It's The End Of The Road - Part The Second

I was going to do a re-cap of the End Of The Road Festival a lot sooner but I seem to have spent the last week and a half with a series of hang-overs that have left me unable to be able to do anything other than cry or watch Heroes dvds. When I’m feeling particularly sprightly I can sometimes manage to cry AND watch Heroes dvds.

Writing this on Wednesday morning having broken the unwritten rule (that needs to be written by someone very quickly) of no Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night drinking in a work week, things don’t seem to have improved much.

In short, I am tired. If Satan had a dog then its eyes would look very much like mine do now. No doubt its mouth would also have a similarly horrifying taste lurking in the depths of it.

Reading the site I see that due to a post by the man-child Debris, thunder had been stolen and wind removed from sails. And thank God, as most of those acts had disappeared into a small tightly sealed box in the back of my mind due to a Saturday day-time on the Pimms and an evening where I consumed a whole bottle of vodka.

On this theme here’s a tip - if you’re ever camping with Debris and he’s gone to bed early, do not turn up at his tent at 3am and see if it’s possible to fit five men in his two-man tent. This is not appreciated and is apparently not as funny as it seems to be at the time.

Now what he neglected to mention was the fact that he bowed out of the festival early on the Sunday (if a man such as Debris can be said to be built for anything, then it is for small suburban towns in South-East London and not for the countryside) and by doing so, missed arguably the two best acts of the weekend.

My main reasons for going to it were to see Jens Lekman and Lambchop, although obviously as soon as the schedule came out I realised they clashed. Now, having endured Glastonbury this year I am more than used to “organisers” (and I use that term very loosely when it comes to the Glastonbury fiasco) ruining my weekend by having all the best people on at the same time. However, at the last minute Lekman decided to switch his set to an hour and half later and the beginning coincided beautifully with the ending of Lambchop. There was even time to send a minion to the bar to bring me more cider. Suddenly everything was coming up Stardust.

Before I go into that evening I want to back up Debris on Willard Grant Conspiracy. They’ve long been a favourite of mine and if you want to know why then here is Work Song.



Willard Grant Conspiracy – Work Song


Lambchop have become a mildly more stripped down proposition of late and have lost the string section. In all honesty it doesn’t really matter; they’re still just one of the most astonishing bands around today. If you don’t know them then the closest thing I can compare them to would be to maybe Nick Cave, but with light and beauty filtering into the dark places. Anyone who doesn’t own Nixon needs to sell hand jobs down at the docks until they’ve scraped together enough pennies to go out and buy it (or just nick it from HMV, I know a way of getting past their security system – email me if you want the secret).

I felt they lost their way a bit with the big double album which I’ve never been properly able to get my head round, but the last album was also fantastic. It takes seeing them play live to remember exactly how unique this band are as they launch into one beautiful song after another with Kurt Wagner’s amazing voice and truly great lyrics. The highlight of the set was the encore where they came back on with Howe Gelb to perform Up With People. How can a lyric like:

We are screwing up our lives today

Sound like the most joyous and life affirming thing ever said by anyone? Prior to this though they had made Howe Gelb read a paragraph from Bez’s autobiography whilst they all sat around laughing their heads off. Hearing that deep Southern accent recounting an anecdote about a Manchester club where the floor was covered in piss and the women stank of piss will go with me to the grave. They then finished with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel #2. Yes, it was good. Here is The Man Who Loved Beer.



Lambchop – The Man Who Loved Beer


By the way, Kurt Wagner is playing a solo show at Union Chapel for which, criminally, there are still tickets. You must go.

Now last up was Swedish troubadour Jens Lekman. At times during his set I described it as Adam Green fronting Belle and Sebastian. At other times, when my mind wandered, I described it as Mike Flowers fronting Belle and Sebastian. But fine lines such as these need to be trodden by someone and 90% of the time the result was perfect pop. If you like pretty girls playing trumpets and saxophones over songs dedicated to hairdressers then this man is for you. Here is his song Black Cab which is on his collection Oh You’re So Silent Jens.



Jens Lekman – Black Cab


I was then kept awake all night by the kids sitting up and playing their electronic music on a "ghetto blaster". I grow old, I grow old…


Ricky Stardust


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It's The End Of The Road - Part The First

The End Of The Road Festival, now in its second year, takes place in the beautiful surroundings of Larmer Park in Dorset, in the west of England. As we approach in the shuttle coach from Salisbury station, pushing through winding country lanes and rolling fields, our spirits were high (though bruised somewhat by Stardust’s insistence on singing Boston songs throughout the journey). After half an hour the coach rounds a bend and we can see rows of tents already set up. They sit on top of the hill. On top of the hill sits a big, black cloud. It sits there for ten hours and rains the whole time. Ah, England.

Fortunately, after pitching our tents and scouting things out, it becomes clear that The End Of The Road has three things that will combine to keep our spirits high. These are:

1 - portaloos with toilet paper and soap
2 - hot cider
3 - the good music

Unfortunately, I remember the hot cider more than the good music, but here goes anyway...

The weekend started off with Willard Grant Conspiracy whose songs of death, despair and bodies thrown into wells were delivered in deep, bluesy perfection. They are my new favourite American depressives.



Willard Grant Conspiracy - Skeleton


Next up was Stephanie Dosen, who was very funny, cute and charming. Stardust fell in love with her instantly but unfortunately we had to leave the set halfway through to get out of the rain. The only refuge was the beer tent – so there is then a five hour gap in my memory. I do remember headliners Yo La Tengo, however, because they were VERY LOUD. Pretty good, too, with fierce drumming and hypnotic bass lines providing the basis for much overblown lead guitar histrionics.

Following a night so cold that at one point I bumped into Ernest Shackleton and a team of huskies I awaken with intense cramp in my legs and a hangover straight from cider hell. Luckily therapy is on hand as the weather has changed overnight to probably the nicest day of the year. The skies are perfect blue and the sun shines brightly all day.

It all sets us up nicely for having a noon-time beer outside the tent in which tapetheradio were doing their thing. They played six or seven very tight, smart tunes and are officially our discovery of the weekend. Watch that space.

We then wandered over to the main stage for a Scandinavian trilogy. First up were Loney, Dear whose blissed out pop fitted the sunny mood perfectly.



Loney, Dear – Saturday Waits


I’m From Barcelona were in many ways the highlight of the weekend; simply joyous tunes and much silliness combining to get the crowd into what can only be called a middle-class frenzy (i.e. clapping a lot and smiling). Any band that has more than 10 members, buckets of confetti, giant balloons and a lead singer crowd surfing on a lilo can’t be all bad.



I’m From Barcelona – We’re From Barcelona


Last of the trilogy were The Concretes, who are now blander than The Cardigans – and that’s bland.

So we won’t talk about them, we’ll talk about Joan As Policewoman instead who came on next and performed a stunning set in front of a crowd who clearly appreciated her songs of heartbreak. She will be a star very soon (if she isn’t already).

Once again things go a bit hazy after this… I’m pretty sure that Architecture In Helsinki were very good, but by the time the Super Furry Animals headlined I was more interested in walking around the Garden of Lights or unnecessarily looking for more beer. Still, here’s Gruff Rhys’ collaboration with madman Boom Bip to make up for it.



Boom Bip & Gruff Rhys – Do’s & Don’t’s


Day three started for us with Euros Childs, formerly of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. He was the perfect start; silly but brilliantly talented and seemingly able to pluck tunes from thin air. His new album The Miracle Inn is out now.

A little later we headed over to watch Paris Motel, a band with a lot of annoyingly talented musicians who – to make things even worse – were also very, very good. They also looked great – surely Amy May was the only woman at the festival wearing a full length black ball gown. Apart from Stardust, of course. Their new album is also out very shortly.

My last treat of the weekend was Seasick Steve, who brought a little of Tennessee to Dorset, broke a couple of guitars (not in a rock ‘n’ roll way, they just broke because they were knackered) and even got a five minute singalong going with the audience. The crazy hillbilly.

All in all a very good weekend – a hearty well done to the organisers. Next year all it needs is a few more food stalls, a five star hotel for me and no rain whatsoever, and it will be simply perfect.


Crisp Debris


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A Real Man Doesn't Show Emotions

I am a man, and as a man, I do not have time for things like crying, and rabbits, and soppy songs and such like. I like sport, and cars, and fighting.

And so with this in mind, it is worth noting that I do not like Vera November’s first release, on a Rough Trade EP celebrating the work of Arthur Russell.

I do not like it, because it is an astonishingly beautiful union of disarmingly honest, pathos laden vocal and occasionally sparse, occasionally affirming piano that seems to bring into form the crushing despair and helplessness of two people drifting apart, through no fault of their own. I particularly don’t like the almost too-long silences that remind us of the lowest points the human soul can plumb, before climbing out the other side, and rising again. No, I don’t like that at all.



Vera November - Our Last Night Together


For those who enjoy unmanly pursuits, more of Ms. November’s songs can be heard here, and her first single comes out on Too Pure in the not too distant future. I won’t be buying that. Oh no.

And whilst we’re on the subject of my impressive masculinity, it is worth noting that contrary to popular rumour, there never was a time when Christine McVie made me weep like a child, that never did happen, because I a man, and I’m hard and that.



Fleetwood Mac - Songbird


Now, would anyone like an arm wrestle?


Tiny Dancer


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Sing To Me Of The Man, Muse, The Man Of Twists And Turns

When I was but a child, I attended a rather select school for those who had been identified as having a ‘gift’. I do not wish to dwell on this overly – my stay at the school was short, following an unfortunate incident involving the ubiquitous ‘rat’ and the proverbial ‘drainpipe’ – but I mention it so as to recall the words my Housemaster said to me one glorious autumn day, in the shadow of the school’s great oak tree.

"Dancer" he said "do you know how you can measure the stock of a man?"

I shook my head, for I was forbade to speaking within his presence.

"By the quality of his muse, Dancer, the quality of his muse" he replied.

I stood quite still (for in my youth my mime skills were limited, and I knew not how to bodily invoke the universal action for ‘And?’), and accepted the cuff around the back of my head with all the humility I could muster.

Shortly after that, ‘rat’ met ‘drainpipe’, and I was sent from that most venerable seat of learning forever more. But those words stay with me to this very day. And now, I am forced to recount them once again.

John Lennon, it could be said, is measured by Yoko Ono. Dante Gabriel Rossetti by Elizabeth Siddal. Lenny Henry by Dawn French.

But how would a man be measured if his muse was a classic Sega motorbike kill-up extravaganza? Would that be so Wrong? Why, yes. Yes it would.

As is their wont from time to time, Wrong Musicians come together under a uniting vision, a common passion, a shared muse if you will. Previously, it has been Schwarzenegger. On this occasion, it is Road Rash II – that king of 90s console action, as leather clad man fought leather clad man, with mighty machine betwixt thighs, and bovine and porcine enemies all around. It was a glorious sight. And a glorious sound.

But that was then. And this is very much now. Very much.


DJ Floorclearer - Roadrash Gives Me A Throbbing Boner

Kyler - Hawaii Road Trip


Find more from these fine gentlemen in particular here and here. Respectively, like.

The remaining 14 tracks of RTA orientated noise-mash (and occasional quieter moment) can be got from Net-Lab, the superhighweb label of much Wrong-ness and more besides. God bless them.

Whilst we’re on the subject (kind of) of proper computer music, after a time of searching, I recently came across SID.Oth.4, a site of rare beauty which collects together the classic soundings from the video games of yore.

I’m a bit torn as to whether it’s nostalgia that almost made me do a little excitement wee when I found it, or an appreciation of the genius within, but in truth I am not really caring - I offer you Charles Deenen's opus for Double Dragon, but there are so many more up for the downloading, I am honestly close to tears.



Charles Deenen - Double Dragon


Some good stuff on SID chips and all that is here, for those who might take an interest. Just me then? Fair enough...


Tiny Dancer

Alone, The Sun Will Rise

Dear reader, I am abandoned.

Debris and Stardust have taken to the road to seek out the last festival of the year, whilst I remain here, manning the Tiny Dancing fort. Yes, I am abandoned.

But do not shed a tear for me, dear reader. I am a man resigned to my lot. And I have you, dear reader. I have you.

So, whilst next week Debris and Stardust will return no doubt full of tales of derring-do, scrumpy induced nightmares, and with the kind of unspoken bond between two men that only three nights under canvas with just wet-wipes to separate them from the beasts can bring, for now, join me as I cast a wistful gaze out of a window, quietly chuckle at an amusing memory of times long past, and listen to The Necks.

Normally purveyors of hour long jazz epics, on their latest long player Chemist The Necks have partially bowed to convention, and given us three 20 minute tracks of pretty much everything you can think of. Well, maybe not everything, but quite a lot.

Off of Chemist I’ve gone for Abillera, the last of the three tracks, and perhaps the most expansive. Starting with a few minutes of ponderous bass wandering, a haze of piano and guitar soon takes over, ebbing and flowing with the introduction of rhythm and synthetics, until at around 11 minutes the musical equivalent of a sunrise takes place, and euphoria carries us along on a wave for nine more minutes that could go on forever and ever and ever, and no-one would notice because they’d all be smiling.


The Necks – Abillera


Their back catalogue can be picked up from the shop on their site, and they tell us that they’ll be touring Europe in October. It is my deep seated conviction that this should happen.

You can also download a 25 minute live set from here, which has pretty much made my night.





008. Bearsuit - Welcome Bearsuit Spacehotel


Tiny Dancer

Good Vibrations

Following my recent post about Alexander Spence I thought it might be nice to put up something just a little bit more upbeat – and nothing can make me feel happy more quickly than a sharp blast of Jackie Mittoo, who was arguably one of the most important figures in Jamaican reggae.

He was a founding member on piano of The Skatalites, the band that pretty much invented Ska – he was just fifteen years old when the band was formed in 1963! When the band split up in 1965 Jackie formed The Soul Brothers who recorded under their own name but also as the house band for the legendary Kingston based Studio One.

As the house band The Soul Brothers wrote, arranged, produced and played on many songs to come out of Studio One between 1965-68. They backed famous Reggae stars such as Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson and The Heptones.

He moved to Canada in the Seventies, although he still returned often to Jamaica to play with various friends, and died of cancer in 1990 at the age of just 42.

So without further ado, let’s lie back, pull out an ice cold beer and watch the sun go down to the magical keyboard work of Jackie Mittoo.

Jackie Mittoo - Killer Diller

Jackie Mittoo - Oboe


Crisp Debris

Funny Little Frogs

It has recently come to my attention that there are land masses other than the Isle of Wight that are separated from London by water. Some of the larger of these are called "other countries" or "abroad". It has also come to my attention that in these places they sometimes speak unlike us. At first this speech may sound like gibberish or drunk people but if you pay close attention you will occasionally be able to pick out individual words or even phrases. One such language is called "The French".

Now, we take our responsibilities to you here at Tiny Dancing very seriously and so on discovering this I decided I needed to immediately investigate these speakers and see if they use these words for singing as well as talking. It appears that they do and I present my discoveries to you below.

Firstly we have La Chanson de Jacky. You may be familiar with the Scott Walker or Marc Almond versions of this song and know it for the work of genius that it is. Jacques Brel is the drunken madman who wrote this and many other great songs that the likes of Walker, Almond and Bowie have been plundering for decades. He was singing about prostitutes, sailors, STDs, drinking, puking and fucking years before The Beatles were even up to holding hands. In all honesty, he’s no singer, but that doesn’t stop this being utterly magnificent.



Jacques Brel - La Chanson de Jacky


I discovered the next song in a record shop in Brighton. A cd was playing that I enquired about and it turned out to be the shop manager’s personal compilation of Serge Gainsbourg songs. I spoke of my admiration for it and the gentleman promptly removed it from the cd player and proffered it to me as a gift. I left clutching it with a tear in my eye and joy in my heart; briefly feeling that maybe not all people who work in record shops are scum. Now Serge, like many of his countrymen, can be a bit of a filthy little man. In much of his output there is enough smut to keep an eighties ITV sitcom going for a million episodes. In the rest of his output there is more than enough beauty and greatness to paint the Sistine Chapel. This comes in the latter category and it will make you swoon.



Serge Gainsbourg - Ballade de Melody Nelson


The third offering of "The French" is from Luna. Now, Luna are a band from another land mass called Americas that we have had musical dealings with before as they sing in our London speak. It appears that singer Dean Wareham is something of an anthropologist himself and has studied The French people to the point where he can even miraculously speak like them. This may seem unlikely but to prove it he does so in a cover of another Gainsbourg song, Bonnie and Clyde. To aid him in this he is joined by real The French person Laetitia Sadler, she is known to us as a sometime backing vocalist for Blur and the High Llamas. I’ve heard she has her own weird little The French band called Stereolab as well, but I suspect this is a lie.



Luna - Bonnie and Clyde


Ricky Stardust

What Do You Have To Do To Do That?

I watched the Mercury Music Awards on Tuesday. Not something I usually do. Partly because I knew someone involved (ooh, get me), partly out of morbid fascination, and partly due to a seemingly sadomasochistic tendency to punish my brain via the non-stop inanities spewing out of Jo Whiley’s increasingly stupid head.

The winners, who I quite like actually, dragged themselves out of their victorious stupor by repeatedly claiming they won because their album was the most forward looking of the lot. Probably true, but the company they were in didn’t exactly qualify for membership to The Army of The New Sound.

The other Monday, instead of enjoying the last throws of the long weekend, I found myself listening to a documentary on 6Music about Tony Visconti, and those he’s produced over the years. Not only was it an insight into how people such as Bowie and Eno liked to work, but it was testament to what they had to do, to produce what we take as common place nowadays. An anecdote about Robert Fripp coming up with the guitar lead for "Heroes" via a pain staking process of marking on the floor where to stand in relation to his amp to achieve specific notes of feedback was particularly gratifying.

It was part of loose series 6Music are running on producers, of which a more recent one concentrated on the work of Holland-Dozier-Holland. It included track by track breakdowns of some of their finest productions, including Reflections by The Supremes, and also Levi Stubbs vocal tracks, which if you’re clever enough (unlike me), you could probably get copies of and play around with to your boot-legging hearts content.

So next to true innovators like that, this year’s corporate saviours of music seem a little myopic to say the least. Fair play to them, but in the grand scheme of things they’re maybe not as forward looking as they may like to think.

For forward looking, I’ve recently bumped into Neptune, and their collection of made-up instruments.

I like people who do their own thing. Whether they’re making an instrument, bending an existing one, or just seeing what happens when they do that, that back-to-basics, starting from scratch thing appeals to me. The desire to be unique, and to do what no-one else has done before. Pioneering? Maybe. Intentionally? Maybe.

Without wishing any lack of respect to the finer exponents of the arts, except where it’s deservedly due of course, it’s pretty easy to pick up an instrument that someone else has made for you to a common specification, and to play it. All things being equal, a guitarist can pick up any functioning guitar, and with a few minor tweaks and a tuning pedal, get the same note every time. Tonal differences and all that, but the note should be the same. A keyboard should play the same note every time you play it. Again, it has to be tuned, but the tuning is common and specific. Which is fine, but doesn’t it get a little bit boring? That over reliance on conformity?

So, Neptune. Originally intended as an exercise in performance over all else, their guitars made out of scrap metal soon started developing to the point where they could be relied upon to the extent that a pre-determined output could, sometimes, be achieved. Which also meant that, sometimes, it could not be achieved. And the times inbetween – well, that’s where it gets interesting. Kind of exploration rather than expectation.

Years of development, de-construction and various members has got to a point where home-made scrap percussion and electronics feature just as heavily as the guitars, and have established a sound that could, if so desired, be deemed potentially musical.

These two tracks are from their Patterns album, but their output is as varied in intent as it is format. A new album is due out late this year or early next, and if you listen hard enough, you might just hear them somewhere near you soon. Something to look forward to, I suppose.

Neptune - The Penetrating Gaze

Neptune - #13


Tiny Dancer

We Could Be Great Friends

Snuffling through my musty old albums recently, like a human pig in autumn grubbing out vinyl truffles from the mulchy underworld, I dug out Oar by Alexander Spence. Playing it again reminded me of why I loved it in the first place... but first some background.

Alexander 'Skip' Spence was an integral part of the late 60s California hippy scene, starting out as the drummer in Jefferson Airplane before co-founding Moby Grape. As we all know, the late 60s California hippy scene involved a certain amount of LSD, and having indulged a fair amount Skip Spence started behaving more and more erratically - hanging around with a lady who was into black magic and an old homeless man they called 'Father' for instance.

Eventually he was arrested whilst trying to break down his bandmate's hotel door with a fire axe and was committed for six months to the prison psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital. At the same time he was officially diagnosed as schizophrenic. Whilst in Bellevue he wrote many of the songs which would go to make Oar.

When he was released from Bellevue he bought a motor cycle with an advance given to him by Columbia records and drove to Nashville, where he recorded Oar in less than two weeks. He played everything on the album himself - guitars, drums, bass, vocals and production.

Oar was his first and last solo album as the following thirty years saw him slip further into mental illness and alcoholism. But as they say, if you're going to make only one album, you might as well make it a classic. Spence was only 22 years old when he recorded the album but all of the songs sound as if they were recorded by someone twice his age - the liner notes of the CD say that at times he sounds like "Johnny Cash sharing a bar stool with Albert Camus".

Here are Little Hands and Broken Heart to get you started.

Alexander Spence - Little Hands

Alexander Spence - Broken Heart





007. Ian Brown - My Star


Crisp Debris

Under The Covers. One More Time...

Cover versions – now there’s a tricky business. Which is weird when you think about it, as really, in the olden days like, pretty much every song was a cover version; or "standards" as those crazy old folks called them. And yet something happened to songs from the sixties onwards that meant cover versions were suddenly a mine-field; even for the old pros.

And it’s not just that songs became more complicated with all their strange hippy lyrics and psychedelic bit and bobs; take Yesterday for example; in its basic version it’s just really vocals and guitar. Such a simple song and allegedly the most covered song in history; and yet I’m not sure I’ve heard a decent version of it other than by the boy Macca. It’s even defeated the holy trinity of Frank, Elvis and Marvin!

In fact, considering the vast amount that have been produced it is relatively hard to find decent covers of Beatles songs, although all and sundry have had a pop at them. Many a good man/woman/band has fallen trying to take on a Lennon/McCartney. And yet Dylan on the other hand is a different matter. It seems almost impossible to do a bad version of a Bob Dylan song. And why is that? Is there something intrinsically different in the song-writing?

Maybe his songs are better crafted and so can survive being re-arranged whilst Lennon/McCartney songs, due to the intricate and skilful way in which George Martin put them together, are a house of cards that collapse when you move them.

Or maybe the Beatles just played Lennon/McCartney songs in the best way they could possibly be played (with one or two exceptions), whilst more talented singers than Dylan could do different and wonderful things with his songs.

I don’t know the answer, but I suspect there may be something in both those arguments.

The Observer Music Monthly has been compiling a list of Greatest Cover Versions Ever.

As well as some of the usual suspects there are some unexpectedly great choices as well as some terrible ones. I’ll leave you to judge which is which (but I will just say I hate The Pet Shop Boys version of Always On My Mind and have been in many arguments over it).

The one that catches my eye at this moment though is Mr Bojangles by Nina Simone, which is undoubtedly a beautiful song. However, I think that she trumped it herself with at least two other covers not present in this list and I present them to you below.

I think these are the greatest covers of Beatles (tellingly a Harrison who I would argue has more in common with Dylan when it comes to song-writing than with Lennon/McCartney) and Dylan songs ever recorded.

Nina Simone - Here Comes The Sun

Nina Simone - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues


These were all released a few years back on the double album To Love Somebody/Here Comes the Sun.

Also on these albums are fantastic versions of I Shall Be Released (Dylan), Just Like A Woman (Dylan) and To Love Somebody (Gibb) and so I’d heartily recommend it.

By the way, if you know any better Dylan or Beatles covers you feel I might have overlooked, please leave a comment to let me know. Or start an argument about.


Ricky Stardust