Christmas Advent #2 – Take Me By The Hand, I Don’t Give A Damn

WESTKUST’s ‘LAST FOREVER’ LP sounds like all your favourite songs being played in a row between Veronica Falls and Makthaverskan in the ultimate Goth party of Dai Disco’s dreams. Spiking guitars and thundering choruses collide in a tidal wave that sweeps you off your feet, leaving you breathless for 33 minutes of storming fuzzed-up pop euphoria. Dai Disco, Lesher, and Dai Goth have all succumbed to its beauty, sacrificing what could have been a bottle of Crumpton Oaks to secure it, here. Even Lesher (who values Crumpton Oaks over almost anything), believes it to be his finest purchase ever for under a fiver, and was heard recently saying “ahhh not even Frosty Jacks on cold winter night comes close to this, lovely stuff.”

Christmas Advent #1 – Hands That We Used To Hold

After a lengthy absence spent feeding cats and touching tips with the best and worst of them, Bruce Foresight's vision has come true. I can no longer resist the opportunity to lay some sweet beats down for you to chew up like Father Christmas chomping on the pie you keep your weed in.

To begin the journey we head back to 2010 in the form of Lucky Delucci’s beautiful December 1986. Magical melodies float around Josef Prygodzicz’s winter storm of love and loss, which seems to come to the front like Frankel in the last furlong during the cold slow days of Christmas.

Josef is now spinning magical landscapes here with his new band Winter Villains.

 

Reeling

Here's a mix found embedded in the walls of Dai Disco's lair that featured in the May edition of the free fishing, music, and poetry zine Fishin' Rod Reel Handle. Most of the music is available on bandcamp on the 'name your price' scheme, so give the ones that make you smile, cry, and throw shit at the walls all of your dole money.

1. Jump start - joyride!
2. Swirl - WESTKUST
3. Drifting - The New Romantics
4. Reeling - Feature
5. Last Year - Joanna Gruesome
6. Woman in the Shadows - Ghost Car
7. Hardcore - NO/NO
8. Come See Me - Love L.U.V
9. Sleeping in the Backseat - Tigercats
10. When I Was Your Age - Mammoth Penguins (debut album Hide and Seek is due out on Fortuna POP! on 10 July)
11. Stuck Up A Hornbeam - Half Man Half Biscuit
12. One Too Many Things - Surf City
13. Albany - Spinning Coin
14. Nobody’s Empire - Belle and Sebastian
15. The Legend of Chavo Guerrero - The Mountain Goats
16. Statues and Snowmen - Storm the Palace
17. Candy - Knickers

Reel in Side 1 and Side 2 by following the links

Merry Christmas to the Drunks, Merry Christmas to the Lovers

Merry Christmas to the Drunken Lovers.
Side 1      Side 2

1. Christmas Eve - Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
2. Merry Christmas to the Drunks, Merry Christmas to the Lovers - Ballboy
3. Little Baby Hefner's Xmas Song for Holland - Hefner 
4. Countdown to Christmas - Glam Chops
5. Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight - The Ramones
6. I Mugged Santa Claus - The Thlyds
7. Hark The Herald Angel Sing - The Fall
8. All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit - Half Man Half Biscuit
9. Santa from Santa Fe - Lawrence Welk and his Champaign music
10. Red Santa - Lucky Lucky Pigeons 
11. Abominable Snowman in the Supermarket - Jonathan Richman
12. Frosty The Snowman - The Ronettes
13. Santa’s On His Way - The Pipettes
14. Christmas Wrapping - Waitresses
15. Outer Space Santa - Lawrence Welk and The Lennon Sisters 
16. December Boy - The Loves
17. The Christmas Wars - Darren Hayman
18. December 1986 - Lucky Delucci
19. Christmas Teardrops Neath’ Mistletoe - Just Joans
20. Heavenly Christmas - A Smile and a Ribbon
21. I Believe In Father Christmas - Keith TOTP & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band
22. All I want for Christmas is an Action Man - Jonny Cola and The A-Grades
23. Tyrannosaurus Rex for Christmas - Lovely Eggs
24. Lonely This Christmas - Carter USM
25. Stop the Revelry - Shrag
26. Just Like Christmas - Low

Days you said the darkest things / Days you were the light

more like holding hands and not so much like future plans

1. Just For Fun - Jonathan Richman
2. Just For Fun - Alpaca Sports
3. Silver Tides - Major Leagues
4. Shut - Colour Me Wednesday
5. 90210 - The Courtneys
6. Days Of Being Wild - Trick Mammoth
7. Into Eternity - Jens Lekman
8. Love Goes On! - Sleuth
9. Josie - Go Violets
10. Paper Hearts - The Airplanes
11. Eden - Astro Children
12. Total Block - Slowcoaches
13. Like a Plate - Flowers
14. In Stranger Times - Jeremy Neale ft Go Violets
15. A Brief Moment - danmariska 
16. Dreams - Astrid Madberg
17. Girl I Can't Forget - The Death Of Pop
18. So Far Away - Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time

Life's Too Short For Lists...

Even with the endless time I have on my hands on the frosty riverbanks, between glorious battles with the Taff's Rainbow Trout, I find it hard to comprehend anything involving end of year lists, Dogging Tales just came on TV adding further discouragement to my already fragile willpower, but even so, there's a page that needs filling, and as the self proclaimed king of filler material, here’s a list with some of the music that shined like the stars on a crisp clear night through the murky fogs, shady shadows, and heaps of shit of 2013:



The All About - Suburban Heart (Bandcamp)

Cherry Glazerr - Papa Cremp (Bandcamp)

The Death of Pop (Bandcamp)

Ballboy - Merry Christmas To The Drunks, Merry Christmas to the Lovers (Bandcamp)

Just Handshakes - Say It (Bleeding Gold Records / Bandcamp)

Major Leagues - Weird Seasons EP (RipeTV)

The Indelicates - Diseases of England (Corporate Records)

Flowers (Odd Box Records / Bandcamp)

Winter Villains - February (Barely Regal Records / Bandcamp)

I Like The Go GO (Bandcamp)

Makthaverskan - Makthaverskan II (Luxury / Bandcamp)

Tullycraft - Lost in Light Rotation (Fortuna POP!)

TV Girl - Lonely Women (Bandcamp)

The Courtneyes - The Courtneys - S/T (Hockey Dad Records / Bandcamp)

The Bobby McGee’s - Bon Bons (Je Vien Rechercher Mes) (Youtube)

The Spook School - Dress Up (Fortuna POP!)

Tyrannosaurus Dead - Pure // Apart + Bed Dread (Odd Box Records / Bleeding Gold Records / Bandcamp)

Laura Cantrell - No Way There from Here (Shoeshine Records)

Alpaca Sports (Bandcamp)

Eddie Argos and the Lo-Fi Punk Rock Motherfuckers - Volume 1 (Corporate Records)

Songs for Walter (Bandcamp)

Au Revoir Simone - Move in Spectrums (Moshi Moshi)

The Star You Fell In Love To Comes Out On Christmas Eve (Christmas Mix)

Christmas is in the air along the frosty river banks, the grass sparkles like the stars with the morning frost, our mortality shines clearer and brighter than them all at this time of year. In the ice, reflections of Christmas’ past stare back; scalextrics with dodgy transformers, Frank Fish with his latex waders shagging that snow-woman he built after one too many candle-wax-whiskies, family members no longer swimming in our waters doing the rounds on Christmas day, pints of Baileys going down the hatch like cold cans of lilt, aching hearts wandering the streets searching for that feeling lost somewhere along the way as ever familiar landscapes whisper in the darkness.

I was young once
I was seduced by
The rebellion
Of youth

I was young once
I was seduced by
The rebellion
Of you 

String together some threads, sing, drink, and dance to the ghosts of the past and things that don’t last!

The Star You Fell In Love To Comes Out On Christmas Eve:

1. Fast Sledge Past Blurred Robin - Symphonika
2. Pray for Murderers - Ballboy
3. Christmas Eve - Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
4. Santa from Santa Fe - Lawrence Welk and his Champaign music
5. Mele Kalikimaka - Bing Crosby
6. Christmas Wrapping - Waitresses
7. Countdown to Christmas - Glam Chops
8. I’m Getting Pissed for Christmas - Peter and the Test Tube Babies
9. Come Round Here On Christmas - I Like The Go Go
10. Red Santa - Lucky Lucky Pigeons
11. The Christmas Wars - Darren Hayman
12. December 1986 - Lucky Delucci
13. Christmas Teardrops Neath’ Mistletoe - Just Joans
14. Heavenly Christmas - A Smile and a Ribbon
15. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl
16. Abominable Snowman in the Supermarket - Jonathan Richman
17. Outer Space Santa - The Lennon Sisters
18. I Believe In Father Christmas - Keith TOTP & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band
19. Tyrannosaurus Rex for Christmas - Lovely Eggs
20. Don’t believe in Christmas - The Junior Varsity
21. Boogie Woogie Santa - Swing Republic
22. All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit - Half Man Half Biscuit
23. Lonely This Christmas - Carter USM
24. Stop the Revelry - Shrag
25. This Town - The Thlyds