Ola (Mylittleponys)'s Favourite Record: Rattlesnakes

In the run up to Record Store Day, we will be running a series of posts featuring various members of the Lazy Acre Family talking about their favourite records. This installment features Ola from MyLittlePony (who will be playing a live set this evening) talking about the awesome Lloyd Cole...

It's impossible to choose one record an say it's my favourite one. I can however choose one record and say that it's really good, and one of my favourite ones. I choose "Rattlesnakes" by Lloyd Cole and The Commotions. It was recommended to me by a professor when I studied litterature. Needless to say this was a very cool professor, and this record has stayed with me since.



It's just such a great example of intelligent simplicity, which in the end is what I think pop music might be all about. That and sensitivity, but that somehow comes a bit easier it seems.

Managing to be intelligent in a simple way. Lloyd Cole does that very well, and for every one who hasn't heard this album it's time to get into it, if nothing else just for the feeling of adding more debth when singing a long to fellow Glasgow band Camera Obscura's "Hey Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken"

Dont forget to keep checking back through the day for live sessions, competitions, guest posts from Lazy Acre Artists and some special Record Store Day releases

Uno's Favourite Record: Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness....

In the run up to Record Store Day, we will be running a series of posts featuring various members of the Lazy Acre Family talking about their favourite records. This installment features Uno Moller who gets all misty eyed about the Smashing Pumpkins...

I remember seeing the 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings' video on TV when it first came out, and my jaw dropped to the ground. I was only into punk at the time, like NOFX, Propagandhi, Pennywise and those kind of bands. I got my dad to buy me the album right away. Of all the 28 tracks on the album, I only liked 'Bullet…' at first.

Slowly one song after another started to grow on me and became more and more amazing, and it turned out to be an album that really opened the door into a new world for me, both in music and in everything else. Every time I hear the first piano chord of 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness', I'm right back to some strange magical place, like the first time I heard it. Still, today, it's one of my absolute favourite albums.



I don't listen to it that much anymore, but when I do, I can't listen to anything else for a week. I think it still stands out and sounds great and interesting. And I still discover new elements and clever details in the songs that you rarely find in music today. I love everything about it! The cover art, the videos, the 'aeroplane flies high' single box…everything!

Laura's Favorite Record: Grace

In the run up to Record Store Day, we will be running a series of posts featuring various members of the Lazy Acre Family talking about their favourite records. This installment features our Art Director / Web Geek Laura

Last summer, I started doing a feature for the 405 called "What We Talk About When We Talk About Music"; a tribute to Raymond Carver and at the same time, a way to interview musicians I come across shortly to ask them about their influences. As I was talking to Joanna Newsom's musical director Ryan (Francesconi), he asked me out of the blue: "So, and now - what's YOUR favorite record?" It took me by surprise, and after a couple of minutes where I stood mouth open, thinking of all the albums that have meant something in my life from my teenage years up until now, I sort of winked and said, "Easy. Grace, by Jeff Buckley".
To everyone who knows me at least a little bit, this might seem like an obvious answer. And though it might be, it is also tricky to call favorite album of all-time a record which is spending way more time on your shelf collecting dust than in your record player. The truth is, I now tend to listen to Jeff Buckley on very few (and special) occasions, as if the timing, the situation, all the particles in the air and the temperature and the mood and the light in the room had to be just right before pulling it out of its case, reverently, as if touching a sacred object.



I discovered Jeff Buckley by chance, reading up an article about him in a now defunct Italian music magazine, when I was thirteen. I still own that magazine and remember that moment - a day in November 1999 - as a turning point in my life. Some days later, I scanned a couple of music stores until I actually found the CD; then took it home right away and listened to it. On repeat. Day after day after week after month. And looking back, I don't think any other album has taught me as much as Grace has; it is, from beginning to end, a jewel, a masterpiece, a record that touches on so many influences and so many subjects, a timeless work of genius that makes me feel so much, still, from the upbeat title track to the nostalgic Lover You Should've Come Over, from the bitter Last Goodbye to the bizarre Lilac Wine, all the way through to the sweaty psychedelic Eternal Life and the ethereal Dream Brother.

Grace is the kind of record every musician wishes he had written; Grace is music that stays with you forever.