Soul on Sunday - Somethings Burning / The Marvellos

Having featured one of the best known soul tracks last week, I feel duty bound to go for something a little more obscure this time so I present a song about which I know almost nothing. It was release in 1966 on Warner's soul subsidiary Loma and it features on a compilation called After Hours 2 which is well worth a fiver of anybody's money.

Mogwai Fear Satan

Here's everyone's favourite Scottish post-rockers doing ..fear Satan live in France:


Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

The First Latitude Blog of the Summer

I'll once again be making my way up the A12 to Henham Park this year for my 4th latitude festival. The organisers have pulled out some pretty surprising choices for headliners, leaving the Indie crowd somewhat nonplussed.

On Friday, the Obelisk arena is headlined by the Pet Shop Boys who are due to release their latest album, Yes, soon. They're still doing pretty much what they've always done which is good synth pop. Not sure I would want a whole 90 minutes of it, but they will definitely put on a show. Here's the new single: Love etc.



On Saturday comes the most controversial selection, Grace Jones. Definitely a brave choice, it remains to see whether she can win over the doubters. Being something of a newcomer to her music, I've been listening to stuff on youtube etc, and this is definitely her best song:


The organisers are on somewhat safer ground with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Sunday. Definitely at a career high with Dig Lazarus Dig being well received wherever you look, they should provide a strong finish to the festival.

I'll Take You There - The Deltones

Listening to this fantastic cover of the Staple Singers' classic, it's easy to hear how the Stax group "borrowed" the opening riff from the reggae sounds that were no doubt making their way into America at the time. It's a nice way to wrap up reggae week on One More Down... I'll probably do another one soon, had too much fun this week!

Java - Augustus Pablo

The mid-70s saw the rise of dub and one the leading lights was Augustus Pablo. The music was slowed down and the bass was pushed to the foreground - with the melodica in his case!

Lively Up Yourself - Bob Marley

This is probably the only Bob Marley album you really need... Bob marley live was a phenomenal live performer (helped by a kick-ass backing group) where his natural charisma was allowed free rein. Youtube has loads of live clips of him, I've picked this one from Sunsplash in Jamaica, 1979.

Mr Brown - Bob Marley

You may have heard of this guy! His output on Island records was one of the leading factors in taking Reggae outside of the caribbean, but I love the stuff he recorded with Lee 'Scratch' Perry of which this is a great example.

I Don't Know How The Young Men Living - The Executor

I wanted to include some calypso this week as I love it's laid back accompaniment and social comment in the lyrics. I have a great album of calypso called Calypsos From Trinidad: Politics, Intrigue and Violence in the 1930's which I highly recommend, this is from that. Calypso, as well as being popular at carnival, was used to tell the news stories of the time in a way that the often illiterate working classes would understand - look at the song titles on that album to see the evidence: "Govenor's Resignation", "Treasury Scandal", "Shop Closing Ordinance"!