hello.
if anyone does pay attention to this stuff i write in various places then you may have noticed that i have a thing for bill whitten's
grand mal project. in fact, it's my unconditional love for all their glammed up excess that has me wonder if my critical acumen is out of sync with the rest of the world, as i seem to be on a solo mission in this respect, i may even worry about it for a few minutes every now and then, but, whenever the doubt begins, i drop
maledictions in the machine and then not give 2 hoots anymore.
the band rock like its 1973. yes, it may a mish mash combination of trex, david bowie, rolling stones, and suchlike, but i reckon that's a fine rock-n-roll heritage to plunder, especially when the songs are as solid, catchy, fun, and sleazy as these.
so far the band have released 2 albums properly.
maledictions (slash/london - 1998) was when i came on board, it's cool cover, interesting name, and uk version exclusive a
death in vegas remix all peaked my interest when i saw the disc in the cutout bin. subsequently, i paid the measley £1 and within an hour of the purchase i knew i had a lifelong friend, in fact, i was so enthralled i went back bought the stock and mailed the album to several other friends.
and then silence.
until another trawl through the bins several years later, and i happened upon 'bad timing'. this had an arena rock recordings logo and little else. out of nowhere i had a new favourite album.
'bad timing' hit my playlist hard, the more natural, live band feel than the hard edged
'maledictions' was an obvious direction maybe, but the album oozed with quality songs and an old school rock-n-roll passion that perfectly sidestepped the modern world. i realised that, despite no-one else getting into bills way, i was well and truly becoming hooked.
so much so, that i managed to track bill down, and hassle him for some new stuff, amazingly he obliged !
so now i have a set of wonderful back to basics demos which connected with
ireallylovemusic far more than just about anything else in 2004. and so, all went quite, except it transpires that these demos helped bill draft up a newly recorded, unnamed album, made once again with long time co-hort dave fridmann on production duties, google
that name and realise that i am not alone in hearing the excellence in these songs.
so, without further ado, let's have a quick recap through the bands various phases, and see if anyone else like this stuff as much as I do :
from
maledictions :
stay in bed - death in vegas remix : expecting the deathly duo to make a dark-n-heavy trip hop rock mixture they actually make the track seem even more lo-fi and raw than the original !
from
bad timing :
duty free : spin this 3 times and then try and strip the chorus from your head.
unreleased demo :
in the year of the pig : i mean how can anyone not hear the outright splendidness of this. have a few beers and settle down to this gorgeous piano-centric song and pretend you knew that this band were always at the top of your playlist.
now. hassle your local record shop for copies of the albums, or get in touch with the band via their
website.
mark e
ireallylovemusic
