I took the last couple of months off from Roxy talks Music to recharge my batteries, binge on Netflix and try to make sense of this crazy thing called life. But now I'm back with a fresh new playlist for the holiday season. Of course it includes Run DMC's 'Christmas in Hollis' because, well duh.
On the subject of 'the holiday season', it can be a complicated time. Sometimes sad, sometimes joyous, sometimes riddled with anxiety. I'm getting some freaking awesome Lego this year, so colour me excited! Also, I suspect there may be a record or two waiting for me under the tree. Fingers crossed one of them is Juliana Hatfield's 1995 album 'Only Everything' recently repressed and released on coloured vinyl by Run Out Groove. During my break from Roxy talks Music, I managed to catch the Mystery Lights at one of my locals. That's amazing for three reasons; one: I already knew and loved the Mystery Lights, two: they are a freaking fantastic garage rock band all the way from New York (which is worlds away from my regional Victorian city), and three: it only cost me ten bucks to see them live. Wow did they rock! They were super high-energy with a somewhat 1960's psychedelic, Westcoast sound. They sounded great, the crowd was pumped and it felt very much like an intimate jam session at times.
On a more sombre note, legendary Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley passed away this month. The Buzzcocks were hugely influential pioneers of pop punk. In Shelley's honour, I've included everybody's favourite Buzzcocks song 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' on the Roxy talks Music - December Playlist. I hope you enjoy it.
I've been listening to a lot of new (and new to me) stuff lately and this month's playlist definitely reflects that. At the moment I can't get enough of the new album Blue Poles by Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders. Jack Ladder is a singer/songwriter/guitarist from Sydney with a very new wave, Bryan Ferry sound (his real name is actually Tim Rogers, but there's already a Tim Rogers and, like the Highlander, there can only be one).
When I'm not listening to Jack Ladder, it's got to be the glam/southern rock stylings of Kyle Craft, the post post punk rockers Parquet Courts or New Yorker, Shilpa Ray who blends punk rock with a 1960's pop sound similar to the The Shangri-Las or The Ronettes, but with a razor sharp edge. And as the weather gets steadily colder, I'm embracing my fast approaching middle age by enjoying a glass of sherry in the evenings before bed. And with my glass of sherry, the smooth soulful sounds of Donny Hathway, or the great lady, Dusty Springfield. So pour yourself a glass of sherry, get comfortable, and tune into the Roxy talks Music - May Playlist...
I was super excited when I found out The Mavis's, a beloved band from my adolescence, are doing a 20th anniversary tour for their album Pink Pills. It's been twenty years already?? Bloody hell!! I remember the first time I heard The Mavis's. A high school friend made me a mix tape with the song 'Moon Drone Gold' on it, from their 1996 debut album Venus Returning. I loved it so hard, I went and laid down thirty of my hard earned bucks for the CD (remember when CD's cost $30?) While I was revisting the most excellent music of the Mavis's, I started thinking about all the other Aussie bands I was getting into back in the days when I was just discovering that for me, life without music is really no life at all. And that's what inspired the Roxy talks Music April playlist. These are the bands I went to see play at festivals and all ages gigs at mechanics halls. These are the bands I moshed and crowd surfed to. These are the songs of my youth. *It's worth noting that Headless Chickens are actually a New Zealand band, but as they are the first band I ever saw live (they opened for Arrested Development at Festival Hall, Melbourne in 1992) I decided to include them. Also, they were really cool.
Recently I was lucky enough to visit the Land of the Rising Sun. I had an amazing time taking in all the sights and sounds of Tokyo, touring Nagano Prefecture, and making the treacherous, snow covered climb to Jigokudani Monkey Park to see the snow monkeys in the hot springs.
Aaaaaaand….. I went record shopping!!!!!! It was so much fun digging through records I had no idea about (aside from the fact they were helpfully organised by genre in English). I was a little hesitant at first, but my husband convinced me that buying a bunch of Japanese records without any prior knowledge would be a wild and funky ride when we finally got home and listened to them.
As it turns out, he was right! Not one of the records we took a punt on was a dud. And some of them rocked my world. So I’ve made a list of my favourites.
‘Jump Up’ and ‘Futurama’ were the last (and most expensive) records we bought on our trip. They were also the only ones that weren’t second hand. We bought them from a Disk Union store in Ochanomizu, Tokyo. Disk Union is kind of like JB HI-FI with stores in multiple locations, except they sell second hand records as well as new ones, and there are specialist Disk Union stores, like the Shinjuku Soul/Blues Hall and the Ochanomizu Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Building.
Supercar were a Japanese rock band, active from 1995 to 2005, and their first three albums had recently been issued on vinyl for the first time. The covers are very bright and caught my eye. I’ll admit I cheated a little here. I didn’t want to spend up big on a couple of fancy looking records and take them home only to find out that they weren’t my bag. Disk Union had a bunch of copies of both albums, so that night back at the hotel, I looked them up on YouTube and listened to a few of their songs. I’m so glad I did! They made awesome 90’s shoegazing, electro, indie rock that blew me away. I’m a fan of Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, so Supercar are totally my thing. The next day we headed back to Disk Union, and it’s lucky we did because we picked up the last two copies that were left. Phew!
I picked up ‘Tiny Bubbles’ in a Cash Converters type store in Ueno, Tokyo for 300 JPY (roughly $3 AUD). ‘What the hell,’ I figured, ‘ there’s a cat on the cover and if it turns out to be crappy, it was only three bucks.’ Later on we saw the same record hanging on the wall at Disk Union. ‘That’s got to be a sign,’ said my husband. ‘It’s either really good, or really cheesy.’ We found out afterwards from a Japanese friend of ours that Southern All Stars were huge in Japan. They formed in 1974 and were active through to 2008. They have since reformed in 2013. ‘Tiny Bubbles’ is a fantastic funky, jazz rock album with a 1970’s sound that made me think of Supertramp. It was definitely a $3 gamble that paid off big time.
‘Electric Moon’ was a recommendation from the super helpful guy working at Good Times , a record shop in Nagano. I was buying a Pet Shop Boys record (I know, I know… I didn’t just buy Japanese records!) and asked for suggestions of Japanese bands that were similar. His English wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad and was much better than my Japanese, and between the two of us and my husband, we managed to come up with some options for 1980’s Japanese indie rock and 1990’s Japanese punk. The 80’s stuff was cheaper, so we settled on a couple of those. One had a 1980’s hair band sound with a cool frontwoman (awesome!) and the other was Der Zibet’s ‘Electric Moon,’ which is classic, 80’s electro, new romantic, like Spandau Ballet or Adam and the Ants.
Hajime Tachibana was the guitarist in the short-lived but highly regarded Japanese new wave band The Plastics in the late 1970s - early 1980s. After the band broke up, he released several solo albums. ‘Low Powers’ was the only album he released with the band, Low Powers. The album, ‘Low Powers’ is mellow, lo-fi, 90’s indie rock and has a great version of the Beatles’ ‘Eight Days a Week’. I found this gem while flicking through the Japanese 90s indie rock section at Coconuts Disk in Ekoda, Tokyo.
Okay, so this is not a record or even an album… it’s a CD single. I’m including it though, because every record and music store we went to, we were specifically looking for anything by Yura Yura Teikoku and this was the ONLY THING WE COULD FIND!!! Yura Yura Teikoku is a Japanese psychedelic rock band that was active from 1989 - 2010 and fronted by Shintaro Sakamoto. My husband and I first heard about them after buying Shintaro Sakamoto’sdebut solo album ‘How To Live With A Phantom,’ which is now one of the most played records in our house. It’s like the best, most interesting lounge music I have ever heard! We wouldn’t normally buy a CD single, but made an exception in this case because we were so excited to find it. And to be fair, it has two songs that are both over 7 and 9 minutes long respectively. Also, it’s pretty freaking cool.
I want to give a special mention to Blankey Jet City. Sadly, I discovered them too late to buy any of their music, but they are the Japan’s answer to The Strokes… except they formed eleven years before The Strokes were even a band. So, I guess The Strokes is North America’s answer to Blankey Jet City. You totally rock, Japan!
