Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Red House Painters
Ocean Beach
(4AD, 1995)
Massage the England v Germany pain with exquisite summer melancholy.
Everyone has a selection of sunny day records mentally filed for the purpose. Like anyone else I cannot resist the lure of Hums Of The Lovin Spoonful the minute the barometer begins to edge toward "fair", and there's a subset of sunshine pop that always goes well with linen and espadrilles. I'd add Red House Painters' controversial "happy album", Ocean Beach. Dividing fans upon release with its comparative dearth of wrist-slashing apocalyptica, it was - conceded Walken-faced mainman Mark Kozelek - the product of a leavened psyche, bathing in the glow of romance and the departure of certain demons.
Named for the epic, typically fog-bound strand that marks the Western edge of Kozelek's San Francisco stamping-ground, Ocean Beach swaps the electric drone-glower that wreathed the RHPs' brilliant but gloomy "Rollercoaster" and "Bridge" albums to twangle acoustics like the spiritual kin of Simon & Garfunkel, a lovestruck tone set by the beatific, waft of Summer Dress, but exquisitely countervailed by a hardwired long-vac melancholy that knows the finiteness of all things. "Quietly we sleep inside / Lost summers of my youth," intones Kozelek on the hypnotic, memory-hazed San Geronimo. "I spent them all with you."
As summer records go, it is more Seasons In The Sun than Agadoo, but where there is pain it is dulled by beauty and the music skips, as often as not, with that 59th St Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) gait that makes the best of things, even unassuming South London oasis, Brockwell Park. I leave you, for once, with a DIY YouTube cover of the latter song, just because the contrast between unpromising context and luminous performance is so startling and moving. I'm sure Mark Kozelek would approve.
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 10:56 AM GMT 28/06/2010
Further Listening
Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts Of The Great Highway (Jetset Records, 2003)
Red House Painters – Red House Painters (4AD, 1993)
Seals & Crofts – Summer Breeze (Warner Bros, 1972)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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A very big fan. Nice 'tube video too, surprisingly!
Posted by Afro Zen at 5:35 AM GMT 30/06/2010 Report Abuse
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