As if by a miracle (and why don't religionists ever talk about what I call 'negative miracles' - you know, where someone falls out of an eighth-floor hotel window, but whose fall is broken by the awning over the entrance...which then crumples up and catapults him into the road, where he's run over by a bus?), here's a song that you wouldn't be hearing this season but for the censorship-evading miracle of technology.
I've praised Tim Minchin for his work before - most notably here and here - and what follows is in much the same vein.
And herein lies the story. Minchin was invited onto Jonathan Ross' Christmas TV show, and did a new song about Jesus.
All went swimmingly - the host, the producer and the audience enjoyed it - and it was set to air tomorrow evening (23rd). Until some weasel at ITV sent a copy of the show to the Director Of Television (I suppose ITV had to have one of those, it being - allegedly - a broadcaster). Peter Fincham (for it was he) nixed the song, and ordered it cut from the show for transmission. So, if you were so deluded or desperate to be watching ITV - at all - then you won't see or hear it.
So how outrageous was the song? Judge for yourself; Tim already managed to secure the 'offending' footage:
Oh look! The sky has just fallen in!
To quote Minchin's own comments:
"He [Fincham] did this because he's scared of the ranty, shit-stirring, right-wing press, and of the small minority of Brits who believe they have a right to go through life protected from anything that challenges them in any way.
"It's 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education.
And anger when they're being bigots."
Peter Fincham's censorship is an act of ethical and artistic cowardice, and illustrates in miniature the mindset which has turned ITV from the broadcasting giant it once was - in the days of Lew Grade, the Bernsteins, et al - into the anodyne, tabloid crap that it is today. Let's face it, when was the last time ITV produced a programme which was genuinely entertaining, funny and intelligent?
Another reason why I'm glad I don't have a television.
Here are three musical presents courtesy of JudgeCo™. First off: hell, is it really thirty-one years since this came out?
Next up: it's 1983, and Chrissie Hynde does Thora Hird:
And finally, from the turn of the century, the legends that are Half Man Half Biscuit with their barbs clearly aimed at...well, people like me, I suppose:
I'm thinking of starting a new feature, whereby I give you the headline which has amused me most in the preceeding days.
I'm not going to provide any links to the stories themselves, because reading the actual story will invariably spoil the effect. All I will say is that I promise that all the headlines featured are genuine.
I don't know why this came into my head an hour or so ago, but I'm glad it did.
I remember it the first time around, when it featured in the original Secret Policeman's Ball in 1979 (the same show which contained this legendary Peter Cook turn). It stars Rowan Atkinson, from the point in time just before he made the big time via Not The Nine O'Clock News, which led to Blackadder, Mr Bean and something approaching ubiquity.
This piece showcases two aspects of Atkinson's comedy which have tended to become obscured by his sub-Keaton clowning of recent times: aside from his remarkable physiognomy, making him appear practically alien at points in this appearance, we see the haughty, almost malevolent characterisation which he later brought to bear in the later series of Blackadder; and his ability to - as the cliché goes - "say things funny" rather than just "say funny things". OK, the names on the class register are themselves amusing, but they're given extra spin by Atkinson's enunciation of them.
Much of the laughter from the audience is also that of recognition, in that back in 1979 there were still teachers - not just in the élite establishments, but in the educational workhouses of hoi polloi - who were much like this.
If you don't find this funny, boy, I shall have to tweak you.
Kate Bush - "50 Words For Snow" (Fish People FPCD007)
After the release of the rather pointless Director's Cut earlier this year (pointless in that the tracks were all reworkings of songs from her two most underwhelming albums), it came as a surprise to read that Kate Bush was about to issue a set of entirely new material. After all, it had been scarcely six years - to the month - since she had broken her silence of domesticity to give us Aerial, perhaps her most fully-realised work to date, and we'd had to wait over a decade for that.
The same uncertainty with which I grappled before listening to that would have surfaced again as I popped the CD into my elderly Aiwa hi-fi, had I not already had a preview from National Public Radio's streaming of the whole thing a couple of weeks ago. I therefore knew in broad terms what to expect; but Kate's attention to detail in terms of production meant that there would likely be a big difference between listening to an online data stream and having it there in full chat.
So what have we here, then? Well - even more so than Aerial's second disc and the second side of Hounds Of Love - this is that long-derided thing, a 'concept album'. Or, rather, there is a theme which runs throughout. Can you guess what that is, boys and girls?
Yes, snow. But, this being Kate Bush, the overall concept is merely a hook upon which to hang songs which are by turn eerie, sensual and wonderfully bonkers.
The first thing which occurs to a Bushite is that there are only seven tracks on this album and that it runs for over an hour. The shortest track - the closer - is longer than all bar two of the tracks on any of her previous issues; and they were both on Aerial. This might cause one to worry - are we about to hear extended self-indulgence of the sort all too prevalent in the CD age, where artists have tended to assume that if they have up to seventy-odd minutes to use, then they must use it all?
So, one presses 'Play' and launches oneself into the swirling tundra.
The opener, Snowflake begins with a piano figure which is both rich and clean at the same time. Then we hear a voice singing. But it isn't Kate's. Here marks the first contribution of Kate's son Bertie (given his props here under his full name of Albert McIntosh). Having been limited for obvious reasons to a couple of small speaking rôles on Aerial, here is the now-twelve-year-old Bertie singing:
"I was born in a cloud..."
Before switching to the spoken register:
"...Now I am falling/I want you to catch me..."
A few moments later, we hear Kate herself for the first time:
"The world is so loud/Keep falling/I'll find you."
And so the tone is set, not only for this song but for much of the album. For snow is not just an artifact of cold, sharp winter; it has the quality of deadening, muffling the normal sounds of the world, producing an effect as if of a sonic coccoon, which quality can be really quite cosy if you have a warm place from which to observe it.
The musings of the snowflake (which ascend into a slightly wobbly boy soprano) and his pursuer (seldom has Bush's singing sounded warmer and more enveloping than it does here) are mingled with slow patterns of piano, bass and the veteran Steve Gadd's superbly understated percussion to produce an ambience which has at one and the same time clarity and a deep texture. I couldn't help but be reminded of the second movement of Grieg's Piano Concerto, which has the same evocative atmosphere.
The track is nearly ten minutes long, but - and here's the important thing - it doesn't seem that way; one's attention is held throughout by the interplay between the two characters and by the whole feel of the piece.
Lake Tahoe then follows, underpinned by piano again (and the piano parts throughout the album are characterised by a sparing, unfussy deftness of touch). Similarly, the first voices we hear are not Kate's, but those of Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood in duet. But soon, our diva takes up the story; a story (at least at the surface level) about a woman who drowns in the aforementioned lake (on the Nevada/California border near Reno), and about her dog who dreams of her.
The piece is underpinned not only by the same sparse piano/bass/percussion combo but also by an orchestral arrangement which is used with a similarly sure lightness of touch.
The length of this track (over eleven minutes) is more noticeable - perhaps because of the somewhat one-paced tempo - yet it still holds the attention pretty well, especially when the texture thickens in the final couple of minutes.
One can always rely on Kate Bush for at least one piece per album which is either overtly or blatantly erotic, be it the Joycean raunch of The Sensual World or the more oblique Mrs Bartolozzi. On 50 Words, that function is fulfilled in both directions by the - appropriately in one sense - longest track on the album. Misty is a snowman, but neither Raymond Briggs nor Aled Jones was ever involved in the sort of relationship described here. He is made by the narrator and - when she is lying abed of a night - he comes in through the window and joins her.
That such an enterprise would be doomed from the outset is obvious enough, but that doesn't stop events proceeding to a syncopated rhythm which is reminiscent of jazz - that piano/bass (acoustic, veteran Danny Thompson providing)/drums once more, but far more lively. The vocals, too, are more soulful and lusty than anything else, and add to the erotic overtones; and I do mean overtones rather than undertones. There is nothing much hidden in the lyrics:
"I can feel him melting in my hand..."
(An experience with which many women could identify, I'm sure). And then, on the morning after:
"I can't find him./The sheets are soaking."
The song climaxes (and I had to use that word in this context) with the narrator clambering out on to the window ledge to try to find her icy beau again, because it's still snowing.
That this track is nearly fourteen minutes in length doesn't matter a heap; the song tells a story, and must be given enough time to do so, which it does with no sense of haste, moving along in its own compelling pace.
We then come to the first of three tracks featuring the sort of guest appearances which have become almost de rigeur on Kate Bush albums. Roy Harper, Rolf Harris, Prince, Lenny Henry; all have contributed to past endeavours. On Wild Man, that rôle is taken by Andy Fairweather-Low, veteran of the pop scene since Amen Corner in the late sixties and latterly featuring (along with Steve Gadd) in Eric Clapton's live set-up.
Fairweather-Low duets on vocals in a song which marks a sharp change of pace from all that has gone before, which tells of a group of people tracking the Yeti through the Himalaya who - upon finding evidence of the creature - deliberately cover up all traces of it to protect it from being pursued and killed by those to whom the Wild Man is naught but a demon.
The instrumentation and arrangements are more in tune with standard rock styles, but the production is similarly less sparse and quite a jolt by comparison to the tracks preceeding it.
Next comes one of two tracks which has divided reviewers somewhat. Snowed In At Wheeler Street has the storyline of a pair of lovers constantly meeting and being separated at various points throughout history (the Fall of Rome, the French Revolution, World War Two and 9/11); a sort of counterfactual which reminds one of Heads We're Dancing, where the narrator realises that she has been dancing with Hitler. Not an unusual take for Bush, on the whole, but what has caused raised eyebrows in some quarters is her duetting partner, namely Elton John. Although you wouldn't readily recognise him straight off, because he is found here singing in a lower register than that traditionally associated with him. His contribution to a dramatically-scored love ballad like this can be said to work, but only just, because the boy from Pinner's attempts to sing as if he were a US soul man are not altogether convincing. The song itself, however, is powerful enough to overcome whatever shortcomings Sharon (*) may have.
The penultimate and title track of the album has also caused ripples, for here La Bush's partner in vocals is none other than that most ubiquitous of modern Englishmen, Stephen Fry. Playing the part of Professor Joseph Yupik (an in-joke - the Yupik are a race of east Asian and north-west American people), Fry intones (and seldom is the word better used than when it describes Fry's diction) fifty words (or, rather, terms) for the white stuff. Some of them are mundane ('drifting', 'avalanche' and the satirically prosaic 'bad for trains'); others are truly poetic ('robber's veil', 'shimmerglisten' - she's been reading Joyce again, I think); while some are just beguilingly daft ('spangladasha', 'Zhivagodamarbletash', and the appalling 'phlegm de neige'). Throughout, Fry/Yupik is urged on by Kate:
"Come on Joe, you've got 32 to go/Don't you know it's not just the Eskimo/Let me hear your 50 words for snow."
All this to a chugging rhythm which might go over quite well in the clubs. Does it work? Well, it's certainly a wonderfully off-kilter piece, but it does seem to run out of steam before it reaches its terminus at eight and a half minutes, which is a pity.
The closing track, Among Angels returns us very firmly (I actually typed 'firnly' there the first time. Freudian typing, anyone?) to where we began.
The track actually begins with a false start; a single piano chord, followed by Kate saying, "Right.". We then have an almost Satie-esque piano leading into a slow song which is the most reminiscent on the whole album of her earliest published recordings, in terms of arrangement, vocals and theme; love and the need for love. It concludes the whole work on a strong note, reminding us of the emotional depth of Kate Bush at her very best.
To sum up, then; is this Kate Bush's best album? No, not quite; Aerial still just edges it by dint of its greater variety of styles and pace. Is it a very good album indeed? Emphatically so. Bush's piano playing is measured and never intrusive, the other musicians - Gadd especially - are on top of their game, the arrangements are never overegged and the overall production succeeds in conveying the appropriate atmosphere throughout. The histrionics and over-reliance on technology which had a tendency to be millstones as much as signatures of much of her previous work - especially from the mid-eighties onwards - has been replaced by a more mature sound and a more measured and organic feel.
This is an accomplished, fascinating and beautiful album. We're lucky to have you, Kate.
(*) 'Sharon' is Rod Stewart's nickname for Elton; by way of revenge, John refers to Stewart as 'Phyllis'
Don Covay - "It's Better To Have (And Don't Need)" (1974)
I rather left things dangling in the 'great tracks I want to bring to your attention' stakes, didn't I? The last regular entry was back in late April.
I suppose I lost interest (and I suspect that I wasn't the only one), and I'd also got fed up with having to go through the ones I'd already posted to check if the corporate scumsuckers had had the video pulled.
I think it's time to dive straight back in again, so here goes with a storming little number from Don Covay, who was already a veteran of the soul/r'n'b (and I mean real r'n'b, not the autotuned shite they hang the label on nowadays) scene from the early sixties.
I'm not usually a fan of those fields of music, but this track kicks righteous buttock. It grooves, baby! Take it away, Don!
So after Frank Fernie, Charlie Gilmour (probably the least deserving of the three cases of 'violent disorder' that I've been highlighting here this year, but good luck to him nonetheless) has now been released on tagged curfew after a quarter of his sentence.
Given that he is now near the one-third point of his sentence, why hasn't Edward Woollard been released yet? Politics again, perhaps?
And a tiny bit of good news from over here, for once.
Frank Fernie, one of the victims of political sentencing during this long, dark year was released from prison last week after a quarter of his twelve-month sentence. He will now be under a twelve-hour-a-day curfew until sometime in January.
That may change, however, as his case to the Court of Appeal has yet to be decided. Nonetheless, I send my warmest best wishes to Frank for his future.
Charlie Gilmour - whose appeal was rejected by the Bench of Buffoons last week - may be eligible for release later this month. No word on Edward Woollard, either in terms of an appeal or of early release, but I can't see any reason - other than more political interference - why he should not have been released at the one-quarter mark of his sentence, a point which passed nearly two months ago. Solidarity to both.
And - lest we forget - solidarity also to Ahmed Pelle, Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, to whom were given sentences greater than those handed down to killer drunk-drivers, all for posting words on a social networking website.
And, indeed, solidarity to all of this year's victims of judicial activism.
I feel a bit iffy about posting this in the Raves section, but sometimes small victories need to be rejoiced in. Is that grammatical?
Anyway, having said all manner of nasty things about the judiciary here over the last twelve months (and before to some extent), I think it only right to remark upon a case where a judge has got it more-or-less right.
Unfortunately for us here in the Untied Condom of Great Austeria, the judge is in the US. In the state of Oregon, to be precise.
Yep, it's another case of loony fundamentalists putting their own self-righteousness and superstition before the well-being (or even the life) of their own child.
There have been so many cases like this, especially in the Boondocks, where the loopies seem to be able to hide out in the same way that one would - if one were a tree - hide in a forest.
All too often, these perverted killers-through-neglect have managed to get minuscule sentences - and sometimes no punishment at all - because they have been able to play The God Card™ to intimidate juries and judges. This was just such a case in point from a couple of years ago.
Unlike Judge Howard of Wisconsin, however, Dale and Shannon Hickman had the misfortune (for them) of coming up against a jury which took a remarkably short time to convict them, and of standing before a judge who wasn't buying any of their bullshit.
Waving away the customary protestations of the defence (sorry, defense) that these morally-vacuous noodles were being persecuted for their 'faith', Judge Robert Herndon sentenced them to six and a quarter years in prison, followed by three years of probation.
It is something of a pity that these two child-killers will still be able to breed again after they are released - indeed, they have produced another little mind and body for them to corrupt and subvert in the time between their crime and their trial - and even more of a pity that the so-called Followers Of Christ enjoy the usual tax-exempt status and other privileges accorded to churches; it is also a pity that Judge Herndon confined himself to the absolute minimum penalty that the state of Oregon sanctions for such a wanton act.
But nonetheless, it is a small victory for justice and against the cowardly and self-regarding cultists who claim that their 'faith' gives them - literally - the power of life and death over children. Their own children especially.
(Tip of the wig - once more - to Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist)
Blynyddoedd maith yn ôl, ar wefan nad ydyw'n bod bellach, mi apeliais am gopi o record oedd yn dod ag atgofion melys o ddyddiau Coleg yn ôl ataf, sef Cei Felinheli Y Ficar.
Ysywaeth, syrthiodd yr apêl ar dir caregog, a llywddais i ddim i gael hyd i gopi...
...tan heddiw. Mi gefais hyd i gopi ar eBay yr wythnos o'r blaen ac - am y tro cyntaf, os cofia' i'n iawn - mi ennillais i ocsiwn fanno (£5.50 a £1.60 ychwanegol ar gyfer y postio). Mi gyrhaeddodd y ddisg heddiw, ac mi aeth yn syth ar yr hei-fei i mi glywed y gân fendigedig honno'n glir am y tro cyntaf ers tua 1985.
Diolch i'r gwerthwr ieu61 am y cyfle i ail-brofi un o'r senglau gorau yn hanes pop Cymraeg.
"More Tea, Vicar?", or "More Vicar, Tea?"
(Sorry, the joke doesn't work in translation...)
Many years ago, on a website which no longer exists, I appealed for a copy of a record which brought back sweet memories to me of my College days, namely Cei Felinheli (Felinheli Quay) by Y Ficar, the prime (probably the only) purveyors of the 2-Tone sound in Welsh.
Alas, my appeal fell on stony ground, and I never managed to get hold of a copy...
...until today. I found a copy on eBay the other week and - for the first time, if memory serves - I won that auction (£5.50 plus £1.60 extra for postage). The disc arrived today, and it went straight onto the hi-fi so that I could hear that wonderful song clearly for the first time since about 1985.
Thanks to the seller ieu61 for the opportunity to re-live one of the best singles in Welsh pop history.
The Times - "Lundi Bleu (Version Français de Blue Monday)" (1992)
It's nearly seven years since the passing of the great John Peel, yet still I find cause to remember all the fantastic stuff I would never have heard but for him. This is a case in point.
He played this on his show when it came out in 1992, and I was immediately blown away by it. It's by The Times, which was one of the pseudonyms used by musician and songwriter Ed Ball (ex-Television Personalities, ex-Teenage Filmstars).
Here, Ed takes one of the most clichéd tracks of the 1980s and transforms it into a slow, guitar-laden number with lyrics in French (which could serve as Britain's belated revenge for Charles Aznavour). The guitars on this sound like Mike Oldfield in full wig-out mode, and the whole thing is a continuing joy to listen to. I'm glad someone has now posted it to YouTube, although I've had the vinyl single for some years (bought it from Grey And Pink Records in Brook Street, Chester, if I recall correctly):
If anyone in the US wants to see why their country is going down the crapper quicker than a post-burger-binge log, and if those of us outside that land wish to understand how a country full of supposedly intelligent and more-than-half-decent and generous-spirited people can become an agglomeration of failed states and neo-feudalist theocracies-in-embryo, you wouldn't go far wrong reading this piece by a recently-retired thirty-year veteran of the Congressional Republican staff:
(Just in case anyone doesn't get it, this is a satirical song which was aired on Sveriges Television (SVT) during the Stockholm Pride festival about a month ago. Can you imagine the BBC doing this?)
For all the theorising from self-appointed egg-heads (remember that term, fellow oldsters?); for all the hand-wringing from uncomprehending liberals; for all the snarling and cavalier inhumanity from the rulers as they casually imprison people - with or without benefit of trial - for disproportionate lengths of time "to make an example" or "to send a message"; for all this, there is no substitute for the power of anger which comes from someone who is, in some ways, actually living the sort of curtailed, limiting lives which can lead to what we have so recently seen.
Having been a few months behind when reviewing Steve Tilston's last album, the magnificent Ziggurat, I managed to get ahead of the game this time around when I found out that he had a new one out and ordered (and received) my copy nearly a month before its scheduled release date (this coming Monday 25th July, if you must know).
With any new work by someone you admire to a point nearly but not quite reaching idolatry, one is always slightly anxious prior to the first listen. I had the same feelings of anticipation mixed with trepidation when Kate Bush's Aerial came out nearly six years ago. Can he/she (one asks oneself) pull it off yet again?
Ziggurat was such a towering achievement that perhaps it is in any case unfair to expect that sort of standard to be maintained.
One thing that one may be sure of with a Steve Tilston album, however, is the standard of musicianship. Certainly the guitar playing throughout The Reckoning demonstrates that he is still on peak form; there isn't a single guitar overdub anywhere to be heard. The other players are also highly proficient. The arrangements, too, tend to enhance the songs and tunes, and seldom appear to be over-egged.
There comes a time in a man's life when he finds himself looking back and looking forwards; at where he has been and what he has done, and at what legacy he and his generation will leave to his children and grandchildren and those with whom they will share the world in times to come. This displayed itself on Ziggurat with such songs as The Road When I Was Young and In-between Years, and is again a prominent theme on The Reckoning as Steve Tilston moves into the seventh decade of his life and the fifth of his recording career.
So, what about the individual tracks? We lead off with This Is The Dawn, which evokes the sunrise with a highly fluent and tuneful paean to that strange and magical hour, and concludes to the sound of birdsong.
It is here, though, that something impinges on one's ears which is unexpected and slightly troubling. Perhaps Steve was suffering from the after-effects of a Spring cold, or maybe it's just the fact that he is now in his sixties and has been singing for his supper for over forty years, but that warm baritone seems to be showing some strain on this and some of the other tracks on this collection. But then, perhaps this is entirely in keeping with the performer's photograph on the front of the CD where - as you can see above - he appears in his aspect as The Wild Man Of Hebden Bridge.
The second track, Nottamun Town Return, is based on a traditional song which - under a veneer of apparent nonsense - hinted at seditious sentiments. Here Tilston brings it right up to date, with a sharp set of lyrics in which Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Charlie and Mrs Parker-Knoll and the Metropolitan Police (or, as the wonderful Philip Challinor routinely calls them, the Metropolitan Firearms And Headbangers' Club) are well and truly spiked. Take this verse on the infamous Cameron-on-a-bike PR job for one:
"Saw a man with two faces pedalling two wheels.
A tame pack of hounds hot on his heels
Hey Tally Ho! Hold the front page news.
Behind him a limousine bringing his shoes."
It serves as a reminder (should one be needed, which it bloody well shouldn't) that, for all the claims made for other styles, other genres, folk music has always been the genuinely radical and political expression of its day, attempts at Cecilsharpery and Sabines Baring Gould notwithstanding.
The title track then follows, which speaks of the legacy which we are leaving for posterity; a legacy of pollution, aridity and sterility resulting from our own selfishness and short-sightedness. This is the first song in the sequence which deals with thoughts of what we have been left and what we leave behind, but - as perhaps befits a songwriter of mature years (though one who has not lost his passion) - it isn't the last. It also features a very pleasing oboe solo from Robin Tyndale-Briscoe.
Pennine Spring returns us not only to the same pastoral theme set out in the opening track, but also harks back to other songs in Steve's catalogue which seek to evoke the seeming eternity of the landscape and all the people who have inhabited it, passed through it and left their marks - however small, however eroded - upon it. The tune and its playing are mellifluous throughout and shows Tilston's mastery of style.
Oil & Water is a song which could only be written by a man pondering the shortness of life, with an undercurrent of the sentiment expressed by the legendary George Melly, who said that it was sign of growing old when you realised that you had stopped doing things for the first time and had quite likely started doing them for the last time. The slight pensiveness of the lyrics' sentiments is countered by a defiantly jaunty arrangement which, to my ears at least, is more than slightly Cajun.
The pivotal point of the whole album - and its longest track by a good three-minute length - is Memory Lane. This is a song about looking back, revisiting old haunts (and finding that they are haunted - by ghosts of one's own past selves), including an evocation of the sorts of places where a travelling minstrel of the modern age might have found himself during a long career on the road.
Despite this track's length - eight and half minutes - it never outstays its welcome, although the string arrangement performed by the Richard Curran Strings doesn't add as much to the song as it might, lending an unnecessarily sucrous air to what is really quite an unsentimental song given its subject matter.
Sovereign Of Tides takes us else- and otherwhere, to the Moon - or more accurately, its reflection in the sea. It also takes us in a distinctly Eastern direction, as there is in its modes, expression and instrumentation a clear Indian influence; the first time that I recall Tilston going along this particular road. The end result is beguilingly delightful.
The next track, Doubting Thomas (a reference to his own middle name), expresses his sceptical view of religion and its acolytes by way of a lively blues, containing such observations as:
"False -faced prophets peddle paradise.
Blind obedience is the going price.
Rich man thinks there has to be a way to buy.
To pass his camel through a needle's eye.
The poor pass through this world in chains."
and the true profundity of:
"Sometimes I'm a slave to my own free will."
There follows one of two purely instrument tracks, the hornpipe The Davy Lamp (dedicated to the club of that name in Washington - Tyne & Wear, not DC) segueing into the reel Fruit Fly. The piece is one of those "are-you-sure-it's-not-trad.arr.?" pieces which underlines Steve's deep understanding of the tradition, and is played with great verve.
Rio De La Miel is one of Tilston's rightly-famous story songs, telling of a Falangist captain during the Spanish Civil War and his attempts to hunt down the head of the local Republican guerilleros. The musical style is, naturally, Iberian and here - unlike Memory Lane - the string arrangement enhances the whole, complementing Steve's own virtuoso playing.
Weeping Willow Replanted is a twelve-bar blues in the style of Blind Boy Fuller, performed with great panache and - if the word can be used in such a context - exuberance, and here the (one hopes temporary) weakness of Tilston's voice is of little consquence; indeed it is the ideal medium for both the sentiments of the song and the way it is expressed.
The closing track - and the second instrumental on the album - is titled Ijna (Davy Ji). This may give the knowing a hint of what is to follow. And indeed, yes, this is a tribute to the late Davy Graham, featuring clear and deliberate echoes of that legendary guitarist's most famous piece. (Hint: if you don't get the 'joke', read the first part of the tune's title backwards). It is played once again with immense proficiency and without any sense of strain, reminding us that - for all that Steve is rightly lauded for his songs - he is also a guitarist of immense stature.
So, to sum up, is this album worth getting? Most definitely so. It isn't his best (he'd have to really go some to top Such & Such and Ziggurat), but the material is strong, and the guitar playing as proficient as ever, and these plusses outweigh by a country mile any doubts one may have with regards to Tilston's voice and to some of the arrangements. Steve at ninety per cent is still worth more attention than most any other singer-songwriter at full steam ahead.
The production by David Crickmore is clean, uncluttered and unfussy and is another of this album's attractions.
Don't just sit there, then. Go and buy this album. Clicking on the image at the top of this piece will take you to Steve's website where it can be had for a Crisis-busting £10 (plus postage).
"I've had some problems with medication at the moment, but I think the medication is working, and we think that we've now found a way of dealing with some of the side effects."
"I will tell you this little anecdote. I was on this medication recently that might have done something for me, but it turned my urine blue. And in Britain, there are some men's restrooms where it's just a long gutter, do you get me?"
"I get you."
"So there I am, minding my own business as it were, getting on with the matter at hand, and I am aware of a certain stare from other men who are going about their business, when I realize that a trickle of bright blue is drifting down the trough. At which point I raise my hat and say, "I'm really enjoying my visit to your planet.""
In 1993, shortly before the onset of what turned out to be terminal illness, the English playwright Dennis Potter delivered the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
In the lecture - to which he gave the title "Occupying Powers" - he tore into the owners and controllers of the mass media (mostly television, but also the press) for their cowardice, cupidity and ethical corruption.
It was a witty, powerful and heartfelt address which included the following words, which we almost certainly need today even more than when Potter uttered them nearly two decades ago. I warmly recommend them as a statement of policy for any political party or movement which is serious about the health of public discourse and what we continue to be told is 'democracy':
"We must protect ourselves and our democracy, first by properly exercising the cross-ownership provisions currently in place, and then by erecting further checks and balances against dangerous concentrations of the media power which plays such a large part in our lives. No individual, group or company should be allowed to own more than one daily, one evening and one weekly newspaper. No newspaper should be allowed to own a television station, and vice-versa. A simple act of public hygiene, tempering abuse, widening choice, and maybe even returning broadcasting to its makers."
Not many things make me laugh out loud, but something happened today which hit the spot.
One of the tortoiseshell cats from along the road (not the one featured here) I have named 'Mental Minnie'. This is partly because she seems to suffer from the feline equivalent of ADHD and simply can't be still for a moment, but it's mostly because of what seems to be her main hobby, namely climbing up my oak tree in mid-evening to try to play with the crows.
I was waiting by my front gate for the bus into town at lunchtime when along she comes, wanting an inordinate fuss making of her (as ever). I pointed out to her that this wasn't going to happen on this occasion because the bus was just coming along the road.
Slightly miffed, she squeezed (although this is not quite the word, because she is very slim, possibly due to a fast metabolism) through the bars of the gate and started to walk up the path.
She had scarcely gone a yard into the garden when, as if from nowhere, came a large cock blackbird swooping down at her like an avenging angel or small thundercloud. It's just as well 'Minnie' is as thin as she is, otherwise she would have been turned into chips by the speed with which she retreated through the gate again.
As I sat down on the bus, I saw her crossing the adjacent side-road at speed, still being harried by the blackbird.
I haven't seen her this evening to ask how she got on. Can cats blush with embarrassment?
Leadership - Why We Need It, And Who Can Give It To Us
One of the most dispiriting things about politics in Wales today is the total absence of anything which could be called leadership, of anyone who could be said to have the foresight, the talent, even just the charisma of standing above the rest.
Take the parties in the National Assembly, for example. The LibDems are led by a woman who might have made a good cookery mistress in a thin year at a very minor girls' school. Plaid is headed up by a man who should never have been allowed to progress from the status of a county council clerk. The Conservatives don't even have a leader at the moment. And the government itself is led by a man of such startlingly nondescript demeanour that his personality has been deemed Missing, Presumed Never There.
One of the very few figures in Welsh politics in recent years who could be said to have the necessary qualities of intellectual, political and rhetorical eminence is Adam Price. Adam was the Member of the Imperial Parliament for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr from 2001 to 2010. He stood down in the latter year in order to spend a year on a Fulbright Scholarship, after which - so it was thought - he would return home to stand in this year's Assembly elections.
However, a few months later it emerged that he would not return at that time. This is our tragedy as a nation: that our best politician and political thinker is not available to us at a time when we need him most.
Last week, Adam Price gave the Graduate Address at Yale, which is in the clip below. In it, he shows that clarity, grasp of principle, gravitas and humour which would place him head and shoulders above any currently mis-leading our benighted colony.
The funniest take on that whole business about the world ending yesterday came from the estimable Justin McKeating of Chicken Yoghurt, who told the tale as a series of tweets from a setting which would be familiar to anyone who has ever attended one of those strange events known as 'A Festival'.
With Justin's kind permission (ta!), I reproduce his Twitter thread:
Hello, I'm in Heaven. It's unbelievably over-rated. And a little tacky to be honest. Plus Alan Carr got raptured as well. Send help.
I've had a wander about. It's really over priced as well. Six quid for a bacon sarnie and they've run out of bacon. The only beer is Carling
In plastic glasses.
The music is the hits of Coldplay played on a recorder. This bean burger isn't cooked properly.
Chuggers?!
No sign of the Big Man himself yet. Photography strictly prohibited as well.
Starting to think this is some kind of trap.
I don't want to alarm anybody but Richard Dawkins is here.
He seems to be really enjoying himself.
Just seen Tony Blair arguing with an official. He's demanding an upgrade.
Wouldn't you bloody know it. There's a VIP enclosure.
Opening speeches starting. 'We'd also like to thank Gillian McKeith for the catering'. WTF?
Artistic direction for today's event is by George Lucas apparently.
In his welcoming remarks the Archangel Gabriel compared Lucifer to Eddie the Eagle.
No popes so far. Weird.
The queue for the toilets is taking an eternity.
The handdryer's broken and there's no paper towels. The toilets haven't been checked by staff since Tuesday according the chart on the wall
Now they're playing Sit Down by James over the sound system. People are actually sitting down.
Ha! Melanie Philips blushing and looking coquettish as she's goosed in the hog roast queue by Anjem Choudary!
They're going to show Ed Miliband's speech on a giant video screen. It's right by the face-painting tent.
Whoever's doing the face-paiting is awesome. Vladimir Putin's had himself done as Darth Maul. Brrrrr!
Juggling workshop oversubscribed.
Wow. The Holy Spirit's come out to meet the crowds. Very tanned.
It's certainly very ecumenical today. The DJ's now playing this
Kate Thornton has just introduced Kasabian onto the stage to lukewarm applause.
You'll be no doubt unsurprised to hear that people don't pick up their dog's mess in Heaven either. No fun in bare feet I can tell you.
Tannoy announcement. Lost child. Can the parents of Paul Dacre please come to the organiser's tent.
Nick Clegg's here. He's crying because they put onions on his hot dog.
It's all rather secular so far.
Ian Paisley in a passionate clinch with a beautiful young man. I knew it.
Dismal. Muammar Gadaffi's trying to start a conga. Only Dermot O'Leary has joined in.
Excellent merchandise. 'You don't have to be mad to get raptured but it helps' t-shirts. Arf.
Drizzling.
A minute's silence for The Saturdays. Turned out they didn't have souls.
Michael Macintyre's 'man drawer' routine now entering its fourth hour on the comedy stage. Might have to have a doze somewhere.
St Michael speaking now. 'We'd very much like to thank BAE Systems for their generous sponsorship of today's event'.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has just come on stage with an enormous cardboard cheque.
This doesn't look good. Over by the donut stall the Holy Spirit is jabbing Blair in the chest with a finger. Blair's bodyguards moving in.
Blair screaming 'IT WASN'T ABOUT THE FUCKING OIL!'. Nobody knows where to look.
Thank goodness saner heads have intervened. Good on you Russell Crowe. Blair's men holstering their guns. Definitely time for a snooze.
Kula Shaker are headlining apparently.
Seraphim with clipboards looking very harassed. Besieged by people who have found out about the 14 day cooling-off period.
People trying to climb the fence to get in. Security being pretty heavy handed if I'm honest.
I'm hearing the loo roll and antibacterial gel has run out.
'Please welcome to the stage the stars of Tittybangbang' says a visibly moved Gloria Estefan.
The rain's really coming down now.
Oh dear. A bouncer has got Nadine Dorries in a headlock. They're throwing her out. She's screaming 'socialist elite' at everyone.
Passionfruit mojito, £9.50?!?!?!
There's a rumour going around that after today eternity will be self-catering.
Tessa Jowell performing Radiohead's OK Computer in the folk tent at three. No thanks.
I knew in my heart I'd see my gerbils again one day. Hello guys!
Puppetry of the Penis with John Prescott and Clive James. There really is something for everybody here.
What do you mean 'no petting'?
Some bastard always brings a guitar don't they?
There's something really familiar about this place. I'm getting a real Basingstoke vibe.
There is no marriage in heaven said Jesus. [REDACTED] heard that and now he's like a dog with two dicks, the dirty little swine.
No surprise to hear that my O-level RE teacher wasn't invited.
A desperate looking Quentin Letts is pleading with the doormen to be let in. He has a flaming pitchfork sticking out of his bum.
I've found some temporary relief from my gloom. I have been cackling at this site for the last half hour, and I thing it only right I should share it with you (click on the pic to go to Damn You, Auto Correct! - Warning! Some items NSFW!):
I remember this coming out of the speaker of my three-band Philips tranny from Radio Luxembourg at the end of 1974.
Ace were a band from Sheffield assembled from the remnants of other local outfits, and whose début LP Five-A-Side featured this track. Often thought to be about the break-up of a love affair, the song (written by lead singer Paul Carrack, who went on to greater fame as one of the voices of Mike + The Mechanics) was actually written about when Carrack found out that the band's bass player Terry 'Tex' Comer had been moonlighting with other bands. Comer 'fessed up' and returned to the fold in time to play on this track. Indeed, it's his bass which leads off a piece of perfect 'blue-eyed soul' which sounds as good today as it did thirty-six (sheesh!) years ago.
The video clip isn't that interesting or relevant, but it does give the guy who uploaded it the chance to show us that he has a really spiffy turntable:
How is it possible that a song written by an English couple in a house in South West London and performed by a group of session musicians encapsulate the whole feeling of California sun 'n' surf as well as anything produced on the West Coast a decade before?
Well, it's just one of those magical things, I suppose. The First Class were a studio outfit put together by songwriter and producer John Carter. Carter (né Shakespeare) had had hits in the sixties as both writer (for - among others - Mary Hopkin and Herman's Hermits) and performer (as The Ivy League), but concentrated more on songwriting as the seventies approached.
This was the biggest of his hits, co-written with his wife Gill in their home in East Sheen, put together in the studio with the versatile singer Tony Burrows, and released on Jonathan King's UK records in the early summer of 1974.
It's beautifully put together, from the point of the song itself (with its imagery of the heights of surferdom), in the exuberant vocals of Burrows, and in the arrangement and production, which had that densely-layered feel which evoked the whole sixties California schtick.
On that point, two small musical oddities to note: firstly, the descending horn line at about 3:05 is a direct steal from...erm...homage to Sibelius (the third movement of his Fifth Symphony, to be precise). Secondly, from about 4:35, the same horns play the first line of the melody of the Flowerpot Men's classic 1967 single Let's Go To San Francisco...which was co-written by...John Carter.
Bobby Goldsboro - "Summer (The First Time)" (1973)
This is a bit lazy for me, but the following text is copied and pasted from twoother locations on this site:
By the time I first heard this song, I was about fourteen, and was the standard adolescent hormonal explosion (as evidenced by my rampant acne). That meant that the very storyline of this song (a seventeen year old losing his cherry to a much older woman) was enticing to start with.
But it was so well done (the song, I mean) that, even had it been about something else, I would still have loved it. The arrangements in the first half are quite sparse (acoustic guitar, piano and bongos), leading right up to the climax (if you see what I mean) where the orchestra cuts in, but tastefully, before returning to the original line-up. And throughout I can hear a single note, right up at the very limit of hearing, which emphasises the atmosphere of a hot day.
Goldsboro was infamous for such sugary ballads as Honey (which, to be fair, he didn't write), but there's nothing saccharine or cutesy-pie about this (self-penned) effort. A fine song, well sung (except for the last line before the orchestra takes over, where he sings the word "man" like a sheep - way too much vibrato) and well arranged. A summer classic.
For all that, a friend nearly ruined it for me.
Way back in about 1983, we were sitting in the bar of The Nag's
Head in Wrexham on a Friday night ('we' being a group of ex-sixth
form friends who would meet up there from time to time). Although we
were sat right behind the fruit machine, the juke box was still quite
audible.
Someone put on Summer (The First Time). I recognised the song immediately, and said to my friend 'Bill'
Hancocks, "Oh, I really love this song!".
He listened for a moment, and then recognition flashed in his eyes.
"Oh!", he said, "Isn't this the one where they go for a bonk
on the beach?".
I swear it was five or six years before I could hear that song
again without immediately hearing Bill's words in my head.
Rather frustratingly, one or two tracks which I've wanted to feature here from the period 1970 to 1973 will have to remain unregarded because I've either been unable to find any video relating to them, or what video I have unearthed has been a different version or simply not very good.
So we lurch over to late 1973, and what I think was the first real rock single that I ever bought.
I'd had virtually nothing to do with rock music (or, to give it my father's technical term, "That bloody noise!") because my parents were of a much older generation altogether. So, it was very mainstream pop, novelty songs and The Light Programme (later Radio Two) in our house.
Then my elder brother moved back in with us, bringing his collection of rock LPs along with a sizeable, matter-of-fact hi-fi to play them on (shows how long ago this was - it had an eight-track player).
I still didn't warm to much of it - it tended to be far too loud for my tastes - but over the following months my horizons were gradually but surely expanded.
It was early on in this period that this track emerged. I'm not quite sure at this distance quite why I took to it, but I did to the point of buying a copy of it from either Padgett's ("The Disc Shop"), tucked away behind the carpet stall in Wrexham's wonderful old market hall (destroyed in the next decade by avaricious developers and bent council officers); or from Crane's, the rather intimidatorily posh music shop on the corner of Duke Street and Regent Street.
Street Life was the lead track on Roxy Music's LP Stranded which was their first without the presence of the later-to-be-ubiquitous Brian Eno, and reached Number 9 ("Number 9, Number 9, Num..." erm, sorry, wrong band) around the turn of 1973-74.
Getting somewhat out of sequence here both in terms of the date and of the fact that I don't actually have a copy of this in my collection as yet, but what the hell.
Neu! comprised drummer and percussionist Klaus Dinger and multi-instrumentalist Michael Rother, who formed the band after they had departed from an early line-up of the legendary Kraftwerk.
In their initial period of activity (1971-75), they released three LPs. NEU! (1972) exhibited the same avant-garde tendencies of their previous band (at that time Kraftwerk hadn't gone all-electronic), tied in with Dinger's characteristic motorik drumming driving along such tracks as the classic Hallogallo.
The following year's NEU! 2 was a curious album. Having used a large proportion of their advance for recording it on buying new instruments, Dinger and Rother were left with only enough studio time to record half an album. The other half consisted of subjecting two tracks which had been previously released as a single to a variety of technical treatments which amounted to one of the early 'remix' projects.
The third album, NEU! 75 (guess which year it was released in, kids!) showed up the essential split in approach between the two members of the band. Side One featured Rother's ambient compositions (although now driven more by keyboards than by guitars); the second side featured Dinger switching to guitar and vocals, bringing in his brother Thomas along with Hans Lampe to play the drums (simultaneously). The result is a more aggressive and rocky sound, the track Hero even being regarded as a precursor of punk.
Isi is from the ambient side - indeed, it's the lead-off track from the whole LP.
(Tip of the wig to all at 45cat for inspiration and leading me to stuff I otherwise might never have heard).
David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash came together in 1968 as the result of splits and dissolutions in what were already big-name outfits; The Byrds (Crosby), Buffalo Springfield (Stills) and The Hollies (Nash). They found particularly that they had a very strong vocal set-up, and signed for Atlantic Records to release their eponymous debut LP the next year.
Graham Nash (the Englishman of the group) had written Marrakesh Express when he was still with The Hollies, and there is said to exist a backing track of them attempting the song (it's interesting to speculate how such a song would have turned out had it actually been completed by the Lancastrian popsters). A tale of Nash's travels in North Africa, it was reworked for Crosby, Stills & Nash and became a moderate hit single on both sides of the Atlantic.
I do have memories of this being played at the time (I would have been seven years old), and remember it as being a very jolly song which I always associate with a warm summer evening. Of course, I wouldn't have known then where the hell Marrakesh was, although being a map and atlas freak I would have looked it up and found that it was in a country with a very interesting-looking flag.
As one might expect with a song which had been familiar to me from an early age but where the words were not entirely obvious, I have now found that a number of lines I thought I knew were either not quite right or completely out of kilter with reality. For example, the line in the first verse which I had always heard as:
"American male is five foot tall and blue."
turns out to be:
"American ladies five-foot tall and blue."
and I made a complete cock of understanding the second verse. Where I had heard (or thought I'd heard):
"Coloured crumbs hang in the air/Joining cobwebs in the square/Stretchy leathers we can wear at home."
the reality was rather more exotic:
"Colored cottons hang in the air/Charming cobras in the square/Striped djellebas we can wear at home."
It was over ten years before I bought a copy of the single, and I remember getting the imported US copy from the long-lost but fondly-remembered Rabbit Records on Penybryn, Wrexham on my eighteenth birthday (Genesis' A Trick Of The Tail was my main purchase that day, by the way).
This is another one that I don't actually have in my collection, but I was reminded of it recently and it fits my ongoing state of melancholy, so here it is.
Raymond O'Sullivan was born in Waterford, Ireland, but spent his teenage years in Swindon, England, where - inter alia - he became a musician and songwriter.
After a brief spell with CBS, and an even briefer one with Major Minor, he signed for Gordon Mills' MAM label. O'Sullivan - already almost inevitably given the nom de guerre 'Gilbert' whilst at CBS - designed his own 'look' (he had been an art student), which consisted of what might be called 'thirties working-class chic' - short hair, cloth cap and short trousers - which was a far cry from the long-hair-and-kaftan brigade still prevalent at the time. This image didn't please Mills, but it certainly secured attention for the artist when his first single for MAM was released in October 1970.
It helped that the record itself was something special, though. Nothing Rhymed was a slow, introspective ballad with well-constructed lyrics (the lines "Will I glance at my screen and see real human beings/Starve to death right in front of my eyes?" - a probable reference to media coverage of the Biafra Crisis - have an unfortunately timeless application), an unforgettable melody, and a superb orchestral arrangement by Johnny Spence. It should have got to the top, but Ray/Gilbert would have to wait a further two years before the saccharine Clair gave him his only Number One.
I've reached advanced middle age without once being any nearer to an aeroplane than about fifty yards. However, some still see it as a status symbol, and will do just about anything to travel on one.
Some corporations know this, however, and use it to entice and exploit. The greatest explosion (can I use that word in this context?) in airline travel has come as a result of the coming of the 'cheap' airlines (you know the ones), who offer flights for ridiculously small sums and only once you've signed up do you find the 'hidden extras' - like being able to use the bog, or having a seat which is designed to accomodate anyone other than a very thin dwarf.
I was sent the link to this clip a couple of days ago, but only clicked on it earlier this evening. Imagine my delight to find that it was a song by Fascinating Aïda, one of the best humorous cabaret groups of all time. I didn't even know they were still going, but they are - and going strong indeed on this evidence.
This is their take on the matter:
(Tip of the wig to Gary Nicholass for the link - good luck in court, mate)
Sometimes there's no such thing as going too far over the top. This one is a case in point.
I don't remember hearing this one at the time it came out, despite it nearly making the No.1 slot. I came across it some years later, and found the sheer verve of it fair took my breath away.
Barry Ryan came from a musical family, his mother Marion being a big singing star in the fifties and his father being a producer. Barry and his twin brother Paul started out as a duo until Paul found the stress of performing too much to handle. He instead concentrated on songwriting. This was his - and Barry's - biggest hit, reaching the top in seventeen countries and just missing out on the same in the UK.
It has probably achieved its 'classic' status due to the high bombast not only of Barry Ryan's performance - to which the following clip from German TV doesn't do full justice, as it fades out just before he really cuts loose - but of Johnny Arthey's orchestration.
Just like The Lovin' Spoonful's Daydream from a few posts ago, this is another evocation of my childhood.
In this case, rather than anything involving tabby cats and wheelbarrows, this has more to do with my early radio experiences.
In about 1967, our elderly valve radio on the living-room table finally packed up and my mother was forced to buy one of them new-fangled transistor radios. Although transistor sets were supposed to be lightweight and compact, this was only by comparison with the old mains-powered ones. The Marconiphone Model 4128 which we bought from Curry's had the light weight and compactness of a rather large brick, not helped by the fact that it needed a sizeable PP9 battery which effectively doubled the unit's weight.
The build quality left a lot to be desired in some respects as well, with the volume switch suffering from poor contacts from the off, and the vertical markers on the tuning wire snapping off, leaving just little red stumps.
It was portable, though, and my customary wheedling and stranking had led to me getting the concession of using the set when I'd gone to bed of an evening. This would have been about eight o'clock if not earlier (I would have been five years old).
It was a four-band set, although that just meant that it had Long Wave, Medium Wave and two Short Wave bands - VHF was out of our range (both financially and electromagnetically) at that time. It wouldn't pick much up on Short Wave either, which just left LW and MW.
I don't know quite how I alighted on Radio Luxembourg as my station of choice at that time. I wasn't really that interested in pop music anyway (I think we were still - literally - at the wind-up gramphone stage in our house at that time), but there must have been something about the ambience of '208' which I found attractive.
So there I would sit, in bed, thumbing through an extremely foxed (not to say badgered) old book about railways around the world (aged five, I could tell you a lot about the Pike's Peak Railroad, or about how they put fog-warning detonators on the main west coast line at Tebay), or running my collection of Matchbox™ cars up and down the folds I'd carefully made in my tartan bedspread, listening to old Luxy until it was time for lights out.
I'm positive it was on Luxembourg that I first heard this wonderful record. For years, I didn't know who it was by; all I know is that - as another example of music being the nearest thing we have to a time machine - hearing this song now still brings back those memories as if they were last week rather than nearly half a century ago.
A day behind with this because I spent last night doing some behind-the-scenes work on the site, but whatever...
When The Walker Brothers broke up, each of them (none of whom was related to any of the others, and none of whom was called Walker anyway) embarked on solo careers. It was inevitable that the charismatic, mysterious frontman (born Noel Scott Engel) would have the greatest success.
Abandoning the rather dated and staid pop which had typified the latter part of the group's career, Scott Engel combined recordings of his own songs (some of which had a very dark texture and subject matter) with songs by Jacques Brel with English lyrics provided by Mort Shuman.
This is perhaps the most lively of these (although it wasn't his biggest hit). I first heard it in 1978 when I borrowed one of those multi-LP box sets which record clubs sold via mail order, and was blown away by the bravura vocal performance, the rather louche subject matter, and the driving orchestral arrangement by Wally Stott (later Angela Morley). It's still a big favourite.
Afterword: I did check out Brel's original, but I found that - perhaps because I don't understand French very well - it sounded to me like the sort of parody of chanson that Barry Took and Marty Feldman used to write for Kenneth Williams back in those days. Aren't I a philistine?
It's not often that a B-side grabs more attention in later years than the disc it was the 'flip' of, so to speak, but this is no ordinary B-side by no ordinary musicians.
Jeff Beck was already a notable figure in rock circles by the time this track was recorded in a one-off session in 1966, and here he is joined by a line-up of musicians who were to be major features in rock music for the following decade and beyond.
The track is based (obviously) on a bolero rhythm and was first put together by Page (credited as the sole composer, somewhat to Beck's annoyance) and Beck at Page's home. Beck suggested that there needed to be a break from the rhythm in the middle of the piece, which led to the insertion of one of the very first archetypal heavy metal riffs before returning to the main theme. The beginning of the riff is marked by a loud yell from Moon who - in his customary exuberance - knocked over the drum microphone, which is why you can only hear his cymbal from thereon in.
There are two main versions of the recording. One with a backwards guitar coda in the fadeout (which is the version which appeared on the B-side of Beck's uncharacteristic single Hi Ho Silver Lining and on many compilations since), and one without it (which is the version which featured on Beck's LP Taste the following year).
This version is the full one, a piece of landmark rock.
If I had to pick a favourite period of rock and pop music, I think I would have to plump for the second half of the 1960s. I would define the boundaries of that time (chronologically if not stylistically) by the first Mothers Of Invention album at the beginning and Led Zeppelin II at the end.
It seems to me to have been a time when boundaries were being stretched up to - and beyond - breaking point, and there was a sort of cross-pollination effect where all sorts of different styles were merging in ever more baffling and dazzling combinations.
A lot of it never made the mainstream, but some of it did, and what did had a wide impact on pop music in general. This is one such example.
The Lemon Pipers were a psychedelic rock band from Ohio who - after their initial release failed to chart - were handed over to producers/songwriters Paul Leka and Shelley Pinz, who wrote what went on to be a classic bubblegum-psych song (much to the chagrin of the band, who didn't think of themselves in that vein at all).
Nonetheless, this track epitomises a certain feeling, a certain something in the air at that time.
Now this constitutes one of my earliest musical memories - perhaps the earliest that I can still retrieve.
It's the summer of 1966. I am three years old, going on four. There is the warm, comforting aroma of boiling washing coming out of the back kitchen of the house I was born in (and where I lived until my early twenties).
I am trundling our long-suffering tabby cat up and down the front path in a tiny yellow and white plastic wheelbarrow.
Out of the equally long-suffering valve radio in the house comes (probably via the old BBC Light Programme) one of the most laid-back songs ever, composed and recorded by members of one of the groups which derived from the US folk revival of earlier in that decade.
The impressions of those days come back so readily when I hear this. "Here, Tivvy! Come and get in the wheelbarrow!"
Along with the more famous and celebrated Del Shannon and Frankie Valli, Lou Christie was one of the prime exponents of a vocal style which comprised the use of falsetto, especially in the chorus of songs.
This song - like most of his hits - was co-written with Twyla Herbert, a self-styled mystic and everyone-else-styled eccentric, who was over twenty years Christie's senior.
So far, so what? What makes it a bit strange nowadays is the lyrical content. When you listen to the words, the storyline boils down to the boy saying to his girl, in effect, "You stay home and keep your legs together, babe, while I go chasing around after anything with a hole in the appropriate place". Only rap artists could get away with that sort of thing nowadays (much to their discredit).
Nevertheless it's a good record, well orchestrated (by Charles Calello) and performed with great zest.
I'm not in much of a mood to elaborate on this choice; just a great Bacharach/David song, excellent, understated production (love that piano) and one of the great vocal performances of its era.
Going back to my own collection, and here's a slushy one for you.
It's hard to credit now, but there was a period of time - from about 1960 to 1966 - when folk music was hip. It was the peak period of The Folk Revival, and ended up producing a whole generation of new influences which duly made their way into other fields.
It was inevitable, then, that the odd song should appear which referred to the purveyors of this new old music. Merle Kilgore's The Folk Singer is one such, which was taken into the Top Ten by his fellow American Tommy Roe in the Spring of 1963.
The song contains some of the standard motifs of folk song - the rise from rags to riches, the sudden falling to earth again, and the cycle of having, losing and gaining love with all its redemptive features.
I still can't help feeling that she should have told him to piss off, myself.
I don't have this single actually in my collection, but I was grabbed by it the first time I heard it (I think it was in the days when The Dr Demento Show was still easily available online if you knew where to look).
Dating from 1971, the song was penned by Rupert Holmes (real name David Goldstein and born in Northwich, just about thirty miles from me) and recorded by the Pennsylvania-based prog band The Buoys.
The record gained wide airplay, and had reached #17 on the US charts, and would probably have gone much higher...
...except that people started asking awkward questions about the lyrics. The song tells of three trapped mineworkers; the narrator, Joe and Timothy. When they are finally rescued, only Joe and the narrator are left. So what happened to Timothy?
The executives of Scepter Records - scared of losing a good thing - put it about that, yes, Timothy had been eaten, but as he was a mule this was no big deal. Rupert Holmes, suitably incensed at having his plan to gain publicity for the group by putting out an eminently bannable song undermined (as it were), went public with the true meaning of the song - yes, it is about cannibalism. Radio stations all over the US immediately pulled the record from its playlists.
But note how deftly this record was smuggled in to the public consciousness; who could believe that a song was about someone being eaten when it had such a lively arrangement, complete with strings and brass?
Anyway, it's a toothsome little piece. And Rupert Holmes? He went on to write that song about Piña Coladas. Bon appetit!
I was just over two months old when this all-time classic was released, and I probably wouldn't have remembered hearing it at that time, but from the first time I do remember hearing it - many years later - it seemed to be familiar to me already.
It was the work of mad genius producer Robert George ("Joe") Meek, and was put together in his home studio in London in one day. A science-fiction buff, Meek had sat watching the first pictures from AT&T's Telstar communications satellite and - suitably inspired - came up with an instrumental which he then got his protégés The Tornados in to record.
Even after the band had left the studio, Meek recognised that more was needed. He dubbed a clavioline on to play the main melody line and added sound effects at the beginning and end to simulate a rocket taking off (rumours vary as to whether this was the sound of a vacuum cleaner or a lavatory flush played backwards). He rushed the finished cut to Decca records, who were impressed enough to rush-release it whilst people were still talking about the satellite.
It went on to become a huge hit both in the UK (where it topped the charts for five weeks) and in the US, where The Tornados became the first British group to top the Billboard listings, being their Christmas #1 for 1962.
Listen and marvel at what could be achieved before all this technology.
Feeling a bit better now, thanks (either that or I'm at the Manic Phase). Three cheers for wise friends (hello Bev!).
As I'm now checking through my vinyl singles in date order, this classic is one of the first on the list.
Between Peggy Lee's smouldering delivery and the minimal arrangement by Jack Marshall (just finger-snaps, drums and double bass), this is one of the most erotic songs I've ever heard. Pucker up and take it Madonna, you could never out-sex this!
My melancholic mood continuing, here's another track which fits in with my state of mind just at the moment.
I've mentioned New Musik here before (or, rather, there before), and here's another wonderful track from their 1980 LP From A To B, a track which features not only the full band line-up of Tony Mansfield (gtr, vcls), Tony Hibberd (bass), Phil Towner (drums) and Clive Gates (synths), but also (uncredited) Nick Straker on piano and Mansfield's kid brother Lee speaking towards the end.
The message of the song is simple; it's about the tendency of each of us to consider ourselves as individuals, but at the same time to wish to reach out to other 'islands', to connect with others.
This clip contains no 'video' as such - just a static caption. That means there's no reason for you to be distracted from a wistfully beautiful song.
I seem to be in an oddly vulnerable emotional state at the moment. I know what has triggered it, and I'm trying to put together a blog post which might explore and explain the matter further. More on that some time soon. Perhaps.
One symptom of this - which also manifested itself the last time this happened - is that certain pieces of music, certain songs, have a profound effect on me. This is one such.
Here Comes The Flood was the closing track on Peter Gabriel's first solo album in 1977. Gabriel said that it was about a psychic flood (*) but - as ever - there is more to it than that.
Gabriel expressed dissatisfaction with the version on the album, regarding the production and orchestration as being decidedly overegged. All his subsequent versions of the song have been with standard rock instrumentation, or solo with piano. However, I think - partly no doubt because it's the version I first heard - that the setting of the original is just right for what can only adequately be called an apocalyptic vision; a sweeping away of all that has gone before, a washing away of all that is familiar and comforting, leaving only ourselves, but profoundly changed.
(*) Saw a newspaper billboard today which spoke of "260 SHEEP DROWNED IN FLLOD". Yes, that's right, "FLLOD". Embarrassing for our local rag, the more so as it would have been duplicated on all their billboards this afternoon, in letters some six inches high.
The Strawbs - "How Everyone But Sam Was A Hypocrite" (1967)
If there's one trait in humans I can't abide it's hypocrisy, particularly that variety of it which looks down its nose at others whilst said nose may itself be scarcely above the waterline of moral sewage.
This is one of the best songs on the subject that I know. It was recorded by The Strawbs in Copenhagen in 1967 but not released until 1973 on the All Our Own Work LP. The album (but not noticeably on this track) featured the future legend Sandy Denny and marked the first known recording of Denny's classic Who Knows Where The Time Goes.
"And they all think they're so grand...but they're not...oh no, they're not..."
Two articles I'd like to bring to your attention, if I may.
First off is this call to arms by the author Philip Pullman, addressing a meeting in Oxford called to protest against the savage cuts being proposed by the county council in the local library service.
In it, he not only champions the cause of a properly-resourced public library system, he expands his argument to take on the thoroughly bogus rhetoric of Cameron's Big Society, a land where essential public services are provided by unpaid volunteers who - preumably - don't need to go out to work or don't have families to look after, thus handing control of those services back into the hands of the Lady Bountifuls who used to do 'good works' for the poor in bygone days; as long as the poor they were ministering to were the 'right sort', of course.
The second item is equally impassioned on its subject. It comes from the journalist Johann Hari, slashing through the homophobic nonsense spouted by those who - at least historically - one would have expected to know better.
He reserves - quite rightly - his biggest scorn for Melanie 'Mad Mel' Phillips, the thoroughly rebarbative columnist for The Spectator, the Daily Heil and any other organ which is willing to pay her money to scream her imprecations at a world she is no longer able or willing to comprehend. American readers may not be familiar with La Phillips: if so, imagine the prose style of Michael Moore melded with the socio-political views of Ann Coulter and you won't be too far from the mark. In addition to believing that Britain is committing 'cultural suicide' by even giving Muslims house-room, that all Palestinians are terrorists (and that, consequently, she seems never to have met an extreme racial Zionist that she didn't like - a posture condemned even by Alan 'I Support Torture And Hounding Academics Out Of Their Jobs If They Don't Unconditionally Support Zionism' Dershowitz), that 'Intelligent Design' (sic) is valid science, and that Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent claims about links between the MMR vaccine and autism deserved the widest possible dissemination, leading to a huge fall in vaccination and the disabling and death of children as a result; in addition to these, as I say, Mad Mel believes that "...just about everything in Britain is now run according to the gay agenda.", and that people like her, Tory MP Richard Drax, various clergymen and bed & breakfast proprietors are the victims of some politically-correct witchhunt at the behest of Sinister Forces backed by Marxist indoctrination. And all this because a voluntary organisation sent out information packs to some schools suggesting that it might be a worthwhile idea if secondary school kids discussed the matter of homosexuality as a way of preventing rampant bullying in their schools.
Hari - as so often - cuts through the yattering and exposes Phillips and her ilk as the deluded, backward bigots that they undoubtedly are.
I've come to the end of going through the vinyl LPs in my collection (I'll start looking at the singles next to see what further delights I can bring you), and this track comes from the most recent one I have, from 1992
Catherine Wheel were a four-piece outfit from Lowestoft in Suffolk, who first gained exposure via Norwich's Wilde Club venue, which brought them to the attention of John Peel.
Lazy music paper journos (of which there were - and are - far too many) lumped them in with the 'shoegazing' tag, which they also applied to a range of bands from the dense, off-centre soundscapes of My Bloody Valentine via Slowdive to Ride. There was more to Catherine Wheel than that, however.
This track is taken from their 1992 album for Fontana, Ferment, and whilst many will vouch for Black Metallic as being the standout piece from it, this is my own favourite.
One peculiarity about the vinyl edition of the LP - or at least about my copy of it - is the way that it was mastered or cut. The grooves are so compressed that the whole of the bottom end is missing, and when converting the tracks to digital files I had to do some really severe re-equalising on them. There was no need for them to have done this, because the 'land' or run-off groove is almost half the width of the whole playing area. Perhaps it was some sneaky method of making people buy it on CD.
I've fallen a bit behind on this, haven't I? (And where the hell is this year going to, by the way?)
I know I've put a Hawkwind video up already, but here's one from a point where - to my ears at least - they were last at their most interesting; the 1990 LP Space Bandits.
There had been the obligatory changes of lineup after the band's 1988 LP Xenon Codex, with virtuoso guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton again bowing out. This meant that the Spaceship Captain himself Dave Brock had to switch back to concentrating on guitar work, leaving Harvey Bainbridge to handle keyboards. In addition, Danny Thompson Jr. - sticksman for most of the band's 'Heavy Metal Gods' period in the Eighties - was replaced by Richard Chadwick. Veteran violinist Simon House returned to join Alan Davey (bass, vocals, synths).
Perhaps the biggest surprise came at the microphone, however, with the induction into the crew of west-country singer and performance artist Bridget Wishart. Although there had been women involved in Hawkwind's performances before - Kris Tait (later Mrs Dave Brock) and the unforgettable Stacia to name but two - but this was the first time the band had featured a female vocalist.
For the most part it worked, and worked very well. Here's a promo video for Images, the opening track from Space Bandits. It's an edited recording (the full album version running to over nine minutes), but it gives you some idea of how Hawkwind sounded before they tried - with varying success - to reinvent themselves as ambient music exponents by the time of their next album; 1992's Electric Tepee:
(YouTube seem to have changed their embedding code again, and I've had to kludge it a bit to get it to validate. If you find any problems with it, please let me know).
I've remarked before that music may be the nearest we have to a functioning time machine. Well, here's a practical example.
Back in the 1950s, a clay tablet was found at Ugarit (in what is now Syria), upon which were a number of what were clearly tunes, recorded in Cuneiform text and dating back to about 1400 BCE.
Only one of the uncovered texts was well enough preserved to be able to be reconstructed and interpreted, by such as the musicologist Professor Richard Dumbrill.
What follows below is a performance of his arrangement of Dumbrill's work by the musician Michael Levy:
I don't know about you, but I hear not only what might be called typical Mediterranean music, but aspects of later music for the lute and Celtic harp. Either way, it's fascinating to speculate on what this music may have been created for, and on the nature of its original audience.
Raves Archive 2011
