Paul McCartney vs Soundhog - Take It Away - 'Rubber Dub'

Greetings, rat-fans.  So, to celebrate avoiding Xmas successfully for the 17th year running, I grabbed the first 30 seconds of Sir Paul's 1982 pop masterpiece, and attacked it with various cheap (or fairly cheap, in the scheme of things) sonic devices. These included a Korg Monotribe and Monotron Delay, a Melodica with most of the keys working, a 1970s Sansui hi-fi reverb unit and a Stylophone - an original example, of course.. not one of those iffy new ones - for as close to a live dub mixing session as I'm ever likely to indulge in.  It may not be very 'authentic' (I am after all a strawberry blonde, 41 year old garage mechanic from north Wales) but it was rather fun to do.  Hopefully it'll be fun to listen to as well. 

XMAS SHOCKER!! Mix90 #7 - "...A Good Deal Full Of Nothing" 24/12/12

Soundhog - Mix90 #7 (24th December 2012) by Soundhog on Mixcloud

Link: Listen on Mixcloud
Link: Download from Mediafire

Created & released: December 2012

Tracklisting: 

Side 1:

Ithaca - Journey
George Harrision - Greasey Legs
The Battered Ornaments - Staggered
Sharon Tandy - Hold On
Thane Russal & Three - Security
Nino Silvestre - Mosquita Muerta
Eric Siday - Auto Mobile
Rockin' Horse - Biggest Gossip In Town
The Secret Agent Five - Flight Thirteen
Geraldo 1969 - QE2
Sex Hands - Parker
Vodka Collins - Automatic Pilot
The Monochrome Set - 405 Lines
Harry Forbes - Tomorrow's Achievements

Side 2:
Y Niwl - Undegsaith
Gentle Giant - The Advent Of Panurge
Belbury Poly - Goat Foot
L'uovo Di Columbo - L'indecisione
Dorothy - I Confess
Roger Whittaker - Nasty Spider
Frank Zappa - Duodenum
The Dakotas - Magic Carpet
Pegasvs - Atlantico
Diagram Brothers - Bikers
Spencer Davies Group - Can't Get Enough Of It
The Desperate Bicycles - Smokescreen
Marion - I Go To Sleep
Wendy & Bonnie - The Paisley Window Pane
Kenny Lynch - Puff (Up In Smoke)

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Nearly one year on after the last one, here's the seventh installment in my sporadic Mix90 series. Number 6 did quite well, for some reason, so being one to take full advantage of a situation... er, yes.

What's here this time? Oh, the usual. Italian prog, Scouse powerpop, Welsh surf rock, Canadian library music, South African psych-soul, Catalonian motorik-dream-electropop, English DIY, German balladry, Japanese glam, Chileian folktronic aceness... plus loads more, knitted together with odd little audio snippets, weird adverts and what have you. Much like the others, really. If you haven't heard them, then get on with it. The world was meant to end a few days ago and we might just be experiencing a temporary delay... Anyway, hope you manage to find time to listen to this one, and I hope you like what you hear if you do. Let me know, innit?

Shock horror. Various things I've been doing recently alert...

Hello.  Remember me?

Right, well I thought I should really post up some of the things I've been up to on here since the last time I made an entry in this blog.  I've been making the mistake of just putting everything up on my f@cebook 'artist' page, but it would seem that very few people are actually noticing anything.  This could be general disinterest, or it could be due to f@cebook trying to make money out of people... whatever, I'll try and put stuff up here as well as a result.

So, first up my Soundcloud page got very full and I ran out of things to delete from it.  Therefore I've made a new one, specifically for older tracks and whatnot.  I'm being fairly selective about what goes up there, but there are a few nice things so far.  The page is here:

Soundhog Archive

One of the things on there is old but previously 'unreleased'.  It's a re-edit of a track by a fairly obscure UK post-psych outfit called 'Second Hand'.  There's more info about it on the Soundcloud page, but here's the track itself - looped up and extended by a couple of minutes or so.  Could prove popular at discos, assuming they're odd discos.

What else?  Well, I've been fiddling about with my small arsenal of 1970s monophonic analogue synthesizers (Roland SH2, Korg M500 and a borrowed Micromoog), finally managing to get them under control of my audio software, thus removing my dodgy keyboard skills from the equation.  The first results of this are a remix I've done (for a competition, never thought I'd do that but still...) of a Pepe Deluxe track.  My Flaming Thirst is an epic pseudo-Bond theme from their recent album 'Queen Of The Wave'.  I've turned it into something which starts off somewhere between 'Oxygene' and 'Wish You Were Here Part 1', and ends up into more motorik territory.  I think the drums came out pretty well, here.  It's not downloadable just yet, but I'll enable that feature once the judging is over.  I won't win, I'm sure, but I tried my best... 

*edit*  Well, contrary to my expectations, I did actually come first.  I won loads of nice PD stuff, and I believe the mix (possibly along with an instrumental version) will be going up on that iTunes thing at some point soon, so I'm afraid to say the 'download' button's going to remain disabled for once!  I'll post more news on further developments when I know what they are.

I've also been dabbling with twisted surf music, putting my limited guitar playing abilities to the fore.  I'm hoping to do more of this stuff later in the year, once I get my strings changed.  Spreading myself too thinly?  Yeah, probably...





I think that's about it for now.  More before the end of the year, possibly including a new Mix90.  Or possibly not.  Thanks for listening, if indeed you still are.

The Delian Mix : Radiophonics & Electrosoniks

Link: Listen on Mixcloud

Link: Download from Mediafire

May 5th, 2012 would have been Delia Derbyshire's 75th birthday. In an attempt to celebrate this in some way, I've put together an hour's worth of music and speech. Obviously it features a fair amount of Delia's work, and her voice in conversation. However, I've also added in pieces and interviews from some of her colleagues at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, as well as a few pieces from non-RW composers who were (seemingly, at least) working towards similar goals during the 1950s and 1960s. 

Also, I've tried to avoid the usual chestnuts which get wheeled out whenever people talk of the Radiophonic Workshop.  Yes, some of 'those' tunes appear here, including 'that' one, but mainly because it allows me to include Delia (and Brian Hodgson) talking about them.  Elsewhere there's some pretty unusual and unheard stuff.  Hopefully there'll be something here to interest even the most hardcore Radiophonic nutcases (amongst which I include myself!)  Anyway I hope you enjoy it... and happy birthday Ms. Derbyshire, wherever you may be... 

Tracklisting:

Delia Derbyshire - Happy Birthday
Ray Cathode - Waltz In Orbit
Desmond Briscoe - Excerpt from 1963 Third Programme interview
Delia Derbyshire - Ziwzih Ziwzih Oo Oo Oo Oo
Brian Hodgson - Attack Of The Alien Minds
Brian Hodgson - Tardis Take Off
Tristam Cary - Opus (M1)
Desmond Briscoe - excerpt from 'Wee Have Also Soundhouses', 1979
Delia Derbyshire - excerpt from 1960s interview
Delia Derbyshire - Pot Au Feu
Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson & John Peel - John Peel's Voice
The White Noise - Firebird
Delia Derbyshire - excerpt from 1997 interview with John Cavanagh
David Cain - May (from 'The Seasons')
F.C. Judd - Fairground
John Baker - excerpt from 1960s interview
John Baker - BBC interlude piece (title unknown)
Delia Derbyshire - excerpt from 1997 interview with John Cavanagh
Delia Derbyshire - Blue Veils & Golden Sands
The White Noise & The Welfare State - Silence Is Requested In The Ultimate Abyss
Brian Hodgson - 2001 interview about Dr. Who theme
Delia Derbyshire - excerpt from 1997 interview with John Cavanagh
Delia Derbyshire - Get Out & Get Under ('Know Your Car' theme)
Desmond Leslie - Asteroid Belt
Ron Geesin - Concrete Line Up
F.C. Judd - 'This Loop Business'
F.C. Judd - Perpetua
Tom Dissivelt & Dick Raaijmakers - Orbit Aurora
John Baker - A Job Worth Doing?
Daphne Oram - Missile Away
Brian Hodgson & Dudley Simpson - In The Hall Of The Mountain King
Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange - excerpt from 'The Dreams'
Delia Derbyshire - The Delian Mode
Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson & Don Harper - The Pattern Emerges
Delia Derbyshire - excerpt from 1997 interview with John Cavanagh
Delia Derbyshire & E.A.R. - Synchrondipity Machine
Delia Derbyshire - Time To Go

Steve Miller Band - Fly Like An Eagle - Extended Remix by Soundhog

SMB's 1976 FM radio classic.  Deconstructed, straightened up, dubbed out, pumped up, compressed, extended and reassembled.  Result: longer and louder.  That's it, really...

*edit* - Soundcloud download limit busted (Again?!  Blimey...) so the best I can offer is a GE.TT link for a 320k mp3 version: DOWNLOAD

Whole Lotta Helter Skelter - Beatles / Led Zeppelin

*edit 30/03/2014* It took over two years, but some miserable fuck at Universal Music Group finally took it upon himself to have this track removed from Soundcloud.  Not the end of the world, but annoying.  The video's still up at the moment, and a 320k mp3 can be downloaded from this link here... Makes you pine for the the good old days of EMI, eh?  And I notice there's been no online outcry over this, not even an solitary email of condolence... perhaps only people into shitty tedious over-hyped 'hip hop m@$hups' do that sort of thing?  Anyway, I'm not bitter or anything...*cough*

So after saying I don't 'do bootlegs' anymore, I gone and done another one.  I'm not setting out to make a habit of this, it's just that some nice source material came my way and I had a couple of evenings to kill. I don't think I need to say much else about this, really... it's all in the title and the artwork. Suffice to say, I'm of the opinion that if anyone else had attempted this, it would have been a disaster.  As it is, I think it's come out pretty jolly well.  

Could this be the one which finally gets me appreciated and blogged about with 25,000 plays and a mention in Uncut/Mojo/Old Fart Rocker Monthly and all that sort of stuff, after 10 long years of trying?  Yeah, dream on...  Anyway, find a decent stereo system to play this on, and turn the volume control up all the bloody way.  Please let me know in some way if it tickles your rock buds.

Traffic vs Led Zeppelin - John Barleycorn Must Ramble On

The keen brains may have spotted the fact that these days I don't really do 'bootlegs', or 'm*sh-ups' if you really must use that horrific term (now used in an advert starring Jennifer Saunders, for some revolting sounding chocolate and cheese snack). Many will know I can bang on at length about how what was an interesting art form has become something for the mildly talentless and easily pleased. However, occasionally I do get an idea which I just have to try out. Usually they don't turn out well enough to finish, let alone foist on the general public... or maybe they're too good for the likes of people who think a Nintendo-esque version of a Smiths song is really good.

Anyway, here's something I did, which I think has come out pretty well. It's sort of an attempt to put together a new West Midlands supergroup (with two additional members from the South East), despite three of 'em having tragically left this planet way too early. You'll probably be familiar with the mighty 'Ramble On', from Led Zeppelin's second album. You may not be quite so familiar with Traffic's 'John Barleycorn Must Die', but you should be. Here they are together. 

The band: Steve Winwood - Acoustic Guitar, Jim Capaldi - Percussion, Chris Wood - Flute, Robert Plant - Vocals, John Bonham - Drums, Jimmy Page - Electric Guitar, John Paul Jones - Bass Guitar. If you like it, do please spread it around. If you don't, there's an inexplicably popular, Nintendo-esque version of a Smiths song floating around which you might think is really good.

*edit* - Soundcloud download limit busted (that doesn't happen very often around here), so the best I can offer is a Mediafire link for a 320k mp3 version: DOWNLOAD

Ace Of Wands theme tune ('Tarot' by Andrew Bown) - sH Extended Edit

I'm a bit too young to remember Thames Television's 'spooky' early '70s kids drama 'Ace Of Wands' the first time around (no, really) but I've always loved the theme tune. The work of one Andrew 'Andy' Bown, once a member of '60s heartthrobs The Herd, and future keyboard player for 'The Quo'. He was in a band called Judas Jump at the time of this track, and the sonic qualities of it are very similar to JJ's output, but it's better than anything on their only LP, IMHO (with the exception of the opening cut, perhaps).

Originally a snatch over 2 minutes long, I've somehow managed to almost double it's length (and stuck in a tiny bit of flanging, just for the hell of it). Original 7"s of this are normally well out of my price range, but if anyone's got one going spare..

Andrew Bown - Tarot (Ace Of Wands Theme - Soundhog's Extended Edit) by soundhog

NEU! NEW! NOUVEAU! : Mix90 #6 - "What Would You Do...?"

Link: Listen on Mixcloud
Link: Download from Mediafire

Created & released: December 2011

Tracklisting: 

Side 1:
The Assembled Multitude - Overture from 'Tommy'

The Bootles - I'll Let You Hold My Hand

The Shadows - Fourth Street

The Roulettes - Jackpot

Curley Moore & The Cool Ones - Funky Yeah

The Grumbleweeds - Never Before

Gruff Rhys - Patterns Of Power

The Ventures - Mod East

Shonen Knife - Twist Barbie (Moog Cookbook remix)

David Steel & Jesse Rae (ft. Bernie Worrell) - I Feel Liberal : Alright!

Raymond Scott - Portofino #1

Francis Monkman - Current Affairs

Loose Capacitor - Theme from 'Robin's Nest'

Munetaka Inoue & His Sharp Five - Haru No Umi

Side 2:
Van Morrison - Have A Danish

Arzachel - Queen's St. Gang (Soul Thing)

The Soft Machine - As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still

Steve Hillage - Electrick Gypsies

Honey Cone - Sunday Morning People

Rick Jones - Gulliver's Theme

Jim Ford - Dr. Handy's Dandy Candy

The Hunters - The Russian Spy & I

Roger Glover & Friends - Behind The Smile

The School - The One Who Left Me

Endaf Emlyn - Goodbye 'Cherry Lil'

Johnny Silvo - The Paper Song

Kevin Godley - To Fly Away

Jackie Lee - Theme from 'White Horses'

Ron Geesin - Mr. Peugeot's Trot

George Martin & His Orchestra - King's Road Raspberry Parade

The Monkees - Carlisle Wheeling

The Appletree Theatre - What A Way To Go

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Hey, New Year's Eve! Party time! Wahey! Well, not at Chez Soundhog, obviously... so I've put this together for anyone else who isn't out celebrating one arbitrary number changing into another. I bet 2012's gonna be crap. Anyway...

If you've heard any of the other Mix90s, you should have an idea of what to expect. If not, I hope you'll find it an enjoyable experience. Everything in here is great, as far as I'm concerned. Well, there's one track which perhaps isn't, but I put it in anyway, just for the bloody hell of it and for the comedy value. See if you can spot it. Elsewhere there's beat, funk, psych, TV themes, a bit of prog, electronic genius, some hippy nonsense with extra hippies, library music, contractual obligation recordings, Japanese surfadelia, and bits of a 1963 birthday party in Brighton. All chosen and sequenced with a lot more care and attention than you might think, or than anyone else would smother on such a thing.  There's method in the madness, you know.

Now, you'd not rather be dancing in a fountain while drunk, would you? Eh? Oh...