our Way to Fall (live)
06-Rick Rizzo & Tara Key - Sinfo
07-Black Heart Procession - Waterfront (The Sinking Road)
08-Tortoise - Cliff Dweller Society
09-Mike Ladd - I Seen What You Say
10-Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country (edit)
11-Atmosphere - If I was Santa Claus
12-Cannibal Ox feat. El-P - Ridiculoid
13-Autechre - All Tomorrow's Linoleum
14-Russell Haswell - Maquette Augmentation

review link: here

download link: here