Cloud Lamp. I want.

I’ve always loved the sound of thunder or rain on records, and when I saw this I tried to remember some songs that use thunder, but, with the exception of Eminem’s “Stan”, all the ones I thought used thunder, didn’t. But I did stumble across this great piece of audio of The Shangri-Las recording “Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand)”, so all was not lost.

Brian Jonestown Massacre
There’s an appropriate smell of patchouli from the row ahead of me, as it’s possibly the first time I’ve watched a band in the Roundhouse since the ZigZag concert of 1974 with Mike Nesmith headlining. Actually, I remember James “Blood” Ulmer there later than that… but that ruins the patchouli reference… anyway – the audience is confronted by a wall of guitarists when the BJM take to the stage. I ask Jack why they have so many and he says, “In case Anton Newcombe fires one during the gig”, and I’m not entirely sure he’s joking. Three guitarists all playing Gibson 335s – one a twelve string – with lead BJM person, Anton Newcombe, playing a Dave Grohl Signature Epiphone, which is 335-like. One or other will occasionally change guitars for a Vox Teardrop, but with no discernable difference to the sound. At one stage the keyboardist gets out a guitar so the count is six including the bass player. Anton himself plays like he’s just mastered Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day and sings in a rather Garth from Wayne’s World voice. The only non-guitarist is the drummer, and he’s the hardest-working man on the stage. Out front is Josh, a languid percussionist, who wears bell bottoms. It’s deeply conservative, but fun, and they indulge in some trippy wig-outs.

Having not knowingly heard a note of their oeuvre I had few preconceptions, but it’s an entirely pleasant noise, as they churn around the chords of “Hey Joe” on one song, “All Along The Watchtower” on another. At some points they even sound like the Dave Clark 5. But what they really sound like is those bands that you see in the dance scene of a late 60s-early 70s movie, Hollywood hippie music shading into dumb frat boy rock. Terrific!

Loudon Wainwright in Uncut
How inconvenient was the “New Bob Dylan” tag: “Both good and bad. Who else was a “new Dylan”? John Prine, Steve Forbert, Elliot Murphy, Bruce. I made a joke about how we’re all in a 12-step programme and we meet in Buenos Aires once a year, or at Bruce’s house, as his is the biggest.”

Summer Exhibition
Seen at the Royal Academy’s Summer Show (the usual insane mix of great and not-great art, and enjoyable for both), this beautiful small felt coat, by Eve Gonzales, called A Coat For My Daughter, and embroidered with great names: Ivor Cutler, Music From Big Pink, Itchycoo Park, Peggy Lee, even the Shangri-Las.

Great Skewering of the absurd Robin Thicke by Peter Robinson in The Guardian
Thicke says that his next album is called Paula in an attempt to win his estranged wife back: “A pop entity more self-aware than Thicke – and that’s all of them except Jessie J – might say: “Fair play, this entire debacle has played out in public but should be salvaged, if indeed it can be salvaged at all, in private.” Not the case for the “Give It 2 U” hit-maker. The announcement came of album’s tracklisting. Opening with “You’re My Fantasy”, Thicke’s opus subsequently delivers, in order, “Get Her Back”, “Still Madly Crazy”, “Lock the Door”, and “Whatever I Want”, which reads less like a romantic gesture and more like a plot to violate a restraining order…”