COMET GAIN at the SILVER BULLET, FINSBURY PARK

I bought a Comet Gain record in 1996, “Say Yes! (To International Socialism)”, and then not another until this year’s Howl of The Lonely Crowd, which gets a lot of action in Monkey Mansions. Any band who name a song the same as I named my goldfish - Herbert Huncke - is all right with me. I’ve no idea why I lost fifteen years but I'm gonna enjoy catching up. They were good last night; hanging a poetic lyric on a resolutely ramshackle and wonky beat. You'll find more polish in QPR's trophy cabinet - which is how it should be. They were thoroughly nice folk too, giving me their fab new single ("An Arcade From The Warm Rain That Falls") and chatting about The Left Banke.

I was on record duty, and as it was a gig rather than club meant my role was that of human jukebox, albeit a slightly self-indulgent one. These got pulled from the box:

The Impressions – Meeting Over Yonder (1965)
Arthur – Garnish Fantasy (1993)
High Priests – Baby Diamond Mind (2007)
The Choir – It’s Cold Outside (1967)
The Ronettes – Do I Love You? (1964)
Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out Of This Country (2006)
The Lemonheads – Galveston (1997)
The Silver Factory – The Sun Shines Over You (2011)
The Left Banke – I Haven’t Got The Nerve (1966)
The Lovely Eggs – Watermelons (2011)
Dinosaur Jr. – Freak Scene (1988)
The Who – Doctor, Doctor (1967)
The Action – Twentyfourth Hour (1967)
Johnny Cash – The Lady Came From Baltimore (1974)
Hank Williams – I Can’t Get You Off My Mind (1951)
Love – Alone Again Or (1967)
Slim Harpo – I Need Money (1964)
Ko Ko Taylor – Wang Dang Doodle (1966)
Bob Dylan – Positively 4th Street (1965)
Pete Molinari – It Came Out Of The Wilderness (2008)
Maurice and the Radiants – Baby You’ve Got It (1966)
Mark Markham and the Jesters – Marlboro Country (1966)
Mouse and the Traps – Cryin’ Inside (1968)
The Horrors – Count In Fives (2006)
Betty Lavett – Witchcraft In The Air (1963)

CROSSFIRE ALLNIGHTER, SATURDAY 22nd OCTOBER 2011

The latest Crossfire allnighter is on Saturday and although you wouldn't know it from the selective flyer above it features a live performance by 60's UK psych sensations July. If you don't own their eponymous 1968 LP, you really need to remedy that fact. I'll be spinning some tunes in the R&B room later.

Doors open at 2030, July are on at 2200, and it'll cost you £15 with admission to the allnighter after the band. If you miss the band and come after eleven the price drops to £12.

IDLE FRET OXJAM BENEFIT, LONDON, THURSDAY 20th OCTOBER 2011

If you're free in London Town this coming Thursday you could do a lot worse than get along to the Silver Bullet opposite Finsbury Park tube for an Oxjam benefit show put on by Idle Fret Records. Certainly looks an interesting mix of bands and DJs (Comet Gain, Pete Wiggs etc). I'll be playing a few records early doors and seeing as how I'm listed with reference to Monkey Picks it'll be a ragbag mixture of 45s that kinda encompass what you get on here. They may regret uttering the words "play whatever you like". Should be good fun and certainly good value for a fiver or so.

ON THE ROAD

Monkey Picks is on the road. Will be back shortly with a whole bunch of new stories for y'all. S'laters.

SEPTEMBER PLAYLIST

A selection of tunes from Monkey Mansions.

1. Champion Jack Dupree – “Drunk Again” (1954)
He might’ve been the one sounding sloshed and high but it was Jack’s woman who - with a face like an old sea hag - was so drunk from December to July she couldn’t remember a thing.

2. Jimmy Merchant – “Skin The Cat” (1965)
“Go skin a cat – hit it with a bat. Meow!” It’s a good job our cat is deaf.

3. The Zombies – “What More Can I Do” (1965)
There’s more to the Zombies than Odyssey and Oracle. Check out Rod Argent pre-dating a Ray Manzarek style keyboard solo on this from the terrific Live at The BBC collection.

4. Jimmy Witherspoon – “I Gotta Girl (Who Lives On The Hill)” (1966)
The Spoon backed by the crème of UK jazzers (Morrissey, South, Seamen and Bates), dishes up a dollop of Joe Turner’s staple tune with, according to the sleeve notes on Spoon Sings ‘n’ Swings, “a smoking hot freshness”. Monkey Snr was there at the Bull’s Head on the night this was recorded. I can feel the breeze of his nodding head at the bar and faint echoes of “Oh yeah” ripple through my speakers.

5. Jake Thackray – “Lah-Di-Dah” (1967)
I’ve picked this before but with my wedding tomorrow it sprung to mind again. I should stress that all of Mrs Monkey’s family are lovely folk.

6. B.J. Thomas – “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” (1969)
An all-time favourite.

7. Bobby Charles – “I Must Be In A Good Place Now” (1972)
If you wish there were more albums by The Band, check out Bobby’s eponymous debut which has them moonlighting throughout.

8. Little Beaver – “Listen To My Heartbeat” (1976)
When the flat is otherwise empty, in the privacy of the front room, with the curtains drawn, I like to hook up the glitterball and get down to some funky camp disco. Not a sight for the fainthearted.

9. Five Thirty – “Automatons” (1991)
Five Thirty’s Bed is now twenty years old. Where’s the deluxe double CD plus DVD set? Where’s the two hour radio documentary? Where’s the glossy collector’s edition of Mojo or Q? It sounded brilliant then and sounds equally brilliant now. In my top 5 LPs. Robbed they were, robbed.

10. The Flaming Lips – “Race For The Prize” (1999)
The Flaming Lips have a new song out. It is six hours long. That time could better be spent be playing “Race For The Prize” 84 times.

THE RIFLES - FREEDOM RUN (2011)

Despite having the whole history of recorded music at my fingertips there are moments when I don’t know what to listen to. Those moments are inevitably filled by sticking on The Rifles 2006 debut No Love Lost. Not because it’s the best album ever made but its snappy bursts of mid-period Jam wears its heart on its sleeve, gets the head nodding and invites an exaggerated cockney sing-along whilst doing the washing up or pottering around the flat. ‘Andsome. The follow-up Great Escape didn’t quite match that standard but it’s still a decent album, strong on melodies and hooks, and now we come to Freedom Run.

On first play I was so bored it was a feat of endurance to last the course. For something so innocuous it was riling me. I’ve never heard a Snow Patrol album but this trudge through mediocrity is exactly how I imagine one; a stodgy production cloaking a lack of ideas. In the interests of fairness and loyalty I’ve played it another three times. That’s three hours of my life gone. The “Shout to the Top” style strings on the single “Tangled Up In Love” raise it an inch above the others and “Love Is A Key” (terrible title) will translate well in a live setting, but that's all and not good news for a band who’ve built their live shows around a geezerish, beer chucking audience. I’m not suggesting success is measured by the amount of wasted Stella but they’ll be plenty of uncomfortable periods at gigs now when punters are desperate to jump about to oldies rather than stand around arms folded.

The artwork is a giveaway: all moody photographs of mountains and desert highways, which fits the sense of nothingness these tracks evoke but The Rifles aren’t at home driving through Death Valley; their natural habitat is in Walthamstow pubs telling their mates about the latest argument with the girlfriend or their shitty day at work or how West Ham got beat again. To pretend otherwise fools no one and frankly makes them look a bit desperate.

There’s nothing strong enough on Freedom Run to give them the breakthrough hit and win them a legion of new fans; but there’s plenty weak enough to lose them a lot. They could shortly find they do have freedom, only not the kind they were searching for.

THE OLD DISTRACTION ROUTINE

Sorry to neglect you gentle reader but I've been busy, so here's another picture of Diana Rigg. Gotta be better than me slagging off the new Manics single or Rifles LP hasn't it? Not that either are outta the woods yet...