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Record Store Day 2016

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The May issue of Uncut includes a feature on crate diggers, those fanatical souls whose mission in life is to track down and purchase the most obscure of the obscure vinyl and the piece mentions a man who had just bought 35,000 soul and R’n’B LPs from Japan and whose next stop was Cuba, where he intended to add another 50,000 records to his collection, while Brazilian entrepreneur, Zero Freitas, also gets a mention as the owner of several million vinyl albums.I’ll repeat that: the owner of several million vinyl albums.Is this a record?

Record Store Day hype still seems to be on an upward curve although criticism of the event has also been gaining momentum in recent years.

Buying records (or CDs, DVDs, magazines, fanzines etc) from small independent shops has to be a good thing and RSD still strikes me as an inspired idea. But not one that I’m very interested in taking part in myself – yeah, the old ‘every day is record store day’ argument.

Would Metallic K.O. sound any better on metallic vinyl than it does on my plain black copy? And as somebody that already owns Station to Station on vinyl and on CD (twice actually, having picked up a copy of the three disc version a few years ago) do I really need a picture disc of TV15?


Saying that, I would like to get my paws on a number of the releases.

I did say I liked bongos in my last post and incredible bongos are even better so part of me is tempted to set my alarm for some ungodly hour so I could maybe just get my ass down to Mono or Love Music Glasgow in time to nab a copy of the 5 x 7″ box set of Incredible Bongo Band singles, even though it was snowing earlier today (honestly) and my local forecast says that temperatures will drop to -1 during the early morning at which point I would be overdosing on Red Bull while on my not so merry way to join a queue of vinyl enthusiasts.

Other releases that caught my eye include The Adverts, Sue Tompkins and The Limiñanas, who I featured before here and whose new album Malamore is released today.

Me? I’ll be lazing around tomorrow, likely nursing a tequila hangover and listening to Crab Day, the latest album by the wonderful, wonderful Cate Le Bon, which is out today. And after hearing it once, I can tell you it’s as entertainingly offbeat and magnificently wonky as anything she’s put out before.


Commenting on lead single Wonderful on YouTube, somebody calling themselves clamda claims: ‘If you play Madness ‘driving in my car’ backwards it would sound like this’ which is surprisingly accurate and doesn’t even make the near obligatory reference to Cate’s vocals resembling a certain German singer who was also a dab hand with a harmonium.

For more on Love Music Glasgow, click here. For more on Monorail Music, click this here link.

JOIN THE FUTURE

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We all like a bit of melodica, don’t we?

Think of that curious, melancholic opening that hooked you instantly into New Order’s Love Vigilantes; the deliciously woozy feel it contributed to Gorillaz’ Clint Eastwood and to Cabinessence from The Beach Boys’ original Smile sessions. Think of how it helped those fine tracks by Augustus Pablo stand out from the reggae pack, inspiring Jon King of The Gang of Four to pick up the instrument too and use on that band’s incendiary early material. Think maybe best of all the wonderful way the instrument supplies a slightly eerie edge to Golden Years by David Bowie.

Steve Mason in his various bands and guises over the years has utilized the melodica repeatedly and it has made a comeback on his new album Meet The Humans. Back at the start of February I mentioned that if his third solo album approached the quality of Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time then I was in for hours of happy listening.

Guess what?

It’s even better (and without the segues that became unnecessary for me after a few listens to Monkey Minds) and I seem to be playing Meet The Humans on a loop during any spare time I have and so was heartened to see that it went straight to numero uno in the Official Record Store Chart Top 40 last month, beating off some lesser talent known as Adele in the process.

This is Alive, the new single lifted from the album, which, in addition to referencing the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum (Well did you vote it all out/ or did you have your wee shout) also features the melodica and another instrument I love – the bongos. And we all love bongos too, don’t we?


Steve will be playing a number of festivals this summer including Electric Fields together with Primal Scream, White,  C Duncan, Neon Waltz and Tuff Love.

For more information:

Facebook: http://smarturl.it/SteveMasonFB
Twitter: http://smarturl.it/SteveMasonTW
Instagram: http://smarturl.it/SteveMasonIN

Leith based Posable Action Figures consist of Gareth Goodlad (vocals and guitar) and John Alexander (drums, samples, backing vocals). They cite a range of influences from Queens of the Stone Age through to doo-woppers The Ink Spots and this week they launched their debut E.P., produced by David Lloyd of Stillhound/Discopolis, which you can help yourself to free of charge here (email required).

Vic Galloway played one of the tracks, Mainline, on his BBC Radio Scotland show on Monday night and the guys have recently filmed and edited in a DIY stylee, a video for another E.P. track, Not at All, which you will hopefully enjoy:


The band will make their Glasgow debut at Bloc on the 31st of May and if you want to find out more they are on Twitter: @p_actionfigures and Facebook.