Pang "Young Professionals"

Maybe it's because I just got my ears syringed and everything's sounding 67.3% more crisp but Pang's "Young Professionals" (Grazer) sounds more vibrant, more VITAL than almost anything else around at the moment.  They're canny enough to have assimilated the Swiss Rough Trade groups of the late 70s and realised that The Long Blondes were at their best on that 12" for What's Your Rupture?.  Not only is the guitar sound enough to make you throw things - anything!, EVERYTHING! - in the air with delight, but the "On, on, on" backing vocal refrain and the lead singer's screams are the most exquisite pop details of summer 2014.  More Pang, NOW!

(Thanks for the introduction, Mike!)

On And On With Lou Reed

22 years go Trash (now, that's how to name yr band!) released "On and On With Lou Reed" (New World of Sound).  I wish I'd heard it at the time as it's a clattering delight that never lets up and yet another reason to look back in awe at the music being produced in New Zealand in the 80s and 90s.  A friend described it as 'a pop Dead C' which is not only a great concept but an astute observation given that that group's Robbie Yeats played on it.  I wonder if John Peel picked up on it.  It would surely have turned a fair few heads if he did, in fact, play it on his show*.

(Thanks for the tip, Jon!)

* - this would suggest Peel did play it - sweet!

My Love Has Gone

Last week's trip to Monorail Music yielded the"My Love Has Gone" 7" (Norton) by Miriam (Linna of The A-Bones).  I'd read about Miriam's album on Lindsay Hutton's cranky but admirably passionate Next Big Thing blog so was on the lookout for her records.  "My Love Has Gone" is such a punchy evocation of the classic girl group sound.  TV theme catchy with hooks by the score, everything is played so emphatically (those drum skins took quite a beating!) that despite all the glockenspiel and romance-gone misery it could never be described as twee.  Hopefully, the lp will show up in Glasgow before too long.

Stuck In The 60s

BBC Radio 5Live ran a feature the other night about how Environmental Health officers had clocked crazy 100+ db sound levels during showings of recent blockbuster movies such as Godzilla.  Of course, I tut-tutted in agreement.  I mean, who hasn't come out of the cinema in the last few years rubbing their ears and moaning about it?  Of course, I am a total hypocrite when it comes to volume.  If 5Live ran a similar feature on the volume of music played in cars, I would be totally busted.  Tonight I stopped by the ever-wonderful Monorail Music and picked up a bunch of hot new vinyl spins and one second hand cd - this - and you should have heard the loopy volume at which I repeatedly played Bob & Kit's incredible 60s jangler "You've Gotta Stop" (HBR):

The first thing I did when I got home was to fire up ebay and search for an original 7".  Unfortunately, there's only 1 copy for sale and it's quite visibly scratched so I won't be investing in that.  I'm willing to wait for a pristine(ish?) copy.  After all, thanks to the impeccable taste of the cd's compiler, Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond, I can blast it on cd till my ears stop working completely.

Another recent 60s cut to have won my heart is The Striders' adorably perky "There's A Storm Coming" (Columbia):

A tenner secured me a(n allegedly - we'll see when it arrives!) Mint- copy.  The slightly wimpy songs from the mid-60s that straddle the line between garage and pure pop are just so endearing.

Finally, while revisiting Ace Records' ridiculously great "Boy Trouble: Garpax Girls", this Rev-lons stunner swelled my heart all over again:

If "Whirlwind" doesn't have ya shufflin' and a handclappin' and a ooh-ooh-in' then just how do you get your kicks?

There's a fair chance the above 3 songs will form my Three In A Row suggestion for Brian Matthew's Sounds of the Sixties on BBC Radio 2.  Yeah, let's do this!