As New Year's celebrations kick off around the world, I just wanted to:

1) say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
and 2) share my New Year's Playlist!

In the words of Tony Camargo in El Año Viejo (and I will never tire of this), I hope it brings you:

"a little goat,
a very black little mule,
a very white little mare,
and a nice mother-in-law."

You know - what really counts.

PLAYLIST NOTES

1) Ella Fitzgerald - What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

2) The Specials - Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)

3) Tony Camargo - El Año Viejo

4) Jo-Ann Campbell - Happy New Year Baby

5) The Cast - Auld Lang Syne
A beautiful version with the likely original melody.

6) The Zombies - This Will Be Our Year
One of the most perfect songs. Tenderly and perfectly used in The Middle.

7) The Kinks - Skin and Bone
A joyful anti-Atkins, anti-New Year Resolutions song.

8) Charles Brown - Bringing in a Brand New Year

9) Waterson:Carthy - New Year Carol - Residue

10) Sam Cooke - I Wish You Love

11) Quantic & Alice Russell with the Combo Barbaro - Look Around the Corner

12) Lightnin' Hopkins - Happy New Year

13) Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - New Year's Resolution

14) Nina Simone - Feeling Good

15) The Walkmen - In the New Year

16) Regina Spektor - My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year)

On Spotify.
On Youtube.

Have a peaceful, kind New Year, everyone xxx

Miki's Shiny New Christmas Playlist 2016

To quote a conversation with dear friends: "It's been an unusually good year for d***heads", so I hope this season will being you some comfort and respite. And on that thought, please enjoy this playlist with the intermittent theme of Love Around The World.

There's some soul, rock 'n' roll, folk, kwela jazz, regular jazz and general goodness of human spirit. Enjoy!



Playlist Notes

01) The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - There's No Lights On The Christmas Tree Mother, They're Burning Big Louie Tonight

This is to get 2016 out of your system. Have a drink.

02) BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Minor Alterations -
Christmas Through The Looking Glass by David Lovrien

Danny Elfman did some minor variations on Christmas songs for The Nightmare Before Christmas, but David Lovrien takes it beyond. Also sprinkled with cameos from non-Christmas songs, Silver Bells has never sounded so sinister.

03) Solas - The Cherry Tree Carol

I'd never heard this carol before, and it's a strange domestic insight into the lives of Mary and Joseph. It actually reminded me a lot of a Hindu story, where Lord Krishna as a child is getting told off by someone, and then gives a gentle reminder of his divine-ness. Jesus still unborn, no less, trumps him in this tale.

04) Elvis Presley - Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me

05) Augie Rios - Donde Esta Santa Claus (Where Is Santa Claus)

06) Binky Griptite & The Dee Kays - World of Love

The mission statement for now and 2017.

07) Andy Williams - It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

08) Lenny Dee - Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

09) Best Friends - When Christmas Comes

This song supports my belief that 30% of Christmas songs are written by people who got a glockenspiel at a Bring and Buy, and just took the next natural step.

10) Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band - Santa Baby

Ukulele and bass trombone, together as though never apart.

11) Mannheim Steamroller - Joy to the World

What? We have to save Christmas in the year 3012 AGAIN?? Let's do it, guys! (See 2012 for the last Mannheim Steamroller special)

12) Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Big Bulbs

The incredible Miss Jones passed away this year, a lady who was fierce all through. There's a clip of her talking about singing this song, and how its silliness was about her putting the cancer behind her. Rest in peace.

13) Bella Hardy - Merry Christmas Everyone (Shakin' Stevens)

14) Ella Fitzgerald - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

15) Izintombi Zesi Manje Manje - Unjak' Upelile

I think this is what sunlight in your heart sounds like.

16) Solomon Burke - Presents For Christmas

I've cried a few times listening to this song - the lyrics, the shoutout to his friend (Sam Cooke) - so now it's your turn.

17) Sonny Landreth (feat. The Dixie Cups) - Got to Get You Under My Tree

18) Twelve Girls Band – All I Want for Christmas Is You (Mariah Carey)

19) The Houghton Weavers - What's Christmas Without a Brass Band

20) Stan Kenton - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

21) Aretha Franklin - Joy to the World

I kept trying to put this in the middle of the playlist but it kept blowing up everything after it, so here it is, at the end, though I can't promise it won't blow up your residence.

Much love to my wonderful friends,

Miki

xxx

Miki's Music Box - The Christmas Countdown

I've invested a lot of time trying to iron out my OCD tendencies.

There's one area, though, where it runs free - the annual Christmas playlist.

I won't explain the layers upon layers of complex tagging involved (there are levels and sub-levels), but it's Inception-like at times.

Not my collection - too organised

At times I get worried - is this too obsessive? Is it worth it? Maybe I need to reign back.

And then I hit a song like Detroit Junior's Christmas Day, and I'm fine.

Obviously it's worth it.

Playlist Corner - Happy (alternative) Halloween!

I haven't had time (I've had that full schedule of sittin' around) to do a full Halloween playlist, but it's a good excuse to dig out these songs.

With seasoned creepiness, these bands know what they're doing.

Presenting The Monochrome Set - Eine Symphonie Des Grauens, featuring a love-sick indie mummy.

And Squirrel Nut Zippers - Ghost of Stephen Foster, with a perfect pastiche of the Betty Boop Fleischer cartoons. It references the songwriter of 'Camptown Races' and many other minstrel songs, Stephen Foster, who died in an nasty accident. Plus it finally reveals what singer Jimbo Mathus's soul might really look like...

The Monochrome Set - Eine Symphonie Des Grauens

I'm dead and dank and rotten

My arms are wrapped in cotton

My corpse loves you, let's marry

(Get smart, once) Every night at sleepy time

(Get smart, twice) I hang my skin out on the line

(Get smart, sing) Oh, darling, would you be, be mine?

I'm in love, I think I'm in love

I'm in love, I think I'm in love

I'm in love, I think I'm in love, oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

I'm caught in a mesh of veins

My fingers and flesh and brains

My skull gives head, so let's wed

(Get smart, once) Every night when all alone

(Get smart, twice) I drape my flesh around the phone

(Get smart, pray) Oh, darling, would you be my own?

I'm in love, I think I'm in love

I'm in love, I think I'm in love

I'm in love, I think I'm in love, oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Don't cry, beautiful, it's just a phase

To the father and the son and the holy ghost

Oh I chant and I pray, I love

You know, God works in mysterious ways

To the father and the son and the holy ghost

Oh I sing and I pray, I love

I'm soft and slightly stinking

My arms are small and shrinking

My lips kiss dirt, oh, let's flirt

(Get smart, once) Every night at half-past-one

(Get smart, twice )There's a little taste of things in come

(Get smart, chant) Oh, darling, can I be your son?

I'm in love, I think I'm in love

I'm in love, I think I'm in love

I'm in love, I think I'm in love, oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Don't scream, baby, it's just a coma

To the father and the son and the holy ghost

Oh I chant and I pray, I love

You go to heaven, I go to Roma

To the father and the son and the holy ghost

I sing and I pray, I love

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Ghost of Stephen Foster

Met the Ghost of Stephen Foster at the Hotel Paradise

This is what I told him as I gazed into his eyes:

Rooms were made for carpets,

Towers made for spires,

Ships were made for cannonade to fire off from inside them

Gwine to run all night

Gwine to run all day

Camptown ladies never sang all the doo dah day no, no, no

Gwine to run all night

Gwine to run all day

Camptown ladies never sang all the doo dah day no, no, no

Met the Ghost of Stephen Foster at the Hotel Paradise

This is what I told him as I gazed into his eyes:

Ships were made for sinking,

Whiskey made for drinking,

If we were made of cellophane, we'd all get stinking drunk much faster ha, ha, ha

Gwine to run all night

Gwine to run all day

Camptown ladies never sang all the doo dah day no, no, no

Gwine to run all night

Gwine to run all day

Camptown ladies never sang all the doo dah day no, no, no

Awful Audio Advent Calendar

(yeah, I know it's not every day, but I don't have enough awful music... yet)

SHeDaisy - Deck The Halls

Now, I thought the song was pretty terrible - until I saw the video, which revealed an almost ambitious multi-level awfulness.

There's the ugly harmonies, the weird expression of the singers (are they happy? sexy? creepy? all three?), Disney characters, plus an old lady having a nervous breakdown as she unleashes some black magic around herself and transforms herself into a child. Something like that.

Enjoy!

Awful Audio Advent Calendar

Christmas is coming, and I'll be getting fat, alongside making my annual playlist for friends and family.

The thing is, going through all of that music to find gems also means coming across some real horrors.

Which I also want to share, but for very different reasons.

Welcome to the Awful Audio Advent Calendar.

To start with - Jingle Bells mixed with the worst acid trip anyone's ever had.

The Jingle Bells remix from The Santa Clause

Covers Scrapbook: Ida Redig - Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac)

My goodness, stripping Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere from it's incredible original bassline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsglRLoUdtc) should be a disaster.

But this cover is stunning, so, again, unsurprisingly, I know nothing.

But I will take a random punt that the advertising company for John Lewis will be weeping under their pillows for not commissioning this.

The Pre-Work Blues: That's one sexy igloo...

I love cover versions.

It started a few years ago when the BBC ran a gorgeous Christmas advert of people tumbling over one another and ripping off their clothes, to the strain of Nouvelle Vague's cover of 'I Just Can't Get Enough'. I bought the album and I was hooked.

Thereafter when I had my show on uni radio, and my partner wouldn't turn up, I would sneakily be playing almost solid cover versions for the whole hour. I loved them - they made my brain tingle - the mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the overload of new information.

You learnt more about the artist doing the cover - their influences (or who they mocked), their musicianship.

You learnt more about the song itself - suddenly the lyrics were so soulful when everything was slowed down, or maybe they were injected with glorious joy when speeded up. A bassline would surface, clever chord changes would peek out. Perhaps the whole genre changed and suddenly the 'interconnectiveness-of-all-things-music-and-in-life-generally' was revealed to you and made the universe seem more harmonious as a whole.

Sometimes, not always.

My personal rules for cover versions are that they should have a some resemblance to original in both lyrics and melody and/or chord changes. After that you can do whatever you want. No good reciting the lyrics of New York, New York to some synth bass completely altered from the original. (It's happened, and it's horrible). They're my rules, I've written them down, and they have absolutely no weight, so there.

The internet has been a huge gift for lovers of covers, with a number of blogs putting up fine examples, so many that they can be more specialised than just covers - they can be Disney covers (http://www.coveringthemouse.com) or covers solely in the style of folk or by folk artists (http://coverlaydown.com - the latest post is an emotional one featuring a fund-raising tribute you should read). The Coverville podcast has exploded (http://coverville.com/), and the Cover Me website (http://www.covermesongs.com/) now looks as slick as anything hosting (rolls eyes) original music. There's even covers-only albums coming out from Radio 1.

I'm a small fish in a big pond, but I'd like to highlight the covers that keep knocking about in my ears, for any newbies out there.


Today's the end of the long weekend for everyone in the UK, which sucks because that means there's school or work tomorrow. It doesn't matter which. They're both awful.


Relax a bit and say the weekend wasn't a waste because you heard the most amazing cover version.

It's Jenny Owen Youngs' cover of Nelly's Hot in Herre. It's set in an igloo. It's fantastic, and if nothing you can say that you saw a woman hit on a polar bear.