Mahoney’s Guide to the 70′s: 1971

A brief look at what happened in ’71 plus my favourite records & films

1971

What was happening in ’71

• A stairway crush at the Rangers vs. Celtic football match in Glasgow, Scotland kills 66.
• Charles Manson and three female “Family” members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders
• Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden.
• Jim Morrison, leader of The Doors is found dead in his bathtub in Paris, France.
• Val Venis, American professional wrestler is born

Favourite records of 1971

01: The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers 

Arguably their greatest album with every single song being a complete classic. The sound of the worlds greatest ever rock n roll band at their absolute best.

02: T. Rex – Electric Warrior

The album that made Marc Bolan a superstar & the album that caused the glam-rock era in the 70’s. Electric Warrior has always been seen as T-Rex’s finest work (though I prefer The Slider), fun, sexy, groovy songs topped off with Bolan’s uniquely bizarre lyrics. A stone cold classic.

03: Lee Hazlewood – Requiem for an Almost LadyAn underrated gem by a hugely under appreciated artist. Requiem for an Almost Lady originally was only released in the UK & Sweden which is goes a long way to explain why it isn’t widely considered one of the great records of it’s era. A record of heartbreaks & relationships gone wrong delivered with Hazlewoood’s usual wit & humour. Without a doubt one of Lee’s finest LP’s.

04: Al Green – Al Green Gets Next to You Outside of ‘Call Me’ this is my favourite record of Al Green’s. I’ve never been overly keen on the cover of Light My Fire but the rest of the record is pretty much perfect. What a voice.

05: Leonard Cohen – Songs of Love and HateHave recently got into the work of Leonard Cohen & this was the record that turned me onto him. I can’t think of a better album title in terms of trying to describe what’s on the record. The simplicity of these songs are what make them so appealing to me.

06: John Lennon – ImagineMost people seem to prefer Plastic Ono Band but for me this is Lennon’s best solo work & I’d go as far as to say it’s up there in terms of quality of some of The Beatles best work. I know people can be put off by the title track, it’s one of those famous songs that is almost as big as the artist that created it but I still absolutely fucking love it, lyrically it’s such a simple ideal that anyone with half an inch of soul inside themselves must of at least thought about a few times in their life. ‘Oh Yoko!’ also gets some stick partially because it’s a cheesey love song & also because most people don’t like Yoko but still as far as cheesey love songs go it’s one of my favourites. The rest of the record being top notch also.

07: Curtis Mayfield – Roots
08: David Bowie – Hunky Dory 
09: Flamin’ Groovies – Teenage Head
10: Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
11: Sly and the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On
12: Alice Cooper – Love It to Death 
13: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin [IV] 
14: Faces – A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse 
15: Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On 
16: Gil Scott-Heron – Pieces of a Man
17: Joni Mitchell – Blue 
18: Rory Gallagher – Deuce
19: Can – Tago Mago
20: Groundhogs – Split

Favourite Films of 1970:

01: Straw Dogs [Sam Peckinpah]One of my favourites of all-time. Hoffman at his best, Susan George at her hottest. Always felt the final 10 minutes felt a bit needlessly ‘Hollywood’ though the rest of the picture is a psychological masterpiece.

02: Vanishing Point [Richard C. Sarafian]Vanishing point pretty much defines what a cult movie should be. IMO the best car related film theres ever been. Kowalski trying to deliver a car on time being chased across America by the cops, such a fucking blast.

03: A Clockwork Orange [Stanley Kubrick]Just one of many of Kubrick’s films considered a masterpiece. I assume everyones seen it, if you’ve not sort your life out.

04: The Panic In Needle Park [Jerry Schatzberg]Not one of the first films people would mention when thinking of Al Pacino but for me it’s one of his best. A dark, bleak miserable film about drug addiction, happy days.

05: Duel [Steven Spielberg]Who’d of thought the directer of such huge hits as Indiana Jones, Jaws & E.T would of started out making a carsploitation film made for TV. Spielberg shows his talent with this simple film which is essentially a truck chasing a car for 90 minutes, astonishingly impressive the levels of tension built up with such a simple premise.

06: Get Carter [Mike Hodges]
07: Diamonds Are Forever [Guy Hamilton]
08: Dirty Harry [Don Siegel]
09: Fright [Peter Collinson]
10: Two-Lane Blacktop [Monte Hellman]
11: Play Misty For Me [Clint Eastwood]
12: Shaft [Gordon Parks]
13: A Fistful of Dynamite/Duck You Sucker [Sergio Leone]
14: Il gatto a nove code [The Cat o’ Nine Tails] [Dario Argento]
15: The French Connection [William Friedkin]

A Modest Proposal regarding the payment of musicians.

There has been, as I’m sure anyone reading this will be acutely aware, much in the media over the last few years regarding the renumeration of musicians, whether it be regarding the dwindling record sales, mp3 piracy, rocketing prices of gigs or one of many other things. I’m sure all of us don’t want bands we like to starve or have to quit and get proper jobs, nor do we want them ruined by the excesses that come with too much cash, so to that aim I have two proposals:

1) The Nationalisation of all music.
2) A Maximum wage of £50,000 a year for all musicians.

1) is pretty simple, big record companies are shit and don’t really do anything and would happily just fill everyones ears with aids if it would make them a few quid. 2) might be harder to justify but heres three words that might make you more ameniable to my view : ‘kings’ ‘of’ and ‘leon’, once they smelt the dollar they’ve slowly changed from a fairly interesting if unspectacular band to THE WORST THING EVER CREATED. (witness their latest step in their conversion to u2 in the form of their new video, which I won’t post here on the grounds of taste) at the same time we have the bizzare stories about them at the v festival (which itself probably shouldnt happen and would be hard to justify with a maximum wage for musicians).
Songwriting could form a pension for those who indulge in that and bands could also count on a pension proportionate to their longevity, also shit bands could be encouraged to stop with the promise of an early pension. This might seem a bit unfair but well, who can’t live on 50 grand a year? and has anyone very very rich made anything worth listening to since John Lennon died?

Also its worth considering that U2 probably wouldn’t still be together if it wasn’t for the epic sums of money they get each year for touring, and even if they were Bono would be far less of an intolerable cunt.

Led Zep were just a covers band, like Westlife.

I’m sure everyone knows that they ripped off a lot of blues riffs for their tunes, but did you know the extent of just how much they plagiarised?

We’re not talking Noel Gallagher style re-using bits of songs and sticking them in his own, I mean actually taking other peoples songs in their entirety and claiming them as their own! This set of Youtube vids has a lot more about it



I bet you didnt know it was that bad did you?

Going Solo – JP’s Top Ten Solo Artists Who Are Better Than The Bands They Were In

Many try their hand at being a solo artist after being in a successful band and fail miserably or just are a bit crap (Richard Ashcroft, Gary Barlow, Slash, I’m looking at you). However this is a positive post about positive things. So this is going to be about solo artists who not only left a band to forge out a successful solo career it is about artists whose solo career went on to PISS ALL OVER the material of the band they were in and in my opinion is their finest work.

So here we go with the top ten countdown…

10; Elliott Smith (Heatmiser)

To be honest I’ve never really given Heatmiser that much of a listen but they’re not going to be better than Smith’s solo work are they? I’m not even the biggest Elliott Smith fan in the world but he left us some brilliant material behind when he died and several beautiful albums. He deserves his place on this list.

9; Darwin Deez (Creaky Boards)

Slightly controversial one maybe as he is still pretty knew to the whole solo artist thing and only has the one album. It’s an excellent album though and he’s been one of my favourite breakthrough acts of the year. His old band Creaky Boards sounded a bit shit to me so that’s good enough for him to make the lower reaches of this list. I’m pretty sure he didn’t do his amazing dancing in his old band either.

8; Panda Bear (Animal Collective)

Another controversial move for different reasons. Yeah everyone bums Animal Collective these days but I’ve been a much bigger fan of Panda Bear’s solo stuff if I’m honest. AC have never made an album as good as “Bros” and probably never will. I can’t wait to hear his newest offering when it comes out later this year.

7; Scott Walker (The Walker Brothers)

Yeah The Walker Brothers were a nice group, no doubting that. But Scott Walker’s solo stuff really takes things up a few notches. His solo stuff is much more up my street, especially on albums like “Tilt” where he gets all avant garde and discordant. The numbered albums are obviously all well known for being great too. So yeah much better than the pop ballads of his Walker Brothers days, no doubting it.

6; Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd)

Syd Barrett’s “The Madcap Laughs” is better than anything Pink Floyd ever did. Pink Floyd were only any good when Barrett was in the band.

The sooner you accept these facts the sooner you will be able to move on in your life.

Thanks.

5; Four Tet (Fridge)

Fridge were okay I guess, I find them a little dull though. Four Tet however is my favourite electronica artist and his album “Rounds” is in my top five of the 00s it is that damn good.

A definite example of someone whose solo work pisses all over that of the band they were once in.

4; Bjork (The Sugarcubes)

I know The Sugarcubes are still pretty highly thought of and yeah they are decent, but they’ve never really totally clicked with me. Bjork however has managed to have a solo career so good that it has made her probably the best female solo artist of the last two decades.

3; Neil Young (Buffallo Springfield)

I like Buffallo Springfield don’t get me wrong. But I really don’t think there’s many people out there who when asked what their favourite Neil Young related album is would pick one of the Buffallo Springfield lps. The Solo career he has had since the end of that band has been phenomenal and certainly PISSES ALL OVER anything they ever did.

2; Nick Cave (The Birthday Party)

I’m not sure about this one tbh, does Nick Cave even count as a solo artist? I think a lot of people think of him as one, myself included but in reality he’s a band leader with The Bad Seeds being an important part of the whole thing. I’m going to include him though as he is the one that counts, I know the likes of Mick Harvey have down some songwriting and stuff over the years but in reality The Bad Seeds are an everchanging lineup and basically a backing band. Cave is the showstopper and the main event and writes all the big hits lets face it. It’s no different to Neil Young having a few nobodies backing him up, he’s still a solo man. (BTW if you read this Warren Ellis please don’t beat me up, I think you’re amazing really).

Also I really do like The Birthday Party too, but Cave’s SOLO career has been a lot more adventurous and simply BETTER.

1; Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine)

Look at him, what an absolute hero. I’ve gone on about how much I love him on these pages not so long ago so I won’t repeat myself too much today. But I just find him to be one of the most interesting and amazing musicians Britain has ever produced.

The day he dies I will cry.

So yeah that’s my list. Is there any you disagree with or think I’ve missed out? LET ME KNOW

An A-Z of JP’s Favourite Music. W is for… #TheWeddingPresent

Sorry for not posting for a few days fans. No fear though, I’m back. W is another of those letters where loads of my favourite bands seem to chose it to start their name with. You have the likes of Wire, Why, Wavves and The Wave Pictures. However the band I have chosen really is one of my all time favourites so it just had to be.

W is for…

The Wedding Present

I remember acquiring a copy of “George Best” probably getting on for ten years ago and giving it a spin a few times and enjoying it but never really paying it too much attention. My relationship with The Wedding Present pretty much remained as that experience for many years afterwards – they were a band I was aware of and knew I quite liked but just kinda forgot about and never bothered to play them or delve any deeper into their back catologue. They toured where I live several times and I never bothered to go (much to my annoyance now of course). Then one day in 2007 I decided to give them a spin again for some reason and fuck me they clicked big time.

I proceeded to spin the aforementioned “George Best” lp more times than is healthy and it still remains my favourite of their albums to this day. The whole package just feels right, the jangly guitars that still have a hard sounding edge to them and David Gedge’s lyrics have never been better.

It was at this point my obsession started. I slowly managed to purchase most of their albums on cd or vinyl and then decided to move onto collecting a load of their 7″ singles. Luckily I managed to find quite a few for dirt cheap in various charity shops and stuff so I’ve managed to build up quite a nice little collection.

Unlike a lot of people I’m still a big fan of The Wedding Present’s current work. For me it is right up there with their very best. “El Ray” and “Take Fountain” were both high up on my best albums of the 00s list and are packed full of great songs. The guitars these days are perhaps a bit more brooding and darker sounding but Gedge’s lyrical genius is still there and the influence of his time away from the group in Cinerama is certainly evident with a more cinematic feel to many of the songs.

Despite regretting the times I didn’t bother seeing them live before when I was fairly ambivilent towards them, I’m lucky that they’re a hardworking band and seem to tour most years. I got to see them in 2008 (one of the only times in recent years I’ve been full of youthful enthusiasm and been smack bang centre in the mosh pit rather than hanging out at the back near the bar) and will get to see them again later on this year when they tour the Bizzaro album. They’re bloody excellent live by the way, probably in my top ten gigs of all time.

I’ve decided to include something a bit different as my mp3 for you to download. It’s from one of the group’s many Peel Sessions, and is a cover of “Felicity” by another of my absolute favourite bands and former stars of this page – Orange Juice. You can download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?ac0t80dkdu4umaz

Breaking Shit Horse News

It has been revealed today that Rolling Stone legend Mick Jagger is a huge fan of the Soapbox’s favourite new band Shit Horse.

You can buy Shit Horses EP from Odessa records here

JP Recommends #3… #BigTroubles

I am literally just listening to this band’s debut lp for the first ever time right now and I can already tell that this is going to get numerous plays from me over the coming weeks and months.

Big Troubles are from Ridgewood New Jersey, and to me on first listen, sound ruddy brilliant. Stand out songs for me so far have been the Guided by Voices esque “Bite yr Tongue” and “Freudian Slips”, a song that rivals The Pains of Being Pure at Heart in the pop perfection stakes.

I’ll be honest when saying they’re not really that different in sound to a lot of bands coming out at the moment, there’s that lofi sound mixed with 80s pop influences going on for sure, but like The Pains and Best Coast, they have the songs that shine through and put them ahead of the rest of the pack. There also seems to be a bit of chillwave thrown in for good measure, with some songs sounding more like Ducktails and Washed Out than the straight up guitar bands I’ve mentioned previously.

You can see them play a nice stripped down live version of “Freudian Slips” below, the singer appears to have a nice cardigan too which is always nice.

In 2008 I first became obsessed with The Pains…, in 2009 it was Best Coast. I wouldn’t be suprised if 2010 became the year I fell in love with Big Troubles.

Find out more at http://www.myspace.com/inbigtroubles

An A-Z of JP’s Favourite Music. V is for… #VivianGirls

As we get closer and closer to the end of my AMAZING A-Z it is time for yet another letter, today V is for…

Vivian Girls

After THE PAINS, these girls are probably my favourite new band of recent years, despite them getting a lot of hatred from certain sections of the music press.

Both albums they’ve released so far have been EXCELLENT, the b-sides have all been great too and they put on a fantastic live show also. Yeah they get some criticism for being purposely lo-fi or whatever but c’mon they’re not exactly early Daniel Johnston are they.

The new stuff sounds absolutely amazing as well, especially the track “Other Girls” which has become a regular in their live set over the past year. They’re also one of the few bands I’ve been to see in recent years where I’ve actually bothered to go over and speak to them before the gig, turning me back into the starstruck 17 year old I used to be who would speak to anyone who ever went near the stage.

So yeah, fuck the haters this band are amazing and I’m expecting big things again in 2011, if I had to make a prediction right now I’d say my favourite album of 2011 will be their new one.

Find out more at http://www.myspace.com/viviangirlsnyc

Album review: The Black Angels – Phosphene Dream (2010)

Released September 7

Neo-psychedelia is an interesting genre that doesn’t seem to get a whole lot of notice from mainstream or even internet music fans. Austin, TX’s “The Black Angels” are making a big noise with their 3rd full length, Phosphene Dream and will definitely turn a few heads with this taut, at times dark, at times uplifting, but always rocking record.

The record starts off with arguably the best single in the band’s career, “Bad Vibrations”.  One thing that is noticable about the Black Angels is that they are a band that wear their influences on their sleeve. The opening track is a cacophony of styles and sounds that all seem to be rooted in mid-60s psychedelia. There are times when you’re listening to this record where you can easily imagine it being 1966 and the girls have beehives and are wearing their skirts and dancing along with the drone.

The Black Angels have always seemed to be able to take something seemingly simplistic and give it a lot of depth at the same time. They take simple ingredients and create a psychedelic stew that is extremely inviting and lots of fun to enjoy.  “River of Blood“, track 5 on the record, would not be out of place on a Who record. Singer Alex Maas has that hypnotic baritone that made bands like The Doors and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd household names during their heydays and it shines through throughout the middle portion of this fantastic record. Guitarist Christian Bland’s ability to craft a hook is evident on virtually every track with the rhythm section rock steady.

This album never overstays its welcome and is there to do one thing: rock. It does for the entire 37 minutes. If this style of music suits your fancy, I’d be willing to bet you’ll be left wanting more.

2010 has been a good year for music thus far and the Black Angels have just added something else to your backlog of stuff to listen to this year. For a quick punch to the gut that will keep you coming back for more, Phosphene Dream is arguably the best album so far by a band that always seem to bring quality to the table.

Rating: 9/10

Andy will love it.

Further listening:  I highly recommend the Black Angels’ prior two records in addition to this if you’ve not heard them before. Also of note, guitarist Christian Bland’s side project, Christian Bland & The Revelators. Feel free to ask in our forum for more information, or just check the Black Angels’ official site for links.

An A-Z of JP’s Favourite Music. U is for… #UruseiYatsura

No it’s not U2 or UB40, U is for…

Urusei Yatsura

These guys were real good yet literally no-one mentions them these days. Lo-fi slacker rock influenced by the likes of  Dinosaur Jr, Pavement and Superchunk but taking place not in Seattle or California but at Glasgow University.

The band existed throughout most of the mid to late nineties releasing several albums, including my favourite – “Slain by Urusei Yatsura” an album that is full of brilliant songs such as “Glo Starz”, “Hello Tiger” and “Fake Fur”. The tunes remind me a bit of early Ash, full of youthfullness and hormones but with huge dollops of fun thrown in too.

Despite the majority of bands they get lumped in with being American, I’d also say there’s a comparison to fellow Scots Teenage Fanclub in there somewhere too. Even though Urusei Yatsura were a bit rawer and grungier than the Fannies ever were, they still share the same sense of melody and poppy undertones.

Unfortunately they now seem to be relegated to one of those bands whose cds you only ever come across in charity shops and record shop bargain bins. Whilst of course this is good for us the record buying public with amazing taste, it’s a little disappointing for a band who deserved so much more.

Find out more at http://www.myspace.com/weareuruseiyatsura