It occurred to me today as I was listening to the "thrash opera" awesomeness of 夢中夢 that there is an odd preponderance of Japanese music in my library and that it is rare that a week goes by that I do not listen to something out of Japan.

Besides 夢中夢 (or Mutyumu)…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLXtIbGVpf8

…there is the mind-boggling noise rock of Boredoms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_RpuPnLMBU

Then we have psychedelic jazz rock collective Rovo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCO6xEUWlU4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LpbQTHxtpI

And the all-girl mayhem that is OOIOO, who are just about as far away as it is possible to be from that which first…

Hawkwind Studio Recordings:

Group 1, the definitive recordings

In Search of Space
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005MCX0.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

Doremi Fasol Latido
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005MCX1.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

Warrior on the Edge of Time
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000A2GTNK.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Quark, Strangeness and Charm
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0009XFEE0.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Group 2, stone cold masterpieces

Hall of the Mountain Grill
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005MCX3.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

PXR5
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000E6GA3G.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

The Chronicle of the Black Sword

Group 3

Hawkwind
Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music
25 Years On (as the Hawklords)
Levitation
Electric Teepee
Alien 4
In Your Area
Take Me to Your Leader
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000AIZ8G8.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Group 4

Sonic Attack
Choose Your Masques
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000009RM5.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Space Bandits

Group 5

Church of Hawkwind
The Xenon Codex
It is the Business of…

In which, following a survey style doing the rounds of the last.fm journals, I take my top 10 artists and detail: first song heard, song that caused me to fall in love with them, current favourite track.

1. Hawkwind
First song: Hurry On Sundown
Fell in love with: Master of the Universe
Current favourite: Down Through the Night

2. Boards of Canada
First song: Rue the Whirl
Fell in love with: Sixtyten
Current favourite: Everything You Do is a Balloon

3. Pixies
First song: Debaser
Fell in love with: Debaser
Current favourite: Something Against You

4. Jethro Tull
First song:…

Sun 5 Aug – Scanners

A great set from Scanners underground at the Zebrano Bar, just off Carnaby Street. There's no actual stage in the bar so the band were set up with the audience on the same level practically touching the instruments.

Tracks, from memory, were Joy, Changing Times, Lowlife, In My Dreams, Bombs, Air 164, Evil Twin, Raw, plus an infectious new track the name of which I do not yet know which featured about half way through the set.

Highlights from the gig was a great arrangement of Evil Twin, superior to the studio version in my…

Artists who I have listened to a lot but who are underrepresented on my my overall charts due to the fact that I joined last.fm after their peak listening period:

Orbital: I think I own almost every Orbital release, all their albums and most of their singles and ep's, and I think if my whole lifetime listening chart were compiled Orbital would be second only to Hawkwind. For some reason, however, I have not listened to them much over the last year to 18 months.

Led Zeppelin: For a long time I really listened to a lot of…

The careers of Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Nirvana and Pavement span the most interesting and influential years of American alternative rock, from the late 1980s through to the end of the 1990s.
Each band is acclaimed critically, while Nirvana's mainstream success and record sales are off the chart compared to Sonic Youth, the Pixies and Pavement.
However, charting the relative success of the four groups in America and the United Kingdom reveals some intriguing facts.
The Pixies, regarded generally as one of the most influential of all rock bands, never sold a lot of records in their…

Pixies Records in Order of Supremacy:

1. Surfer Rosa
2. Doolittle
3. Trompe le Monde
4. Come On Pilgrim
5. Bossanova

Favourite tracks by the Pixies:

1. Where Is my Mind?
2. Debaser
3. Something Against You
4. U-Mass
5. Broken Face
6. Gouge Away
7. Break My Body
8. Subbacultcha
9. Bone Machine
10. River Euphrates

Robert Calvert, singer, poet, lyricist, manic depressive and on-off front man of Hawkwind, was a criminally ignored lyrical genius and one of the UK's most underrated creative artists.
Robert was born in 1945 in Pretoria, South Africa. His family moved to Kent in England in 1947. He grew up wanting to be a fighter pilot but ended up a writer, an enthusiastic participant in the 1960s London psychedelia subculture.
After meeting Hawkwind co-founder Dave Brock in 1970, Robert joined the underground icons as resident poet, reading his work amid strobes and light cascades on stage.
Seeking a break…

The last couple of years may have been the most fruitful in my life as far as discovering new music is concerned. Some of it has been of my own discovery, much recommended, with last.fm contributing recently.
On a whim, and also partly to clarify things in my own mind, I've decided to record my 10 favourite records. The rules I have set are as follows: 10 favourite records plus one or more groups of 10 further records which could, depending on mood, gradually shifting tastes or other factors, swap in; only one record by any particular artist or band…