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This is a new section to the blog. I will be asking someone in the North East creative scene to talk about five albums and pick a song from each one. First up is Steven Bardgett.
I’m Ste (he/they). I make music with my band Mouses and under my solo moniker stebee. I make noisy but melodic stuff about queer identity, mental health and examining the shitshow of institution, whether that be political, religious or simply fighting against societal norms. My favourite five albums changes on a daily basis, but right now it’s this!!
Rage Against The Machine - XX
Track for playlist: Know Your Enemy
It’s one of my favourite debut albums ever and the perfect marriage of music, activism and politics. It’s hugely inspired my own ethics and political leanings and I just love the whole feel of the album. It makes me feel like starting a revolution. It highlights the need to stick up for the least privileged in society and I suppose it was just one of the first things to show me how politics and activism can really be part of music in a massive way. The sad part is it’s still unbelievably relevant and in many ways it feels like nothing has changed on the subjects of race, police brutality etc., but the fact that is means it hits just as hard now as when it was first released.
The Muslims - Mayo Supreme
Track for playlist: Fuck The Cistem
The most recent one on the list but something that blew me away on first listen! The Muslims are a queer punk band from Durham, NC. They make super ‘in-your-face’ anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist noise. I love how raw this album sounds, the production is amazing. The melodies are so good in a bunch of songs too and the rest are straight to the point shouty punk that demands your attention. There are lines that make you feel uncomfortable and it totally makes you consider why that is, call backs to slavery-era, political and religious satire, queer solidarity and just aggressively standing up for being who you are. It’s honestly just a great album. The new one is too, this is just the first one I listened to!! You should definitely check them out!
The Shaggs - Philosophy Of The World
Track for playlist: Philosophy Of The World
It was between this and Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart for an album that really opened my mind to how weird music could be, but there’s a certain charm about the fact that this was unintentionally weird that I’m just in awe of. I love it so much. I love listening to albums in context - I’ve never been a person that can separate the art from the artist, the concept just doesn’t make any sense to me - and I read the stories around this album before I ever listened to it. The Shaggs are made up of sisters. As part of a prediction he was given when he was younger, their father was told he would have daughters that formed a band and he did everything he possibly could to make it happen. They practiced all day every day with absolutely no musical training or understanding of music and this is the resulting album. It’s out of time, jarring, atonal and just unlike anything I’ve heard before or since. There’s a total naivety that shines through as well as a kind of overwhelming sadness to the whole thing, but I recommend everyone listens to this album at least once, it’s brilliant.
Scott Walker - The Drift
Track for playlist: Cossacks Are
I’ve never been more terrified of an album than this one. I got into Scott Walker in the same way as many people, through his sixties solo albums Scott 1 - 4. I loved everything about them. The melody, the arrangement, the imagery in the lyrics, the grandeur and of course the dark subject matter. It was in many ways, the complete polar opposite of the sixties summer of love thing. Over the top baroque pop songs tackling existentialism and mortality. I could see it all get darker and darker until he naturally reached the avant-garde outsider persona of his later works. At the time, this was his most recent output so I sat down and gave it my full attention. An album has never made me feel how this one did. I’d liken it kind of to watching a horror movie. There’s eerie, almost silent soundscapes, vivid dark imagery with Scott Walker’s haunting vocals. Then it can change in an instant. Loud dissonant strings, disturbing sound effects. The whole thing just grips you from start to finish and it fucking terrified me the first time I listened to it. In a good way though. In a way I never thought was possible with music. It blew my tiny mind.
Green Day - 1039 / Smoothed Out Slappy Hours
Track for playlist: Going To Pasalacqua
I’ll end on a happy one. I had to put a Green Day album in. They’re the band that made me want to make a band. I just get a total burst of nostalgic joy from listening to old Green Day, as I’m sure everyone does from the first music they could relate to and fall in love with. I’ve picked the first album (well kind of a compilation of the first bunch of EPs!). There’s something I really love about listening to the first album by bands that ended up being huge. Especially when it’s like this. A super cheaply made punk record on an indie label made by a bunch of teenagers. There’s naivety and youthful exuberance all over it, but along with pepperings of amazing melodies and songs that made Green Day as brilliant as they became. I don’t know what it is, there’s just a certain joy of listening to a band that has no idea of what’s about to happen next. So yeah, I just love everything about this album!