NEED A LOYAL MUSICAL COMPANION? Load up The Cool Quarantine, one of the best – and literally the longest – strips of Pure Listening Pleasure the lockdown has given us. Punk and post-punk orientations, precision anecdotes, rare bootlegs and more musical minutiae than you could hurl a Damned acetate at, it’s Henry Rollins doing what he does best: fanatic-ing about music. Great company. I took a couple of chunks out of it this week (while reading Stay Fanatic!!!) and still have major chewing to do.

Among the first-class oldies/rarities heard so far are Hendrix, Minor Threat, Led Zeppelin live 1977, Joy Division’s first EP, The Panic, the Stains, the Fall and loads more, but it’s the links and fanboy enthusiasm that really brings these records to life. Best of the new sounds so far? Lair of the Minotaur. Primal thuggery gone wild.

***just saw that episode 2 has just gone up***.

So. What’s the point of this post? Not sure, really. Documenting the home-based times through music, I guess. Continuity, stability, getting a few words down, sharing music tips. If it gets tedious, we’ll end it. In the meantime, week 4.

APRIL 11
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Viscerals
Huntsmen – Mandala of Fear, disc 1

APRIL 12
Radio day

APRIL 13
Ministry – Dark Side of the Spoon
Sunn O))) – White 1
Ministry, Dark Side: How insane is Supermanic Soul? And how far beyond heavy is that second guitar riff? Like Animositisomina last week, Dark Side of the Spoon sounds as vital as ever, despite the deteriorating health and relations of the people who made it. Never understood why this album and Filth Pig get middling/bad reviews. This is bold stuff. Industrial metal corroded, sinking in a toxic swamp.

APRIL 14
Algiers – There is No Year
Henry Rollins – Cool Quarantine radio

APRIL 15
Killing Joke – Pylons, bonus disc

APRIL 16
REM – Accelerate
Tool – Fear Inoculum
Black Midi – Schlagenheim

APRIL 17
Kamasi Washington – The Epic, disc 1
Bossk – I
Dead Cross – Dead Cross
Henry Rollins – Cool Quarantine radio
Cool Quarantine: St Vitus recorded at a house party in 1982??? YES. Audio like this puts you right there. It’s as close to time travel you can get.

Stay safe, keep the music ON!

Previous Lockdown Music –  Week 3

Lockdown music
Caught in a trap
No turnin’ back
Lockdown music

This is why we call it Lockdown Music – so you can sing it to Sister Sledge and feel good.

Speaking of things to make you feel good, who wrote the best metal album of all time, Metallica or Slayer? Check the link later on for a music mag feature that thrashes out (sorry) that very issue in a lockdown special.

In the meantime, more adventures in home-bound hi fi.

APRIL 4
No albums … Saturday. Radio all day, BBC 6 Music.

APRIL 5
Ministry – Animositisomina

Maaaaan, that was a well-chosen revisit. Bill Rieflin’s passing has prised open a Ministry hole and it’s been years since this 2003 ace got an airing. Good era. The mid-tempo swamp-industrial years: Filth Pig, Dark Side of the Spoon, Animositisomina. Though not packing the fireworks of earlier albums, it grows from track to track and may even peak at the very end with Impossible, Stolen and Leper. More Ministry revisits will follow, no doubt.

APRIL 6
Prince – Lovesexy
Clutch – Strange Tales from the West
Discharge – Hear Nothing, See Nothing Say Nothing
Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts V

Discharge, Hear Nothing: Brutal, relentless. If you need a proper system cleanse, this’ll flush your toxins.

APRIL 7
The Huntsmen – Mandala of Fear, disc 2
Ministry – Animositisomina (last three tracks)

New Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album Viscerals landed today from Piccadilly Records, Manchester. Nice one, Piccadilly. Local heroes Truck Store have ceased mail order because of coronavirus so I sent my money back up north to a landmark of my youth. Top service.

Just heard about Henry Rollins’s internet-only radio show, The Cool Quarantine. Four hours of music and stories, unfiltered. Definitely going to check that.

Oh yeah, got furloughed by work today. So, listening will change next week. When working at home, you need music as a barrier – which is why a lot of metal/punk has figured lately. It blocks the world out. Listening quantity will soon be reduced, but more selective.

APRIL 8
Devin Townsend – Deconstruction
Ministry – Filth Pig

Deconstruction has a song called Pandemic. Metal histrionics and machine-gun beats. Of course.

APRIL 9
Henry Rollins, The Cool Quarantine radio show

Loaded the show and listened to the first 40 minutes while reading Stay Fanatic!!! High energy raconteur radio, inspiring stuff. Am making notes of tracks/bands to follow up, go find it through KCRW.

APRIL 10
Kamasi Washington – The Epic, discs 2 and 3
1349 – The Infernal Pathway

This popped up on the Quietus: Low Culture 2. Master of Puppets versus Reign in Blood. Pure indulgence from the writer so bear that in mind, but who’s your money on?

Stay safe, keep the music ON!

previous: Lockdown Music Week 2

CONTINUING THE CORONAVIRUS LISTENING

How’s it going? Week 2 felt calmer and more stable here than week 1’s total upending, and the scatterbrain distraction has subsided. But it still feels best to just enjoy music and log it instead of trying to be creative with any expression.

Here’s the soundtrack to the days.

SATURDAY MARCH 28
The Huntsmen – Mandala of Fear, disc 2
Wire – Pink Flag
Wire – Chairs Missing
Ministry – The Land of Rape and Honey

Sabbath and Earth yes, but have Wire ever been cited by SunnO))) as an influence? Check those ringing drone fragments in Practice Makes Perfect and Marooned from Chairs Missing and tell me there’s not a hint of White 1. Anyway, Chairs Missing is blowing my mind a bit now I’m listening to it properly.

More Rieflin, too: Ministry’s best. From a drum/Rieflin tribute perspective, Deity’s got to be the place to go. Think it was 1992/3 when I bought the album and I’d never heard anything like Hizbollah. Still hypnotic. A perfect, damaged, mind-bending album.

[note: just discovered today that Hizbollah is a bonus track, as is I Prefer, on the CD version. They’re not marked as bonus tracks and they’re threaded into the running order. Wonder what the non-CD sequence sounds like? Must give it a go but an album without Hizbollah is pretty unimaginable right now]

MARCH 29
King Crimson – Live in Toronto 2014
King Crimson – Live in Chicago 2017 (21^st Century Schizoid Man, immediate comparison)
Sad Cafe – Fanx Ta-ra
Michael Stipe – No Time for Love Like Now (youtube demo)

Stipe: How great to hear that voice again. Check the youtube demo of this solo track for some pandemic reflection and grace as he sings to a pre-recorded backing track in what looks like his conservatory. And his expression at the end of the clip is a picture.

MARCH 30
Bad Brains – Rock for Light
Wire – Chairs Missing
Pantera – The Great Southern Trendkill
Ministry – The Land of Rape and Honey
Miles Davis – In a Silent Way

Wire connection: I’m reading Henry Rollins’s latest book, Stay Fanatic!!! Vol. 1, and by chance on tonight’s pages he diverts to a bit of Wire. In his words their fourth album, the live Document and Eyewitness, is THE statement, even allowing for the art-some genius of the first three records. Looking forward to that, no idea when I’ll get there. 154 not purchased yet.

Pantera, Southern Trendkill: THIS is their album. With those Down elements creeping in, you get a more complete statement. More hostile, more reflective, more range, more mileage.

MARCH 31
Archie Shepp – Attica Blues
The Meters – Rejuvenation

Shepp, Attica Blues: The only Shepp album in the collection. Love the intense funk soul of the title track and Blues for Brother George Jackson, not really into the melodic jazz pieces. And of course, it’s got a righteous protest backdrop. Important Music, far bigger than a 3rd-rate rockhead like me can comprehend. Clumsily pawing the first rung.

Some big music news right here so tonight, Nine Inch Nails Ghosts V and VI were downloaded and Old Man Gloom x2 pre-ordered. Huge gifts, THANKS GUYS.

APRIL 1
Paul Young – Chronicles
Dr John – Locked Down
King Crimson – Vroom Vroom, disc 2
The Specials – Encore

Dr John, Locked Down: Not chosen for the title, no …. just needed a rich, spacious, highly musical groove. This album is all that and the drumming is phenomenal. Speaking of drums, The Specials’ Encore is nimble in that area – funky too – and, of course, yesterday’s Meters album is a drum masterclass. Infinite funk.

New Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs album Viscerals is out on Friday. CD pre-order done. Got to support the bands and the shops.

APRIL 2
Melvins – The Bulls and the Bees
Mastodon – Emperor of Sand

APRIL 3
Beak – >>>
Nine Inch Nails – Add Violence
Nine Inch Nails – Bad Witch
Godley & Creme – L

That’s it, that’s Friday – week 2 done. We’re 2 weeks nearer.

Stay safe, keep the music ON!

Lockdown Music Week 1

STABILITY THROUGH MUSIC IN THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN

I think it’s the need to be able to control something, isn’t it? That’s where this post comes from – a way to document wildly uncertain times through the stuff we love the most: MUSIC.

So, that’s what this is. Nothing big, nothing clever, just a note of albums being played every day each week with occasional music notes or thoughts on the way. A short-term (we hope) list of listening, a music log for the lockdown. Let’s see how it goes. Maybe you’ll dig some out of your collection, too.

MARCH 23
Rush – Snakes and Arrows
Julian Cope – 20 Mothers

Cope, 20 Mothers: This would make a great desert island disc, and not just because it’s fckn oarsome. No two tracks really sound like another so it covers a ton of genres and moods while still making you think and feel, thanks to the Drude’s class-A lyrics and always-present Vibe.

MARCH 24
David Bowie – Never Let Me Down (2018)
I’m a Freak Baby: A Journey Through the British Heavy Psych and Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968–72, disc 1

Bowie, Never Let Me Down. One of the Bowie albums you never really get into, but the re-recorded 2018 version – from the box set – isn’t at all bad. Reeves Gabrels’ guitar is avant-ing all over those pop tunes, pushing the solos further out.

MARCH 25
Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
King Crimson – Live in Toronto 2014, disc 1

Bill Rieflin died yesterday, aged 59. Brain cancer. Another pivotal drum figure leaves us in 2020. Crimson live? Sublime. Pantera FBD? One dimensional.

MARCH 26
Satyricon – Now, Diabolical
Venom – Black Metal
Julian Cope – Self Civil War

Satyricon the big surprise here. Not overly familiar with this album but familiar enough to know that it’s a go-to for precision drums, pace and snarl. But the trippy cold-desert intro of Delirium and mid-tempo cruise through To The Mountains? Hit like new discoveries.

MARCH 27
The Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come

That’s it, that’s Friday – the end of Lockdown Week 1. Weeks 2 and 3 pretty much done and coming soon.

Stay safe, keep the music ON!