Static & Silence

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The Smiling Hour

Since you're here again I think it's fair to assume there isn't a musically-prejudiced bone in your body.

But just in case I say 'Azymuth' and you think: 'Oh noooohhh Mr H! Synthy noodly 80s jazz-funky? Not for me!' may I assure you that this is...

chilled
acoustic*
authentically Brazilian

and very unfeasibly-warm-March-evening-in-London-Town-with-a-cold-San Miguel-ey.

Hey! You're welcome!

Mine's a large one!

Azymuth - 'Salto Das Sete Quedas (Cascade Of The Seven Falls)' (1982)

*OK, there's a bit of synth at the end. And an electric keyboard all the way through. In fact...Oh bugger it.

Vernal

Bill Evans Trio - 'It Might As Well Be Spring' (1962)

Friday Reggae # 21

David Emmanuel aka Smiley Culture (10 February 1963 – 15 March 2011)

As Kippers put it succinctly in a Tweet this week, it is the cruellest of ironies that a man famous for this record should die in what look to be deeply suspicious circumstances during a police 'drugs raid'.

What a sad, sad end.

Here's to happier times with a witty pioneer of British reggae/ragga MCing.

Smiley Culture - 'Cockney Translation' (1984)

Soft Southern Jessie

Last night I dreamt I walked the streets of my old home town. Not as it is now, with its lar-dee-dar shops for the lar-dee-dar yachting types who've taken the place over and priced the locals out; as it was when I was small - a real place with real shops: the bakery on the corner with the girl called Wendy my Mum knew, Mr Shillabeer's butchers where he'd pull coins and sometimes, miraculously, eggs, from behind my ear, Pillar's the toy shop with its window stuffed full of Dinky cars and Belli's the tobacconist by the bus stop home where my Dad would buy his tins of St Bruno.

Why at 45 am I walking the streets of my early childhood in my sleep? What is the cranky old processor in my brain up to, sifting through this hardly-used stuff on the hard drive? Who knows.

But it reminds me of when my grandad, sat in late summer out the back of the modern house we moved to in the 70s, would talk to me about the Plymouth of his youth, before the bombs fell and the 60s planners finished the job.

That place existed only in his head, and so it is now with mine and me.

I lived in Trumpton and I am a Soft Southern Jessie.

Freddie Phillips - 'Chime And Clock Theme' (featuring Brian Cant, narrator) (1967)
Freddie Phillips - 'Band Concert' (1967)

[vinyl rips from the Music For Pleasure LP]

So Precious, So Sweet

I was noodling about on the internet the other night listening to Lou Reed and something made me Wikipedia his song, so I read inadvertently about this one which, excuse my very great ignorance, I was entirely unaware of before.

Very lovely, in that early 60s 'Patti Page And Lemonade' kind of way.

I needs to get me more doo wop.

The Excellents - 'Coney Island Baby' (1962)

Their nearly-men story here.

A Pop At The 80s

Our occasional series of extended 80s classics builds into a magnificent library your whole family will enjoy.

I've had the song stuck in my head all day so, grim world news rendering it inappropriate or no, there was nothing for it but to dig out the old LP and get computerising; and stone me, this is thirty years old.

Wailin' and skankin' to Bob Marley
Reggae's expanding with Sly and Robbie

------

In the '84 Talking Heads concerts that were filmed for 'Stop Making Sense', the band did this while David Byrne got into his Big Suit.

Ms Weymouth is utterly splendid here. I do like a woman with a bass.

And yes, I would say hello to a little drink, if you're asking.

Tom Tom Club - 'Genius Of Love' (album version) (1981)

See 86

She lives somewhere in China
I think that I'll go out and find her
Just to see if there's a better world for me

*drinks tea*

Shop Assistants - 'Somewhere In China' (1986)

The Smiling Hour

And speaking of songs whose words and melodies run headlong downhill sounding as if at any point they'll fall right over themselves like a small child over bicycle handlebars we present tonight at Davy's Bar two Brazilian legends in sparkling duet - it's the first spring-like Friday post of the year, baby.

Mine's a large one, if you're going.

Antônio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina - 'Águas de Março' (1974)

I Don't Let Go

I was mocked for having this record. Mocked! 'Today I am a small blue thing' indeed. But 'Marlene On The Wall' was rotation play on the relaunched 'Radio Caroline' all through the night handwriting essays in the crappy house in Turnpike Lane with the ruby-red flock wallpaper and the jetblack cockroaches that skittled through the kitchen at the flick/flick flicker-on of the fluorescent striplight. That headlong rush of words you only get on a song the singer means.

And this.

'I believe right now if I could, I would swallow you whole' ?

Mocked.

This is a davyh vinyl rip.

Suzanne Vega - 'Undertow' (1985)

Jane Russell (June 21st 1921- Feb 28th 2011)