Loser

It starts at home
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

Lazing on the Sunday before the workshop starts, on the hotel balcony

• Beck - (I'm a) Loser mp3
  

Poppies

I see red
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

in the fields above Falmer in East Sussex





mp3 Teardrop Explodes - Poppies in the Field (from one of my favourite teenage albums, Kilimanjaro - thanks to Death wears white socks)

In Memoriam

In Memoriam
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

fake poladroid, fake life, fake death, fake emotion...

Don't say goodbye to your friends

It's funny how these things happen. No planning, just picking up tracks from my recently added list that for some reason appealed, not really listening, and then once they're all together and in some sort of sound order, the theme stands out clear as day. If you believe Tarot cards, this must be what reading tarot is like.

Tracklisting:

1. Go! Team, friendship update
2. Radiohead, bodysnatchers
3. Lily Allen, not fair
4. Jens Lekman, If I could cry
5. Marmalade, mess around
6. Gillian McPherson, Muff the Gong
7. David Dondero, You shouldn't leave a love alone too long mp3
   
8. Beta Band, Dry the rain
9. Fairport Convention, Tale in Hard Time
10. Duncan Browne, ninepence worth of walking mp3
11. Cocoon, take off
    
12. Bonnie Prince Billy, Less of me
13. Neil Young, Walk on
14. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Into your arms
15. Super Furry Animals, back on a roll
16. Tunng, woodcat
17. Big Mehr and friends, Talking to no-one
18. Three Degrees, when will I see you again
19. Wave Pictures, I love you like a madman mp3
    
20. Morrissey, The more you ignore me
    

Ho hum. As usual, this will be around for a bit and then gone. Download at your leisure but don't wait too long.

It's in two parts, mp3s coming in two large zip files:

Part 1 http://www.mediafire.com/?nnzihunjb0l

Part 2 http://www.mediafire.com/?wjieymy03mm

coming in out of the rain

coming in out of the rain
Originally uploaded by Southcoasting

• Neko Case covers Dylan's buckets of rain mp3

(thanks to melophobe)

England and Alcohol

New statistics on alcohol use and abuse were published today by the National Health Service Information Centre,and they make fascinating reading. Of course, the stories in the newspaper in the morning will be full of the usual horror stories of x percent of the population who are consuming more than y units per week/day/hour, but the

actual data contains some more interesting facts:

1. Although the methodology changed, so it's not that easy to compare the
latest years, it appears that drinking levels are pretty stable, and if
anything may have reduced in the first half of this decade.

2. Binge drinking by men aged 16-24 has actually fallen considerably.
The percentage who drank more than 8 units at least one day in the week before
interview (the definition of binge used here) fell from 39% in 1998 to 27% in
2006. Headline writers take note: that's a drop of around 30 percent in binge
drinking by young males.

3.  Women's consumption is still lower than men's, but it's intriguing to note
that since the change in methodology, the difference in drinking patterns between
the age groups has reduced considerably. It's no longer just young women and men
who drink heavily. Don't know if that's down to the methodology or due to a real
levelling in drinking habits across the generations.

4. It's not the council estates and tower blocks who drink to excess. Possibly
because they're all strung out on smack, or locked indoors watching the Shameless
box-set they lifted from HMV (joke). No, really, the working classes drink less
than the middle classes. (see chart)






















5. One of the most significant changes in our alcohol consumption has been the
long-term decline in drinking outside the home. Basically, the decline of traditional
pub culture. We still drink more beer outside the home, but only just - whereas
only 5 or 6 years ago the difference was around 50%; that is we used to drink around
half as much beer again in pubs as we would do at home, but not any more.

Wine consumption has grown massively, but only at home, not in pubs or wine bars.

We also appear to be drinking more spirits at home in the last few years, but less
in pubs, according to the data.

6. Price might be a factor, but the statistics suggest that the real price of
drinking has been pretty stable over many years, once inflation is taken into
account. Household disposable income has however risen significantly. Basically,
we could afford to drink a good deal more than in the past, so its a miracle more
of us aren't more drunk more of the time... Clearly there's more to life.

7. Of course, alcohol abuse is a serious matter, and can have a terrible impact on
many areas of life: personal, family, social etc. But for the majority of people
most of the time, it's not an issue. We can handle it, basically, and we do.

8. Hospital admissions for alcohol-related conditions have been increasing according
to these statistics. The largest numbers (and biggest contributor to the rise)
relate to mental illness linked to alcohol but it's hard to disentangle
administrative data of this sort, as the changes could easily reflect a greater
focus on alcohol-related problems by the services tasked with dealing with them.
Basically, cases previously ignored may now be being picked up by the system, and
this could be responsible for the rise in hospital admissions. It's hard to tell.
But alcohol-related hospital admissions appear to be rising in every category,
including those which might be less affected by policy changes and practitioner
focus. So there may be some substance to their rising numbers and the suggestion
that for a minority alcohol abuse causing severe problems is a social issue of
increasing importance.

You can read the actual report here: http://www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/alcohol09

or just read the usual nonsense in the Daily Press in the morning...

the guys ate FAST!

the guys ate FAST!
Originally uploaded by mr squiddle @ comedyshots

A repeat session... by the flickr boys (l to r: Rob, Lee, James and Alex)

Nice one.

(camera action by Ed)

Mexico City

Blue Demon at Home

by Lourdes Grobet (1980)

Velvet Underground 1965

I found these old Velvet Underground demos some time ago. They're from the 5 CD box set Peel Slowly and See.

This is the sound of Lou Reed sitting around his living room in 1965, trying his best to sound like Bob Dylan. John Cale is there somewhere too. Some brilliant songs already written, and in Prominent Men, a decent song that was lost in the ether as it didn't really fit the Warhol Factory vibe they grew into.


Entertaining sounds of the Velvet Underground in training.

• Velvet Underground - Heroin (early demo - 13 and a half minutes) mp3
• Velvet Underground - Prominent Men (early demo - 5 minutes) mp3
• Velvet Underground - I'm waiting for the Man (early demo - 10 minutes) mp3

(Link on third track now correct)

Buy the box set:

Jesper Norda (Free things #3)

Jesper Norda is a conceptual artist living and working in Göteborg in Sweden. He is also in the electro-rock band If there is something, whose album can be downloaded for free from the 23 Seconds website.

However, for me his best work has been the extraordinary cycle of songs that have made up his two recent collections We Have The Guts and Little Ones. Primarily just Jesper's piano and vocals, this is no Elton John. The two self-released EPs are full of some extrordinarily honest compositions, with some beautiful light piano work underlying a dark resonant vocal style that reminds me of Ian Curtis, or a somewhat warmer Tom Waits at times. The songs are primarily about relationships, but from the point of view of maturity, not innocence or lust, which gives them a rather rare quality. Composition seems to happen mainly free-style, sitting at the piano, which gives the song a crystalline and directive quality.

There are great tracks throughout, but for me the two stand-outs are the title song from We Have The Guts, and Tomorrow you'll be forgiven... from Little Ones. These are songs you absolutely have to hear. There's also an excellent cover of a Telepopmusik song (Dance Me) which stretches the simple disco music into a different place.

I look forward to hearing more from Jesper Norda, but in the meantime, download these superb EPs.

Tasters:

• Jesper Norda - Tomorrow you'll be forgiven but tonight you will have your teeth knocked out mp3 Download the Little Ones EP
  
• Jesper Norda - We have the guts mp3 Download the Guts EP
  

Website

Myspace

Iron & Wine (Free stuff #2)

Iron & Wine have just re-released the acoustic demos for the Shepherds Dog album, as a free download from their website.

This is one of the best albums of the last few years, so hearing these simple hone-down versions of the songs is a delight. Just Sam Beam and his guitar, but the quality of the playing and the songs is superb.

Download the eight tracks here;

website www.ironandwine.com;

and a taster below:

• Iron and Wine - Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car mp3
  

Doomcloud (Free Stuff #1)

(c) Photo by David Hawkins

Kevin Hewick has just released his album Doomcloud as a free download available from his website.

Kevin Hewick is probably most famous for being the man who flunked the audition to replace Ian Curtis in Joy Division. That's probably unfair, not least because he was never really suited to be a dark front man to New Order, it wasn't really an audition and he never really sought it out. He was however an inspirational anti-folk singer-songwriter (Tony Wilson compared him to Elvis Costello), a bit of an oddity on the Factory record label that was home to Joy Division, New Order and their like. His song Haystack is one of that label's classics (or would have been if it didn't actually emerge in its proper form on the 1980 Les Disques du Crépuscule compilation From Brussels With Love). Stylistically, Kevin's gruff neurotic-yet-romantic punk-folk singing was in a world of its own. After the 'dark years' in the 1980s/1990s, Kevin is now writing songs and has been gigging a lot, mainly around his hometown of Leicester, playing three hour covers sets and of course his own songs. He is currently playing in Hewick, Haynes and James who describe themselves as a power-trio in the Hendrix/Cream mould, but with bits of Davy Graham and Girls Aloud. Sounds fascinating.

Doomcloud is an album of demos recorded at home and then left unfinished in 2003. It's a pretty stark, but at times beautiful, album of love songs; the lyrics raw and honest and in places deeply touching. The tone is set by the opening song 'An Object she's left behind' :

Now she's gone it's as if she were never here
It's as if I imagined the last few years
The fighting is over, the loving is too
My other half was just passing through...

The guitar lines are simple, yet at times impossibly beautiful. The words weave in stories of sad lonely relationships, of longing, of hope and opportunity. The song 'How far off the target was I?' is one of the best, a tale of a lonely man's hope and failure in the quest for love. Kevin's vocal is superb too, carrying his powerful impassioned voice across the plaintive refrane captured in the title, and then some "...how embarrassing it was to see my dart fly, a mile off target from the bullseye."

Not all of the album works, and some of it still sounds unfinished, perhaps too painful to keep working on. But where it works, it really works.

I can't fail to be moved by the beautiful guitar lines in 'Make that call', and the optimistic demand "to turn on your mobile, wherever you are... I'll stay in touch". Another favourite is 'I'm not involved', with an excellent memorable riff and a melody that sounds both modern and straight out of the finest English folk from 1972.

Imperfect and flawed perhaps, but honest and moving and raw.

• Kevin Hewick - An Object She's Left Behind mp3
  

Download the whole album here

Visit Kevin's website

And buy the brilliant Tender Bruises and Scars compilation
by clicking on the cover image below: