An editor from my magazine days reached out to me last week and said…
So that’s why this edition of Here is the music I am listening to this week looks a little bit different to previous editions of this mailer. For better or for worse, I didn’t question him when he put The Wombats on the cover of the magazine we both worked on, and I’m sure as hell not questioning him now.
And we’re off!
Lush - ‘Hypocrite’
Lush were one of my very favourite bands as a teenager - I had their logo drawn in Tipp-Ex on my gym bag if I remember correctly, which was a weird look for a member of the school rugby team, but I digress… - and this song was and is my absolute favourite of theirs. I’ve got quite friendly with Miki in recent years - I love it when that happens, my 14 year old self is SHRIEKING - and so I’m mostly including this here because it’s an excuse to plug the pre-sale link for the memoir that Miki has written for the increasingly ace music book imprint Nine Eight. It’s in my inbox and I’m going to read it this weekend. But on the subject of this song specifically, it’s a favourite largely because it bridges Lush’s shoegazey origins and the Britpop stuff that then followed. I like both sides, but this, for me, is the sweet spot. Also, “I know you think it's wrong and maybe you're right but this is my song” is utter sass.
Maybe you’ll enjoy this interview with Miki I did for my yeah-it-really-needs-some-care-and-attention website Indie Heaven the other year?
Spacemoth - ‘Round In Loops’
Maryam Qudus is an Afghan-American songwriter from the Bay Area and I am obsessed with the music she makes. This song is taken from her debut album No Past No Future, which is due on July 22nd, and if you like Kraftwerk, Broadcast, the Pickled Eggs Records roster, and Stereolab as much as I do, then you will surely love it. It’s the way the synthesisers throb like android hearts. It’s the way the song eeks to a close like a warped record. It’s the way it makes me feel gooey and disturbed all at once. I haven’t heard a single song of hers that I haven’t loved. I can’t wait for the album.
Kathryn Williams - Night Drives
I’m not from the North East, but I did grow up there. Which I guess is a similar experience to that of Liverpool born Kath, who turned up for university in Newcastle and never really left. As is the case with a bunch of artists from the NE, I absorbed her music during a developmental time in my life. When I broke up with girls, Kath’s 1999 debut record Dog Leap Stairs was there for me. When I was losing my mind to OCD, Kath’s immense 2004 covers record Relations was there for me. And while I now live far away from the places where I had those experiences, I cannot possibly imagine how Kath’s music won’t follow me into the darkness wherever I might now end up. Her new album Night Drives came out today. It is delightful, and this is a good song.
And, if you missed it at the time, maybe you’d like to listen to her cover of ‘Something To Believe In’ by the Ramones - my favourite Ramones song! - that she performed for the Spoook Joey Ramone 70th birthday tribute night last year?
The Beths - ‘Expert In A Dying Field’
Back before everything went mental when I left the rock mag, there was a joke in the office that bands like The Beths might be christened McMahon-core. Female vocals, indie rock on a 90’s bent, a bit twee, punk rock but of the melodic variety. I liked it. It felt like validation. I was pathetically desperate for validation. And there’s no question that there is something of a template for a lot of the music I like most. Obviously everything went mental when I left and it wasn’t validation at all and maybe even a diss, which makes me sad and I found it quite hard to listen to music like this for a while afterwards because it triggered such a painful memory. But if I’ve learned one thing from my treatment for OCD, it’s that painful memories get more painful if you pull away from them. You have to confront them. Live with them. And then they fade. And so I listen to The Beths a lot now. And it’s okay. And they are mega.
‘Weird Al’ Yankovic - ‘Headline News’, but just lots of Weird Al, really (and also God Shuffled His Feet by the Crash Test Dummies)
When I was 32 I used to go out on a Friday night and go wild. Now that I’m 42 I stay in on a Friday night and watch ‘Weird Al’ Jankovic videos with my wife on YouTube. I think they call that ‘levelling up’. I love Weird Al. I generally think spoofs are the lowest form of wit - I actually think ‘funny’ music might be even lower than that to be honest - but watch this and tell me it’s not the funniest thing you’ve ever seen (and I actually think this overmatter from the video shoot is even funnier). Anyway, I interviewed Brad Roberts from the Crash Test Dummies for episode 57 of The James McMahon Music Podcast - out now! - the other day. That was a treat. I loved that band as a kid. Brad talks almost exactly like he sings! And fittingly, the Weird Al content we’ve been watching most is this pastiche of the Canadian band’s 1993 megahit ‘Mmm mmm mmm mmm’. The references are dated, of course, but it’s still big lols.
Incidentally, the Weird Al biopic is out soon. It looks terrible.
Marcus Mumford - ‘Cannibal’
I have these memories of working in the NME office that I really cherish. I’m tired. I don’t care. It’s dark outside. Arguments about pop minutiae beckon in the pub. The music is stupidly loud. I’m surrounded by people that I (mostly) like. And I am so grateful to be there. It’s all I ever wanted. Every day I feel like I’m doing something important. I’m probably not, but it feels like it, it really does. The world needs to hear the first Twang single. I feel like Josh in The West Wing or some shit. And during one of these times, I hear the first Mumford & Sons album and my heart swells so much I think it might pop. I later find out that I’ve got high blood pressure from all the OCD and working too hard, but I don’t think it’s just that. It just catches me at a moment of excitement and vulnerability and I’ve loved that album ever since. It’s such a weird experience working in a music magazine office, or anywhere in the music industry I guess. Most people go to work and they don’t have a stereo blaring that manipulates your every emotion. What a weird and unique way to work. I miss it. Sometimes.
Anyway, I get why people don’t like Mumford & Sons. I do. I get it. Shit name. Banjos. Nobody can afford to feed their kids and that’s their fault somehow. But that voice. The thud of fist on muted strings. The way Marcus’ songs don’t shy away from the simplest of hooks. You know what modern pop needs? It needs to be more shameless. Music like this takes me back to one of the most contented periods of my life. Not only that, but there is of course a relevant podcast I can plug here.
Fujiya & Miyagi - ‘Digital Hangover’
All of my favourites are on their way back at the moment (no really, Bis have got a new album on the way!) and I’ve been a fan of Brighton’s Fujiya & Miyagi for what feels like forever and ever and ever. Generally speaking I’m more a fan of their stranger stuff, and this - a tease for new new album, Slight Variations, due in September - is slightly conventional for my tastes. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, yawn. But the middle eight is the stuff. More music that sounds like malfunctioning ZX Spectrum’s please.
Talk Talk - all of it. I’m up to my knees in Talk Talk right now
I’ll be honest, Talk Talk are a huge blind spot in my musical knowledge. It doesn’t happen often, but I really do hate it when that happens. I’ve devoted my entire life to bands and songs. Other than ghosts and Doncaster Rovers and Bigfoot and horror movies, I don’t really know about anything else other than music because I spent way too much time reading the NME and the Melody Maker at school. Seriously, I only know about three elements on the period table and I only remember Bismuth because it sounds a bit like Bis. Not knowing very much about a band as important and revered as Talk Talk… well, it troubles me. I should have studied harder. I should have paid closer attention. What else am I missing? What else should I know?
Anyway, I’ve got a friend who really likes Talk Talk and he’s been pointing me in the direction of what to listen to, what to watch, and what it all means. Turns out that I really like Talk Talk. I’m an absolute idiot for not getting into them sooner.
Cat Power - ‘A Pair Of Brown Eyes’
If you haven’t heard Chan Marshall’s new covers record, Covers, which has felt strangely under-appreciated by what little music media remains, then you should rectify that I reckon. It’s one of the best things she’s done in years. The song choices are really great. Not obvious at all. But some of the arrangements are wild. I think best of the bunch is this haunting take on The Pogues 1985 single ‘A Pair of Brown Eyes’ (which itself is based on the Irish folk song ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ (also known as ‘Will Ye Go Lassie Go’), by Francis McPeake). This is all getting very complicated isn’t it. Yeah. You should listen to this. It sounds like it’s being sung by a drunk ghost.
Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark (Live At Rock In Rio)
I wrote about a bunch of Iron Maiden albums in the new Record Collector Iron Maiden special, so I include this in order to link to a place in which you can buy said magazine. It’s a very good special, thick and smart, unsurprisingly given its edited by the great John Earls, a man who I genuinely believe might be the nicest man in showbiz. But I also include this because I think this might be the single greatest live video that exists on all of the internet. I can sort of take or leave Iron Maiden really. I like the punkier stuff at the beginning. I get excited when there’s a new Eddie. But it’s not really for me after a point. And yet when I listen to that crowd sing the riff back at Bruce… well, I somehow end up being convinced they might be the best band ever.