After the rapturous reception given to my rambling on about rambling last week - four people commented, which is considered viral round here for anything except puns - I have decided to subject you to some more. It is your own fault.
At the weekend I continued my trek along the route of the Mildmay line (pushing my luck but there is now a photo log covering the whole route over on Flickr if anyone is interested). This leg took me from Kentish Town to Canonbury via Camden, the Regent's Canal, Calendonian Road and Barnsbury.
The two buildings on the route that I've picked out are not as interesting architecturally as the ones last week but both have a lot of history.
The first is Pentonville prison. Over the years the famous inmates have included some who definitely deserved to be there (Dr Crippen, John Christie and David Irving); some who definitely didn't (Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement); and assorted celebrities on minor changes including a few musicians. Boy George and Pete Doherty both wrote songs about their experience but I have no time for either of those self-regarding twerps so you will look in vain for them below.
The second notable building is the Hope & Anchor pub on Upper Street in Islington. In its heyday back in the 1970s it played a major role in promoting first pub rock and then punk - at times both as the line-up on the "Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival" live album from 1978 shows.
The Hope & Anchor has had its ups and downs since as explained in this brief history on its website and to be honest it is a shadow of its former self these days - I only ever go in for a quick pint before or after a gig at the Union Chapel across the road. But it is once again a live music venue which is something to be pleased about.
The cultural highlight of the trip was a visit to the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art nearby in Canonbury Square. I went mainly to see the current exhibition of the works of Emilio Isgrò who obscures words in printed texts and maps with the aim of suggesting new meanings and visual rhythms. He calls this Cancellatura (Erasure in Italian). I enjoyed it but there are diminishing returns.
I found the permanent exhibition more interesting, in particular the section covering the Futurists and the links between them and the rise of fascism in Italy under Mussolini.
One of the most revolutionary of the Futurists, but not in a political way, was Luigi Russolo. He painted but his main interest was in music. This painting of his in the exhibition is titled "La Musica". In 1913 he published his manifesto "The Art of Noises" in which he argued for the integration of different sound effects into musical compositions, and he developed instruments that he called intonarumori (‘noise-intoners’) to try to replicate the noises of the industrial age.
There are only two known recordings of Luigi and his intonarumori, one of which makes our playlist today. But there is only really one man who top the bill, and that's the man whose band had a regular residency at the Hope & Anchor in 1976 (and later released a live album recorded there) and who also served five weeks in Pentonville in 1980 for drugs possession. Ladies and gentlemen, Mt Hugh Cornwell.
I have added a second number from the "Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival" live album because X-Ray Spex were the bee's knees in my opinion. The other two tracks are probably self-explanatory, as are the videos except perhaps for The Damned. They are included because the video was shot in the Hope & Anchor way back when.
As this series has progressed we have been increasingly conscious of the big beast that is the music of the USA trundling towards us, and now it has arrived. Hairy, scary, more heads than a hydra and more legs than a millipede, but something we have to grapple with.
This post is both the least and most planned in the series. Least planned because most of the tracks were selected more or less at random. The only criteria were that artists who have appeared previously on the blog were excluded and there should be a range of musical styles. I'll make no claims about it being a representative selection. You cannot possibly represent the breadth of American music in one post.
But simultaneously the most planned because the first and last tracks on the list have been waiting over a year to be used. They are both from the "The Rough Guide To Native America" CD that I found in an Oxfam shop in Bristol during a rain break in #BlogCon25 and bought specifically to use in this post. Alyson and Mr WIIA can vouch for this if necessary.
Our opening act are Pipestone from the Lac Courte Orielles reservation in Wisconsin, and according to the sleevenotes this track "is always a floor-filler at pow-wows". Closing the show in the MAR slot is Casper Loma Da Wa, a member of the Hopi people in Arizona who are famed for performing the ritual snake dance (and skanking it seems).
As for the rest of them, tuck in and see what you make of it. Where the artists have music on Bandcamp I have added a link in their names if you wish to explore further.
From a selection of folks who have never appeared here before we are going to the other extreme for the videos. If Last.fm is to be believed these are the five US performers I have listened to most since signing up there in 2008.
On Wednesday me and a couple of pals strolled along London's crappy Oxford Street to the 100 Club to see Zamrock pioneers WITCH in action.
WITCH started life back in 1972, disbanded in the mid 1980s and were then rediscovered and reissued by the diggers of crates in the early 2010s. This led to the band reforming under the original frontman Emanyeo "Jagari" Chanda and this iteration has released a couple of albums, "Zango" in 2023 and "Sogolo" last year. You can find them and pretty much all of the back catalogue on Bandcamp.
Mr Chanda is still going strong and was joined at the 100 Club by fellow veteran Patrick Mwondela on keyboards and assorted whippersnappers who between them did a very good job of recapturing the sound and the spirit of the original band.
WITCH stands for We Intend To Create Havoc. Things didn't quite reach havoc levels on Wednesday but personally I put that down to the fairly sedate audience rather than the band who were in fine form. If the ratio of headbangers to hipsters had been more favourable and if they had been allowed to turn their amps up to 11 I think we would have got there.
Support was by The Heavenly Bodes (sic) who hail from Cornwall via an acid trip in a garage somewhere in America in 1967. They weren't wildly original but they make a good noise and I enjoyed their set, especially the extended freak-out with which they closed.
Their debut album "Green Hills" was released last month and is worth checking out, and I am looking forward to hearing them when they have had time to meld their influences into their own sound.
We finish with a track from both the old and newer versions of WITCH - including the song with which they opened their set on Wednesday - and the one from the Bodes. Give them a listen then head over to Bandcamp Friday to spend, spend, spend.
Brooklyn band Florist have been attracting some florid critical acclaim in recent years thanks to albums like 2025's "Jellywish". For example:
"They don’t as much strike chords as embrace them, gently matching them to moods and moments before tumbling into bigger concepts".
"Each track takes you on a journey on how to live a life that has broken free from the constraints of modern civilization".
"It was clear that thought had gone into creating something dramatic, with even the filler flowers adding dimension and spectacle".
Sorry. That last one was from a review of a flower delivery service. It came up when I forgot to put "band" between "florist" and "review" in Google.
If you are intrigued but wary why not give "We Have Been This Way Forever" a go. It was their first release back in 2013 which they have kindly made available on a "name your own price" basis on Bandcamp.
Here is a track from the EP followed by one from "Jellywish".
I did a couple of walks last week along the route of the Mildmay Line, the train line that runs across London from Richmond in the west to Hackney Wick in the east. I covered the stretch between Willesden Junction and Kentish Town West station. From the visible wealth of Harlesden and Kilburn to the sink estates of Hampstead Village and Kensal Rise, all sides of London were on display
My route took me past three modernist masterpieces/ monstrous carbuncles (delete for taste): the former Gaumont State cinema in Kilburn, in its day the largest cinema in the UK; 2 Willow Road in Hampstead, built and lived in by the architect Erno Goldfinger; and the Isokon Flats in Belsize Park. In the 1930s and 1940s residents included: Agatha Christie; Walter Gropius, one of the founders of the Bauhaus movement; and several Soviet spies, including Arnold Deutsch who recruited the Cambridge 5.
There was plenty of public art en route, the highlight of which was 'The Workers' by Kevin Harrison. It was plonked down at the end of a row of terraced houses in Harlesden in 1995 and is still there. The workers in question are struggling to erect a flagpole. Make of that what you will.
And then there is Billy Fury Way, which runs alongside the railway lines between West Hampstead and Finchley Road & Frognal stations. Billy used to live and record nearby. I have no idea why the council felt the best way to honour his memory was with "a footpath lined with used condoms, drug needles and human excrement that has been branded a no-go zone by residents" (to quote the local paper). I braved the zone and encountered one surly youth and lots of rats but nothing untoward.
Here is a selection of tunes inspired by these cultural landmarks. It's yer actual musical psychogeography innit?
It is time for one of our irregular round-ups of some of the freebies I have been sent over the last couple of months by the nice people in Promoland (for which I am eternally grateful). We will go through them in order of release date.
"The Dance of Death" by Frankie Archer, which came out last month on the ludicrously named prrr of the bear label (the lower case is theirs not mine). Electronic infused remakes of old folk standards all the way from Northumbria. Think The Unthanks with more synths.
"A Blooming Body" by Cinder Well which was unleashed into the world earlier in July. Cinder - Amelia Baker to her Mum - has featured here previously as I am a bit of a sucker for her moody singer-songwriter stuff (now there's an insightful write-up for the promo blurb). The new album is well up to the standard set by her previous effort, 2023's "Cadence".
"Interpreting Heart Sounds, Vol. II" by A. Lee Edwards is old school country-folk in the style of Guy Clark etc from a former member of Lou Ford, a name that might perhaps ring bells for Charity Chic but probably nobody else. The album is due to be issued on 4 September. With his clever addition of the 'A.' Mr Edwards has replaced A. Wesley Chung at the top of my iTunes. Well done Sir!
"Never Learned The Tide" by Twilark follows a week after A. Lee on 11 September. Twilark is the pseudonym of Canon Pence who is part of the vibrant North Carolina music scene that has brought us the likes of Hiss Golden Messenger, Tift Merritt and many more. With guests like Erin Rae and Spencer Cullum on board it is worth checking out.
"Helpless Love" by Katherine Perkins. The first single "Phoenix" was released last week, the album is out on 25 September. A new name to me, this is her second album after 2024's "Being Younger". The blurb writers who drop names like Lucinda Williams and Aldous Harding but personally she most reminds me of Diane Birch. To compared with any one of those three Ms Perkins must have something going for her.
"Period Piece" by V.V. Lightbody - announced yesterday and out on 9 October. A prolific session and touring musician under her real name Vivian McConnell, including a spell in Harry Styles' live band, this is V.V's third album and the first she has produced herself. She's done a pretty nifty job. I was going to insert a clever Harry Styles reference here but then remembered I couldn't name any of his songs.
I was also going to include a plug for an upcoming album by a Philly band Song People but even mentioning it exists is embargoed until 11 August. In the meantime if the idea of Jefferson Airplane having it out (very politely) with 10,000 Maniacs you might want to go check out their Bandcamp page.
As good as all these records are there is another new release that tops them all which I have not included as it was not a freebie. Any regular readers may know that Swamp Dogg is a musical hero of mine and his latest album "Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife" - understandable at 84 - continues a run of fantastic form from the Great Man in recent years.
There are several tracks on the new album that are as good as anything that Swamp has ever done, which is saying something. One of the many highlights is this cover of a Jenny Lewis song. Jenny joined him on one of his old tunes on his 2024 bluegrass album "Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St" and they seem to bring the best out of each other.
I mentioned in a post last week that I was excited to have picked up a copy of Bim Sherman's "Miracle" album (1996) for just 50 cents while in Greece recently. I have now had the opportunity to listen to it a couple of times.
As Swiss Adam has noted, any Bim Sherman album has to be a bargain at that price. He is right, but this one is not what I was expecting from the credits - Adrian Sherwood at the controls with contributions from Talvin Singh and the On-U regulars Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbush and Bubblers Ogilvie.
The only clue in the credits that this may not be the typical sound you might expect from that lot is that Skip McDonald is credited on acoustic guitar only. He plays it very tastefully, and rather too tastefully for my tastes at times (too many tastes - sorry). The whole album is very, very mellow.
Overall it is a decent listen but that is almost entirely down to Bim's vocals and Talvin on the tablas. And while it is definitely still a bargain at 50 cents I am not sure I will be digging it out as regularly as much of his other stuff. This is for certain moods only.
Links stay up for a month or so. If you are an artist or copyright holder and want me to remove the link, or if you want to get in touch for any other reason, e-mail me on leggies27@hotmail.co.uk.
