Playing live is the natural habitat of the Tulsa king of laid-back boogie, yet surprisingly we’ve never had a live album from JJ Cale. Then last year, Classic Pictures released on DVD a long-lost film of a live session recorded in Los Angeles in 1979. Now comes the audio version, as Cale shuffles his way through 20 songs, including “Cocaine”, “Crazy Mama”, “After Midnight” and “Call Me The Breeze”. Leon Russell, that other pillar of the Tulsa sound, guests on keyboards. Cale’s voice and guitar are immaculately understated and it’s a joy to hear musicians who know how to roll as well as how to rock.

If it hadn’t been for the current Australian rock revival, chances are Sydney’s You Am I would have been erased from rock history. Yet they rank as one of their homeland’s most influential bands (just ask The Vines or The Sleepy Jackson), while further afield they’ve garnered a fan base that includes Queens Of The Stone Age, Sonic Youth (Lee Ranaldo produced their first two albums) and The Foo Fighters. Rounding up their career from 1993 to 2001, this primer is a pretty decent showcase for their gnarly brand of guitar thrash and Replacements-tinted melodies, though the absence of “Adam’s Ribs”, “Rumble” and “Dead Letter Chorus” robs it of extra power.

Scratch Perverts

BADMEANINGOOD

BOTHWHAO

AnotherLateNight has been reborn as LateNightTales, and this time round George “Nightmares On Wax” Evelyn mixes up a superbly eclectic set list taking in Ian Brown, Quincy Jones, Dusty Springfield, Focus and the now-obligatory cover version?in this case, Nightmares On Wax’s take on Cymade’s “Brothers On The Side”.

The fourth BadMeaninGood?compiled by the Scratch Perverts?is a much more aggressive affair, blending classics by Lalo Schifrin and The Specials with edgier cuts by DJ Shadow, Gang Starr and Kool G Rap.

There was a time between Bringing It All Back Home and Blonde On Blonde when Bob Dylan was not so much an artist as a piece of art in himself. Every time he opened his mouth, it seemed a stream of surreally brilliant jive poetry poured forth. An album of any other ’60s rock star?even Lennon?yakking on for 78 minutes without playing a note would be a ticket to terminal tedium. With Dylan, it’s gripping. What we get are two press conferences held in LA and San Francisco in December 1965 and a lengthy?and surprisingly thoughtful?interview for Canadian radio in February 1966. It’s not an authorised release, but neither is it an illegal bootleg, for Dylan’s words are apparently public domain.

The press conferences offer great entertainment as Dylan jousts memorably with his inquisitors. “Do you regard yourself as a singer or a poet?” someone asks. “Oh, I think of myself as a song and dance man,” he replies. “What poets do you dig?” “Rimbaud. WC Fields. The trapeze family in a circus. Smokey Robinson. Allen Ginsberg. Charlie Rich.” Then up pops Ginsberg himself to ask, “Do you think there will ever be a time when you’ll be hung as a thief?”

But the radio interview is no less fascinating. Dylan, for once, comes across as sincere and cooperative and his answers are genuinely insightful, particularly on how “Like A Rolling Stone” began life as “a long piece of vomit, about 20 pages long”. But even when he’s in such responsive mood, he can’t resist playing games. The long explanation of how he took his name from his mother’s side of the family, who he claims spelt it “Dillon” is, of course, a complete fabrication. Yet it is delivered with such conviction that even the FBI’s most sophisticated lie-detecting machine would surely be fooled. Priceless.

An often overlooked document of punk’s brief period of violent flux is Mark Perry’s Sniffin’ Glue?the first punk fanzine. While the DIY ethic of punk rock was often derailed by injections of major label cash, Sniffin’ Glue was the real deal, a xeroxed missive from the sputum-soaked frontline, assembled by people who really did “mean it, maaaan”. At the other end of the spectrum to Malcolm McLaren’s sly opportunism, Perry and co’s manifesto has arguably had the greater influence, embodying the utopian, democratic principles underlying punk’s boredom and nihilism and inspiring the fanzine culture which thrives today.

This album (accompanied by a single-volume reprint of Sniffin’ Glue’s entire run) is compiled by Perry himself, and it’s a lean and comprehensive collection of three-chord wonders.

Fan-turned-participant Perry’s sincerity is evident from his choice of tracks. The ‘pubbier’ end of punk is represented by tracks from The Hot Rods, Chelsea and Sham 69, and there’s a fair smattering of classics here (“White Riot”, “Anarchy In The UK” and “New Rose” are all present), but the real joy derives from observing rock being deformed, defaced, detoured. Tracks like the Voidoids’ “Blank Generation”, ATV’s “Love Lies Limp” (Perry’s own, early premonition of The Streets’ bullshit-free adolescent heartache) and X-Ray Spex’s “Oh! Bondage! Up Yours!” introduced elements previously alien to rock?how about indifference, reggae and feminism, for starters??while cerebral selections from The Pop Group and Wire constitute the first flowerings of the more experimental post-punk.

Shorn of context, the motorik momentum of this compilation?pretty much hard’n’fast all the way from “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” to “12XU”?adds up to a hypnotic, near-psychedelic experience. A headlong rush through days of speed.

Last year’s Ten Of Swords was one of the finest debuts of recent times, pulling off the enviable feat of lacing together classic English psychedelia and driving power pop without leaving the join. All Wrongs Reversed, serving as a stopgap until the follow-up proper, has its moments (the choppy fuzz-punk of “Patterns”; countryish lament “Nobody’s Child”) but overloads the pop at the expense of the trippy stuff. That said, “Mr Wilson” and his take on “Gates Of Eden” have both earned the thumbs-up from Brian and Bob themselves. So who are we to argue?

Martha Johnson of the Muffins is one of the new wave’s great lost sex symbols. And this reissue of her group’s only significant UK album banners the injustice of their where-are-they-now status. “Echo Beach” and that’s it, yeah? Well, no. This is plinky-plonky pose-by-numbers art-pop of the kind that Americans thought was just so punk in 1980, but which for Brits was, and still is, the musical equivalent of Space Invaders. But, as with underrated contemporary Stateside outfit The Models, this is more appealing and less risible than America’s attempts at real punk rock. A committed little band trying to impress rather than shock, and doing it rather well.

Less austere than the template offered by Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression a year later, The Jayhawks were a simpler, more open-hearted revival of Gram Parsons’ spirit. Mark Olson’s rich, almost wryly yearning voice almost cracks into open laughter on “Martin’s Song”, the nearest he gets in phrasing and lyric leaps to fellow Minnesotan Dylan at his most easygoing. The relaxed power of The Jayhawks’ playing suits Olson’s world of small-town, languorous hedonism (in comparison to the small-town claustrophobia of Tupelo’s Jay Farrar). “Two Angels”, though, has Townes Van Zandt’s true country mystery, too.

At a time when every emergent garage-rock wannabe cites the Medway scene as pivotal, The Prisoners are finally taking their turn on the podium. Originally issued in 1982 and understandably rough at the edges, A Taste Of Pink! is bone-juddering fare. The central pairing of guitarist/blue-eyed soul screamer Graham Day and valve-compressed organist James Taylor drag ’60s R&B and US basement squall into the post-punk era. Though subsequent offerings Wisermiserdemelza (1983) and In From The Cold (1986) harnessed their powers to more riveting effect, the inclusion here of nine previously unissued tracks (including outtake “Baby Come Alive” and 1981’s three-piece demos) make this essential for diehards.

This two-disc set surveys a career spanning 53 years (1949-2002). Chosen by Brubeck himself from 24 albums, the 31 tracks follow his development from his early years as one of the founders of the West Coast “cool” style, through his 1958-67 stint with the famous quartet featuring Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello, to his lesser-known later output with a variety of collaborators. Although they’ll own most of this already, the main interest for Brubeck fans will be engaging with the man’s personal view of his music. Beginners should start with ’59’s classic Time Out.

Despite having been fingered as one of the culprits of Britpop, Luke Haines is probably closer in spirit to Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P Orridge or even playwright Dennis Potter than Damon, Noel or Jarvis. The man behind The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder exhibits a similar fascination for the gristle of British life behind the twitching curtains, albeit aided by tunes your mum could sing. Haines has rightly decided to throw his talent for melodic unpleasantness into sharp relief with this collection of string-assisted re-recordings spanning his career so far, from 1992’s Auteurs debut New Wave to 2001’s solo outing The Oliver Twist Manifesto.

He renegotiates these songs (including “Lenny Valentino”, “Unsolved Child Murder” and “Future Generation”) skillfully, the string arrangements wringing out all the grandeur of the originals, Haines’ whispered vocals as unnerving as ever. The new songs, “Satan Wants Me”, “Michael Powell” and “Bugger Bognor”, are brutally beautiful. Hard to love, but then the old curmudgeon probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

The guitar wizard at the forefront of NYC late-’70s/early-’80s “No Wave”, Glenn Branca mated contemporary classical structure with ear-splitting noise-rock in a manner that served both camps equally well, influencing avant noiseniks from Sonic Youth on. Branca’s second release for NY underground label 99 (home to ESG, Liquid Liquid, etc) is reissued here in all its multi-timbral glory, as sheets of cascading guitars carefully negotiate the balance between chaos and control. Extras like a live video clip and notes from Branca sideman/future Sonic Youth member Lee Ranaldo sweeten the pot.

More Love Songs, Wainwright’s 11th album, was made in London in 1986 under the production auspices of Richard Thompson. The ironic title conceals a typical Wainwright, product: sardonic, self-deprecating, laced with acid social commentary. This album contains two bonus tracks, complete lyrics, a sympathetic sleevenote and a number of photos taken during the singer’s sojourn in England. Wainwright fans who don’t already own this album will want to grab it now. And newcomers to his idiosyncratic art could do much worse than start here.

Founded by Guy Manuel of Daft Punk and Eric “Rico” Ch

PRESTON 28 FEBRUARY 1980

ALCHEMY

Preston warehouse, February 1980. They’re halfway through “Heart And Soul”, a track from their as yet unrecorded second album, Closer, and things are not going well. Hooky’s bass has conked out, Sumner’s given up altogether and they’re reduced to Morris’ frantic beat and the sound of faulty jack plugs being jiggered in and out in vain. “I think everything’s falling apart,” slurs lan Curtis, and the confusion in his voice says it all. Joy Division have lost control again.

It sounds like chaos, yet listening to the complete warts’n’all document of that fateful Preston gig (less than 12 weeks before Curtis’ death) you can’t help wishing you were there. In spite of their superior bootleg quality, both this CD and its twin, a noticeably less shambolic show at Les Bains Douches in Paris two months earlier, are mesmerising. Where Joy Division’s studio legacy can sound distant and sombre, their spirit cryogenically frozen by Martin Hannett’s glacial production, these are performances by four irascible red-blooded males: desperate, sweaty, urgent and angry (listen to Sumner at Preston having to drop his mask of aloof isolation cursing, “Everything’s fookin’ bust!”).

Always intended as a two-part set, these were first issued separately in 1999 and 2001 in reverse chronological order, possibly to annul the despair of Preston by presenting Les Bains Douches as an optimistic sequel. Now re-released together, the new listener will inevitably honour their impulsive sense of history by turning to the latter first. Of the two, Les Bains Douches is easily the better concert with versions of “Shadowplay” and “Transmission” that are, well, fucking unbelievable. Augmented by seven tracks from two Dutch gigs in January 1980, think of it as “The Pleasure” where Preston is “The Pain”. Which is why, to fully appreciate the triumph and tragedy of Joy Division as one and the same, both are a must.

Most of us found Dylan’s conversion to Christianity in the late ’70s hard to take. Yet it’s undeniable his notorious ‘born again’ albums, Long Train Coming and Saved, contain some mighty powerful songs, whether or not you agree with the evangelical sentiments.

This compilation assembles 10 of them, covered in true testifying gospel fashion by the likes of Aaron Neville, the Mighty Clouds Of Joy and Sounds Of Blackness.

But the real reason you’re likely to want this collection is that Dylan himself guests with Mavis Staples on a gruff-but-glorious re-reading of 1979’s “Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking”.

HEAVY HORSES

BOTH CHRYSALIS

A digitally enhanced reissue (with unreleased track and live excerpt) of Tull’s finest hour?when they took the Good Life route and got shit on their boots back on the land?Songs From The Wood is where Ian Anderson’s finger-in-the-ear vocalising always belonged. The hey-nonny affectations grate a little (this was issued just after “Anarchy In The UK”), but there’s no doubting the band’s ability to combine awesomely complex time signatures and effete fife-tabor-mandolin-and-bells effects while rocking out. One of prog’s most accomplished statements.

Unfortunately, the new digital version of the ’78 Tull vintage Heavy Horses that tried to replicate the success of Wood and its ultra-stylised Fairportisms, smacks of corporate opportunism. The humdrum tunes of old bluesy Tull get the Merrie England treatment, but despite some of the most breathtaking group dynamics in prog (“No Lullaby”), it’s all a bit faux. Think Morrismen and jousting tournaments and you’re almost there. And the string arrangements suck.