Catching up with Utah Saints

Remember Utah Saints? Back in 1991 the electro-duo burned up the airwaves on alternative radio with their song, "Something Good" which featured a sample of "Cloudbusting" by Kate Bush. The full length self titled cd also featured a cover of "New Gold Dream" by Simple Minds.

"Something Good"




"New Gold Dream"




After a long absence Utah Saints returned in 2008 with a new version of "Something Good" imaginatively calling it "Something Good '08." The '08 version is available on iTunes, but the original version from 1991 isn't available although there are some used copies floating around the 'net. I recently obtained a copy from an Amazon subseller, so you can try here if you're interested.

"Something Good '08"




Last year Utah Saints released a full cd titled Two and they also dropped a remix of "Epic" by Faith No More.

"Epic"




Today Utah Saints debuted their new track on the BBC and revealed it will officially drop early next year, but you can listen to it below

Utah Saints vs Drumsound & Bassline Smith "What Can You Do For Me"



For more on Utah Saints, visit their official site here.

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Beady Eye

Beady Eye have uploaded B.E., the third and final installment in their mixtape series. Stream it below (tracklisting also posted underneath) and if you missed the other two mixtapes, access them here:

B.E. by Beady Eye Music on Mixcloud

1. Link Wray "Rumble"
2. The Rolling Stones "Satisfaction"
3. The Beatles "Revolution"
4. The Who "I Can See For Miles"
5. T.Rex "Children Of The Revolution"
6. Iggy Pop "Lust For Life"
7. Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen"
8. The Jam "That's Entertainment"
9. The Stone Roses "I Am The Resurrection"

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Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan will release a new cd titled Blues Funeral on February 6th. Josh Homme, Greg Dulli, and Jack Irons guest on the new record. Lanegan will embark on a short European tour early next year and U.S. dates are forthcoming. Catch up with Lanegan here.

Mark Lanegan "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (Leadbelly cover)

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R.E.M.

R.E.M. will release the career retrospective Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011 on November 15th. The full double disc release featuring a collection of the band's hits and also 3 new songs is now streaming exclusively on NPR's First Listen. I posted the full tracklisting at the end of this post. Take note that NPR's disc 2 actually starts with "Everybody Hurts" not "Sidewinder..."

Click here to listen to Disc 1

Click here to listen to Disc 2

R.E.M. also just launched a special website where fans can share their favorite songs, videos, comments, and memories. It's pretty cool--fans are submitting their favorite songs and writing about them. Access remhits here.

01 Gardening at Night
02 Radio Free Europe
03 Talk About the Passion
04 Sitting Still
05 So. Central Rain
06 (Don't Go Back to) Rockville
07 Driver 8
08 Life and How to Live It
09 Begin the Begin
10 Fall on Me
11 Finest Worksong
12 Its the End of the World as We Know it (and I Feel Fine)
13 The One I Love
14 Stand
15 Pop Song 89
16 Get Up
17 Orange Crush
18 Losing My Religion
19 Country Feedback
20 Shiny Happy People

Disc 2

01 The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
02 Everybody Hurts
03 Man on the Moon
04 Nightswimming
05 Whats the Frequency, Kenneth?
06 New Test Leper
07 Electrolite
08 At My Most Beautiful
09 The Great Beyond
10 Imitation of Life
11 Bad Day
12 Leaving New York
13 Living Well Is the Best Revenge
14 Supernatural Superserious
15 Überlin
16 Oh My Heart
17 Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
18 A Month of Saturdays
19 We All Go Back to Where We Belong
20 Hallelujah

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Skinny Puppy

Congrats to Skinny Puppy! The band released their new cd hanDover on October 25th and the band sold over 3000 copies its first week out, which is a huge deal in this day and age of digital sales AND considering this is an independent release. The album entered the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at #168--the highest first week debut for Skinny Puppy in history. Take a look at other Skinny Puppy hanDover numbers:

Billboard Top 200 Album Chart: #168
Heatseekers Album Chart #3
Heatseekers Dance/Electronic Chart: #9
Tastemaker Chart: #18
Independent Chart: #37

If you haven't checked out hanDover and you like Skinny Puppy, do yourself a favor and listen to the record. It is really, really, good. I think you'll love it. You can listen to a few tracks from the record on the band's official Facebook page (requires "like").

Skinny Puppy "Village"

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The Cure

In addition to the forthcoming Bestival live double disc set from The Cure, it looks like there will be a 5-disc boxset Classic Album Selection 1979-1984 coming out in the U.K. on December 5th. Not much info is available, but from the listing it appears Faith, Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, The Top, and Pornography will be included in the boxset. Take a look at the tracklisting and photo, but from what I can tell it doesn't appear anything new will be featured on this release, so save your money for the Bestival release (it drops December 6th).

The Cure "A Forest" from Bestival 2011

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Last Creation Records related post for the day...

Looks like police in the U.K. are investigating to see if Creation Records' kingpin Alan McGee was a victim of the phonetapping News Of The World scandal. Read the report via the Huffington Post U.K. here.

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Upside Down: The Creation Records story

Upside Down: The Creation Records Story was released on DVD in the U.K. earlier this year, and so far there isn't a U.S. release date (though the film does have a distributor here, so it's only a matter of time). All the clips have been blocked from viewing in North America...until now. Thanks to Dailymotion & Creation you can watch a portion of the film featuring Oasis below (watch it now in case it gets pulled!)


Oasis Upside Down Creation Records story by oasisblues

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Teenage Fanclub Bandwagonesque celebrates its 20th anniversary

Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque is another fantastic Creation Records release from 1991, and this weekend it celebrated its 20th anniversary. I opted to not pay tribute to the cd on Time Warp this week since I was emotionally overwhelmed with remembering/bowing down to My Bloody Valentine. Gotta spread the Creation love out, no? Fear not, we shall spend some time honoring this fabulous cd later this month on the show. In the meantime, I hope there will be some fitting tributes written over the next week, but I haven't found one other than this piece that was written back in September.

Take a listen to a few tracks from Bandwagonesque below

"Star Sign" was the record's first single. I wish this song was 15 minutes long.




"The Concept" was the second single and it featured one of the best lines of all time, "she don't do drugs, but she does the Pill." Awesome.




The radio single for "What You Do To Me" combined it with "Satan" so essentially it was two songs in one. I can't find any ripped audio of the radio single version, but here's a live version:





"Metal Baby" I just love that you can totally picture the characters in the song.




"December" Love, love, love it.




If you don't own this record, you should. It's cheap, too.

I leave you with this fun fact about Bandwagonesque: Spin named Bandwagonesque Album of the Year in 1991, beating out Nirvana's Nevermind. Ballsy choice. Even though the record is THAT good, I'm guessing the Spin editor at the time was a huge fan of the Byrds, Big Star, and Status Quo, because Teenage Fanclub lovingly took a page from those bands and ran with it.

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My Bloody Valentine

My Bloody Valentine's 1991 cd Loveless is celebrating its 20th anniversary this weekend. Loveless didn't enjoy the commercial success of Nevermind, Ten, Achtung Baby, or Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but it was one of the most important and influential records released that year, or EVER, for that matter. If you're already familiar with Loveless, you know what a sonic masterpiece it is. But if you aren't...

1. I recommend that you read Record Rewind: 'Loveless' by My Bloody Valentine and follow that link to listen to the full album on Spotify. Favorite line from the review: "I truly envy you newbies out there, listening for the first time--Loveless is a listening experience you aren't likely to forget." Indeed.

2. I recommend you read "An Open Love Letter To My Bloody Valentine's Loveless." Favorite line from the piece: "In fact, the worst thing that could be said about Loveless is that it is the last album that My Bloody Valentine ever made." Exactly.

My Bloody Valentine "Only Shallow"



And a big FYI for fans of Kevin Shields--he's launched a record label called Pickpocket, and even though this is Shields we're talking about, the label really will be releasing music. And soon! The first release from Pickpocket will be an EP by Le Volume Courbe (project featuring Shields' label partner Charlotte Marionneau, and sometimes even Shields himself.) The EP is scheduled to be released on November 15th.

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Ciccone Youth

You never know what you'll find in the discard cd bin at the station. Today was a major score:

Ciccone Youth The Whitey Album
Liz Phair Exile In Guyville (reissued!)
Bjork Volta
PJ Harvey White Chalk
Spiritualized Songs In A & E
Morrissey Years of Refusal (2 brand new copies!)

Wow! I think I'm the most excited about rescuing The Whitey Album and I'm glad the cd is now in good hands...

Ciccone Youth "Into the Groove(y)"



Since it (somewhat) relates, here's a collection of Madonna clips (circa 1984) talking about producer Nile Rodgers

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The Smiths

Full disclosure: I just got my Smiths Complete boxset this week, so I've been listening to a LOT of Smiths music lately. Don't hate, I only bought the 8 disc set, not the deluxe version.



At any rate, the fine folks at NME have put together quite a massive feature on The Smiths! They've compiled a list of Morrissey's most memorable quotes, the top 10 Smiths b-sides, and they've asked some pretty cool musicians like Noel Gallagher, Alex Kapranos, Ian Brown, Ben Gibbard, Peter Buck, Ryan Adams, and more to reveal their favorite Smiths song. Oh, and there's even a Smiths limited edition magazine you can purchase (yes, you can order it in the U.S. It comes to exactly $17.99, if you're interested.)



Finally, take the NME poll and let them know your favorite Smiths track, or just be a lurker and check out the poll results so far.

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Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds self-titled debut dropped overseas last month and finally the album will be out in North America next week. Take a listen to a stream of the full cd here, and check out a review here.

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds "AKA...What A Life"



Listen to Noel popping off on a variety of topics below:

On why he named his project Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds:



On the artwork for his album:



On dance music:



On rumors:



On digital music:



On using non-traditional instruments in the studio:

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Damon Albarn opera

Earlier this year Damon Albarn wrote a musical/opera titled Dr. Dee: An English Opera. The opera didn't exactly get rave reviews from this summer's performance in Manchester, but maybe things will turn out better next summer in London. A cd featuring the music from the opera will be released next summer and you can order it from the official Dr. Dee site.

Damon Albarn "Apple Carts"

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Noel Gallagher concert & interview

Yesterday Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds played live at the BBC Theater. Watch "If I Had A Gun" from last night's performance:



You can listen to an audio encore of the concert plus an interview with Noel Gallagher on BBC Radio 2 (fyi, you can fast forward the player so you don't have to listen to the newscasts, etc.)

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Siouxsie Sioux

If you're a fan of Siouxsie & the Banshees, the big news is the band is allegedly planning a massive 20 disc boxset! The set is expected to include all 11 of the band's studio albums and singles, plus rare live recordings, television appearances, and more. The boxset is still a work in progress and no release date has been set. Head on over to Slicing Up Eyeballs to find out more.

The other big news is...just last week Siouxsie & The Banshees won the 'Outstanding Contribution To Music' award at the Q Awards. Forget the award, take a look at Siouxsie! She showed up in an awesome rubber outfit. Take a look. Wow!

Siouxsie & The Banshees "Dazzle"

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Peter Hook/Man Ray

Ever hear of Man Ray? Well, I hadn't heard of this Peter Hook project until I checked out Hook's FB page today. It turns out he teamed up with Phil Murphy for this side project last year, and they even released a few tracks, including the track "Tokyo Joe" which you can listen to below.



Hooky also just posted a video from his kickoff Unknown Pleasures gig at The Factory in Manchester last year. Check out "She's Lost Control" below:

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Shaun Ryder

All I can say is, this BETTER air in the United States: According to the Sun, Shaun Ryder from Happy Mondays fame is going to be hunting for UFOs in an 8 part series set to air on the History Channel. You can also read more about this must see tv here. I am laughing just thinking about how great this will be.

Happy Mondays "Step On"

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Steve Lillywhite interview

Over the years producer Steve Lillywhite has worked with a ton of big names--U2, Peter Gabriel, Rolling Stones, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Morrissey, Psychedelic Furs, Dave Matthews Band, Chris Cornell, and zillions more. Lillywhite was recently interviewed on The Dusty Wright Show and threw down some interesting topics. He talked producing (song not important but voice is), dissed Radiohead ("I saw them on SNL, thought they were shit...I don't think the old Radiohead would like the new Radiohead"), called Shane McGowan from the Pogues an "underachiever" and said Pirates of the Carribean is exactly what Keith Richards is like in person. Watch the almost 30 minute interview with Lillywhite here.

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Ian McCulloch

Ian McCulloch (from Echo & The Bunnymen) covered Leonard Cohen's "Lover Lover Lover" on his 1992 Mysterio record. I have no idea why this song came to mind today, but it did. I forgot how much I loved it. Check it out below:



McCulloch is currently in London this month working on a new solo cd.

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