Quality and Distinction

I'm working up a new post, but wanted to direct my readers to a recent post on Ramblings Of A Music Man in which our friend Steve posts the British Electrical Foundation's fine album Music of Quality and Distinction about which I blogged here last year.

Dig it:

BEF - Music of Quality and Distinction

Gott land?

I know I haven't actually share any of Karel Gott's music with y'all, here at Gott Milk?, but I must direct your attention to an article in the Prague Post:

In the land of the Czech pop god

The curtain rises on a shrine to housewife heartthrob Karel Gott

By Kristina Alda
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 21, 2006

Karel Gott's villa in the prestigious village of Jevany, just outside of Prague, is being transformed into a museum for busloads of fans.

Like Mattoni mineral water or Karlovy Vary wafers, the name of legendary Czech crooner Karel Gott has become one of this country's most readily recognizable brands.

Gott, who has won more awards and sold more records than any of his countrymen, is like an Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones and Frank Sinatra rolled into one giant, durable, bouncy ball of pop prowess. He's been enriching — or haunting, depending on which way you look at it — the Czech pop scene for over 40 years.

Now, the 66-year-old Gott, who has a cult following in Germany, has lent his name to a museum. Gottland opens June 30 in the singer's former villa in Jevany, a summering haven for Prague's elite, just 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the capital. The museum will chronicle the balladeer's career, housing a collection that includes his original furniture, oil canvasses he's painted and a life-size wax figure of Gott, bought from Prague's wax museum for 100,000 Kč ($4,435).

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Read on.

May holiday thingy

Okay, last month my girlfriend and I went on holiday in the states. The deal was originally that we spent one night in Paris in order to get the first flight in the morning to San Francisco. Well, that flight was canceled, so we spent another night in Paris (after 4 hours in queue at Charles de Gaulle, perhaps the worst airport in the EU-15), this time going into town (the layover was only supposed to be 9 hours, so we supped at a hotel near the airport and slept) and seeing Notre Dame and eating really really good cheese and visiting Shakespeare and Co. Was lovely, save that we were already supposed to be in SF.

The flight we ended up with took us to SF by way of Atlanta where immigration was really much easier than one might expect. Our chap at passport control was especially amusing, asking my English girlfriend after Margaret Thatcher's health.

Finally got to SF a day and a half late. My sis picked us up and all was fine.

Spent several days with friends in SF and realised I missed them quite a lot. However, the City is very noisy and that's one of the many reasons I prefer Prague.

The next part of the holiday included a flight down to SF, a drive across the Hoover Dam, a night in Kingman, AZ (but not in Barstow or San Bernadino), a couple of nights at the Grand Canyon, and a night in Las Vegas before heading to LA to see my folks and several other friends.

And since my return, I've wanted to share a wee mix that speaks of this vacation. So the mix includes the following:

1. John Cale: Paris 1919, from his album of the same name.
2. Packabeats - Evening In Paris, from the album Joe Meek - The Pye Years (My apologies that this is in .ogg format - might one of my readers point to a converter? Couldn't find one that works.)
3. London Symphony Orchestra - Going to California, from the album Kashmir-Symphonic Led Zeppelin. This album was arranged by the inimitable Jaz Coleman who also happens to be a resident of Prague.
4. Bob Dylan & Neil Young - San Francisco Bay Blues, from a bootleg of the same name of a 1988 show.
5. Rolling Stones - Route 66, from the album England's Newest Hit Makers.
6. Tomita - Sunset, from the Grand Canyon Suite.
7. Bruce Springsteen - Viva Las Vegas, from an NME compilation of Elvis covers called The Last Temptation of Elvis.

Get all seven tracks in one lovely file:
http://rapidshare.de/files/23431493/WestCoastHolidayMix.rar

A piece of seedcake...

To celebrate Bloomsday 102, I offer you Kate Bush's very fine song 'The Sensual World', from her 1989 release of the same name. She wanted to lift the lyric's entirely from Molly Bloom's soliloquy, but was prevented by the Joyce estate. Nonetheless, it's a lovely track that captures Molly quite nicely.

Other James Joyce related songs include 'ReJoyce' by the Jefferson Airplane, 'Golden Hair' by Syd Barrett (a musical setting of an early pome by Joyce), and (I suppose) anything by Two Gallants (who take their moniker from the Joyce short story of the same name).

Download here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/23214136/kb-tsw.zip

Click here for Kate Bush items from CD Universe.

Jump into some Joyce here.

Suppose I accidentally got my shit together...

Several weeks back an old friend posted a reference in her blog about a mix tape I'd made her way back that included MC 900 ft Jesus' 'If I Only Had A Brain'. The mix had gone AWOL, but as I had a couple tracks I figured I'd make a post about him and satisfy my friend's jones.

MC 900 (ne Mark Griffin) put out three hip-hop-ish and increasingly jazzy albums in the early 90s and then returned to obscurity in Dallas, TX.

The first album, recorded with DJ Zero (ne Patrick Rollins), Hell With The Lid Off (Nettwerk), featured the single 'Truth Is Out Of Style' - I was selling records in Santa Monica at the time and remember a 12 yr old (or so) coming in for this, but it wasn't until the following year when Welcome To My Dream (also Nettwerk) came out that I got listening. (My loss, for the song is truly funny. And fun to dance to.) Far more atmospheric and of a piece, Dream featured a freaky first-person piece about arson ('The City Sleeps') and several pieces rapped from the point of view of the mildly (or more so) schizophrenic. 'Adventures in Failure' (featuring the occasional Public Enemy sample) is about a man on the run from his job, his wife, and much of his life. The line "what do you think this is, some kind of joke?/Give me ten big macs and a small diet coke" may sum up his character.

The last album Griffin released, One Step Ahead of the Spider (American Recordings) included the afforementioned 'If I Only Had A Brain' (the rather amusing vid for which was directed by Spike Jonze). Griffin also satisfied a penchant for delivering deadpan semi-poetical spoken bits featuring twisted characters. Opener 'New Moon' has a woman in love with her car ("if she got home a few minutes early on any given afternoon it gave her a thrill as if she had stolen a little something back from death") speeding to her destiny.

Years back, I had a CD single from Spider (might have been 'But If You Go') that had a non-LP track called 'Regression Session' - would love to have that track again if any of my fine readers has a copy.

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The three tracks in bold are found here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/21978658/em-see-nine-oh-oh.zip

Buy from cd universe:
Hell With The Lid Off
Welcome To My Dream

One Step Ahead Of The Spider seems to be out of print, but follow that link to new/used sellers on Amazon.