Zenga! with the Red Shark outside Orbit Inn, Palm Springs
Flamingo – Brandon Flowers
The lead singer of the Killers pays homage to Las Vegas and does it with much style.
My favourite track “Playing with Fire” is exquisite. There is some great musicianship on this album also. The songs for me reflect the vast spaces of the landscape and yet are lyrically very personal – he is singing his heart out on this. A great album and deserves to be number 1 in the charts unlike some of the rubbish that gets there due to TV hype and marketing.
Pacific Ocean Blues – Dennis Wilson
Dennis Wilson – the drummer and real beach boy of the Beach Boys completed this album pre his swimming “accident” in California. For me it feels like a cross between Chicago and the Beach Boys yet it is still totally original in itself. Some great orchestral moments reminds me of Henry Mancini arrangements but geared to Dennis’ style. Okay so this came out in 1977 and you may feel it’s a bit dated but it’s great music on a grand almost epic scale. I dread to think what this cost to make but it’s a good one all right!
Album of the month ...
Dark Night of the Soul -
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
13 tracks each individual in itself with guest singers such as Iggy Pop, Julian Casablancas (Strokes), Suzanne Vega, Francis Black (Pixies) with art work from David Lynch – this is an original and a masterpiece and Mr Lynch offers the world his vocals on 2 songs albeit with lots of crackling reverb.
Throughout the album there is an undercurrent of danger and madness mixed with paranoia and a reflective painful wistfulness. It’s at times slightly bonkers and at others very beautiful and at others totally rocks. An amazing achievement and a great sadness that Mark Linkous and Vic Chesnutt are no longer with us. The www.dnots.com is a very cool website by the way.
Grinderman 2 – Grinderman
“Grinderman” is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – remarkably all still alive despite their best efforts over the years. If you buy the collectors edition CD which of course I did you get some really awful artwork in the 60 page accompanying booklet that is so bad it is worth getting to fall about laughing at. The music though is what you would expect from Grinderman top class almost punky but not quite punky rock that is original and moving with some great lyrics of course – Nick Cave is a poet of real worth. So take my advice buy the collector’s edition you can marvel at just how bad the artwork is and yet how great the music is. I’d like to see these guys in concert it would be pretty amazing stuff. To say they have a few screws loose comes nowhere near the madness in evidence on this one. Enjoy!
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