Beard radio 26.11.09

Haunted dub, micro-house, proto-black metal, cosmic jazz, classic Dundonian DIY... it can only be another glorious episode of Beard Radio! Introducing our rubbish new David Lynch jingle...

Soft Pink Truth - Everybody's Soft; Do You Party (Soundslike)
King Midas Sound - Cool Out; EP (Hyperdub)
Faust - I've Got My Car And My TV Pts 1 & 2; So Far (Polydor)
Sun Ra - Love In Outer Space; Night Of The Purple Moon (Atavistic)
The Scrotum Poles - Pick The Cat's Eyes Out; Messthetics 105 (Hyped To Death)
Wire - Sand In My Joints; Chairs Missing (Harvest-EMI)
Queen - Brighton Rock; Sheer Heart Attack (EMI)
Untold - Anaconda; 12" (Hessle Audio)
Hellhammer - Messiah; Satanic Rites (Prowlin' Death)
George Russell - Stratusphunk; Outer Thoughts (Milestone)
Cybotron - Cosmic Cars; Enter (Fantasy)

Plus bed music from the marvellous Having A Ball With The Three Suns (RCA Victor)

This show is dedicated to the memory of Freddie Mercury, who died 18 years ago this week.

Beard Radio 19.11.09

With the skies above Glasgow weeping, Beard Radio brings you sunshine and joy. And it seems to have worked, cos the morning after we woke up to a beautiful autumn day.

Holger Czukay - Cool In The Pool; Movies (EMI)
Ducktails - Let's Rock The Beach; Landscape (No Not Fun)
Todd Rundgren - International Feel/Never Never Land; A Wizard A True Star (Bearsville)
Mercury Rev - Empire State (Son House In Excelsis); See You On The Other Side (Beggar's Banquet)
Toumani Diabate - Kaunding Cissoko; Mande Variations (World Circuit)
Archie Shepp - Mama Too Tight; Mama Too Tight (Impulse)
Susumu Yokota - King Dragonfly; Grinning Cat (Leaf)
The Clean - Tally Ho!; The Clean Compilation (Flying Nun)
The Cars - Just What I Needed; The Cars (Elektra)
Dukes of Stratosphear - You're A Good Man Albert Brown; Chips From The Chocolate Fireball (EMI)
Charles Wright & Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself (Warner Bros)

Simon Reynolds blogs about beards - and Beard - for the Guardian

Flabbergasted - and absolutely delighted of course - to be mentioned in Simon Reynolds' Guardian blog about the place of facial hair in noughties music culture:

Until recently there was even a UK music zine called Beard whose cover stars tended to be mutton-chopped minstrels such as Alasdair Roberts and Robert Wyatt. The magazine's founders, Stewart Smith and Neil Jacques, developed "an admiration for beards" at the start of this decade through listening to Wyatt, Dennis Wilson and Will Oldham.

As we've pointed out before, the name Beard started as a bit of a joke, but it stuck and proved to be quite a fun angle; cue top tens of literary and pop beards, snakes and ladders reborn as beards and razors etc. Alas, we never realised our plans for a knitting pattern. The name had its downsides - every dodgy band who tried to befriend us on myspace would point out their bass player's beard, and people assumed we were only interested in male artists with beards, something we tried to redress by putting Vashti Bunyan on the cover of our last issue - but we thought of it, so we can hardly complain. It's true that Beard covered a lot of "spiritually bearded" artists, as Reynolds deftly puts it, but while I remain a great fan of certain acts like Joanna Newsom, Ali Roberts, Josephine Foster and Trembling Bells, I've grown disillusioned with most so-called "nu-folk". Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver are just bland acoustic rock acts. That said, I don't want to align myself with Matt Valentine, whose tedious hippy dribblings represent one of the most overrated bodies of work this decade. Earnest (read deadly dull) indie rockers like Glasgow's own Frightened Rabbit and the Twilight Sad (no patriotic cheerleading from us at Beard!) rock the beard and plaid look too, as if to wear their sincerity on their sleeves.

None of this takes anything away from the many talented and imaginative musicians who sport facial fuzz. I agree with Reynold's about the excellence of Wayne Coyne and Lindstrom's neatly-trimmed 1970s soft-rock style beards. And of course there are some magnificent beards in the worlds of metal, jazz and prog. Beard salute you!

Beard Radio 5.11.09

This week's Beard radio is now up to listen again. Featuring a mental prog double header, some crazy metalcore, rousing 70s theme tunes, womb-like dub-folk, digital anarcore and much more. Also, Stew skelps his head on the CD player. Madness you can't do without!

Barry Gray Orchestra - Stingray (Cinephile)
Oneohtrix Point Never - Computer Vision; Rifts (No Fun)
Atari Teenage Riot - Start The Riot; Delete Yourself (Digital Hardcore)
Gentle Giant - The Boys In The Band; Octopus (Vertigo)
Rush - Tom Sawyer; Moving Pictures (Mercury)
Raymond MacDonald & Peter Nicholson - Polworth; OB30 (Iorram)
Converge - Reap What You Sow; Axe To Fall (Epitaph)
Lydia Lunch - Lady Scarface; Queen of Siam (Triple X)
John Martyn - Small Hours; One World (Island)
The Fall - I Am Damo Suzuki; This Nation's Saving Grace (Beggar's Banquet)
Pearson Sound - WAD; 12" (Hessle Audio)
Slayer - Public Display Of Dismemberment; World Painted Blood (American)