Sha Na Boom Boom, Yeah!

We've got roughly a week to go before Christmas! Yay! Aside from the usual last-minute mad rush to the malls, holiday traffic, infinite Christmas parties, there are a good number of gigs lined up in the next few days, including our own Holiday, Interrupted which we put up with our friends at Bisikleta Productions, to be held on December 27 at Sausage Bar. Our siderail is literally teeming with posters of upcoming gigs, so do check them out.

We do have a fresh playlist to keep you company in the next few maddening days. Go Jimmy Go, ska purveyors out of Hawaii, sing a timely tune delivered in their usual breezy style. Hepcat follows next with "The Secret". Rumours are afloat that Hepcat are scheduled to do a reunion gig this month, but so far there is no official word on this, as far as I know.

This band is young but brash and confident, and for a very compelling reason. The Babylon Whackers are formed in 2007, the product of the union of The Filaments, Majah Tunder, and Babar Luck, with collaborations with members of The King Blues and Suicide Bid tossed in for a good measure. The Solution, on the other hand, does soul the way it should sound today: still with old-school vibe but contemporary, not at all dated. I could swear their song "Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom-Boom)" sampled its horn riff from "Sweet Soul Revue" by another excellent band, Japan's Pizzicato Five.

The song "For Dancers Only" is written by everyone's favorite modfather, Paul Weller, but Ocean Colour Scene has been said to have offered to record the song. The English duo of Tyber and Si make up The Dualers, and they end the playlist with "Get Festive", which is exactly we are about to do. Be happy and be safe, you all. Merry Christmas!

GO JIMMY GO - "Merry Christmas, Baby"
HEPCAT - "The Secret"
THE BABYLON WHACKERS - "Sweet Reggae Music"
THE SOLUTION - "Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom-Boom)"
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE - "For Dancers Only"
THE DUALERS - "Get Festive"

Photos from the artists' respective sites.

Trainspottting

Hey Hifny, the train has already left...

Depending on your point of view, trainspotting can be one of several things:

the act of mainlining heroin,
the act of looking over a DJ's shoulder to find out what record is being played,
the act of standing near railroad tracks to actually wait for trains pass by so one could log engine numbers and other stuff,
the act of creating a playlist out of train-related songs.
Or more sublimely, it's about trying to find out what we're actually trying to say with the song choices we have made.

Yeah... The Clash's "Train In Vain (Stand By Me)" would have been an obvious choice, which is probably why we left it out. And of course, there's no real mention of any train in the song, but Mick Jones reportedly once offered an explanation that the tune was akin to the rhythm that a train makes while running on railroad tracks. Your guess is as good as ours if that is just a load of BS. We're only sure that this is one of the best love songs ever recorded, bar Avril's "Girlfriend", the version of which by the Pigeon Detectives is much better ("Hell yeah, I'm a motherf**kin' princess!" sings Matt Bowman, the reluctant new Roger Daltrey).

OK! We're kidding! Here's the playlist, and some cuttings from the lyric sheets...

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE - "The Day We Caught The Train" (Acoustic)
"When you find that things are getting wilder...
Don't you want days like these...
Don't you NEED days like these..."

THE VAPORS - "Trains"
"Everybody I know has to face the trains
Everybody I know makes the same mistakes"

THE MOVEMENT - "Watching All Trains Leave The Station"
"Watching all trains leave the station
The world is passing by my window
Sick of all this repetition"

FISCHER Z - "The Worker"
"The hated journey on the train,
Always been the same,
Looking out windows,
Second class and second best,
What a waste of time..."

BYRON LEE and the DRAGONAIRES - "Night Train Ska"
Lyrics? Haha!

PRINCE BUSTER - "Train To Girls' Town"
“Now just for a second, take a look out the window
Look upon the hill
See that pretty house?
That's the house of the famous Judge Dread
Better known as Judge Four Hundred Years,
Y'know that man?
That's the man who cool the heat
With a rock steady beat”

Trash Radio Manila EPISODE 2 Part 2: On Target

For this segment, we pay tribute to that familiar target sign used by the British R.A.F.

And of course when we do refer to this target sign bands like The Who and Ocean Colour Scene easily come to mind. The playlist is as follows:

1. THE WHO - "Pictures Of Lily"
2. THE LAMBRETTAS - "Cortina MKII"
3. THE VAPORS - "Lenina"
4. PRIVATE STOCK - "Have More Fun"
5. OCEAN COLOUR SCENE - "I Told You So"
6. LITTLE MURDERS - "She's The One"
7. THE JAM - "Burning Sky" (from The Jam Live At The BBC)

We deem it apt to include a cut from an incredibly rare release from the local band Private Stock, which played in the legendary Brave New World Series of the 80s. The band counts Mel Maniego, currently of The GoSignals, as among its alumni.

Just in case you're wondering why The Vapors is included in the playlist, The Jam's Bruce Foxton produced and heavily influenced the band. Sure, "Turning Japanese" was a runaway hit, but rest assured that the rest of their two albums' cuts were killer.

My partner in this blog site (I'm sure you guys know him by now) specifically requested that we include a rare version of The Jam's "Burning Sky," taken from CD3 of The Jam Live At The BBC CD set, and dedicate the song to "The Class of 1984," or so they call themselves when they're drunk. A line from this song goes:

"...then we’ll all be happy and we’ll all be wise and together we will live beneath the Burning sky."

Come to think of it, this may probably be Paul Weller's own way of looking at coming to full circle....

Have a good weekend y'all.