The Gigger The Better

Last night I went to a pop concert - this is the sort of thing I used to do a lot but don't really do much anymore on account of being old and tired (and having a lot of stuff to watch on the "Toppy"). But anyway, having dined on steak and wine at the actually very pleasant Casa Mamma in Kings Cross - thanks Steve! - we wandered into the Scala as Maps (that's them up there - new career for me in the snapper game, no?) were coming on. Now, even Silvana is beginning to tell me I bang on about them too much, so I'll just say this.

If you have ever loved Kraftwerk, Spiritualized, Slowdive or My Bloody Valentine, even by default after hearing them, remixed and rejiggled, perhaps a trifle pie-eyed at some early 90s "rave" then you will love them. If you haven't you will love them anyway as the songs - songs! - are brilliant. I'll stop now.

I went for a refreshing wander to the bar before The Earlies came on. When I got back downstairs it was packed to the bloody rafters - hence this from-a-mile-away shot. The Earlies are just fantastic. They look a little like Lynyrd Skynyrd - always a good thing I find - and they sound like the sort of rangy, free-flowing yet hugely melodic psychedelic pop group that you dream of being in after eating too much unpasteurised cheese.

I'm sorry, I did not hear any of the song titles, but I remember One Of Us Is Dead from the first LP.

That is the end. Here is a picture of London this morning.



Thank you.

Old Music Tuesday: Doo Wop Edition

Little Anthony And The Imperials: Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop (Stateside, 1959)
The Cadillacs: Gloria (Stateside, 1957)
The Flamingos: I Only Have For Eyes For You (Stateside, 1959)

A CD of Doo Wop Classics arrived in the post this morning. Like most people under 65 I'd never thought about the whole street-corner, pompadour shtick too much before, in fact, before listening to it this is what I knew about doo wop:

1. George Clinton was in a band called The Parliaments.
2. Tom Waits mentioned Little Anthony (Anne-thoh-knee!) And The Imperials in the song, Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis.
3. Cliff Richard covered Shep And The Limelights Daddy's Home, like, a while ago (that's not him, by the way).
4. There is no 4.

So anyway. The music. It's good! You'd have to be mad to listen to 30 tracks of it (or, indeed, anything else) on the trot, but these three are well worth your attention. The Little Anthony track is pure, late 50s pop gloriousness. It's got a Tiki, exotica flavour, a rattling guitar line and some oh-so-cheeky lyrical twists... Hurray!

The Cadillacs' track sounds like it was recorded in a cave, but within seconds of listening to it you'll imagine yourself in the bar of some one horse town spinning the ice round your large drink with just the barely-functioning fairy-lights for company. The piano player appears never to have actually played the instrument before. The vocal is insane. I love it.

The Flamingos' tracks is beautifully produced with some brilliantly atmospheric reverb and perfectly subtle instrumentation. It flits between looking deep into the early 1960s and gazing back longingly towards some imagined post-war romanticism. It sounds utterly wonderful on headphones too.


Enjoy!

Show Me The Bunny

What's that madam? You want to see Borat's Oscar-dodging snark-fest reenacted by cartoon bunny rabbits in 30 seconds?

Well, I'll see what I can do...

Inshoku

Robert was working at home this afternoon in the basement office (aka the dungeon) which is quite rare. Scrap and me promised not to stamp dance routines out on the floor to get his attention more than once or twice if he would take us out for supper at 5.30pm. We behaved ourselves and soon enough we were heading on our way to our favourite Hoa Viet. We were disappointed to find it's closed on Mondays but by now we were desperate for soupy noodles. We remembered a Japanese place, Inshoku we'd been to years ago on Lower Marsh Street. It was still there and very good it was too. Rob ordered seafood ramen, me a salmon bento box, Scrap had special rice and we all drank green tea. Bill came to just over twenty pounds and we made it home and got Scrap to bed in time for part two of Corrie. Poor Michelle :(
.

Sunday Lunch and Dark Toffee Pudding

We had a proper house full of lovely friends today - Jamie and Sarah, Jonny and Lilla and five boys! I spent the morning cooking a traditional Sunday roast with The Archers on while Rob took Scrap to the furniture fair at Dulwich College then on to the park to have a thrash around on his scooter.

As usual, I wasn’t actually interested in my lunch by the time we all sat down to eat but I did enjoy my pudding.

Dark Toffee Pudding
Serves 8
175g stoned dates, chopped
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
55g butter, room temperature
175g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
175g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
sticky toffee sauce
150g dark muscovado sugar
1 small, 148ml carton double cream
100g butter
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the dates in a pan with 300ml of water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 2 minutes then turn off the heat. Stir in the bicarb and leave to cool. Puree with a hand blender until smooth or leave as it is if you prefer more texture.

Preheat the oven to 180C / gas 4. Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy then beat in the eggs. Stir in the date mixture, flour and vanilla then pour into an ovenproof dish. Bake for 30 minutes or so until firm.

Meanwhile, place the dark sugar, cream, butter and vanilla extract in a small pan and gently bring to the boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes until thickened.

Pour the toffee sauce over the pudding and leave for at least 30 minutes but ideally a few hours. To reheat, cover with foil and warm through in the oven. Serve with custard.

Spaghetti Vongole

So I'm obviously the last person in the whole of East Dulwich to have noticed the fantastic new fishmonger Moxon's, on Lordship Lane. I see now that the East Dulwich Forum has been discussing it since December. Well, anyway, I went in today, "Been open four weeks!" he said. That means I've been passed it a very lot of times with my eyes closed. As has Robert. So, what did I find but fresh, live clams and cockles. I bought just over half a kilo of cockles £3.35 and a couple of very fresh dressed crabs.
We had crab for tea tonight with a squeeze of lemon juice followed by spaghetti vongole. Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of boiling water. About 8 minutes before the pasta's ready, pour half a glass of white wine into a pan with a very thinly sliced garlic clove and a pinch of dried chillies. Bring to the boil and cook for 1 minute then add the cockles, cover and cook for 4 - 5 minute until all the shells have opened. Drain the pasta and return to the pan, add the cockles and their liquor, a splash of olive oil, a handful of finely chopped parsley and a good grinding of black pepper. Toss well, divide between two bowls and eat swiftly.

New Music Friday: Pole Dancing Edition*

I have just returned, breathless and flushed, from Raymond's Revue Bar in London's glamorous Soho where XL Recordings were launching a load of new stuff.

Simon Amstell Off The Telly hosted. That's him. No, it really is. Sorry, I was stood at the bar, so these pictures are a bit crap. Jo Whiley came in for a verbal beating, as did Amstell's successors on Pop World, especially Alex Zane. Which, fundamentally, is fair, no?

Anyway - pop, to whit:

New Dizzee Rascal single. It's called Maths (or is that the album?) and it is uh-mayzing. I've always liked the idea of DR more than the reality of him before, but this track was incredibly good. Proper, huge hip-hop belter. After the viewing, Amstell mentioned to Dizzee - who was stood up near the bar with two huge bouncers - how much he'd enjoyed seeing his nipples in the video. Everyone looked at their shoes. Doesn't he know you're not allowed to make homosexualist remarks to young hip hop chaps? It makes them terribly batey...


New M.I.A. tracks. One was breakbeat-y and it had a proper video filmed in what appeared to be Sri Lanka (ie, she's from Sri Lanka, so that's good enough for me). It was ACE. Then they played a more 4/4 one which was not as ace, but still good (this on-the-spot reportage is the stuff, no? Exciting times as LCFTHSE!)

New Devendra Banhart stuff. DB mucking about in a studio with a bunch of long-hairs. Good.

New White Stripes stuff. The album's called Icky Thump. Literally, how mad is that? As for the tracks - the first one sounded like The White Stripes (plus stylophone). The second one sounded like The Raconteurs. The third one was all mariachi'd up and had the world's most painfully intense key change.


Adele. That's her on the stool! Played live. Everyone liked her. She's like a council estate Beth Orton - that makes her sound like the worst thing ever and she isn't. Honestly. She's rather good, in fact.



Jack Peñate. He's one eight Spanish and seven eighths cockney. But then, who isn't. He was great - geezeh pop, innit. Band a bit Smiths-y. He's one eighth Billy Bragg, two eighths Morrissey and five eighths Mike Skinner. And I likes him, I do!

*There wasn't any pole dancing. The most erotic thing I saw was a fat bloke in a hat chewing a sausage and dropping gravy on his shirt. Sorry.

Fancy Pants Potatoes

I can’t believe we've missed the The Starchy Gallery Fancy Dress Potato
Competition again this year. I’ve just gone past the Space Station Sixty Five Gallery on Northcross Road and seen the entrants and I’ll admit the winner, Amy Winehouse, is not bad but she's not as good as Scrap's Potatoman Pat and his black and white cat would have been. The display runs until 18th March.

Basement Crates: Classics Edition

Joanna Law: First Time Ever (City Beat, 1990)
St Etienne: Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Version) (Heavenly, 1990)
Public Enemy: Shut Em Down (Pete Rock remix) (Def Jam, 1991)
Urban Species feat. MC Solaar: Listen (Talkin' Loud, 1993)
The Memory Band: Catch As Catch Can (Hungry Hill, 2003)

In the grand tradition of my side of Landcroft House, (almost) all these records came out in the very early 90s which I'm increasingly beginning to see as some kind of golden age for me, a time when I liked the records I liked because I heard them in a club or in the shop or at parties round someone's house rather than liking them because they sound nice when you're trying to write, or you're commuting, or because someone on the end of the phone tells you really should listen because, honestly, it's really good! And it's release date coincides with your next issue!

Anyway, the Joanna Law track - an early attempt at, ahem, breakbeat folk - was a huge favourite of mine back in the days when summer evenings were spent in the back bars of Kingston pubs listening to Shuff and Tarby play PE, Lonnie Liston Smith, James Brown, Tribe, you know, all those people that only old people like. To most other ears it probably sounds like the lamest, most mannered piece of crap ever, but I loved it. I still do. That's her brother Simon - the only ginger part of the Soul II Soul collective - on the piano. I feel like I remember a video was made for this, but I might have imagined that.

The St Etienne tune is seriously old. It has, of course, since become a Copper Bottomed Classic and the Et' became a much loved pop group, but at the time this came out, they were as pie-eyed on rave tablets and as full of mad ideas as everyone else. Except most other people went to bed on their mad ideas and by the time they'd woken up and their head was back together the moment had passed. Well, not for this lot and this dub version remains a brilliant window on a way of thinking that doesn't really exist anymore.


Although the idea seemed a bit crazy at the time, Shut Em Down would prove to be Public Enemy's last truly remarkable single. A viciously anti-corporate blast, it retains a harsh, belligerent edge 16 years after its release. This is taken from a wonderfully ugly, white vinyl-N-die-cut sleeve UK Def Jam release. Pete Rock was, literally, the coolest person in the world at the time and this mix was everywhere for months after. It still gets me in the same way Fight The Power or Night Of The Living Bassheads do...


Look. I've got every single Talkin' Loud promo between 1990 and 1995 and I'm probably going to post quite a few of them, so get used to it. I find it incredible that a major label actually funded this - a stridently anti-war rap track with a live jazz group and a French rapper - how good must those drugs have been? Anyway, I imagine that this is about the uncoolest music in the world right now which means, in time, it will be the coolest thing ever. And then I'll be RICH! Rich, damn you!


The Memory Band is the only ringer having come out in 2003 (which, in itself, feels like a fairly long time ago already). I wanted to put in in here because it's a great link between the early 90s jazz-inflected post-rock that came right after - and was undeniably influenced by the sort of records Pete Rock and his crate-digging peers made - and, well, it's the sort of warmly psychedelic-toned British folk that - right here in 2007 - is enormously popular. Well, enormously popular with me anyway.

Enjoy!

Cloud Trouble

Al Escobar: Tighten Up (Tico, 1969)
These February skies are pretty incredible. One minute it's like midnight out there, the next we're dropping the blinds and trying to turn the heating down. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Al Escobar's cover of Tighten Up, but you might find that listening to it makes the drab bits of the day less drab and the exciting bits more, well, y'know.

Enjoy!

Green & Blue

So, we went to the Green & Blue wine tasting last night and had a great time. It started at 7.30 and by the time we’d got Scrap to bed and the babysitter had arrived it meant we went out to drink alcohol without having had any tea. As expected, the pair of us were cross-eyed by the second sample.
I should explain why we were there – Robert had commented on the East Dulwich Forum that he hadn’t found them very helpful on the one time we’d been in the shop. Others felt the same and there were also various comments about the wine being expensive. Anyway, Kate the owner saw this discussion and invited us all to the shop for a tasting. I really didn't want to go under those circumstances and was annoyed with Robert for getting us into it. And it was a bit uncomfortable when Kate began the talk very defensively, explaining all their policies to us, the complainers, but it was fascinating and the wines were fantastic. And good for her for being bothered enough to get us all in. It is a brilliant and very special shop but I still feel it could do with being a bit more friendly in there.
It was interesting to meet the others, though by the time we got to chat at the end, I really couldn’t hold a sentence together. Robert spent the week's housekeeping on some lovely Lebanese red and got us out of there before my mouth really got us into trouble. We called in at Franklins and thank goodness we did because without their spectacular Welsh Rarebit, we’d have never made the walk back up the hill to Landcroft House.

Butternut soup

I know it’s been raining a lot but it’s quite mild out. Which means summer is coming which means bare legs and vest tops. We need to get our act together at Landcroft House. We have a family membership at Jags sports club, costs £65ish a month, gets used once a month. From now on we are going to exercise, watch our calorie and booze intake (although we’re going to the East Dulwich Forum wine tasting at Green & Blue tonight which is not a good start). I am going to walk everywhere. I am going use that giant butternut squash to make a very healthy soup for tonight’s tea.

Everyday butternut soup
Serves 2
Just 248 kcal per large serving!
Butternut squash is very high in Vitamin A (nice hair and skin) and C and is also a good source of fibre, Vitamin E and calcium.
800g butternut squash or small pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cubed
500g ripe tomatoes, quartered
2 garlic cloves, quartered
1 tsp olive oil
2 chillies, halved, seeded and roughly chopped
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dark muscovado
1.2 litres hot chicken or vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Place the pumpkin, tomatoes and garlic in a large, deep roasting tin. Season well with salt and pepper, drizzle over the oil and roast for 30 minutes until the pumpkin feels tender when pierced with a knife.

Sprinkle over the chillies, ginger and sugar then pour over the hot stock. Return to the oven for 20 minutes. Puree roughly with a potato masher or blitz with a hand blender depending on how smooth you like your soup.

Sounds Like TuesdayMusic: New And Revisited

Jack Hylton & His Orchestra: By A Waterfall (originally Decca, 1933, this version Lightning Tree Records, 2007) As you can see from the picture, Jack Hylton had his finest moments - of which there were quite a few, some long time ago. However, what was good 75 years ago, sometimes remains good 75 years later. This is just such a tune - as covered by The Bonzo Dog Band in August, 1969. More of this tremendous sort of thing here.




At Swim Two Birds: Wine Destroys The Memory (Green UFOs, 2007)
I feel like I've encountered this lot before somewhere down the line. Anyway, this is a great, great song, a softly rumbling, hungover-to-hell lament much recommended to fans of Richard Hawley and, oddly, Red House Painters. It's not out for a while yet, so don't tell anyone... OK?






Example: You Can't Rap (The Beats, 2007) Example is this chap from Fulham. On this forthcoming Beats single he bemoans the fact that people think, well, he can't rap. Which is a shame as he clearly can. He can also wallop the chemicals, as can be seen - repeatedly - here.




Cyann & Ben: Sunny Morning (Ever, 2006) This is a brilliant track from last year. C&B are artisanal French hippies, basically and this sounds (a little) like an arts & craft Spiritualized. So, not much to complain about there, eh?

I'm really, really hoping it is a sunny morning tomorrow - not for any other reason than it would make me spring into work feeling glad to be alive. Also, I pointed out the pink clouds of a sunrise to The Scrap the other day and he seemed genuinely excited by the prospect. I think he'd like this too...

BONUS POST: Maximo Park: Our Velocity (video).
I'd like to post Books From Boxes from their fantastic new album. But I'd get punched :(

Enjoy!

State Of The Art: Critical

Hidden around here are some of what someone, somewhere has decided are The Worst Album Covers Ever. Except, of course, that most of them contain records you'd just love to hear.

Like Trevor's LP, as seen on the right. How much more entertaining is that going to be than, say, this piece of makeweight capery. Or this particularly aimless and hearltess effort?

Actually, We Did Like To Be Beside The Seaside

So, after a fairly torturous morning - I was in the boiler shop at 8:12am - we piled everything we own (well, that's what it looked like) into the car and thrashed it down to Winchelsea for the weekend. We ate lunch on route so we could all go straight to bed for a bit when we got to The New Inn. Two hours later, we were as good as new and made for Rye Harbour where The Scrap raced his Like-A-Bike up the long, long path to the wild and windy seafront. We chucked stones in the water and tried to stop our ears from freezing. Thick black clouds hung over half the sky with the rest of it blue or grey. Rain would appear from nowhere, then disappear into bright sunshine. The sky was endlessly fascinating. However, by the harbour the cloud cover made it look like night was falling, so we raced over to Camber to see some sand and make a few turtles just before sunset. The British seaside in the off season is brilliant.

By 6:15 our window table in the Inn had a pint of Guinness, a JD and Coke and a plate of Suffolk ham, free range egg and handcut (by Mr Beefeater of PotatoCorps Frozen Carb-Delivery Systems) chips. Scrap scoffed the lot, asked the barmaid for "a glass of wine, please" - he got apple juice - wolfed his chocolate ice cream and was ready for bed. With him tucked up we returned to the bar for more Guinness, more JD, some wine, an excellent steak and a great piece of plaice. We were full and happy and ready to pass out. It was 8:25pm.

At nine our old friends Jane and Bruce - who have a cottage nearby came over and we got a very welcome second wind. Jane brought us bags of presents and a parcel of delicious muffins she'd just baked. This morning breakfast wasn't served until 8:30 and Scrap wakes up at 6, so we were very grateful to have those muffins to keep him quiet. We were downstairs by 8:31 and the boiled eggs and soldiers soon followed.

We took the scenic route back to London stopping for fantastic scones, clotted cream and jam at the De La Warr Pavillion, chucked a few more stones in the sea, searched in vain for some cockles or winkles then piled back into the world's filthiest car and made for home.



Next week I'm going to buy The Good Pub Guide so we can do this more often. A lot more often, hopefully.

Burgers for tea tonight

Adrian is coming at 8am tomorrow to fit the special new condensing combination boiler so we are clearing off to the seaside for the weekend. Hurrah! When we get back the house will be warm and there'll be plenty of hot water and the shower will be more powerful than ever before...even the body jets (not holding my breath).
Robert is conveniently working a bit late tonight. Late enough to miss the bedtime shenanigans but he should be home just in time for his tea. So in between doing the books "Mummy read it!!!" and warming icy pyjamas with a mini hot-water bottle and packing an overnight bag for us all I will be using the pack of mince I have in the fridge to makes burgers purely because I can get them on the table in 15 minutes and a good Bolognese (what I really would like to eat) takes hours to cook down. Anyway, we all like a burger. I always make them this way, varying the flavourings depending on whatever herbs etc I have in the fridge and I like to add a bit of chopped bacon or pancetta if I have any. I'm sorry about the photo, I'm a bit pushed for time so I nicked it from my Family book

Makes 4
2 red chillies, seeded and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
bunch fresh flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
2 dill pickles, roughly chopped
1 thick slice of white bread, crusts on
1 small egg
500 g organic minced beef
4 slices Port Salut, Jarlsberg or Cheddar cheese
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 crusty buns

Place the chillies, garlic, parsley and gherkin in a food processor and tear in the white bread. Whizz until the bread breaks into crumbs then transfer to a large bowl. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the egg, beef and plenty of salt and pepper – you may need to use your hands if you find the mixture difficult to blend.

Shape into four even-sized burgers with a thickness of no more than 1cm. Cook in a preheated griddle pan or under the grill for 3 – 4 minutes on each side until nicely browned but still just a touch pink in the centre.

Split open the buns and place a burger on the base of each. Top with a slice of cheese and maybe a smudge of mustard .

Records That Make Me Feel Good: 20 & 21

Ronnie Walker: Just Can't Say Hello (Once You've Said Goodbye) (Event, 1973)
So, I was rooting around in this pile of CDs on my desk this morning and I found this. As I said before, soul music is a bit of a closed book to me - especially the obsessive collector end of things - but there are two great tracks on it.

I know tap all about Ronnie Walker, but what I gather from the intranot is that he was one of those warhorses who spent much of his career banging out the hit(s) to worshipful Northern Soul fans. This is a brilliantly pitched ballad with great harp and strings. Oh, and a bassline that's pitched somewhere below sea level. Stylistically, Ronnie is like a slightly camp Al Green. I mean, he isn't, but you see what I mean...

Leroy Randolph: Good To The Last Drop (Spring, 1972)

There only seems to be this one picture of Leroy Randolph on the entire internet (unless this is also him, which is probably isn't - hello to the wonderfully named Geneva Shells, by the way). He only made one record for Spring and this is it. A proper hip-shaking dancer, it has elements of Motown shuffle, great backing vocals, and a lyric where he describes his lady-friend as being "like a small piece of leather" and points out that she's "very well put together". Good work, Leroy! Great little 4-bar breakdown in the middle too.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: I've emailed Leroy Randolph to ask if he's "THE" Leroy Randolph. I'll keep you posted of all developments...

UPDATE II: If you look closely, you'll see that Geneva and Fred Shells share a "cell-phone". Sweet!

Kaput!

We woke up to a very cold house this morning - especially in Scrap's tiny room as he's got a little fireplace with a drafty chimney. The boiler that’s been dripping for a month gave up its fight for life today. Nice timing considering the money we’ve just spent on radiators, ballcocks, a pump and a coldwater tank. Adrian the plumber is meeting me at Landcroft later to assess the situation but it’s inevitably going to mean a new boiler, at £2,000+. It wouldn’t be so hard to swallow if the existing boiler had been more than 18 months old - I thought they were meant to last 10 years! Anyway, we’ve got no heating or hot water so can we all come to yours tonight for a shower? And maybe a night in your cosy spareroom? Anyone?
I guess it’ll be the Comfort Inn, in Vauxhall then. But at least we’ll get a great breakfast in Estrella, the best cafe/ restaurant in the world. Yep, every cloud does have a silver lining doesn’t it!

Addicted to Chips

Did you see that programme Freaky Eaters - Addicted to Chips on BBC3 last night?
The brat of a 20 year old girl who would only eat beige carbohydrates – white bread, chips, crisps, oh and butter. The thought of eating any other food made her feel sick. Of course, it soon became clear that it was indeed all her parents fault. The psychologist and nutritionist did their best but in the end they couldn't fix her. I thought she was so lazy and unappreciative, they shouldn't have bothered. Next week – addicted to cheese – can’t wait!

Video Of The Day Year

This is the new video from Pepe Deluxe for their single, Pussycat Rock . I met them in Helsinki recently and came, fairly swiftly, to the conclusion that they were in The Mentals.

It looks like I was right.