I used to care, but things have changed

The Independent has listed the top 20 Dylan albums, as part of the current Zim frenzy ahead of the Scorsese documentaries next week. Hard to argue with, but difficult to rank - Blonde On Blonde is usually voted top, but I can't decide between Highway 61 and Bringing It All Back Home. The latter was the first Dylan album I owned - I bought it on cassette from a second hand shop in Portsmouth. At the time (age 16) I was graduating from heavy rock and the likes of Pink Floyd, the Doors, etc etc. To hear a line like

' Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.'

was just electrifying. Certainly more so than, say, Ummagumma. About which I'll say no more.

Anyway, plenty of Dylan gubbins going on at the Indie, including the boy Kershaw talking about the 'Judas!' accuser at the Free Trade Hall in 1966.

I was a miner

I once met Billy Bragg at a signing in Selectadisc. He was very genial as I remember, and he was concerned that because he only had a black felt tip pen, his signature on the black sleeve of the Days Like These EP I had just bought would be pratically invisible. You can just about see it, if you angle the record to the light and squint.

The only other signed record I own is Something Else by The Kinks. Ray Davies did a book signing at Virgin when I was in charge of the book dept, and he cheerfully agreed to sign Kinks paraphernalia as well as his autobiography. Apparently he was suffering from a particularly bad ear infection at the time, and this formed the basis of my one and only conversation with a song writing legend:

Me: 'How's the ear Ray?'
Ray: 'Not too bad thanks.'

The Heavy Metal Umlaut

I stumbled across this waste of cyberspace today through a link on the 6 Music website: a history of the umlaut in Metal (those two dots over the second 'o' in Motorhead, for example.

Apparently, "The umlaut in Motörhead was contributed by the graphic designer of the band's first album cover. In the words of Lemmy, Motörhead's front man: "I only put it in there to look mean."

Motorhead are the obvious umlaut users, but here are many more - Blue Öyster Cult, Spinal Tap (the umlaut is over a consonant- nice!), Amon Duul, Husker Du (although I think their umlaut is actually legit, and anyway they aren't metal).

It also includes this terrific exhortation from an old Hawkwind album (which to my shame I still own...)

"TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEA̋D"

Motely Crue - there's another...

A Day In The Life

Q magazine has printed a list of their top ten british songs of all time:

1. A Day In The Life - The Beatles

2. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks

3. Wonderwall - Oasis

4. God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols

5. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

6. My Generation - The Who

7. Angels - Robbie Williams

8. Life on Mars? - David Bowie

9. Sympathy For The Devil - Rolling Stones

10. Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack

it's voted by a panel of 'industry experts' rather than the likes of you and me.

The Kinks need to be in any list of quintessentially English acts, andWaterloo Sunset is one of my favourites. A Day In The Life is very English, but we could equally choose other Beatles tunes like In My Life, or Paperback Writer, or almost anything from Revolver or Rubber Soul.

Wonderwall has been lambasted elsewhere on this blog, and I'll say nothing about Robbie Williams, but it's good to see Unfinished Sympathy on there - that's a timeless, classic record.

Two possible omissions spring to mind straight away - Ian Dury (pretty much anything by him, but let's say Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick) and Common People by Pulp. I would have thought Pink Floyd were another archetypal British group, and there could also be some two tone ska on the list, eg Baggy Trousers by Madness or Ghost Town by The Specials.

What about Kate Bush? Wuthering Heights is another record which owes nothing to the 12 bar American R&B heritage and could only have come out of this country.

There really should be some Smiths on there too...The Queen Is Dead:

"I said Charles, don't you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your Mother's bridal veil ?"

Seven Songs By Sunset

John Shuttleworth's finest hour.

I Am a Bird Now

Anthony and the Johnsons won the Mercury Music Award, watched by me and the Helster in something of an alcohol and pizza induced fog.

I've tried with the album, admittedly not very hard, but I haven't really clasped it to my bosom as such. We were rooting for Maximo Park, but it seems that white boys with guitars are currently persona non grata down at Mercury Towers.

But, if a 6 foot 4 cross-dressing ex-choirboy can win, then there strikes a blow for diversity.

No Direction Home

Everything's going Bobular - the soundtrack to the Scorsese doc is out today (and it's great), then the film over two weekends at the end of the month, then the man himself in November.

The soundtrack has some terrific stuff - 'Maggie's Farm' at Newport in 1965, which apparently drove Pete Seegar so demented he picked up an axe, and ran amok in the crowd, slaughtering beatniks at every turn. Those are ELECTRIC INSTRUMENTS! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!

'It Takes a Lot To Laugh' appears in speeded up (in every sense) incarnation, and there's a lovely tune called I Was Young When I Left Home which I'd never heard of before.

There are alternate versions of two of my favourites - 'Don't Think Twice', and 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue' - not better than the originals, but sufficiently different to be fascinating in a way that many other artists' outtakes and studio floor sweepings are not. For one thing - Dylan is clearly still writing lyrics while recording early versions of some songs - Tombstone Blues and Baby Blue are both abbreviated compared to the versions we already know.

The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

Shake 'em On Down

RL Burnside, RIP. Saw him at the Maze a few years back, he was tremendous. Why use 3 chords, when two or even one will do?

Got this from the bbc website:

"After growing up in the Mississippi Delta, Burnside moved north to Chicago in the 1940s, but came back south after his father and two brothers were killed in the city.

He returned to a country living, and served six months in jail after shooting a man Burnside said was trying to turn him out of his home.

"It was between him and the Lord, him dyin'," Burnside remarked in a 2002 New Yorker article.

"I just shot him in the head."

I got two heads

D. Wayne left the hospital
After being operated on
Couldn't walk, couldn’t even talk
When they asked his story, he had to get out both his hands
So he signed this song to me
I hope you understand

I got two heads
I'm gonna bang my heads together
I got one leg
I'm gonna hop to heaven’s door
I got three eyes
I'm gonna pluck one out for Jesus
And I ain’t gonna have no troubles anymore

The Daily Telegraph Guide To Punk

'Britain's Best Selling Quality Daily' has finally decided to publish a guide to what the kids call 'punk rock'.

Some good choices - Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, and some bobbins - Generation X, Killing Joke. And no mention of any of the American bands which kicked things off - Ramones, NY Dolls, Television etc.

So for no reason other than pointless male list mania, I include my own personal punk top 10. Hey readers! why not do the same?

1. The Ruts - Babylon's Burning - this is the best 'getting ready to go out and drink beer' record ever made. The bass player Segs is now in Alabama 3, singer Malcolm Owen OD'd, which was careless.

2. The Sex Pistols - Bodies - the scariest intro of any song ever, and some great swearing. 'Fuck this and fuck that, fuck it all and fuck her fucking brat' full glorious lyrics here.

3. Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?

4. The Clash - I Fought The Law - cover version, the original was by one of Buddy Holly's Crickets. Best bit is the 6 rim shots on the line 'robbing people with a BANG BANG BANG six gun!'

5. The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet

6. The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop -hey ho! let's go!

7. Television - Marquee Moon. 10 minutes of guitars and cadillacs and graveyards.

8. Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army. a dead ringer for the king of Belgium.

9. Jilted John - Jilted John - where John Shuttleworth started....

10. Ian Dury and the Blockheads - What A Waste.