Well ahoy, avast, and away we go, Shamble Cadets! Welcome to the good ship ‘YouTube Videos’!
Yeah, can you actually believe it? We’ve actually gone and made a bona fide video with a video game in and us talking over the top and keeping vaguely on topic! Wowee! Our first outing is with the fantastic Sunless Sea, a HP Lovecraft-fuellled roguelike seafaring adventure game, heavy on the storytelling and atmosphere. We had an absolutely brilliant time.
Our maiden Shambles voyage is with Liam Welton, all-round good guy and one of the lead developers on Sunless Sea. He helped us out when we inevitably got into problems with the mouse, our own ability to breathe and actually being able to survive the first half-hour of playing, for which we are eternally grateful.
Check out the first part here and, remember, check back every Tuesday and Friday for more Shamble-vids (Shambeos? Shamble Cinema? whatever).
It’s been a while. I know I usually say that in jest because it generally hasn’t been a while, but today I mean it. I very rarely mean things, or do I? We may never know.
So as you may have gathered from smatterings of tweets, facebook posts and Laurie’s tear-jerking (genuinely) LCD Soundsystem ‘All My Friends‘ Shambletrack – I am now in America. New York City to be precise, and I will be remaining here for the time being. Of course this has thrown a comically-sized socket-wrench into the purely metaphorical cogs of Podshambles (yeah that’s right guys – we have metaphorical cogs. Metaphorical cogs powered by FRIENDSHIP) but never fear – I’m to an extent back on the radar. It took me a good week to get used to residing out here, and I’m still very much adjusting to the intricacies of Stateside life – for instance everyone thinking I’m adorable because of my voice, the absence of soft drinks that won’t instantly kill you, or having to order ‘a pack of Marlboro Reds’ as opposed to ‘twenty Marlboro Reds’ – a conundrum which ended up with me accidentally being handed 400 hundred cigarettes by a cashier who thought I was either mental or trying to kill myself.
BUT THAT’S LIFE GUYS.
I’ve found a spare half an hour, so here we go. I was going to do something loosely based on New York City but I feel like I’ll be doing a few of those whilst I’m out here and I don’t want to just aimlessly throw something at you guys because it conveniently has the words ‘New York’ embedded in the lyrics somewhere. So I’ve chosen a song that actually means something to me.
I was asked in an interview today (that’s right – I do interviews because I am super cool) what my favourite political song was, and the answer was so blindingly obvious. Farewell To Welfare by Grace Petrie is a stand-out masterclass in just how effective and meaningful political and satirical music can be. I first gigged with Grace about three years ago and she blew me away. Her songs have so much heart and honesty that it brings a tear to the eye, and she is politically dead on – hitting points such as anti-LGBT discrimination, the victimisation of the working people and the attitudes of the husks currently running our UK government.
This goes out to everyone who gives a shit about our country and the people who live in it. Grace you are an absolute star.
Thanks for reading everyone – I’ll be back to usual soon, just need to get over some culture shock/sugar poisoning/getting hit by a big yellow taxi whilst ‘jaywalking‘ (?). You can buy the music of Grace Petrie (and more with her band ‘The Benefits Culture’) buy clicking HERE.
Big, big love and HEY IF YOU’RE IN NEW YORK GIVE ME A CALL ON 555-PADDY-NEW-YORK-PHONE-.com. I think that’s it?
Paddy XX
p.s Oh my God I actually just saw a TV advert for meow mix. I’ve wanted to see what all the fuss is about for years. Now I know. The cat even said ‘I want chicken I want liver Meow Mix Meow Mix please deliver’. IT WAS AMAZING. #meowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeow.
For God’s sake, though, don’t mention arses in front of Tony. You know how he gets, with the piles cushions, his chart of the ‘gliterarsi’, the soft, velour touch of his fingers as they waft over your shapely cheeks… I’m already a-quiver, Dorothy, just don’t bring it up.
Oh? You won’t stay? But I was about to put the LCD Soundsystem on?
LCD Soundsystem, then, aka James Murphy and His Merrie Bande of Electro-Pirates, Funk-Merchants and All-About Musical Jamboree. They’re a funky, punky, pop-upstart outfit who until very recently made all of New York City their bleeping, blorking playground. On record, though, almost everything is sung, struck or stuck together by Murphy himself. What a guy.
In 2011, and after releasing three wonderful albums, Murphy announced that LCD Soundsystem would be permanently turning off the stereo, but not before a globe-spanning tour that would culminate in one mega-gig at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Yours truly, the lucky bugger, managed to see the farewell show with Hot Chip in Cardiff, and it was fucking beautiful, as was having Murphy and co DJ immediately afterwards and being able to shout my compliments directly into his sweaty face.
The Madison Square Garden gig has gone down in folklore as being one of the most emotionally charged and affecting shows you might have been to. There’s an amazing film of it called Shut Up and Play The Hits – made by Pulse films, who also did the great Blur at Hyde Park documentary – that compares it to ‘the best funeral ever’, which is pretty apt. Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, aka Troy of Troy and Abed, even showed up in the crowd.
‘All My Friends’ comes at one of the best moments in the show. It’s a song about growing old and trying to piece together a night out together with the old gang, and though everything’s a bit rusty, and you’ve got kids waiting at home or a job in the morning, they still manage to have a life-changing evening. ‘Though when we’re running out of the drugs/And the conversation’s winding away/I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision/For another five years of life‘, Murphy croons.
It is, also, dedicated to young Paddyshambles, who’s fucking off to America after tomorrow’s Shambletrack. I think the song is quite a comforting reminder that, no matter what changes in the weeks, months or even years you’re away from your mates or from home, nothing really changes. The same people matter, the same things really matter, and even if your Podshamble partner comes back with a new accent, haircut and outrageous shoes, he’s still pretty great.
NB: The live version is pretty much perfect too and is found here.
I can’t believe I have gone this long without approaching Pearl Jam as a Shambletrack. Pearl Jam are one of my all time favourite bands and I think I was struggling with choosing one song to play you. I mean, I love every song they have ever written so picking one seems like an underhanded betrayal of all the other ditties they jigwhistle. So I’ve decided to go with the first Pearl Jam song I ever heard – Once. This was the opening song of their debut album ‘Ten‘, released August 1991, and thus is the reason I heard it first. I was given the album by my first guitar teacher when I was ten (WEIRD HUH? TEN AND TEN – CRAZY) and I worshipped it through the medium of walkman monopolisation. If you’re not a Pearl Jam fan – I totally understand. Eddie Vedder, like many grunge frontmen, has one of those distinctive marmite voices (see: Billy Corgan, Trent Reznor, Elmo) – there’s no middle ground on opinions of him. I personally and clearly love it. Half of the time you have no idea what he’s saying, and the other half of the time you just assume it’s something excellent. HE’S AMAZING. I now have every Pearl Jam record and will never ever grow tired of them. I urge you to do the same.
PJ (abbreviated because AND WHAT) really have it all. They can be heavy as a sack of hammers (see: Even Flow), soft as a rhythmic pillow (see: Better Man) or just mad as a bag of spiders (see: the drunkest ever cover of Baba O’Riley). This is grunge music at it’s absolute zenith – may it continue to reign supreme.
Enjoy – kicks in after about 40 seconds of weird atmospheric beauty.
That’s all from me today – bit of a short one but then again so are some crusted pies, concise jokes, and the inhabitants or Ironforge.
Today I have a challenge for you all, one that will test your mettle to its very limit and reveal your true nature – you will be forced to look into your soul and, with wide eyed acceptance, confront who you really are. That’s right guys, Shambletracks just got heavy.
Thursday’s trial by musical fire – listen to today’s track and DO NOTsmile. Don’t jig, bump, sway or bounce – especially no bouncing.
I am going to make a prediction; you will fail. And that’s OK, completing today’s dastardly and outrageously difficult challenge would sound alarm bells for even the coldest amongst us.
So, what is this song; this unimaginably happy melody, this oasis of sound in a cold grey Thursday desert, this Bill Murray of a tune. Well, let me introduce you to Hot 8 Brass Band’s cover of Sexual Healing, originally, of course, by Marvin Gaye.
When it comes to this song I am completely bias, so I could be overestimating how happy it will make all of you lovely people, but for me this tune stirs up wonderful memories of my last birthday. When my friends gathered on a warm July evening to treat me to a Dirty Burger and a trip to see Chef – it sounds low key and could even sound dull, but it was a great Wednesday evening. This song capped it all off – being used in the film to add a bit of shine to one of the film’s many many happy moments (it really is an incredibly easy watch, good food, good tunes and almost no drama to speak of).
There is really very little left to say about today’s Shambletrack; because I am pushed for time but also because that’s it, it’s simply a happy song, and a great cover of a classic, just let the cool brass sounds wash over you and enjoy.
So good luck with today’s challenge, and let us at Podshambles/Shambletracks know how you get on.
I’m back, and with a whole new bag of Shamble-itis to cough all over you. Get your hyper-Shamblic needles ready, prepare a dose of Pod-ium nitrate, and let Doctor Havelock bend you over and have a good look at what he’s dealing with.
Well they’re not at the tip of everyone’s tongues, admittedly, but they’re bloody wonderful. Loosely described as a ‘psych-pop duo’ from London, Parsley Sound – aka Preston Mead and Danny Sargassa – released their debut album, Parsley Sounds in 2003. It’s a layered, lo-fi, dreamy treat, with hidden samples littered around like little musical nuggets to discover.
Much like some of my other heroes The Avalanches or Lemon Jelly, the twosome have an amazing ear for pairing disparate and warped snippets of other songs, combined with their own instrumental lines and often pitch-shifted vocals. You can hear this at play beautifully in one of their highlights, ‘Twilight Mushroom’, which was the first of theirs I was introduced to via the lovely radio medium of Lauren Laverne and 6Music. A chance encounter on one of her late weekday morning indie-a-thons, and I was hooked – to the point when I had to religiously track down the band in question. I fell in love with the rest of the album and its hushed, fuzzy but ever-so-precise vibe, as heard on another track from the album, ‘Platonic Rate’.
Unfortunately, the guys don’t seem to do much by the way of new music any more. A new LP called Picnic on Mars materialised on Soundcloud almost 10 years after Parsley Sound’s first was released, published without the aid of a label. Their Facebook page is sporadically updated, there’s no website to look at and their only appearances online recently has been on Caribou’s 1000-song playlist entitled ‘a musical history of my life’.
Anyway, Shamblechums, for you today I present the opener to Parsley Sounds, instructively called ‘Ease Yourself and Glide’. If you’re having a day you’d like to get away from, a week from which you’d like a quick sojourn, or just a five minute day-kip, pop it on, ease yourself and, for goodness sake, glide as much as you can.
Anywho, I’ve chosen something a little different today. It’s an eight-and-a-half minute instrumental (I know, right?) in the form of Ain’t Gwine To Whistle Dixie by Taj Mahal. Point number one: I have been listening to this song for twenty years, and doing a quick google revealed to me that it isn’t in fact called ‘Ain’t Got To Whistle‘ – the name I have been referring to it by for literally 83.3333% of my life – which is a massive embarrassment. Point number two: it is gorgeous.
I was primarily brought up on blues music. My Dad plays the blues better than anyone I have ever met, and so the dulcet tones of old America used to ring throughout my childhood home every single day – and it was magnificent. My father is one of those guys that can just play music. Hand him an instrument and he will ace it: double-bass, jazz piano, trombone, erhu – you name it. He fucking rules. He’s in his mid-sixties and is still taking music lessons every week to ‘make sure he keeps his eye in’, and regularly plays with his bands ‘Lady & The Gents’, ‘The Coffin Dodgers’ and ‘Trains’. Thus it was only natural that myself and my siblings all learnt music from a very young age, all going on to forge careers in the industry. The one thing we can all agree on it that blues was the instigator – and it was all thanks to Dad.
I’m sure I’ll cover a fair bit of the music he introduced us to in the coming months, but the song that instantly springs to mind is this one. Perhaps it’s because it’s a long piece with no vocals, and therefore provides some kind of backing track to the vast majority of my earliest memories. Maybe it’s just because it is rad. Either way – here it is.
If you haven’t listened to Taj Mahal yet – DO IT NOW. Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (his real name) is a musical mastermind and a bloody hero to boot. Have a dig through his discography and you’ll find he has played with literally everyone under the sun (odds are you have heard him before on one song or another) and quite rightly so. Check out The Best Of Taj Mahal for an idea of his style.
I hope you enjoy the mellow tune from my youth ‘Ain’t Gwine To Whistle Dixie’.
Hey, you, shambles, hey, look, OK, so, let’s get this cleared up:
I frikkin love Radiohead. To unhealthy levels. I’ve got all the music they’ve ever put out. Most of it on oldey timey vinyl. I carried around one of their South American tour posters for two months because I flew out to Santiago (that’s in Chile, DONTCHAKNOW, I am a seasoned world traveler) on the night their tour started there.
I even have a shrine to Thom Yorke in my room, full of scrapings of his skin, flecks of his spittle and at which I pray in requisite style on a daily basis.
It’s all true. And it’s time I shared this with you all because a) I might be arrested before long and b) I’ve decided to finally breach the Radiohead dam, live on Shambletracks. I’m sorry.
Way too much has been written about them and their pioneering seven studio albums of unmitigated excellence (their first, Pablo Honey, is unmitigated dorgturd-ulence and should not be listened to), so I’m not going to add too much. Just these following tidbits that might be new to you:
They went to the same school as Paddy and I, and Jonny Greenwood had the same viola teacher as me. Therefore, we are all blood brothers. They also wrote a not-great song about their/our old headmaster.
Not only does ‘Just’, from second album The Bends, have an incredible video, but it was also recorded in one lone take. The whole thing. No overdubs. Even we need overdubs for our shamble-storm of a podcast.
2003’s smash Hail To The Thief was the first album that I bought by the fantastic gentlemen. I didn’t really get it, but it does feature what is still one my favourite tracks – ‘Wolf at the Door’ – which I will wager is the first time you’ve heard Thom Yorke sing-rap over a nursery rhyme backing.
They appeared in possibly the finest episode of South Park you’ve ever seen, in what ranks alongside the Korn Magical Mystery Tour Hallowe’en special.
That’s all the tidbits you get, you cheeky so-and-sos! I’ve put, below, one of the tracks that first turned me onto them. It’s called ‘Black Star’, it’s from The Bends, and it’s about heartbreak. It has a killer lead guitar line. Enjoy.
Night night, be safe, don’t let the OK Computers bite,
“Those criminals put two of our men in Podybags captain – those poor Castards didn’t know what hit ’em.”
The Shamburglars are back and they’ve brought goat farming, emu highways, hit new songs and the plot synopsis to the dreadful movie Heathers with them! Oh – and they have also found the ancient Chinese city of Tseng Su because they are rad.
So restitch your moccasins, restock the sultanas and win that tombola – Podshambles has arrived.
