Blood Sausage 'Billy Joel' (Wiiija, 1993) (mp3 download)

Huggy Bear side project (featuring Jo Johnson and Niki Eliot) on Rough Trade offshoot Wiiija, 'Billy Joel' features the sublime poetry of Dale Shaw and is a hymn to the Streetlife Serenader himself.

The first thing I should confess is that, like the narrator of this track, I love Billy Joel's seventies output. There, I said it. I love the Piano Man.

The music on this track from the 'Happy Little Bullshit Boy' 10" sounds like an improvised, spacious version of incidental music from an episode of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show where Charlie is 'back on the brown'.

Laid-back bass, drums and guitar are married to some rough-and-ready but alluring flute work. It creates a sympathetic setting for the spoken word reflections on Dale Shaw's idolisation of Billy Joel.

Things take a turn, when the song explodes into a stumbling riot of distress as Dale recounts Joel's marriage to Christie Brinkley and the subsequent sell-out of 'Uptown Girl'.

"Everything he did just turned to shit... I never forgave him - It was like a part of me had died."

Personally, I quite liked 'Tell Her About It' though.

Download Blood Sausage 'Billy Joel' (mp3) (Box.net)