10: Sing Like An Angel - Mitch Benn

Wow! I have been busy this month.

Sing like an angel. It made me laugh a few times. Just what I'd expect from a comedy/novelty album. But I know now that I won't be hurrying to buy more.

In all honesty, I can hear the songs once or twice on I player (or you tube) But to me they aren't worth buying. I can live my life without getting them from you tube if I had to.

I was introduced to him from the now show (BBC Radio 4, get it on the iPlayer). And I enjoyed his songs on Auto Erotic Asphyxiation and the Behave Yourself (Iron Maiden story) song.

But yeah, it gave me a lot of time for the masterpiece of Modern Times by Latin Quarter. Which isn't a new album to me. I can't say enough good stuff about this album nobody knows of.

9: The Meanest of Times - Dropkick Murphys

The shouting Celtic American Punks are angry and loud. The Meanest of Times by the Dropkick Murphys is a bouncy frantic work.

Strongly recommended by a friend. This isn't a easy listening album or a work of great cultural significance or even musical excellence. But god is there something about driving along trying to keep up with the beat of (F)Lanigan's Ball. One also feels riotous almost spitting the lyrics about The State Of Massachusetts.

Not an album to encourage one to stick to the speed limit.

While I haven't finished this album I'm enjoying it a lot and looking forward to moving on to:

• 10: Sing Like An Angel - Mitch Benn
• 11: Feel The Steel - Steel Panther
• 12: Mick And Caroline - Latin Quarter

8: Greatest Hits [Original recording remastered] - Joan Baez

Joan Baez, such beautiful and personal songs. I still find Diamonds and rust an incredible song given that it is very intimate about Joan and her relationship with Bob Dylan.

I discovered Joan from the Woodstock Diaries DVD which I would recommend to many who are fans of or interested in some of the older rock/pop music out there. It tells a remarkable story and has some infamous recordings from a great many artists. This is a big favourite in my music film collection along side the Monterey Pop Festival DVD.

On the whole I enjoyed the album. I was surprised to find that it felt like a selection of mainly more recent offerings from her in comparison to the Woodstock recording that I have which introduced me to her. She is an artist who while never in the main stream has lead an interesting life and produced some very interesting music with a sole that is rare these days.

My future offerings are:

• 9: The Meanest of Times - Dropkick Murphys
• 10: Sing Like An Angel - Mitch Benn
• 11: Feel The Steel - Steel Panther
• 12: Mick And Caroline - Latin Quarter

The Latin Quarter offering stems from a discussion I had with someone who knew of the Modern Times album. This I purchased and will write more about in a future entry. But it will suffice to say that I'm excited about listening to an album that I think is one of the best of all time despite nobody (until I heard someone singing a song from it) else knew of.

7: Tubular Bells Vol.1: Remastered [Original recording remastered] - Mike Oldfield

Theme from the Exorcist starts this one. For the most part this recording sounded a little "Academic" to me. It had enjoyable parts and some nice relaxing music. Combined with some interesting progressions. However for the most part I found it slow moving and the only having two tracks (I'm guessing originally "side 1" and "side 2") made it difficult to move back over interesting parts.

I enjoyed it but don't see myself revisiting the recording often. I guess that's why it is a record featuring in many collections but rarely played except in soundtracks (abridged of course). I'm glad I found out "what all the fuss was about".

Now on with: 8: Greatest Hits [Original recording remastered] - Joan Baez

6: The Best Of - Jeff Beck

One thing I'm doing here is keeping track of the weeks. No more:

SELECT WEEK(cdListenStartDate) FROM albums

Anyway, back to things music.

Jeff Beck - The best of


This was similar to the Yardbirds which I enjoyed but felt it was missing something. The performance with Jeff and Eric was one of my top gigs of my life. WOW is all I can say. And Joss Stone joining Jeff... I'm getting his new album when it is released.

This one didn't inspire me the way I thought it should. Like the yardbirds most of this was "early" material. I'd recommend anyone looking for a more contemporary (and more like he played at the gig) sound from Jeff to listen to: You Had It Coming
You Had It Coming is a far more invigorating recording and (in my opinion) made for driving to. Not that I didn't enjoy his best of, just that it didn't excite me like "You Had It Coming".

5: Shallow Life - Lacuna Coil

This was a must listen to before I saw them at the end of the week. Yes I was under a time constraint.

Thank god I got into it fairly quickly, from the get go it got me (perhaps I was just in the need of RAAAAWWWWWWWK!). I got to track 4 "I'm not afraid" fairly quickly and then stayed there. This is the first time that has happened with one of my albums.

It also wasn't long that in my car I was calling out (while flying along the motorway) "I've been burnt so bad but I still play with fire" something that appeals to me. A powerful line from "I won't tell You".

This album unlike everything else I have listened to isn't one of those "must hear before you die" or "Top 50 albums of all time" entries. Sorry Lacuna Coil, I like you, the gig was awesome! This just happens to be a very good heavy rock album. No boundaries are being pushed, no political upheaval, no virtuoso guitar. Just plain good heavy rock, emotive, invigorating, bouncy and fun. Given the busy few weeks I have been having just what I needed.

Will be playing this again and again. In fact this week it went back on in the car as I needed something to fit the fact that I wasn't in a jolly mood Tuesday.

4: Ultimate - Yardbirds

It looks like I haven't kept up doesn't it... Well I have :-) I managed to listen to the music but didn't have the time to blog about it.

Sadly this is going to have to be a quick one. Another busy evening ahead (This may include some computer games). I have given up with the links. Google will do just as well for anyone who cares.

This was another 2 CD monolith A lot of tracks to get through. In nature of the fact that I'm seeing two of the Yardbirds on Feb 13th

In all honesty, this wasn't the awe inspiring album I thought it was going to be. There is a lot of nice stuff, a lot of interesting stuff and a lot of clever stuff. Bucket loads! The development of music and artists progressing. Big names growing infront of your ears...

I can't find anything wrong with it. Truly I enjoyed it. It just didn't grab me like some other albums have or inspire me like I had been looking for.

The one thing I'm sure of is that I'll keep coming back to it as it is interesting. Some good Bass lines. Funky guitar and Jeff Beck knocking out some nice slide guitar.