The Rambler

Corey Dargel's new CD, Less Famous Than You, is released next week, 1st May. As you can read here, I'm quite the fan, and would urge you to seek out a copy (if you want to try before you buy, these MP3s will give you a flavour; also, check out Darcy James Argue's fine review, which includes a bunch of excerpts from the album). But, even better, Corey's going to be doing a bunch of promotional gigs in the UK (and the US of course), with Nottingham, Manchester and twice in London on the schedule. And more dates to be announced, apparently. He's coming with a band, too, which will put an intriguing spin on the songs.

Those dates:

May 7th, 2006, doors at 7:30pm

w/Young People, Drowsy

@The Luminaire , London. Tickets: £10.50 adv

May 10th, 2006, doors at 7:30pm

w/Final Fantasy, Grizzly Bear, Simon Bookish

@The Luminaire , London. Tickets: £10.50 adv

May 11th, 2006, 8pm-midnight

w/Final Fantasy

@The Social, Nottingham. Tickets: £5 adv

May 13th, 2006, doors at 7:30pm

w/Final Fantasy, At Swim Two Birds

@Circle Club, Manchester. Tickets: £7 adv.

Francis Grier's Passion of Jesus of Nazareth gets a resounding bravo from the Independent: "it's a humdinger of a new work" says Roderic Dunnett. Sounds ace.

The BBC's Manchester Passion gets a resounding meh from I Love Music: "the "story of the Passion, told by the music of Manchester" ended with a big sing-along to a song performed by a Fat Dancer from Stoke-On-Trent."

You can make your own mind up on the Manc Passion, thanks to the glory that is YouTube. My own thoughts? Well, it seems like an opportunity blundered; and the admission from one of the organisers that it 'only took an afternoon' to put the songs together reinforces this view. Take the choice of the Smiths' 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' for the climactic crucifixion scene. Was this chosen simply because it has the word 'heaven' in the title? Surely 'Heaven Knows I'm Ascended into Paradise and Seated at the Right Hand of the Father Now' is a bit closer to the theological spirit of the story? And was it this 'keyword search' approach to song selection that meant that much more appropriate Smiths tracks – 'The Boy with the Thorn in his Side' and 'There is a Light that Never Goes Out' to think of two – were overlooked? Even 'This Charming Man' fits the Passion story better than 'Heaven Knows…' Can all the clergymen who seem so happy in the news at the moment, calling this a great success, be so keen to put bums on pews that they're happy to blur the Easter story to the point of contradictory soundbites?

In what is becoming a kind of Grammies for the historically sigificant, the US National Recording Preservation Board announced its registry for 2005 on Tuesday. The registry is an annual list of 50 recordings, produced under the charge of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2005 "to maintain and preserve sound recordings and collections of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and for other purposes". This year's list contained a few Rambler favourites:

Poème Electronique. Edgard Varese. (1958)

Described by composer Joel Chadabe as “the ultimate statement of tape music as music concrete,” this work premiered in the Philips pavilion designed by famed architect Le Corbusier for the 1958 Brussels Exposition. The work incorporated innumerable recorded sounds – voices, sirens, bells, tone generators – that were all heard by visitors to the pavilion from 425 loudspeakers positioned throughout the hall. The speakers allowed the sound to be moved through the space in interesting patterns that clashed with or complemented an array of projected images. The Columbia release (ML 5148) used the actual tapes that Edgard Varese employed in the original performance.

"Dancing in the Street." Martha and the Vandellas. (1964)

This rousing dance hit has been cited as one of the first examples of what would come to be known as the Motown sound. Written by Marvin Gay, William Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter, the song was turned down by another Motown act before Martha and the Vandellas performed it in the Motown studios. The group, which consisted of Martha Reeves, Rosalyn Ashford and Annette Beard, had alternated between singing backup for other Motown acts and working on their own material, but, after the success of this song, their career as a backup group was definitively ended. The African-American community would come to infuse the tune with political sentiments.

Daydream Nation. Sonic Youth. (1988)

Pioneer members of New York City’s clangorous early 1980s No Wave scene, Sonic Youth are renowned for a glorious form of noise-based chaos. Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo had previously performed with Glenn Branca’s large guitar ensembles, and their alternative guitar tunings and ringing harmonies attest to this apprenticeship. On Daydream Nation, their third album, the group’s forays into outright noise always return to melodic songs that employ hypnotic arpeggios, driving punk rock rhythmic figures and furious gales of guitar-based noise. Bassist Kim Gordon’s haunting vocals and edgy lyrics add additional depth to the numbers she sings.

Aplogies for the sloppy copy ("their third album"? Depending on how you're counting it's at least their fifth…). Also included were Switched On Bach, AreYou Experienced and Songs in the Key of Life. Nice. I'd love a highlights album of this stuff, but for now there are montages of clips from the 50 recordings hosted at the Library of Congress, as well as some tasty photos.