I’m a sucker for the high lonesome sound of a steel guitar, and the news that Ben Keith has passed away is very sad. So many of my favourite Neil Young albums have Ben’s signature sound – Tonight’s The Night,  On The Beach, American Stars n’ Bars. I last saw him providing sterling musical service to Mr. Young at the Big Day Out 2009 (above, in sonic splendour, Ben stage left).

RIP, Grandpa Green.

The music still has a hazy shoegazy sway, but listen to those insistent rhythms and squiggly synthetic sounds bumping away underneath. There’s a little of Stereolab’s bounce added to the mix, Camarilla and Babelonia very reminiscent of Laetitia Sadier. It’s a big, warm, moving, atmospheric sound. Lush, you might say.

You lucky people have two tracks from the album to sample. Download Babelonia and Bye Bye Bye (from RCRDLBL.com)

In truth, Shit Browne don’t remind me so much of Manchester’s leading lights as the bands on the periphery, and those who came after. If you’ve listened to Northside’s Shall We Take A Trip too many times you’ll find lots here to like. Un soupçon de Pop Will Eat Itself, un peu de Carter USM.. “Learning from the Mondays, w*nking on the Roses, copying the Charlatans, smoking the Carpets..” – tonight these guys are gonna party like it’s 1989.

Hommage or parodie? You decide.

Download DMD (Anoraak Sunset Mix) from RCRDLBL.com. The new album Every Single Penny Will Be Reinvested In The Party is out now.

Magic, that is. Here’s a reminder of Kate’s original.

So what are The Futureheads up to these days? If they dropped off your radar, or you never really checked them in the first place, I can say they’re doing very nicely: the 2010 album is called The Chaos and it’s a stormer. Download Struck Dumb for free and give it a blast. Recommended.

Dean Wareham was the frontman of cult indie proto-shoegazers Galaxie 500, a band I thought were just fine, but were no great heroes of mine. The best thing I liked about them was their fantastic cover of Joy Division/New Order’s Ceremony. They did, however, have a decent and incredibly dedicated following. As did Luna, Wareham’s subsequent band, praised by Rolling Stone as “the greatest band you never heard of’ (though that line may be a little over-used).

Black Postcards is a brutally honest account of life in the music business, detailing in plain terms the tightrope walked between artistic integrity and commercial acceptance, independance and corporate control. He tells us just what it means to be penniless when unsuccessful and following a dream, then skint when successful but in debt to a major label, and how that affects relationships with the people around you: bandmates, soon to become enemies, tugging in opposite directions. The burn-out. The break-up of families, the infidelity, the bitterness, the wounds. Friends and relations trail in the wake, lost or forgotten.

And the life affirming moments when, all too briefly, the hype and the music and the effort and the desire coalesce and bring the rewards.. world tours, critical acclaim, high living and commercial success.

If you’ve been in a band, at whatever level, you’ll recognise the moves, the infighting and the frustration described here as the depths are plumbed, but this makes it all the more enjoyable when Wareham and company pull it off and scale the peaks. If you have any interest at all in human nature, you’ll find this book a worthwhile read too – you don’t need to know anything about the music.

If you’re not a fan and would like an intro to the sounds, Wareham notes that Galaxie 500′s debut Today – “..made for $750, including sixty minutes of one inch tape” – and Penthouse by Luna are his favourites, Penthouse being “the first difficult album Luna had made, where we fought and were set against one another. Where things took longer than they should have. Where we went over budget. But it was also clearly our best album.” So here’s a track from each, bracketing Ceremony.

If you see the book, grab it. Five stars.

P.S. Dean Wareham continues to perform today, with his wife and former Luna bassist Britta Phillips, as Dean & Britta.

The eponymous debut of Sierra Madre band Painted Hills (formerly Bolero, descended from Beachwood Sparks) sounds like a classic rock record collection in miniature. Chiming guitars and great melodies channeled straight from the Laurel Canyon folk-rockers of  the 70s and the bands of the Paisley Underground – The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade prime among them. Guitarist Josh Schwarz surely must have borrowed Old Black for the crunching Crazy Horse-alike Everybody. Fans of Big Star and Teenage Fanclub will find a lot to like here. I can even imagine Liam Gallagher singing Kaleidoscope Eyes.. OK, OK, I might be slightly deluded but it’s a terrific song. If you’ve got the Cosmic Rough Riders or Velvet Crush in your collection, grab some Painted Hills today. I think it’s grrreat. It could be the soundtrack to the summer, except I’m in the southern hemisphere. Warming me up this winter, then.

Listen to the whole album, and download Kaleidoscope Eyes for free. I bet Alan McGee likes it.

I really don’t know what you’re going to think about Cracker‘s version of The Clash’s White Riot, from this album. I’m pretty sure you’ll be.. er.. polarised in your opinion. It’s either the most brilliant thing you ever heard, or the most absurd. A country version with a full-on chicken-pickin’ slam-bang hoe-down ending? Come on, it’s ridiculous, what on earth are they doing? How could they?

So why do I like it so much?

P.S. I first heard this song on an internet radio show, The Garden Fence Of Sound, piloted by David Newton (producer and ex-Mighty Lemon Drops guitar man). I emailed him immediately and asked who it was. Cheers, Dave!

ElTele

OK, let’s get this straight right from the word go: Spanky Wilson got her nickname because she was a naughty girl when she was a child growing up in Pittsburgh.

This storming, soulful version of the Clapton/Bruce/Brown penned Sunshine Of Your Love is a cult club favourite, and I hope it’ll be one of your favourites too. It’s from her sophomore album Doin’ It, from 1968. There’s no woozy 60s lead guitar noodling here – it’s all crisp clipped funk rhythm and tight horn section, topped off with Spanky’s dynamic jazz inflected vocals. It’s a monster of a floor-filler all right, guaranteed to get you out there shaking your booty and making a damn fool of yourself.

So check out the cover and the original below. Would I be right in thinking Spanky makes the Cream tune (from Disraeli Gears, 1967) seem a little… pedestrian?

P.S. Spanky’s still making excellent music today – check out the I’m Thankful album (2006) featuring the Quantic Soul Orchestra.

Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien and Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie had tremendous success in British light entertainment in the 60s. Dusty Springfield was a masterful interpreter of American pop written by the best – Goffin/King, Bacharach & David – and Lulu was the sprightly young pop poppet of the charts and the Eurovision Song Contest.

Dusty’s renditions of the classics gave her the leverage she needed to take a step up in class and record with the best. Though it had been very successful, Lulu simply hated what she was singing (though glimpses of the direction she was to take can be seen in her TV show, which also gave us one of most edgy television moments of the decade). Contract at an end, she signed up with Atco and got a chance to show what she could do with classier material. They both went to America.

Dusty worked with Aretha Franklin’s production team of Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin in Tennessee, backed by the legendary Memphis Cats (well known for providing a sterling musical service to Elvis, Wilson Pickett and more). Dusty In Memphis isn’t quite the gritty downhome album it might have been, but it is an incredible meeting of pop and soul, complete with superb funky arrangements.

Lulu headed for Alabama and the same production team as Dusty. The musicians were the awesome Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who were responsible for more than a few landmark recordings (Aretha’s Respect and Wilson Pickett’s Mustang Sally to name just two). Add legendary guitar slinger Duane Allman to the mix and you can see that Lulu was in the very best company in making New Routes.

Both these records made the lower reaches of the American top 100. The late 60s and early 70s were more about Woodstock, Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin, so these exemplary recordings were somewhat overlooked, but they represent the artistic high point of two remarkable British singers.

You’ll have heard Son Of A Preacher Man before, but maybe not seen this clip of Dusty. You might not have heard Lulu’s Oh Me Oh My, but Aretha knows how great a performance it is, since she recorded her own version on Young, Gifted and Black in 1972.

Ladies and  gentlemen, Dusty and Lulu.

P.S. Here’s a little extra Dusty – singing the blues. Following New Routes, Lulu went and did it all over again on an album called Melody Fair. The backing band on that record? The Dixie Flyers plus the Memphis Horns, augmented by Elvis’s backing singers The Sweet Inspirations, no less! Both albums are collected on The Atco Sessions 1969-1972.

Thanks to fellow bloggers ElTele and Talcy for spurring me on with their own excellent 26×26 selections. What’s next, chaps?