White Blood Cells

I only deigned to take notice of the The White Stripes hype in late 2001, several months after the release of White Blood Cells. Perhaps I'd read enough laudatory reviews of it; perhaps I'd seen the video for 'Hotel Yorba' on MTV2.

I was enthused and delighted by the album: it's front loaded, with the opening four tracks charging out of the gate. 'Hotel Yorba' and 'Fell in Love With a Girl' were immediate favourites. Further along the running order, the sweetly sentimental 'We're Going To Be Friends' was another I loved.

I bought Elephant as soon as it was released, and loved that too, but, by 2005, and Get Behind Me Satan my affection for them had began to cool. It's been a good few years since I played this one: I'll have to take it out for a drive and re-listen, then decide if I still need to keep a place for it on my shelves.

Updated later to add: having greatly enjoyed making its re-acquaintance, the CD stays!

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All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...

In Heat

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Bananas Are Not Created Equal

I knew Jay Berliner's name from his contributions to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady , so when I saw this curiously-titled LP at the local charity shop I was intrigued, and bought it even though I had no idea what kind of music it might contain. This was after the days when one could still buy records there for a pound apiece, but I don't think I paid more than a fiver for it. The music turned out to be an all-instrumental blend of funk, soul & jazz. Berliner's virtuoso lead guitar is only one of many attractions here. The band of first-rate session musicians behind him are all uniformly excellent too, and, crucially, sound like they're having a blast. Cornell Dupree's supporting guitar work, while less showy than Berliner's, is beautifully-judged, and the rhythm section is terrific. Arranger/conductor Wade Marcus was no slouch either, judging from the way everything comes together. Two of the funk...

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