“You’re not from New York City, you’re from Rotherham,” acne-splattered front man Alex Turner jeered at the poseurs by whom he felt himself surrounded.

Skip to the present and both the main Monkey’s demeanour and his skin are considerably less inflamed – and he indulges in samey side projects and has a telly presenter for a girlfriend. You might fear he’s become all he once dismissed as wanky.

True, Turner crawls up his arse a bit on the crappily titled Suck it and See; there are several odes to his vacuous missus that teeter on the edge of hyperbolic bullshit. Alexa Chung is “thunderstorms”? Drizzle more like. Blokes ignore “topless models doing semaphore” whenever she walks by? Bollocks they do. But it’s a great line. And so is the description of the “type of kisses where teeth collide”.

This is proof that the fella can still turn a brilliant phrase, even if he no longer expresses any sentiment more profound than “I wanna rock ‘n’ roll”. Oh, well. He’d be taking the piss out of everyone – himself included – if he still sang about the highs and lows of working class life in South Yorkshire.

What lets down Suck it and See isn’t the vocals, then (Turner’s voice is maturing nicely, by the way), it’s the music. The whole thing smacks of a band in want of a new sound and settling on someone else’s.

Brick by Brick, All My Own Stunts and the lead single Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair are little more than pastiches of the superior Queens of the Stone Age (whose ginger monarch, Josh Homme, co-produced the Monkeys’ previous effort, the disastrous Humbug) – and most of the remaining tracks, particularly Piledriver Waltz and Love is a Laserquest, are heavily indebted to Richard Hawley, Sheffield’s answer to Roy Orbison.

Only Library Pictures sounds like the band of old. The closing tune, That’s Where Your Wrong, seems like it could herald a new direction… until you realise it bears an uncanny sonic resemblance to the Stone Roses’ She Bangs the Drum (which itself was/is hopelessly derivative).

So there you are: swirl it about your gob for a bit – but don’t swallow.

Other Listens

Lady GaGa – Born This Way: a lengthy, balls-bouncing mixture of the brilliant and the bland from the best-dressed representative of the US meat and fisheries industry. Not worthy of the hype, but recommended nevertheless.

Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi – Rome: a lovely and largely instrumental collection of what could be best described as the soundtrack for an urban spaghetti western – with vocal contributions from Jack White and the surprisingly excellent Norah Jones.

Friendly Fires – Pala: the follow-up to a brilliant debut has more muscle but less agility. But there are yearning melodies and jittery guitar-funk amid the slamming, neon beats – and Live Those Dreams Tonight is contender for single of the year.

Sexy sexy tummies

Our stomachs are as hard as a blacksmith’s anvil; our buttocks are solid oak and are biceps are like steel-belted barrels full of rocks. The editor once spatchcocked a chicken on his thighs. And he didn’t use a cleaver; he simply glared muscularly. In short, we’re each built like Thor, the Norse god of thunder – only more ripped.

At the time of writing, the spring sun is blazing, and that’s all the excuse we writers need to rip off our singlets and sit in a beer garden bare-chested and glistening (having oiled each other down first thing this morning).

All we need now are new tunes to which we can flex our exquisitely carved man-tits while we catch some rays.

What better than the eponymous release from Jonny, the collaborative project of Norman Blake, singer-guitarist of the divine Teenage Fanclub, and Euros Childs, former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci front-man?

Even though it was released earlier this year, when the skies were slate-grey, there’s warmth to the album that’s better suited to this season, what with it being all golden harmonies and chugging guitars from two guys who love melody as much as they love the ladies about whom they so frequently sing.

As you would expect of Blake and Childs, there are plenty of musical nods to American bands of yore, most of whom favoured the definite article: The Byrds, The Monkees, The Doors, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and The Box Tops.

And there’s good humour. The whole affair is just so upbeat! True, it verges on the piss-taking on the excessive Cave Dance, the only track longer than three-and-a-half minutes, which swings with gusto for a short while in a cheeky, 1910 Fruitgum Company fashion (“Wear your hair long in the ancient style”) before slowing down and noodling for what seems like ages. And ages.

That indulgent track can be forgiven, though, because all those that surround it are so full of fun and tenderness that one might be mistaken into believing that the sun shines out of Jonny’s arse.

Right! Time to blast those quads…

BarLifeUK also recommends:

Foo Fighters – Wasted Light. America’s classiest rockers riff, roar and sound more than a bit like Queens of the Stone Age (which isn’t surprising given that Dave Grohl is a member of both bands – sometimes, at least).

TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light. It’s the usual skill mix of rock, grooves and electro-pop, but it’s more laid back than the previous album, Dear Science. It’s better, too – and Tunde Adebimpe is still one of the most compelling vocalists around.

Help these people by listening to good music

Or perhaps it is the Comic Relief CD that you have had your eye on so you can do something good for the world whilst getting some new ‘choones’. Fear not because we have a way you can get some great tracks and make yourself feel all warm and fuzzy courtesy of Mr Nick Van Tiel.

A lot of you will know Nick Van Tiel, not least because his CV reads much like the tag line for a clothing store we can’t afford to shop in…. London, Sydney, New York – NVT by Calvin Klien. Van Tiel’s skills don’t end at his ability to make awesome drinks, the man is also a dab hand behind the decks (do they still call them that?).

To this end he has put together a DJ Mix of some of his favourite New Zealand music from the last few years. Now I know what you’re thinking ‘Music? New Zealand? Really?’ Well we are here to tell you actually, yes. Not only are there some fantastic tracks but he has managed to avoid any Fat Freddy’s Drop!

Nick has very kindly placed this mix for free as a download here however he has asked that if you like it you make a wee donation to the Christchurch Earthquake appeal. So get downloading and get appreciating some NZ music Bro.

Gratuitous 'hot girl with guitar shot' No.1

First there was The Music, daughter of The Sound. She begat Ostinato, a wailing, demanding, insistent thing. (Its name, chosen by learned fops in frilly sleeves, came from the Italian for ‘stubborn’.)

Ages passed until Ostinato was given a different moniker. In pits full of smoke and jazz it became known as The Riff. Soon after, it mutated in to a killer. No one knows for sure where the transformation took place. It could have been down on the bayou. Or in a crossfire hurricane. Either would have been appropriate.

To claim victims, The Riff first took control of the electrified axe. It was wielded by hairy acolytes of The Rock, resplendent in denim and leather. Loyalty to The Riff led to stardom, even notoriety, as well as an abundance of chemical refreshment and sticky young chins. The Riff spread like an infection, become an addiction – and it was well pleased.

Riffolution

Gratuitous 'hot girl with guitar shot' No.2

More time was spent while The Riff continued to shift and evolve. It sought extra disciples, those who were followers of The Pop and The Groove. Not all bowed to The Riff; neither did they all flee. Some adored The Riff; many others were cautiously accepting.

The Riff abides. It has many forms. It has structure, but it is adaptable. It has rules but ignores boundaries. It knows the people of The Rock will offer the warmest, the most thrilling and the most murderous embrace – but it does not discriminate against beliefs or values or weapons. It knows neither colour nor gender. It asks only for two simple things: devotion and volume

Daring reader, you can celebrate The Riff: place your feet well apart, raise you arms in the air, turn your face to the skies – and prepare to get LOUD!

Download a Spotify playlist

• Rebel Rebel – David Bowie
• In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida – Iron Butterfly
• Higher Ground – Stevie Wonder
• Purple Haze – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• Torch – Soft Cell
• London Calling – The Clash
• Layla – Derek & the Dominos
• (Marie’s the Name of) His Latest Flame – Elvis Presley
• Le Freak – Chic
• Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins
• Brown Sugar – The Rolling Stones
• Geno – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
• Johnny B Goode – Chuck Berry
• Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple
• 1999 – Prince & the Revolution
• Run Through the Jungle – Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Every 1’s a Winner – Hot Chocolate
• Green Onions – Booker T & The MG’s
• Kick! – Adam & the Ants
• Satisfaction (I Can’t Get No) – Otis Redding
• Aeroplane Blues – Blue Aeroplanes
• Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
• Jealousy – Status Quo
• Paranoid – Black Sabbath
• Television – Marquee Moon

A closer listen: the missing masterpieces

Yeah, yeah! We know: the Ultimate Riff is missing; the one that goes “Duh-duh-duh! DUH-DUH-DUH!”. Also not here, the one that’s all like, “Duh der-duh-der dur-duh, a-diggle-diggle-diggle”. For the three or four readers who don’t recognise those, they’re Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir and Back in Black by AC/DC. And surely no one need to be told how brain-fryingly awesome they are. I mean… dude!

But – howl! – they’re not on Spotify. Nor are The Beatles, who when compared to the manly manness of the Zep and the, er, CD (?!) were little pigtailed girls in flowery dresses, but they could knock out a big lad’s riff when the wanted to. Day Tripper, anyone? You know it makes sense!

Apt title for a bartender's website...

Sheela-Na-Gig, from her debut album, Dry, addresses female gargoyles that yank open their privates; on the demo track Reeling she demands that Robert De Niro sit on her face; the title track of 2009’s A Woman a Man Walked By, the singer’s second long-playing collaboration with musician-producer John Parish, has her threatening to bum-rape some poor fella.

There are examples elsewhere of Polly Jean shoving her perviness into listeners’ ears, but none pop up on Let England Shake, which wholly concerns itself with the country and its wars of this century and the last.

That’s not to say it’s not graphic in its own way; soldiers fall “like lumps of meat”, limbs adorn trees, wives wait in vain for their men to come home, and children become orphaned and disfigured.

This ain’t a light-hearted work… and yet it’s really kinda pretty. The melodies on The Last Living Rose and Written on the Forehead are gorgeous, Harvey’s voice is higher and – ironically – less combative that it once was, and the arrangements are deceptively simple, flecked with intriguing samples. (The discordant hunting bugle on The Glorious Land is thrilling: it sounds like the opening of a spy’s coded broadcast over shortwave radio).

The production – by Parish, Harvey, Mick Harvey (no relation) and Flood – summons a warm haze that brings to mind the heat-shimmer on the sands of battle arenas in the Middle East and Turkey – the latter being the location of World War One’s savage Gallipoli campaign, which haunts the album throughout.

Which all might seem – eek! – over-worthy and really hard work to get through. But Let England Shake ain’t a BBC4 documentary; nor is it a protest album (at least not in the traditional sense. Harvey is a sad and angry observer rather than a screaming protester). It’s an accessible, intelligent rock album. And a bloody good one at that.

The Decemberists – The King is Dead

Hey! Come back! You ought to know that The Decemberists are also more than a little bit country… Wait! Don’t go! Be calmed by the fact that Portland’s Decemberists rock some, too.

There’s no fey, ‘hey nonny nonny’ tut on this, their sixth album; there’s a muscularity, a blue collar element in the spirit of Springsteen.

It’s particularly evident on the grumbling This is Why We Fight, opener Don’t Carry it All, and the killer track, Down by the Water, with its title similar to a line The Boss once famously sang (“We’d go down to the river”) and a harmonica break that could as easily have been parped by Clarence Clemons, E Street Band saxophonist.

The other side of The Decemberists is a genteel one. They sound like well-to-do collegiate folkies on the gorgeous Rise to Me. Rox in the Box is a Yankee take on north London’s Fairport Convention, and Calamity Song rings out like it was a track on 1984’s Reckoning, the jingle-jangle masterwork by R.E.M.

Those past masters of stadium-filling are evoked more than once: front man Colin Meloy’s quavering vocal frequently holds steady and drops deeper to become Michael Stipe-esque.

It no surprise that the most famous sons of Athens, Georgia, have an influence on The King is Dead; guitarist Peter Buck features as a guest, as does alt-country singer-songwriter Gillian Welch, who lends her distinctive voice – like that of a hard-toilin’ spinster of the old Midwest – to several tracks.

The Decemberists’ previous album, Hazards of Love, was a prog-tinged concept album of sorts, but its follow-up has a lightness of touch and a rootsy air. If there’s a binding theme – albeit a loose one – it’s the passing of a year: songs called January Hymn and July Hymn, and references to “summer’s freckled knees” and “cold climes come springtime”. This is annus mirabilis, not annus horribilis.

My wife has gone on holiday...

The biggest-selling tunes of 2010 were by several semi-naked woman, a bunch of unsmiling guys with daft names, some fey wankers with guitars, a ‘70s MOR band and a painter ‘n’ decorator. Most of them were bloody awful. And featured Katy Perry.

Elsewhere, not troubling the top 40, was this lot, who were great:

I Think I Like U 2 – Jamaica

Awesome pop. Great reality-check moment: “She was never pretty, she was only young.”

Let Me Be Your Cigarette – Dax Riggs

There have been unhealthier requests. There have also been worse Stooges-like tunes.

Love Harder – Ali Love

Ali’s got so much love to give. Even his name is Love. That’s how much he means it. Lovely!

King of Spain – Tallest Man on Earth

Dazzling acoustic guitarist has lofty ambition to succeed Juan Carlos I.

Golddust – DJ Fresh

Big Fish. Little Fish. Cardboard Box. All stuffed with shimmering shards.

Sex is Fashion – Curry & Coco

If an issue of Cosmo turned into two overexcited ravers from Shoreditch…

Boyfriend – Best Coast

Modest in scope and ambition, but big on charm.

Love Love Love (Aeroplane Mix) – Low Motion Disco

House track that slaps along nicely and then suddenly starts throwing the punches of a heavyweight anthem.

This Fucking Job – Drive-By Truckers

Being underemployed and having a crap car is a shite state of affairs. This country-rock tune, however, is bitchin’.

Beat Boy – Die Antwoord

Includes a woman with a penis bum-raping a surgeon. There is some clean imagery in this track – but not much.

You’ve Changed – Sia

Catchier than swine flu and considerably more desirable.

Hold On (Sub Focus Remix) – Rusko feat. Amber Coffman

Like a great night out encapsulated: a warm rush followed by shrieking pain in the skull.

My Denial in Argyle – Woodpigeon

The singer has a guilty love who wears Pringles sweaters. The tune is way better than the style.

Hood Pass Intact – Dam Funk feat. MC Eiht

Damn good advice for big-pimpin’ homies who plan to take it back to the ghetto.

Golden Train – Penguin Prison

This lot will be huge in 2011… if, for just a few minutes, the music industry can stop being a fickle bitch with horrible taste.

Sticky Situation – Ortolan

Has anyone in a spot of bother ever before held such a jauntier sing-along? The answer is, no.

Par Avian – FM Belfast

They want a house in the Caribbean. We get a wicked track.

Automatic (Jayou Remix) – Young Fathers

Edinburgh gives us grimy pop. Or poppy grime. Either way, it’s bigger than Arthur’s Seat.

Hug the Harbour – Emma Pollock

“We should have hugged the harbour”: hindsight with great drums.

FM Tan Sexy – El Guincho

Awesome riff. Also, it’s called FM Tan Sexy. What more do you need?

DOWNLOAD THE SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

Barry wants to be a stand up comedian, but his dad doesn't approve.

Goths are like Simon Cowell and Daily Express readers: they don’t have souls. If they did, they’d shake their wretched asses to Groove Armada’s Black Light.

It’s gothic house: massive, sinister pop set to whomping beats and tired-n-emotional vocals from Will Young, Bryan Ferry and Empire of the Sun’s Nick Littlemore.

But it’s the unknown singer Jess Larrabee on whom the grainy spotlight shines the most, during tracks that smack of mysterious figures dancing in dangerously exclusive nightclubs to the new wave and electro sounds of the early ‘80s.

It would seem that 2010 was a good year for moody bleeders with lots of mates. Dark Night of the Soul by Dangermouse & Sparklehorse has a credit list longer than the novelty willy-warmer John Holmes’ missus bought him that Christmas – Iggy Pop, Frank Black, the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, Suzanne Vega, movie director David Lynch are among the voices – and it has some well-morbid baggage, too.

Its release was delayed because of dispute with record label EMI. By the time the album finally dropped, two of its main men, Mark Linkous and Vic Chestnutt, had topped themselves. They left behind a fascinating, dark and gorgeously produced collection.

Here’s another list of stars: Rihanna, Elton John, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, former Gap Band front man Charlie Wilson, and La Roux’s Elly Jackson.

They do their thangs on a single – that’s one! – track, All of the Lights, for Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It’s his ‘my gang’s bigger than yours’ return to form: egomaniacal and self-loathing, hilarious and scary, smart and filthy.

It’s also mental – like on Runaway, a ‘toast for the douchebags’ that starts with the echoing plink-plink of a lone piano and ends, nine minutes later, with mass of undulating fuzz that turns out to be West’s singing voice distorted to buggery.

It’s the weirdness of the year – which is saying something given folk-pixie Joanna Newsom released her third album. On the face of it, Have One on Me, is typically wacky: 18 tracks, averaging at nearly seven minutes in length, divided over three discs.

And with lyrics like, “Miss Montez, the countess of Lansfeld, appealed to the King of Bavaria” (sing that, Justin Bieber!). Except… except Ms Newsom, woodland soulstress, no longer sounds like Bjork with hiccups (thanks to a throat operation) and the piano is her new instrument of choice, although the harp still makes appearances. And she’s still the best songwriter in fairyland – and, indeed, on the planet.

And the best of the rest…

• Happiness – Hurts
• Night Work – Sister Sisters
• Postcards from a Young Man – Manic Street Preachers
• I Speak Because I Can – Laura Marling
• The Lady Killer – Cee Lo Green
• B.o.B. Presents: the Adventures of Bobby Ray – B.o.B.
• The Defamation of Strickland Banks – Plan B
• July Flame – Laura Veirs
• Lights – Ellie Goulding
• Where Did the Night Fall – UNKLE
• The Big To-Do – Drive-By Truckers
• I’m New Here – Gill Scott-Heron
• IRM – Charlotte Gainsbourg
• Come Around Sundown – Kings of Leon
• Odd Blood – Yeasayer
• Surfing the Void – Klaxons

Now that's hair

By the 20^th century, the globe had been circumnavigated zillions of times, and what was once outlandish was now commonplace.

Turmeric and whatnot were staple ingredients of the ultimate after-pub meal, which would be shovelled in to fag-stinking gobs while bums were covered in the soft, shiny, sexy material of Saturday night pulling-pants.

That’s not to say sailors were docking in Plymouth and Liverpool with no more than a few dirty shanties and the clap. In the mid-1960s they brought home something wonderful – and they didn’t even know it. Or so the story goes.

The popular version has freighters chugging from the State to the UK using box upon box of unsold seven-inch singles as ballast. Once on dry land, enterprising seamen would flog the vinyl to record shops, which recognised the wonderfulness of the music thereon: the sounds to become known as northern soul.

The name began as a pejorative term, more or less. Dave Godin coined it. He was a journalist and the owner of the Soul City record store in Covent Garden, who noticed that mods from Yorkshire and Lancashire were ignoring the new releases from black American artists and opting for the older, more obscure stuff.

So he told his staff, don’t bother trying to sell them the latest cuts, just give ‘em what they want; give ‘em the northern soul – which to this (probably oversensitive) Sheffield-born writer was a euphemism for “fackin’ ignorant northern monkeys!”. Had Godin been coarser, one of pop’s finest genres might have been called pleb soul.

Actually, why not? That’s exactly what it was: thrilling dance music for working class lads and lasses from throughout the nation. They would live for the weekend and then blow their wages on vinyl and whizz, sometimes not leaving enough dough for the train fare to Manchester’s Twisted Wheel or Wigan Casio or Blackpool Mecca.

So they’d hitchhike for bloody miles to stay up all night doing kicks and back-flips to heavy beats and high tempos (the sound evolved from Motown-like to disco-ish and Philly-esque, but was always a blast), and then they’d thumb a lift home in the early morning, their legs aching and their pupils as big as LPs.

Northern soul: heaven for the mind, hell on the body. Download a Spotify playlist here.

• Hung Up on Your Love – The Montclairs
• How Can You Tell Me? – The Flirtations
• Ain’t Nothin’ but a House Party – The Showstoppers
• There’s Nothing Else to Say – Sandra Edwards
• Touch and Go – Al Wilson
• You’ve Been Gone Too Long – Ann Sexton
• Ain’t No Soul Left in These Old Shoes – The Fantastic Four
• Come On Train – Don Thomas
• Blowin’ Up My Mind – The Exciters
• Soul Galore – Jackie Wilson
• 24 Hours a Day – Barbara Pennington
• You’re Gonna Miss a Good Thing, Baby – John Bowie
• Nothin’ Can Stop Me – Gene Chandler
• Our Love is in the Pocket – JJ Barnes
• You Hit Me Like TNT – Linda Jones
• You’re My Mellow – Edwin Starr
• Your Magic Put a Spell on Me – LJ Johnson
• Getting Might Crowded – Betty Everett
• I Hurt on the Other Side – Sidney Barnes
• Weak Spot – Evelyn Thomas
• Everything’s Gonna Be Alright – PP Arnold
• Long After the Love Has Gone – Jimmy Radcliffe
• Groovin’ at the Go-Go – The Four Larks
• Now that I Found You, Baby – The Mirettes
• We’re on the Right Track (Tom Moulton Remix) – Ultra High Frequency feat. Ben Aiken

A closer listen: Jackie Wilson

He was Mr Excitement, the womanising demon of the stage who influenced The King and survived two bullets. Jackie was one of pop music’s all-time great singers, and he should be remembered for more than that shitty animated clay figure in the video for Reet Petite.

He wasn’t always a northern soul giant. His career began in the ‘50s in R ‘n’ B, where his multi-octave range and classics like Lonely Teardrops (the last song he performed before dying in 1984) made him a superstar – and a sexy one at that.

His love of poontang was as big as his voice, and it nearly killed him: one of his many girlfriends got all jealous and shot him. For the rest of his life he had a slug lodged close to his spine.

Being full o’ lead didn’t stop him from busting the dance moves – drops, splits and shuffles – that got audiences frothing, impressed Elvis (who became solid mates with Wilson), and inspired the frugging that would be seen at speed-fuelled all-nighters in the UK.

After a brief career slump in the mid-‘60s, during which time he was an easy listening artist (but still managed to cut brilliant tracks like Doggin’ Around),  Jackie hooked up with Chicago soul producer Carl Davis, who returned Mr Excitement to the limelight, where he wowed with what would become northern soul staples.

Soul Galore, Whispers (Gettin’ Louder), I’ve Lost You, (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, I Get the Sweetest Feeling: they’re all amazing floor-fillers as well as perfect pop tunes.

Singer Caleb Followill’s face-fuzz was so dense that it seemingly prevented him from fully opening his mouth, making his delivery slurred like he’d enjoyed a jug of Uncle Jeb’s most gut-rotting hooch.

It was either this or a picture of Brian Blessed's crack. Thought this the best option.

And all the time, the rest of the band – the front man’s two brothers, Nathan and Jared, and their cousin, Matthew – played their Southern-boogie garage rock that smacked of young lads who loved boozy brawls and girls in old cotton dresses but had their gazes fixed far beyond their home state.

Critical acclaim was tailed by haircuts and commercial success, and eventually the Kings’ fortunes led to this, their fifth album. It’s the follow-up to the tremendous Only by the Night, which spawned the mega-smash single Sex on Fire and turned the group into stadia-filling bird-crap magnets.

(Earlier this year, the lads abandoned a gig in St Louis, Missouri, after getting liberally splattered with the shite of pigeons in the rafters above the stage.)

Rock music’s finest agonised howl?

Come Around Sundown continues in the same vein as its magnificent predecessor. There’s a darker mood, but there are the same scratching, trilling guitars (like U2 with a pair of deep-fried bulls-balls), detonating drums, threatening bass and surfeit of melody.

And there’s Caleb’s voice. It was alluring from the beginning, and after the gob-inhibiting chin-furniture went bye-bye, the singer got and better and better until finally becoming contemporary rock music’s finest proponent of the agonised howl.

Listen, for instance, to his delivery on Pony Up, a highlight of the album. He lets out an elongated ‘whoa-ho’ with panache, all the while sounding only a note away from throwing a tearful haymaker at whoever’s standing in front of him. Actually, his voice constantly threatens to crack but never does – and that’s what makes it sound damn exciting.

Musically, Come Around Sundown is less head-spinning. It’s has plenty of belting moments – the glam rock vocal harmonies on Mary, the insistent shuffle of Radioactive and, best of all, the faux-country sound of Back Down South – but it’s a little too safe, too slick, in spite of the band’s insistence that this was going to be a grungier work than Only by the Night.

Twangy Back Down South

Grungier, no, but maybe gloomier (“Everything I’ve cherished is slowly dying” is a fairly typical lyric) and too familiar; the boys haven’t advanced like they did from, say, Youth and Young Manhood to Aha Shake Heartbreak. There are exceptions, however, that suggest the Kings are heading in a playful direction.

There’s the twangy Back Down South and there’s Mi Amigo, which pours lusty admiration over a lass who gets Caleb pissed and tells him he’s got “a big ol’ dick”.

So, no masterpiece this time; Come Around Sundown doesn’t rule, but it’s a princely effort.

“funky” does not describe a microscopic studio flat in Fulham fit only for a self-hating wasp, a coffee table shaped like the designer’s ball-bag, or a publicity-seeking client’s latest piece of gaudy tat assembled by a foetus in south Asia.

nuff said

“Funky” is a description of the music made by LSD-addled space-dudes who wear boots so towering they’d make a steeplejack puke from acrophobia, and whose trousers are tight, sparkly and bulge alarmingly at the crotch.

Funk blasts from the lungs of hottie-babes who have never, ever covered their flamingo-length legs with a skirt larger than a wet wipe, and who appear to be competing with each other to be the first to cultivate an afro the size of the Death Star.

Funk is dirty, stinking soul: the music of Parliament, Chaka Khan and Sly Stone, not the Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Simply hanging out with Pharrell Williams won’t earn you the funk-key to the funkatorium, where melody and harmony take a back seat while oily percussion and riffing horns do their sexy thang up front.

Playing slap-bass or a wah-wah guitar isn’t enough to gain permission to land on Planet Funk. You must also be able to grunt a single “HURGH!” to make everyone within a three-mile radius begin to dance crotch-first. And you’ll need to be wearing absolutely massive sunglasses and a silver cape while juddering back and forth across a stage to a stripped-down, honking groove that goes on for three minutes past forever.

There is liberation in funk. And drugs and free love. There are also politics and empowerment. That’s why it’s so goddamn funky.

Feel the funk: Spotify Playlist

1. We Got the Funk – Positive Force
2. M’Lady – Sly & The Family Stone
3. Let’s Get Small – Trouble Funk
4. Below the Funk (Pass the J ) – Rick James
5. Kind of Funky – Kool & The Gang
6. War on the Bullshit – Montana Chromeboy
7. Give Up the Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) – Parliament
8. Stoned to the Bone (Some More) – James Brown
9. Early in the Morning (12″ Version) – The Gap Band
10. Getting Funky Round Here – Black Nasty
11. Nasty Gal – Betty Davis
12. Fight the Power (Parts 1 & 2) – The Isley Brothers
13. I’d Rather Be With You – Bootsy Collins
14. Dirty Mind – Prince
15. Shake Your Rump to the Funk – The Bar-Kays
16. Cissy Strut – The Meters
17. We Got the Love – Chaka Khan
18. More Bounce to the Ounce – Zapp & Roger
19. Get the Funk Out Ma Face – The Brothers Johnson
20. It’s Serious – Cameo

A closer listen: Sly and the Family Stone

If you don’t already know and love this lot of psychedelic soul-rock funksters, you should be ashamed of yourself. No music collection is complete without at least one Family Stone album. Start with the 1970 greatest hits package, which cherry-picks from the band’s early long players and one-off singles and is probably the finest 40 minutes of pop ever compiled. I Want to Take You Higher, Fun, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)… every track is a masterpiece.

But the multi-racial, mixed-gender combo’s most famous cut is missing. That’s ‘cause Family Affair wasn’t released until a year later, as a track on the Family Stone’s landmark (and fifth) album, There’s a Riot Goin’ On (named in response to Marvin Gaye’s classic, What’s Going On?, which had dropped five months earlier).

It’s not the most accessible of the band’s LPs – Stand is the probably easiest to get into – but it’s the most ambitious, the darkest, the most militant, and the weirdest. It’s pretty clear that during the time of writing and recording, main man Sly Stone, a songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, was very, very high indeed.

His love of being chemically altered eventually did for him and the rest of the Family Stone. They managed to put out Fresh!, which is all parred-down and kinda quiet as if intended as a comedown from the aggressive narcotic of Riot. The things started to go seriously wrong. The group’s seventh studio album, Small Talk (1974), was a bust and everyone went their separate ways. Sly endured, but lost his groove. Amazingly, he’s still alive, despite the cocaine, PCP, lawsuits and general bonkers behaviour, the lucky funker.

It’s a theoretical temperature of -273.15 on the Celsius scale, the point at which the laws of thermodynamics would cease to apply and toffee would be extremely difficult to chew.

We love scat... the good kind.

Using gewgaws called cryocoolers, eggheads have managed to make things really, really cold – like, almost absolute zero – causing molecules to stop moving, matter to achieve superconductivity, and Miles Davis to record the seminal album Kinda Blue.

Able to maintain super-chilled status without further intervention of any science other than that of jazz, Davis was observed to stalk across a stage, never looking his audience in the eye, while blowing into a pink trumpet to freestyle a 25-minute version of Theme from Jack Jackson.

He left this world of squares in 1991, when brief interaction with musicians of milder temperatures caused him to unexpectedly overheat and turn into jazz-steam – which, like it or not, remains all around us and can be exploited to keep bar patrons chilled out.

It’s especially effective on Sunday afternoons, when the psyches of working adults appear blazing-white when viewed through a thermographic camera. (That, science fans, is very warm indeed.) Cool ‘em down with Mr Davis and other hep cats: John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Nina Simone were all cooler than the hairs on a polar bears arse.

But you don’t want your clientele suffering from the aural equivalent of ice cream headaches, so make sure there are soul-warming standards in the mix, along with some friendly modern sounds. Stay away from the far-out experimental stuff. It could lead to customers growing goatees, wearing berets, smoking the hard stuff, and becoming wholly unbearable.

Or, you know, they might simply leave to go to another, less groovy bar.

Click here for a Spotify playlist, daddy-o:

1. Easy (Quiet Storm Mix) – Jazzy Lee
2. The Message – Ravi Coltrane
3. Basin Street Blues – Peggy Lee
4. Dancing in the Dark – Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley
5. My Funny Valentine – Chet Baker
6. Ted’s Asleep – James Taylor Quartet
7. I Can See (Ye:Solar Remix) – Jazzanova
8. Cold Turkey – Ray Bryant
9. Baltimore – Nina Simone
10. Wake ‘n’ Bake – 6ix Toys
11. Dancing in the Dark – Frank Sinatra
12. I Love You – John Coltrane
13. Refugee (Matthew Herbert Big Band Remix) – Oi Va Voi
14. Smoothie Jazz – Didier Rene Viseux
15. What a Difference a Day Makes – Dinah Washington
16. Robyn’s Blues – Dudley Moore
17. Sunshine of Your Love – Ella Fitzgerald
18. Moose the Moochie – Charlie Parker
19. That Old Devil Called Love – Billie Holiday
20. Wholly Cats – Benny Goodman
21. See-Line Woman (Masters at Work Remix) – Nina Simone

A closer listen… Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley

Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley

To be specific, the man’s 1958 work Somethin’ Else. It’s tremendous: a classic of hard bop by a saxophonist and band leader who worked with John Coltrane and was a long-time collaborator of Miles Davis. The latter legend is all over Somethin’ Else, which is widely and understandably regarded as one of the greatest – if not the very greatest – jazz album ever recorded.

Man, it’s laid back! The opener, Autumn Leaves, sounds, ironically, like high summer when the weather is too hot for anything other than cold beer and cool, bluesy tunes. It’s followed by Love for Sale, the piano intro of which has a Gershwin-like feel before a snare hisses and takes the track off into superlative solos by Davis – whose influence on the choice of material was major – and Adderley. (His nickname derived from a childhood corruption of “cannibal”, which described the gusto with which he ate his grub. During his early playing career he was briefly known as New Bird when promoters misguidedly tried to push him as the successor to the late Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker.)

The two players went on to work together on Kinda Blue, itself a masterpiece and a perfect companion for Somethin’ Else when played in the sort of bars that appreciate great music regardless of the genre. Not all songs have to be verse-chorus-verse in 4/4 time.

Half his choices – including the one in the top slot – were released in 2006.

Insert 'pussy' joke here

Our man complains that nothing much worth writing about dropped over the past 12 months. Clueless, for some dopey reason or other, has ignored (or, perhaps, never heard) the thrilling Cross by French DJ-producers Justice, the gorgeous country rock of Rilo Kiley’s Under the Black Light, the way-cool Desire from the way-cool rapper Pharaoh Monche, folk-prog weirdos Voice of the Seven Woods’ compelling self-titled debut…

The list of omissions goes on, and it includes Klaxons’ Myths of the Near Future, the brilliant beats ‘n’ guitars yell-athon that only recently (we’re still in 2007, remember) grabbed the Mercury Music Prize, thereby giving prominence to new rave, the media-constructed scene about which the band couldn’t give a toss.

Their interests are sci-fi and bonkers novelists like Burroughs and Pynchon, not glow sticks and fluorescent clothes.

Hyper-jump to the present day: our man Clueless is, bafflingly, still getting work as a music hack, new rave is as dead as Diana, Princess of Wales, and Klaxons have (finally) turned out their second album after having to re-record parts that the record company deemed too leftfield.

It’s even shoutier than its predecessor – and, yet, it’s less urgent. Many of the lovely subtleties that made Myths so cosmic – the sweep of Two Receivers, Golden Skans’ unforgettable wordless harmonies – are lacking, leaving Surfing the Void less likely to shoot lasers straight into your soul.

That’s not to say it’s a bad album. It’s good; sometime it’s really good.

The band has done away with the more conspicuous dance elements of the past (there’s no cover of a ‘90s house tune as there was before). A traditional rock sound is to the fore, with sprays of synth and a bass assault that sounds like a knackered F1 racing bike being over-revved underwater. (The four-string break on Flashover may lead to an involuntary evacuation of your bowels.)

The opener, Echoes, is typical of the band’s quiet-then-loud approach that includes lots of melody and double-tracked vocals, while The Same Space is a thunderous archetype of the album’s thrashing energy.

Later, Venusia ends with the sound of typewriter, suggesting that the lads are still in the thrall of groovy authors. They’re certainly still geeky for time and space, as is proved by everything from the song titles – Extra Astronomical, Future Memories – to the cover of a cat dressed as an astronaut.

So, while Surfing the Void probably won’t blast you all the way past Alpha Centauri, it’ll definitely take you for a quick jaunt among the meteors of the mesosphere.

Talented UK singer songwriters are being given a London showcase in a series of live music events sponsored by Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon.

Buffalo Rocks. Click for large poster

Buffalo Rocks gigs will run monthly through the fest of 2010 and into 2011, with the first taking place at the Monarch, Camden on Thursday, September 23. The inaugural Buffalo Rocks gig is headlined by James Walsh, best known as the frontman in Starsailor.

James Walsh

Walsh is a talented singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist, and the gig will feature a stripped down acoustic set  including material from his forthcoming solo album. Also appearing are Jim Stapley and Lee MacDougall. including supporting the Rolling Stones, The Police, U2 and The Killers. James has recently started working on his own solo material and is excited to be back in the studio.

Support acts come in the form of the amazing Jim Stapley and Lee MacDougallSupport acts come in the form of the amazing Jim Stapley and Lee MacDougall

Tickets for the event cost £7 and are available from www.wegottickets.com. The line-up for the next gigs in the series will be announced shortly.

Buffalo Rocks is an opportunity to enjoy great live music in venues chosen to showcase the different style of each musician. Featuring talented contemporary singer-songwriters with a passion for performing, Buffalo Rocks brings new energy to London’s live music scene.

Jeremy Hill, chairman of Buffalo Trace UK Distributor Hi-Spirits said: “Bourbon has strong associations with live music, going back to the birth of blues and jazz in the Southern States of the US.

“Buffalo Trace has continued that passion for music in the USA, and we’re delighted to not only to be bringing Buffalo Rocks to the UK, but also to be giving it a uniquely British twist to celebrate our own vibrant live music culture.”

Buffalo Trace is an award winning authentic Kentucky bourbon made at the oldest distilling site in the United States.

“Oh, no! Four-o!” “18 with 22 years’ experience.” “Life begins at…” It’s no wonder people feel blue on their 40^th birthdays, the messages on the greetings cards are real pissers. Then, of course, there’s the whole ageing debacle. It’s all downward from here: tits droop, arses sag, mind’s eyes begin to glance at the cold, cold earth beneath our feet…

I was searching for a 'mutton dressed as lamb' picture. Not quite what I had in mind, but too good to ignore.

Any self-respecting, mortality-fearing birthday boy or girl will be straight off to the nearest watering hole, with plenty of similarly aged chums in tow, many of whom will be so glad to have gotten away from their kids for one night that they’ll attempt to drink until they’ve forgotten ever having the little buggers.

Let’s assume at this point that the organisers of the birthday shindig have annexed your gaffe, or its function room, or at least a good section of the  bar. They’re probably forking out for food, too. So they’ll be feeling entitled to sonic entertainment – especially after a few drinkies, when this throng of paunchy, dressing-like-they’re-still-29 Toyota drivers are gonna demand a soundtrack to their revelry.

Not only will it spur the buggers to sup more (and dance badly), it’ll help drown out conversations about camping holidays, newest overpriced gadgets and the wood laminate flooring they’ve just in their back room. (They’re thinking of knocking through into the living room, you know? That way, one big room will get more light from the new uPVC French windowzzzzzzzzz.)

Chuck on an eclectic mix of tunes that eschews 18-minute prog-rock noodling, experimental jazz, third-rate gangsta rap and Robbie ‘Frigging’ Williams. All you need is crowd-pleasing pop, rock, hip-hop and soul, be it current, recent or from long, long ago. Offer a taste of nostalgia, a couple of tasteful sing-alongs, a small clutch of rockers, and one or two hip joints to make the people feel young again. A touch of camp won’t go amiss either, as long as the guests are comprised entirely of Leeds United fans.

Keep your playlist tight and reasonably short; these people can’t stay up all night. They have to get back to their homes in the suburbs to pay the babysitter and have a row about whose parents they going to visit tomorrow.

I know we've used this picture before, but just look at him go. Wicked.

Here’s a suggested bunch of sounds that’ll distract those ageing party people for an hour. It has been tried and tested (at the Halfway House in Earlsfield, south London. Try it. It’s nice. Order the onion rings.) The revellers flipped their wigs, and the rest of the pub’s punters were appreciative. Result!

Spotify Playlist

1. I Got the Music in Me – Kiki Dee
2. Golden Skans – Klaxons
3. History – Groove Armada
4. Goody Goody Gumdrops – 1910 Fruitgum Company
5. Hot Stuff (Let’s Dance) – Craig David
6. Brassneck – The Wedding Present
7. Crying at the Discotheque – Alcazar
8. Move Your Feet – Junior Senior
9. Love You Inside Out – Bee Gees
10. In the Morning – The Coral
11. Don’t Hold Me Down – Tortured Soul
12. Cobrastyle – Teddybears STHLM
13. Looks Like We Made It – Barry Manilow
14. Ooh – Sister Sisters
15. We Care a Lot – Faith No More
16. Collarbone – Fujiya and Miyagi
17. There She Goes, My Beautiful World – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
18. Born this Way – Carl Bean
19. Big Decision – That Petrol Emotion
20. Stay Too Long – Plan B
21. Girls on Film – Billy Preston
22. Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Deluxe’s Dirty Dub) – Kylie Minogue
23. Starz in their Eyes – Just Jack
24. Rich and Strange – Cud
25. Quiet Life – Japan
26. Livin’ on a Prayer – Bon Jovi
27. Jump Around – House of Pain