The Underground of Happiness

The next night John Douglas was in Cork. Coughlans . The man with a string of classics behind him with the Trashcan Sinatras . The sleeping policeman. Weightlifting. The neighbour’s place. So many. These he played. I felt like I could die happy after hearing Weightlifting again. In that room. The weight of the melody. Started the gig with Walk on by in tribute to Burt Bacharach. Classy touch. He also found space for a Prefab Sprout number. We let the stars go. Impeccable taste. I spoke to him after and mentioned Victoria Station 1999. The I HATE MUSIC t-shirt. He had a chuckle. What his songs mean to me. His band. There was a gravity about him. But holy fuck the songs. Weightlifting by Trashcan Sinatras

New music for you. Curated by the universe. Enjoy. Playlist Pozi - Whitewashing (PRAH Recordings) The Cool Greenhouse – The sticks (Melodic) The Dears – Heart of an animal (Dangerbird Records) The Beths – Dying to believe (Captured Tracks) Dick Dent – Juliet (Riviera Sun Records) Nation of Language – September again (self-released) M Ward – Unreal city (Anti Records) Cabane feat Bonnie “Prince” Billy – tu ne joueras plus a l’amour (Cabane Records) Damien Jurado – Fool Maria (Loose Recordings) AJ Lambert – One rizla (Bandcamp) Trashcan Sinatras – The closer you move away from me (Oceans Apart Recordings) Coco – One time villain (FCA Records) Bananagun – People talk too much (Full Time Hobby) El Michels Affair feat The Shacks – Enfant (Big Crown Records) Girlhood – The love I need (Team Talk Records) Holy Hive – Broom (Big Crown Records) Jason Joshua – Language of love (Big Crown Records) Skinshape feat D’Alma – Sua Alma (Big Crown Records) Thee Sacred So...

Part 2 of this list, out of four in total, the others to follow in January. There will be another Best of Mix also over the next week, stay tuned to Mixcloud. ********************************************************************* 1. Trashcan Sinatras – Let me inside (Or let me out) A monumental year for fans of this treasured Scottish band. A new crowdfunded album, the wonderful Wild pendulum , possibly their best ever work, and tours in America and Europe. And having seen them play live in November, the big insight (other than the obvious genius on show) was the sheer soulfulness of the songs. So yeah, top notch tunes and buckets of soul. I’ll take that any year. http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.ie/2016/11/trashcan-sinatras-workmans-club-dublin.html Track 14 in this playlist 2. Britta Phillips – One fine summer morning (from the album Luck or magic, Double Feature) Another artist I saw play live in 2016. In these thoughts from last June, I was zoning...

At the end of my twenties I was standing in Waterloo Station in London. I was over for a long weekend with Songs to Learn and Sing . As he queued for food someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “do you like the Trashcan Sinatras?” I was wearing my I Hate Music t-shirt, bright yellow text on blue, the one I bought at their gig in Nancy Spain’s in Cork a few years earlier, which had a series of anagrams of the band’s name on the back – Anarchist Has Ten and the like. I used to wear this t-shirt around town. It had an uncanny ability to draw comments from people as if it was the controversial opening salvo in an argument, a blatant provocation, a long straight middle finger – “Well I love it”, “You don’t mean that do you?”, and other things. People would approach me distraught, vexed, furious. This particular guy in Waterloo was none of those things. He was politely curious. I told him I did like them and he said, “would you like to meet them?”. Still in the dark, I told him I...

I saw Trashcan Sinatras play live last weekend. What a joy that was. A band at the top of their craft, 25 years + on. This album (pic) features some of the best one liners in all of pop music - "got to get the keys from my girlfriend", "disco dancing in the morning" - and that's just in the first song, which opened the show . More to come on that gig on the blog. August Wells are back on tour in the spring with band which should be very special. We had a run of beautiful vibes-tinged jazz pieces - Kathryn Williams & Anthony Kerr from their album of jazz covers. Rayon ( Markus Acher from The Notwist ) plying similar late night tones. And Mikael Tariverdiev , the sound of St Petersburg through film in the 1970s, a bittersweet and quietly uplifting sound. And more from Hilma Nikolaisen , a gorgeous album of shifting psych pop shapes. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergr...

The marvellous Trashcan Sinatras are back in Ireland soon for a live date. What better time to roll out something from their 1996 masterpiece, the genius cut 'Genius I was'. Makes me melt every time. Kristin Hersh is in Triskel Christchurch in Cork for a solo show next week, should be wonderful. Jherek Bischoff is in Utrecht for the Le Guess Who Festival. Rozi Plain is back in Cork at The Kino in December. Bring that great folk kosmische, Rozi. Howe Gelb has a new piano trio album out soon, Future Standards , going back to his childhood listening lounge roots,sounds great so far. And The Notwist with a live album, sounding as stoic and essential as ever. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 420 Tues Oct 25 2016 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM l...

One of my highlights of the year so far has been a new album by Trashcan Sinatras (a band I once bumped into in Waterloo Station in London while wearing one of their t-shirts, but that’s another story...). Wild pendulum is another collection of swoonsome pop songs as you’d expect topped off with Frank Reader’s wonderful velvety tones. I think it’s up there with their best work which is really something 20 odd years into a career. This is one of the album’s highpoints. It manages to be both euphoric and strangely downbeat at the same time. The band let loose their inner Beach Boys with suspended strings, brass, vibes, guitar fuzz and the works. Their grasp of the art of the pop song is undiminshed after all these years. How to breathe it full of ideas and emotion. Tremendous fucking stuff. *There’s no streaming version I can find online but this live rendition from a couple of months back is a great version of the song. **It brings me back to this absolute gem ...