Voting is now open for Pun Fun 2. Readers were challenged to adapt a song title with a fruit or vegetable related pun. Collectively they have contributed some excellent produce. It has been like Harvest Festival here at Leggies HQ this week.
I am particularly pleased to welcome four first-time punsters: Martin, Mister F, Pete From Minnesota and The Swede. I hope your efforts bear fruit (or vegetables as applicable).
Voting is open to all readers not just those of you who entered. Let me know your top three in order of preference. I'll then award 5 points for your first choice, 3 for second and 1 for third.
You can either submit your votes in the comments section or email them to leggies27@hotmail.co.uk if you prefer to preserve the sanctity of the secret ballot.
The deadline is next Sunday (14 December) and we will announce the results a week today.
Here are the contenders, listed alphabetically by artist.
Guava Little Love - Bay City Rollers
Lettucey - The Beatles
Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Zucchini - Brian Hyland
Beet Beet Beet - The Damned
The Aubergine Genie - David Bowie
Onion of the Snake - Durian Durian
Kumquat May - Ewan McGregor & Nicole Kidman
I Yam What I Yam - Gloria Gaynor
Changes in Lettuces, Changes in Attitudes - Jimmy Buffett
The Return Of The Los Palm Hearts 7 - Madness
I'd Like To Peach The World To Sing - The New Seekers
Hang On To Your Mango - The Peach Boys
My Cherry Amour - Stevie Wonder
Life Durian Wartime - Talking Heads
Sprout - Tears For Fears
Exercise your vote wisely and remember to join us next Monday when we will reveal who's the top banana. Whoever it is, it definitely won't be Juanita, Lorna or Nana as they forgot to enter.
If you are reading this on Bandcamp Friday you may want to briefly interrupt your hectic ordering schedule to check out "Echoes/ Anam Cara" by Falmouth's own Blind Yeo.
The album came out last year and was created by sticking two earlier EPs together. It is very good record but they are even better live, as I discovered when I saw them down at the Shacklewell Arms earlier in the week.
There are hints of Steve Hillage on the record; live they go full Cornish pixies on ecstasy. Home-made costumes and lizard masks, bongos and swanee whistles, band members whirling like dervishes in the mosh pit (and falling over in a non-dervish manner), all held together by a great rhythm section. They would be an asset to any 1970s free festival, or anywhere else for that matter. Go and see them if they pass through your town.
We are on the tenth leg of the tour and we have arrived in the smallest and most densely populated country in continental America. I refer of course to El Salvador, famed for having fought a war over a football match, having the highest crime rate in the world and being the only country to date to recognise Bitcoin as legal tender. Crazy guys!
It's not all dodgy though. El Salvador is also packed to the rafters with forests, volcanos and beaches and the local cuisine is widely admired. The national food is the pupusa, a flatbread that gets its name from the language of the indigenous Pipil people.
There is a myth about a monster that used to eat them (the Pipil not the pupusa) - you can learn more about it here. As for the pupusas, there is no bigger fan than Rene Alonso so we have shared his tribute to them below.
Rene is followed by Lito Barrientos and his pals. Lito headed south to Colombia way back in the mid 1960s where he enjoyed much success in the local cumbia scene. Today's choice comes from his 1965 debut album "Very Very Well".
One of the biggest bargains on Bandcamp must be a compilation called "Sonidos Perdidos de Centroamérica", released on the Tujaal Sounds label from Guatemala. It contains 45 vintage tunes from across Central America all available on a 'name your own price' basis. This will not be the only time I will be referring to it during this series.
For this episode the third and fourth selections both come from "Sonidos Perdidos de Centroamérica". I have not been able to find biographical details for either La Organizacion or Chando Orellana I'm afraid, but Chando churned out lorryloads of organ-led flute-infused funk in the 1970s, including this take on a Deodato tune.
Also emerging in the 1970s were one of El Salvador's biggest ever bands who enjoyed huge success for over twenty years and seem to still be going strong today - Fiebre Amarilla. The track I've chosen was first released as the B-side to their debut single in 1971, but I found it on a compilation called "Desde el Salvador... Unidad".
We leap forward in time for the last three songs, starting off with The Vibes. You may be familiar with them already as George featured them in a guest post for Rol's 'Namesakes' series earlier this year. This song comes from their 2016 album "F*** The Vibes" and I suspect it might be about a certain American politician.
Gabriela Triste is up next. According to the blurb "her unique brand of Latin Pop has been prominently showcased on respected platforms like KEXP, KCRW, Dublab, Remezcla, and numerous others worldwide". I was under the impression Remezcla was an eczema cream and I've never heard of any of the others, but never mind. What I do know is that this single from last year is a cracking little pop song.
Which brings us to the MAR slot. It would probably be more accurately described as MAS (Mandatory American Ska) and will hopefully leave you all wanting mas. Here are Blue Beat Makers with the title track from their 2019 album "Enamorado De Ti".
We have a truly splendid set of videos for you this time out, starting with a remake of the Rene Alonso tribute to pupusas that features a nifty dance routine and one of the finest pairs of eyebrows you could hope the see.
We are back with a second edition of Pun Fun, the exciting new feature where I give you a theme and you adapt the title of a well-known song to reflect that theme. Anyone who missed the first edition can find the results here.
But before we reveal the new theme a sharp-eyed reader has spotted a possible elephant in the room. They asked whether your fine efforts can technically be described as puns. The possibility that they can't worried me because, frankly, "Adapting the Title of a Well-Known Song to Reflect a Theme Fun" is a much less catchy title.
So I dug out the Oxford English Dictionary, which knows a thing or two about this sort of stuff. It defines a pun as "the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect".
It may be stretching it a bit, particularly for some entries, but I reckon the underlined words mean we just sneak in. Any English teachers out there are welcome to comment, but only if they agree with me.
With that out of the way, welcome to Fun Pun 2! After doing sports and sporting equipment last month we are keeping things healthy. Inspired by a visit to the London Fruit Exchange - I went in with an orange and came out with a banana - the new theme is:
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
The rules are the same as last time. You each have one entry only (not five a day please). Entries should be sent to leggies27@hotmail.co.uk by Saturday 6 December. Voting will start next Monday.
I look forward to hearing from all the founder members and hopefully some new faces as well - such as The Swede, who would seem to have an inbuilt advantage on this particular theme.
To warm you up here are three songs that are definitely about fruit and vegetables and could not in any way be deemed examples of "prurient puns" (Tobias Smollett, 1746, cited in the OED).
I hadn't planned on posting anything today but Khayem's post earlier this morning and Adam's recent one on Nick Drake reminded me of when I went to see Scritti Politti, Robyn Hitchcock and Alexis Taylor in the back room of a local pub and Green and Robyn duetted on a cover of Nick's "Free Ride".
Home-made video below, proper review of the gig here. Back with the theme for Pun Fun 2 tomorrow.
Last Friday night found me at London's lively Lexington public house and music venue for a gig by Wreckless Eric that was timed to coincide with the release of his brand new album "England Screaming".
While the album may be brand new the songs on it are not. All of them originally appeared on an album called "A Roomful Of Monkeys" that he put out 40 years ago under the name Captains of Industry and on which he was backed by assorted Blockheads. It sunk without a trace and the few that heard it didn't much care for it. Eric has decided the time has come to give the songs another go.
I have never heard "A Roomful of Monkeys" so can't compare the two albums, but if it was half as good as the new album the record-buying public of 1985 were fools to themselves. "England Screaming" is top notch and a worthy successor to "Leisureland" and "Transcience", Eric's previous two albums both of which rank among the high points of his long and illustrious career.
Eric and the band treated us to a few tracks from each of those two albums on Friday as well as running through "England Screaming" in its entirely. It was a great set and I particularly enjoyed the extended freakout version of "Fish Factory" from the new record on which they seemed to be channelling Crazy Horse.
As an extra treat Eric teamed up with his better half, the marvellous Amy Rigby, to open the evening with a selection of songs from the three albums they made together between 2008 and 2012 (all of which can be found on Bandcamp). As always the two of them were utterly charming.
We are spoiling you with a track from each of Eric's albums mentioned above and one from Eric & Amy's eponymous 2008 album which Amy told us when they played it was written for their respective daughters.
The tiny island nation of Curaçao hit the headlines on the sports pages last week when it became smallest country by population ever to qualify for the football World Cup finals.
I thought this was the ideal opportunity to share some of the highlights of my extensive collection of Curaçaoan music, and perhaps entice one of the country's roughly 158,000 residents to visit the blog so my flag counter can add Curaçao to the list of countries from which we've had a visitor.
First up is the great Rignald Recordino, better known as Doble R who with his Super Special Stars bestrode the Curaçaoan music scene like a colossus for many years. This particular track is from their 1978 album "Di Paranda!?".
We are then joined by Anselmus 'Boy' Dap, multiple winner of the 'Rei di Tumba' title at the annual carnival (tumba is a local musical style that is loosely based on merengue). His album "Mi T'ei" originally came out in 1989 to the best of my knowledge and was reissued last year.
You can find both albums along with many other delights at the Groove Fusion Records Bandcamp page.
Of course the Curaçao team were not the only plucky underdogs that qualified for the finals with a famous victory last week. Congratulations to them both. All together now: "Ring a ding a ding there goes Willie on the wing".
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Topping the inaugural Pun Fun chart is...
KHAYEM with 'The Boy With Willie Thorne In His Side'.
Khayem professed to be over the moon when informed of the result. Asked to describe the secret of his success, he said: "I just closed my eyes, hit send, and the next thing I knew it was in the back of the net".
Khayem is being too modest. By choosing a pun about a 1980s snooker player he cleverly targeted a key demographic here at 27 Leggies, as is shown in this detailed breakdown of where his votes came from:
British men old enough to remember the 1980s - 88%
Absolutely everybody else in the whole world - 12%
Here is the top five. I'm not sharing the full results as we're not here to name and shame, but I can reveal that everyone avoided the dreaded 'nul points'.
'The Boy With Willie Thorne In His Side' - The Smiths (Khayem)
'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Darts Club Band' - The Beatles (Alyson)
'Can't Stand Luge-ing You' - The Police (John M)
'Satan Rejected My Goal' - Morrissey (Rol)
'Croquet Fred' - Errol Dunkley (Ernie)
We have had a request from one competitor to be given the opportunity to share some of the other puns they thought of but did not submit due to being limited to one entry. If it spares long-suffering loved ones from having to smile politely while listening to them all that is fine by me, so feel free to fill up the comments section with as many as you want. I'll get the ball rolling: 'Karate Fears Two' by The Associates.
Many thanks to everyone who sent in an entry, and thanks also to those of you who did not but found time to vote. Hopefully some of the latter group will be sufficiently enthused to enter in future.
There will be another opportunity soon. We'll be back with a new theme this time next week so we can get one in before we are hit by the full force of the festive season. If that goes well we will resume in January.
Until then, we'll hand over to Khayem and the rest of LT United for their victory celebrations. He's the one second from right. And let's also hear it for the song and sportsman that combined to deliver him his victory. For those of you not familiar with him, Willie is the bald one.
Public Service Announcement: If you wish to vote on the best sporting pun in a song title but have not yet done so, the deadline is tomorrow (Saturday November 22). Details of who you can vote for and how to do it can be found here.
We now return to our scheduled broadcast.
Earlier in the week I went to an exhibition called 'Children Of Albion' by Ben Edge at the Fitzrovia Chapel, which as the name suggests is located in London's fashionable Fitzrovia. It runs until 26 November and if you get a chance to visit I would heartily recommend doing so. I have loads more photos on Flickr which I hope might tempt you to go.
Actually it is worth popping in to the chapel if you are in the area even when there aren't any exhibitions on. Apparently inspired by Byzantine architecture its charms could not be described as understated. Here's a bit of the ceiling:
The exhibition itself draws on the traditional stories and rituals of the British Isles and William Blake's vision of Albion, the ancient spirit of Britain that is currently asleep but can be reawakened through AI the power of art and imagination.
The centrepiece is the painting that gives the exhibition its name which brilliantly weaves together all sorts of references ancient, modern and in between, but I enjoyed all the paintings. A particular favourite was 'The Dorset Ooser' which features artefacts and activities from the part of Dorset in which I used to live - the eponymous mask from Melbury Osmond, the Cerne Abbas Giant and the now banned tradition of Teddy Rowe's Band from Sherborne.
The painting in the final photo is called 'John Barleycorn Must Die', which prompted me to dig out Traffic's excellent album of the same name when I got home. Here's a couple of tracks from that and two other decent versions of the song.
Some of you may occasionally have wondered about the identity the handsome gentleman at the top right of the page. Some of you may have not. I'm going to tell you anyway. Its Penny Penny.
When I started this blog way back in 2009 I had a mission to bring Tsonga Disco music to the masses. Tsonga Disco was a contemporary take on the traditional music of the Tsonga or Shangaan people who can be found mostly in the Limpopo Province in the north east of South Africa and in southern Mozambique.
Between the mid 1990s and mid 2000s Penny Penny (Papa Penny to his many fans) was the undisputed king of Tsonga Disco but by the time I started featuring his music here he had largely given up on recording and was spending most of his time in local politics, helping to improve living conditions and infrastructure in his home town of Giyani.
In the mid 2010s my old pal Mr. Awesome Tapes From Africa reissued a couple of his albums from the 1990s to moderate acclaim. This seemed to prompt Papa Penny to revive his showbiz career. He turned up as a celebrity judge on a TV talent show, launched his own reality series and in 2019 started releasing new albums after a gap of ten years. His most recent album is "Sesi Va Rosie" which came out in 2023 and we have a couple of selections for you.
He hasn't given up the politics though. Quite the opposite. Last year he became an MP representing the main opposition party in the national parliament. His performance as a politician has not received the same universal praise given to his musical performances. But I say no to the naysayers and all power to Papa Polymath!
We finish off with a couple of videos featuring Papa Penny's hit "Milandu Bhe" - first the original from 1994 and then a remake from a couple of years ago with current pop sensation and follow Tsonga star Makhadzi. Her brand new album is the similarly titled "Sesi Ka Rose". Coincidence? I think not.
Ladies and gentlemen, its the moment that you've all been waiting for. Voting is now open in the inaugural Pun Fun competition.
Readers were challenged to come up with a sports related pun in a song title. Ten brave souls did so, to whom many thanks. I added in one of my own to turn it up to 11 in Spinal Tap style.
Voting is open to anyone not just those of you who entered (but if you did enter please don't vote for yourself - you won't be given any points if you do). Even the bots from Singapore are free to join in as long as they don't spoil their ballots by demanding puns about dragon boat racing.
Let me know your top three in order of preference. I will then award 5 points for your first choice, 3 for second and 1 for third and we will see where we end up.
You can either submit your votes in the comments section or email them to leggies27@hotmail.co.uk if you prefer to preserve the sanctity of the secret ballot. The deadline is next Saturday (22 November) and we'll announce the results a week today.
Here are the contenders, listed alphabetically by artist.
'Walk Like A Wrestling Man' - The Bangles
'Maiden Heaven' - Be Bop Deluxe
'Lacrosse The Universe' - The Beatles
'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Darts Club Band' - The Beatles
'Scrum Love' - Bob Marler & The Wailers
'Clubthumping' - Chumbawumba
'Croquet Fred' - Errol Dunkley
'Satan Rejected My Goal' - Morrissey
'Can't Stand Luge-ing You' - The Police
'The Boy With Willie Thorne In His Side' - The Smiths
'I Kabaddi Anything But My Love' - The Stylistics
Good luck everyone. Dillinger, the disguised Duran Duran and I all have our fingers crossed that you will do well.
Public Service Announcement: If any of you are thinking of entering the exciting competition to come up with the best sporting pun in a song title but have not yet done so, the deadline is tomorrow. Details of what to do and how to do it can be found here.
We now return to our scheduled broadcast.
Its stop #9 on our tour of the Americas and the start of what might be a tricky stretch. No disrespect intended to the many fine musicians in the E-H countries of Latin America but I have struggled to accumulate the same quantity of music that I did on previous tours and earlier and later stops on this one. That said, there are still lots of goodies as this visit to Ecuador will hopefully demonstrate.
Ecuador is one of those countries that I know less about than I probably should - the Galapagos, the Andes, Quito, Cuenca, the fact that Panama stole the credit for the straw hat that originated in Ecuador, and that is about it. But after reading about it for this post I have added it to my list of places to try to visit. It sounds interesting and varied, to use the travel guide cliche.
Interesting and varied can also be used to describe the music of Polibio Mayorga who with his trusty moog bestrode the local music scene like a colossus back in the 1960s and 1970s. As Wikipedia notes: "at one point Mayorga was so dominant in the Ecuadorian music charts that he started releasing music under pseudonyms, to give the illusion of variety".
Today's track is attributed to one such pseudonym, Ángel Y Su Banda, and comes from 'their' only album, "Te Invito A Mi Casa". That album isn't on Bandcamp but lots of his records are. The Analog Africa compilation "Ecuatoriana - El Universo Paralelo de Polibio Mayorga" would be a good place to start.
Another compilation you might want to check out is "Juyungo" which puts the spotlight on the Afro-Indigenous culture of the province of Esmeraldas. I was going to make a clever remark contrasting the beauty of Esmeraldas with the Quasimodo that is Quito, but it would be neither fair nor funny so I won't. Instead I'll just direct you to Papá Roncón.
If those two compilations whet your appetite then why not head over to Musicoteca Ecuador's page and admire their back catalogue. There are one minute extracts from 7" singles there which cost US $45 to post to the UK - I declined - but there some albums available for download as well. One such is "El Diablo Ocioso" by Diabluma's Brass Band. I kept it simple and went with the title track.
Bandcamp won't help you with Boddega, an ever so slightly psychedelic ensemble that came ambling out of Guayaquil in 1971 and hung around until the end of the decade. The selected track comes from an EP they released in 1974. I have no idea how it got to me from there.
Also mildly psychedelic but much more modern is the track by H.O. & Los Bicivoladores, who was extremely prodigious between 2012 and 2020 - putting out nearly 40 releases in eight years - before seemingly finding something better to do with his time. This is a cover version of a song by Chilean folk singer Pedro Messone and you can find it on his self-explanatory album "Covers".
Next up we have Maria Usbeck, a singer-songwriter who is originally from Quito but is now living in Brooklyn. She started her career as the lead singer of the goth-lite Selebrities before going solo in 2014. This track is from her debut album "Amparo", her latest came out in April.
We're mixing old and new next with Paramo Cumbie who in 2019 gave us their dubbed up take on popular local music styles like bomba on the their EP "Magic Runa", and who can lead us seamlessly into this episode's MAR selection. That comes from Yuhuarsonicos and its taken from their 2011 album "Real".
Now on to the videos. In case Rol or any of his cancel culture crusaders read this I would like to make it clear that the first video is included despite not because of all the ladies wearing T-shirts with 'Sexy' written on the front. I felt that the presence of a hooded shirtless executioner in the TV studio justified its inclusion in the public interest.
So I went to a couple of gigs last week, one in a church and one on a boat. That's just the way it is these days.
The church is St. John on Bethnal Green, which is literally down the end of my road here in swinging London. I've seen some memorable gigs over the years by the likes of Lonnie Holley, Gwynifer Raymond and a large man in a little black dress intoning the words to "Boys" by Sabrina while accompanying himself on the cello.
This one was pretty memorable too. We were there to see RÓIS, an Irish musician who caused a bit of a stir last year with their album "MO LÉAN" which combined traditional keening songs with electronics and a helping hand from Lankum producer John 'Spud' Murphy.
RÓIS arrived in their trademark black veil and matching outfit and performed some songs from the hit album and its predecessor "UISCE AGUS BEAN" (its all capitals I'm afraid), which I quite enjoyed.
After a while they left the stage while the support act Harry Hennessy and the drummer (both also veiled) filled in for a bit until RÓIS returned resplendent in red to express the fervent hope that we liked their new direction. I didn't. It consisted of some disco bangers, a couple of drippy MOR duets with Harry and a proggy power ballad. Despite that it was a fun night.
Not as much fun as Saturday though which was when I paid my first visit to Theatreship, a converted cargo ship moored near Canary Wharf. Its an excellent little venue and I will definitely be returning in the future.
The occasion was one of a series of shows billed as the 'Legendary Folk Instrument Series' in which living folkies prise instruments from the cold hands of dead folkies and play tunes on them. The instrument on this occasion was one of John Renbourn's guitars, built by Martin to his own specification.
We were treated to some fine finger-picking by Dariush Kanani, Daniel Burne and Jules Smith but that wasn't really why I was there. The main attraction for me was the chance to see the excellent Angeline Morrison live. She didn't disappoint.
Accompanied by Mr Kanani on the famed guitar, Ms Morrison treated us to a set of songs taken from the two mid 1960s albums by the African-American folk singer Dorris Henderson on which she was accompanied by John Renbourn. The two of them did Dorris and John justice.
Here's a track from RÓIS back when she was still clad in black not red, an original by Angeline Morrison that gives me a lump in the throat ever time I listen to it and a song from "Watch The Stars" that was probably the highlight of the set on Saturday.
The series returns after a well-earned summer break and I think it may have caught the sun because there are several things about this edition that are not quite right.
The first is that it is all reggae - does that mean none or all of them count as an MRV? I don't know. The second is that technically the ten tracks below are not a single song. Most of them have the same rhythm track as the original record but a few just sample its most distinctive feature. But Single Plinky Plonk Sunday sounded a bit silly.
The original is "My Conversation", released in 1968 by The Uniques, then consisting of the sublime Slim Smith on lead vocals with Lloyd Charmers and Jimmy Riley on harmonies. There are some decent straightforward covers out there by the likes of Delroy Wilson but I have not included any because, frankly, what would be the point? The Uniques were given that name for a reason.
Instead we will skip forward to 1974 when Bunny Lee, who produced the original record, sold the rhythm track to Rupie Edwards who used it as the basis of one of the first ever single 'riddim' albums, "Yamaha Skank". Shorty The President represents them today. There have been several trillion 'riddim' albums since but very few as good as this one.
After that the 'plinky plonk' motif became ubiquitous for a while. The good folks at Riddimguide have identified well over a hundred examples and I suspect their list is far from complete. I won't go through the rest of the tracks one by one but they are in chronological order with two more from the 1970s, four from the 1980s and Beres from the 1990s.
King Tubby's dub version comes last because as far as I can tell it was not officially released until 1996 on a compilation called "King Tubby's Meets Scientist In A World Of Dub". The following year it appeared as a bonus track on a reissue of his 1975 classic album "Dub From The Roots" so my guess is that it is a mid-1970s cut.
I'll shut up now and hand over to the mighty Slim and the rest of the plonkers plinkers.
As Monday's suggestion for a new competition got such an enthusiastic response (rather too enthusiastic in some quarters) I thought I may as well strike while the iron is hot. We'll see how the first one goes and if it proves popular enough we'll do one a month.
As I explained then, the competition is to see who can come up with the best worst pun in a song title on a specific theme. I set the theme, you submit your song titles, I collate them all into a list for you to vote on and then publish the final 'chart' and announce the winner.
Before announcing the first theme I will make an undoubtedly futile attempt to establish some ground rules. Here goes:
Only one entry per person. We can review this restriction for future challenges if we only get a small number of entries but we'll stick with it for now.
Please send your entries via email to leggies27@hotmail.co.uk rather than put them in the comment section below. All entries on the voting form will be anonymised in order to reduce the risk of partisan voting.
Any reader can vote, you don't need to have submitted an entry to do so (similar to the Eurovision final when all the eliminated countries still get to have a say in the outcome).
And finally, please don't: vote for yourself; attempt to get other entries disqualified on a technicality; or complain loudly that your fellow voters are idiots if you don't win. These are all things that happened when I used to do this live. Also don't object if a group of Finnish tourists at the next table ask what is going on and I let them vote as well (covered by the previous rule).
With all that out of the way it is time to announce the theme for the inaugural Pun Fun (official theme tune: "Pun Fun D'Amour" by Manhattan Transfer - I considered "Pun Fun (Go For It)" by Wham! but rejected the idea because it would have meant rhyming 'fun' with 'fun' in the opening line).
We believe in healthy bodies as well as healthy minds here at 27Leggies, so the theme is:
SPORTS AND SPORTING EQUIPMENT
Please get your entries to me by Saturday 15 November. The list of runners and riders will be published the following Monday.
You might want to look at this list of officially recognised sports to get you started - although perhaps don't pick a pun about vovinam or galli-danda if you want to attract a lot of votes.
Or you might prefer just to listen to these songs which may or may not be about cricket. There will be another one on Sunday but for different reasons.
The good folks at Basin Rock records - the pride of Todmorden - have a fairly small but highly refined catalogue which includes albums by the likes of Jim Ghedi, Nadia Reid and Aoife Nessa Frances.
They currently have a limited period special offer on, with all albums except those released this year available for £5 on CD or £10 on vinyl. They don't specify how limited the period is, and it may turn out to last for several years like the DHS sales, but I was not taking any chances. Two CDs have been added to my collection and I may go back for more.
First in the basket was one that was been on my wish list for some time, Johanna Samuels' 2021 album "Excelsior!". The Basin Rock blurb says: "With a special knack for balancing bright pop melodies with a drifting sense of melancholy, ‘Excelsior!’ is a tender and honest document of the importance of companionship above all else". Ernie says: I like.
It was swiftly followed by "Not Even Happiness", the 2017 album by Julie Byrne. The Basin Rock blurb says: "Julie Byrne’s second album adds atmospheric instrumentation and electronic flourishes to her unusual guitar tunings and fingerpicked melodies, moving the songs from the front-porch into subtle anthemia". Ernie says: "I refer the Honourable Member to my earlier answer".
Good morning all. I'm looking for some feedback from you today.
Inspired by the likes of Rol and John Medd with their fiendish quizzes and photo challenges I am thinking of introducing an interactive feature to the blog, but because it will rely on having enough people taking part to make it work I thought I would sound you out first.
The idea is to resuscitate a competition I used to organise for my work colleagues way back when I still worked in an office. It seemed to go down quite well then but that may mostly be because it provided an excuse for a few drinks after work, something that would obviously be missing from an online version.
The competition would be to see who can come up with the best pun in a song title. How it would work is that I would set a theme, you would each submit one entry fitting that theme, I would compile them all for you to vote on and the winner will receive universal acclaim (or derision from embittered losers).
In the old days they would also receive a prize in the form of a terrible CD from a charity shop, like this one by a group of German urologists full of tunes about urinary tract infections, prostates and the like (this is real). I'll try to think of something equally bad for an online version.
To be clear, we would not be looking for songs that are really about the theme as with Rol's Saturday Snapshots quiz but ones you have pimped for the ride. For example, we had a fish theme and the entries included delights such as "Trout" by Tears For Fears, "Promised You a Mackerel" by Simple Minds and - mainly for the artist's name - "Sole Man" by Salmon Dave.
Hopefully that gives you the general idea. If you would like to join in let me know in the comments and if enough people are interested we'll kick things off later in the month.
In the meantime, feel free to sing along with these hits.
Regular readers will know from the title of the post that it is time for one of our occasional roundups of some of the new records that have been sent my way by the nice folks in Promoland over the last couple of months. There have been some goodies.
The MVP award goes to Daniel at Force Field who shared three of today's five albums, with the runner-up spot shared by Chad (No Rules PR) and Mark (Clandestine Label Services - its possible I was not meant to reveal that).
We will kick things off with the only one of the acts featured today with which I was already familiar. That is Sweet Nobody whose third album "Driving Off To Nowhere" comes out on 7 November. You can pre-order it over on Bandcamp, and I would recommend that you also take a listen to their 2021 album "We're Doing our Best" while you are there.
Their blurb says that "Sweet Nobody write anthems for the soft-spoken, the unassuming, the overlooked, and the underappreciated" so they may not necessarily appeal to the raging egomaniacs that make up our core audience. Which would be a shame.
I'm actually familiar with some of the folks involved in the next act, although I didn't realise that until I read their blurb. The Telephone Numbers hail from San Francisco and share some members with The Reds, Pinks & Purples and The Umbrellas, both of whom have appeared on these pages before. Their new album "Scarecrow II" came out earlier this month. Some obvious influences but they make a nice sound.
This particular track "maps the claustrophobic competition of a music scene onto the infamous-among-Literature-majors mystical showdown between Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats". So now you know.
We're heading up the West Coast to Portland OR for our next act, Katy & The Null Sets. Their debut album "Troublemaker" came out last Friday and is officially "an album seasoned with angst, sweetness and self preservation in equal measure and via unexpected arcs". Or to quote respected reviewer Mr E. Goggins "this track sounds like Hem in Brazil suffering from occasional bouts of radio interference".
I was inspired to come up with that after seeing an album described as follows: "as if The Shaggs had taken guitar lessons from Tom Verlaine in Montreal in 2025, before forming a band by divine accident". Which album is that you ask? Why, its Hélène Barbier's new album "Panorama". It comes out on 14 November and is a must for all fans of The Shaggs, Tom Verlaine and divine intervention.
The final new album we're featuring today may well be the pick of the bunch. Its "In Your Long Shadow", the debut album by Lillian King. Like Katy's album it came out last Friday; unlike that album there is no bossa nova. What you get is "slow-burning indie, folk rock, and atmospheric Americana that may appeal to fans of Sharon Van Etten and Big Thief". At last, something I can both understand and agree with! It has been on regular rotation here in Leggies-a-Lago.
Last Friday night found me at Troxy in London's lively Limehouse being blown away by the mighty Vieux Farka Touré and his band.
Vieux is very much the son of his father Ali, both master guitarists in the desert blues tradition (although some say there wasn't a tradition until Ali and a handful of others invented it). But while Vieux never separates from the past, as Chicory Tip did, he does change and rearrange it into something new, collecting and selecting independent views.
This is more evident on stage than on record. I doubt Ali ever indulged in a bout of heads down no nonsense boogie followed by an extended wah-wah freakout of the sort we were treated to in the final song of the main set.
Vieux was very ably assisted by his three piece band. The bass player was Marshall Henry who is a regular collaborator. I didn't catch the names of the drummer or ngoni player but they were both excellent. The latter had a big old grin on his face most of the evening and was clearly having even more fun than we were.
Here is one track apiece from "Salsa" (2017) and "Ali", the 2022 album on which he teams up with Khruangbin to rework some of his father's old tunes. To complete the circle I've add something by his dear old Dad.
Before we go, a special shout out to my new friends Natalie and James the Ululator who I met at the gig and who very kindly bought me a shot. Admittedly it tasted like cough syrup but its the thought that counts.
If you want to recreate the evening in the comfort of your own home grab the Night Nurse from your bathroom cabinet and settle down to enjoy this hour-long concert by the same line-up recorded a few months ago.
This time out we are in Costa Rica, a country I have very fond memories of having been lucky enough to spend over a month there way back in the mid 1990s.
Costa Rica is considered to possess the highest density of biodiversity of any country in the world and is home to over half a million species of flora and fauna. Mountains, volcanos, swamps, rainforests, coral reefs, golden beaches - it has them all and much more.
I didn't have a digital camera back when I was there and I have only been able to find a few old snaps. They don't remotely do the place justice, but here we have: a parade of the saints in Tilaran, the beach in Puntarenas and finally the mean streets of Puerto Limón.
Limón was a rough old town when I visited back in the 1990s and by all accounts it still is. It is Costa Rica's main port and has all the fun and faults that go with that. It is the only place I have ever been where a lady introduced herself with the words "Hello Sailor". But it was where you had to go to pick up a dory that would take you north through the rainforest to Tortaguero to see the leatherback turtles lay their eggs - possibly the single biggest highlight of my visit.
If I had kept going north towards the border with Nicaragua I might have bumped into a member of the Moskito people. They are of mixed African and indigenous ancestry and mostly live in Nicaragua but some of them can be found in Honduras and Costa Rica.
One such is Johnny Hall who with his fine band (whose name translates as 'Coconut Milk') released an album of their traditional music in 2020.
On the other hand, if I had headed south from Limón I may have met our next artist. Walter Gavitt Ferguson hailed from the small village of Cahuita down by the Panama border and lived there for most of his 103 years before passing away in 2023.
Mr Ferguson was by some distance Costa Rica's preeminent calypsonian, performing mostly in the local Creole language commonly spoken on the Caribbean coast. You can find today's selection on a compilation called "The Legendary Tape Recordings Vol.1".
Other former residents of Cahuita include Bocaraca who were making some fine funky sounds in the mid 1970s. Isidor Asch and Luis Jákamo from the band went on to have success with a number of subsequent groups including Marfil who you will find in the videos.
Before Bocoraca there was Los Gatos, one of many bands of that name to be found across Spain and Latin America (Rol may wish to bear that in mind for his Namesakes series). According to the original drummer they were the coolest cats in Costa Rica back in the 1960s, releasing a series of singles on the Indica label of which this is one.
We leap forward to modern times for the rest of today's selections, and a varied bunch they are too. Guadalupe Urbina is a folk musician from the Guanacaste Province in the north-west of the country. Guanacaste has a fancy international airport for tourists these days but it was still being developed when I was there so I had to fly to Tamarindo Airport instead. This was it.
Enough of me, back to Guadalupe. She has been active since the 1980s and during her career has hung out with numerous well known artists, as her Wikipedia entry explains, as well as overcoming brain cancer and other challenges. This track comes from her 2016 album "Cantos Simples del Amor de la Tierra".
From Guadalupe we move to on a different kettle full of an unfeasibly large number of fish. It is the self-styled post-punk luminaries Mal Visto. This track is from their second EP "Fuera De Juego" which came out last year.
Next, the bastard sons of Bocaraca, better known to their many fans as Cocofunka. I considered using them in the MAR slot as reggae numbers feature regularly in their repertoire but personally I favour their funkier side. "Mundo" is from their 2012 album "Hacer Ecoo". They are still going strong and playing regularly in Costa Rica and beyond.
For the actual MAR slot we have Earthstrong, whose new single "Lonely" was issued a whole ten days ago. If you like it you might also check out their album "With Love From Costa Rica". I am sure they speak on behalf of all the artists featured today when they say that.
"Sirpiki Mairin" - Johnny Hall y su Banda Kuku Suban Laya
We start off the videos with Marfil, the band built from the ashes of Bocoraca. Judging by the video a law was passed in 1987 requiring all men to have identical haircuts with only the decision on whether to have an accompanying moustache left to the individual.
If you enjoy that and the Costa Rican Jive Bunny that follows then I suggest you check out José@DJ Mix's excellent YouTube channel. Hours of fun for everyone.
Following Wednesday's post featuring songs with 'left' in the title here are some 'right' songs. In an effort to create the illusion of coherence they include some vintage Nigerian highlife (see Monday's post).
I have a Saturday morning routine. I set the alarm for 7.30am then make a strong coffee to make sure my brain is wide awake by 8.30am. That is when I join all the cool kids over at My Top Ten in our collective effort to work out the answer to Rol's fiendish Saturday Snapshots quiz.
Last Saturday Sir Rol very kindly allowed me to have a go at setting the quiz. It was a great honour and one that left me even more in awe than before of his ability to maintain the high quality week in week out.
My theme was songs with 'left' or 'right' in the title. There is no shortage of them so after selecting the ones for the quiz I had a load remaining. Rather than let them go to waste I decided to make a couple of posts out of some of them. Left songs today, Right songs on Friday.
Last Friday I went to the Tate Modern with my pal the noted polymath Mr Perfect (real name) to see a new exhibition of Nigerian art of the last century which opened earlier this month. Titled 'Nigerian Modernism', the exhibition runs until May next year and it definitely worth seeing if you have the chance.
My reviewing skills are slim to non-existent, being as I am very much in the "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" camp, so I will refer you instead to this Guardian article which includes an interview with the curator and this one on the BBC website with lots of photos of the exhibits.
My own photos of the exhibition are on Flickr for anyone who might be interested. Here are some of my favourite exhibits plus a small display of early highlife albums that was tucked away in one corner, presumably as a nod to the cultural revolution in Nigerian music that was happening in parallel with that in Nigerian art.
Eagle-eyed readers will spot that the display includes three albums by Cardinal Rex Lawson and one by Dr. Victor Olaiya. They will be providing the music today.
On the subject of musical movers and shakers, while at the exhibition we bumped into Allan Jones of Melody Maker and Uncut fame. It is only a few weeks ago that I was pestering him at the Slow Motion Cowboys gig in the Betsey Trotwood. The poor man will be taking a restraining order out on me at this rate.
Live clips of Cardinal Rex are hard to find, probably because he died in 1971 aged only 32, so instead here is a record by Idahams from earlier this year which samples him extensively. Dr Victor left us only five years ago at the grand old age of 89 so had the chance to collaborate more actively with the newer generation of Nigerian musicians.
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.
