BEEHIVE CANDY

You may have noticed, January 2008 has arrived. Well although it can be a lean month for new music, I have two bands that I reckon can be pretty big this year, mind you - the competition will be tough. Just look at some of the established acts with new albums lined up, and these are just the ones I am looking forward to right now! In no particular order... Emmylou Harris, Marianne Faithful, Franz Ferdinand, CSS, Madness, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, The Black Crowes, Billy Bragg, Guillemots, Martha Wainwright, Drive By Truckers, REM, David Byrne, Moby, PJ Harvey, Primal Scream, Supergrass, Counting Crows and The Pogues. Musically that's quite a taster for the year to come. However if you want a recommendation right now, then if you have not yet enjoyed No Fixed Abode , can I be the first to share this superb band with you. Their roots may be in folk (predominately modern), however as I listen I hear so many inspirations (The Waterboys, Bruce Springsteen, Fairport Convention and

Whiskeytown only released three albums, and yet they are often cited as one of the key elements in the development of the alternative country rock scene or 'Americana' during the 1990's. Ryan Adams and Caitlin Cary were the only two members of Whiskeytown to see the whole adventure through, indeed Ryan Adams had a reputation of being difficult to work with during the bands history, and therefore the overall turnover of members was quite high. Formed in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1994, the bands first album was released in 1996. Describing this era the entry in Wikipedia states: Faithless Street , released on Mood Food Records in 1996, established the band as one of the genre's leaders, thanks to glowing reviews in publications such as No Depression, and helped the band score a major-label record deal with the Geffen Records imprint Outpost. Faithless was re-released on the imprint in 1998 with nearly a dozen bonus tracks from the era, some of which are new, and othe

Pink Floyd out takes and demos from 1971 and 1972. There is plenty of Pink Floyd material around from this era, including studio out takes. I plan to feature a couple of live concerts from the seventies in due course, however decided to start with these out takes for one specific reason. The quality is really good, all mp3's are at 320kbps, and the journey from the original masters is a limited one, retaining much of the initial quality. I am personally fascinated by the first track 'On The Run' and where this piece of music may have originally gone, alas - as with all musical history from bands like Pink Floyd there remain so many 'what ifs'. Track listing is: 1. ON THE RUN (OUTTAKE) 1.44m (Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, November 1972) 2. TIME (DEMO) 6.05m (Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, June 1972) 3. MONEY (ACOUSTIC DEMO) 1.38m (Recording location unknown, 1971) 4. US & THEM (DEMO) 5.27m (Recorded at Abbey Road Studios,

I hate the expression 'back to basics'. Yet The White Stripes even when enlisting the bag pipes as part of their sound, have such a raw primal energy, they takes rock'n'roll music 'back to b... I cannot think of another two piece band that generates such an impact (actually I am struggling to think of another two piece rock band as I write this - go on, shame me with the obvious). This is The White Stripes earlier in 2007, performing live for BBC Radio One, in front of an audience of very fortunate fans. Unfortunately there is a little bit of Radio One 'speak' early on, however once the band get going, its all good stuff. Set list: 01 Icky Thump (Performed for Jo Whiley Live Lounge - followed later by Zane Lowe hosting the remaining full show) 02 Let's Shake Hands 03 Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground 04 The Denial Twist 05 I'm Slowly Turning Into You 06 Effect and Cause 07 The Same Boy You've Always Known 08 I Think I Smell A

Back in July, I ran a piece on the 1991 'Alanis' album, and the rather dated 1980's 'disco' sound. This was rather cruel considering how young she was at the time (1991 that is, not last July!). I am, I hope in my own small way, something of an advocate for some of the excellent artists that have come out of Canada and achieved international recognition. Alanis Morissette is no exception, indeed as previously mentioned, she was absolutely fantastic when I saw her live in London some years ago. So in order to address the balance here is a concert of Alanis from 1996. This is from a CD boot that seems to have emerged from the Czech Republic on 'Oxygen' records. The album title is 'Miss Thing' which considering that the CD back cover, claims to have 'art direction and design' , makes me wonder about the creativeness amongst bootleggers in that part of the world, (anyway is is now digitized and free of charge). This is Alanis Moris

The Beatles - The Alternate Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and A Little More, was released by Dolphin Productions (CDP 790103 - 2 CD set) in 1997. Like a lot of bootleg CD releases, the packaging attempted to make the album look official, however the back cover failed to list the track contents accurately, and the front shown here was a little predictable. However the music is the key factor, and on this occasion the album is something of a gem to put it mildly. For nearly every track there's the mono mix at some stage in production, and a few stereo versions along the way. There are a lot of fragments from 'The Making Of Sgt. Pepper's' with George Martin playing back the individual tracks and explaining things. There's Anthology stuff, snippets from interviews, songs previously released on the Unsurpassed Masters series by Yellow Dog, tracks from 'The Lost Pepperland Reel' (like the Good Morning Good Morning animal noises) and more.

The Devo credentials 'are all there'. The pivotal moment for the formation of Devo was the first hand witnessing by one of the bands founders Gerald Casale of the Kent State University shootings of May 4, 1970. The first form of Devo was the 'Sextet Devo' which performed at the 1973 Kent State performing arts festival. They are 'discovered' by David Bowie and Iggy Pop in 1976, and subsequently record ' Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! ' which was produced by Brian Eno . They are referenced as 'punk', 'new wave', 'post punk', 'art rock', and into the 1980's as the acceptable face of 'synth pop'. That's not a bad selection of street credibility references in any ones books is it? There is so much to Devo, that I am going to take the easy way out, and provide a link HERE to wikipedia. Actually I have read through it and learned a lot more, and of course been reminded of the fantastic visual