Monday 28 January 2008

FAT FREDDY'S DROP; Wandering Eye

Awesome, cool 21st century jazzy reggae from New Zealand. For review of album go to http://www.peppermintiguana.co.uk/SOUNDS/SONICREVIEWS/F.html#fatfredrev

Saturday 26 January 2008

Breadfan by BUDGIE


I can remember it as if it were yesterday not the late 70’s, an adolescent snot nosed kid sat in the bedroom listening to punk, my brother came into the bedroom and said “you don’t wanna be listening to that lightweight stuff, get a load of this” and promptly dropped Breadfan by Budgie on the turn table. He did not dent me my love for punk, which is still with me today, but it was the start of journey down a different avenue that led to many adventures and memories. It was bound to have happened sooner or later with a different band in a different situation, but I still think of it as a life changing moment. For f*ck’s sake don’t tell my brother though, I will never hear the end of it.

The icing on the cake was that they lived ten miles up the road from me and 20 odd years later I put them (or at least a verison of them) on as a support band for Man at a Peppermint Iguana Gig.

Monday 21 January 2008

Revolution by COLDCUT

Speaks for itself

Brought to our attention by Curtis Ian

Sunday 20 January 2008

BLACK BETTY: Spiderbait and the Ram Jam Band

After a brief break the daily video bulletin is back.

First track of the year is… BLACK BETTY by SPIDERBAIT

When we first heard this we started shouting at the resident teenage Iguana, how dare she play such noise? Black Betty, the version by one hit wonders the Ram Jam band, played an important part in our growing up when we were first getting into music properly and discovering life beyond the crap pushed by radio one. The track probably has a greater significance to us because of the timing, it helped open doors and send us off in search of music that today forms the back bone of the Iguana music collection, but back then, to impressionable teenagers getting their head around punk, adolescence and cider it was an eye opener.

On first listen we were outraged by the Spiderbait version, but once we got over the initial shock it has grown on us and we aim to find out more about this Australian bunch. Apparently this version has been used for the soundtracks to such films as Dukes of Hazard (a fact that we were blissfully unaware of having never seen the film).

The original version was first recoded in 1933 by James Baker and it has been covered by the likes of Leadbelly, Meatloaf, Nick Cave and even Tom Jones. You can read a history of the song here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Betty

We could not possibly end this with out also giving you the Ram Jam Band version, so here be it..