I love John Prine. He's a terrific lyricist and a great songwriter...his songs are often heartbreaking but never sentimental or maudlin. He's bloody funny actually, and very truthful. He looks like a benevolent chipmunk...
A few Youtube highlights from the great man, who as far as I'm concerned should be so much more lauded than he is...
1. Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, with Nanci Griffith.
2. In Spite Of Ourselves - with Iris Dement
3. Hello In There
4. Angel From Montgomery
5. Paradise / Donald & Lydia
23.7.07
I remember you in Hemlock Grove in 1956
Watched 'Performance' on DVD last night, for only the second time after watching it with Ady and a four pack of John Smiths sometime around 1985.
What a demented film...the first half is a fairly straightforward London gangster schtick, followed by Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg floating around in their pants eating mushrooms and messing with James Fox's head. The soundtrack is brilliant, I have always loved 'Memo From Turner', a great lost Stones single with some brilliant Ry Cooder guitar, but I couldn't remember the sequence when it turns up in the film.
So...I got to thinking about my top 10 favourite film soundtracks, which I guess rather predictably are almost identical to my top 10 films, but maybe that tells us something about what I look for in a good movie..
1. Paris Texas - Ry Cooder. I didn't realise this until yesterday, but the soundtrack to Performance features a rudimentary version of 'Dark Was the Night', which Cooder later used as the musical thread for the Paris Texas OST, much copied ever since.
2. Mo Better Blues - Brandford Marsalis. Not a great film, but some splendid music...most Spike Lee movies have terrific music, Do The Right Thing coming a very close second to this.
3. Repo Man - Black Flag, Iggy Pop, The Plugz, Circle Jerks. A perfect marriage of sound and vision!
4. The Big Lebowski - various. Features a tremendous latin version of Hotel California, and should be renowned for giving unfashionable mid period Bob Dylan some much needed exposure via The Man In Me.
5. The Last Picture Show - old time country. Helped me to see the light, where Hank Williams was concerned.
6. The Blues Brothers - all sorts, but especially John Lee Hooker. Worth it for the Hooker track alone, but some great stuff from Sam and Dave and Aretha too.
7. Withnail and I. If only for the Hendrix-accompanied driving home sequence...'I'm making time...!'
8. Manhatten / A Clockwork Orange / 2001 a Space Oddysey - the music for these films had obviously been written way before they were directed, but it's hard to imagine Woody / Alex / Hal 9000 with different accompaniment.
9. Eraserhead - only joking. the soundtrack is one of the scariest things about it...
10. The Wicker Man - 'on that tree there was a branch, and on that branch there was a twig...' etc...
11. This Is Spinal Tap. My favourite track? Hard to say...but 'Sex Farm' has a sensitive lyric...'hosing down your barn door....don't you see my silo risin' high?'
What a demented film...the first half is a fairly straightforward London gangster schtick, followed by Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg floating around in their pants eating mushrooms and messing with James Fox's head. The soundtrack is brilliant, I have always loved 'Memo From Turner', a great lost Stones single with some brilliant Ry Cooder guitar, but I couldn't remember the sequence when it turns up in the film.
So...I got to thinking about my top 10 favourite film soundtracks, which I guess rather predictably are almost identical to my top 10 films, but maybe that tells us something about what I look for in a good movie..
1. Paris Texas - Ry Cooder. I didn't realise this until yesterday, but the soundtrack to Performance features a rudimentary version of 'Dark Was the Night', which Cooder later used as the musical thread for the Paris Texas OST, much copied ever since.
2. Mo Better Blues - Brandford Marsalis. Not a great film, but some splendid music...most Spike Lee movies have terrific music, Do The Right Thing coming a very close second to this.
3. Repo Man - Black Flag, Iggy Pop, The Plugz, Circle Jerks. A perfect marriage of sound and vision!
4. The Big Lebowski - various. Features a tremendous latin version of Hotel California, and should be renowned for giving unfashionable mid period Bob Dylan some much needed exposure via The Man In Me.
5. The Last Picture Show - old time country. Helped me to see the light, where Hank Williams was concerned.
6. The Blues Brothers - all sorts, but especially John Lee Hooker. Worth it for the Hooker track alone, but some great stuff from Sam and Dave and Aretha too.
7. Withnail and I. If only for the Hendrix-accompanied driving home sequence...'I'm making time...!'
8. Manhatten / A Clockwork Orange / 2001 a Space Oddysey - the music for these films had obviously been written way before they were directed, but it's hard to imagine Woody / Alex / Hal 9000 with different accompaniment.
9. Eraserhead - only joking. the soundtrack is one of the scariest things about it...
10. The Wicker Man - 'on that tree there was a branch, and on that branch there was a twig...' etc...
11. This Is Spinal Tap. My favourite track? Hard to say...but 'Sex Farm' has a sensitive lyric...'hosing down your barn door....don't you see my silo risin' high?'
11.7.07
Sweet Pretty Country Acid House Music
And so to St Albans, last Friday, for an evening in the company of Alabama 3.
I hoofed it down on the train straight from work, and met up with Jim and Graham at the Lower Red Lion for a few pre-gig beers.
The venue was not in any sense sold out - lots of room to move, and a fairly reserved crowd, at first. For the first time in perhaps a decade I found myself 'down the front', and I had a splendid time, the new material sounded terific, the band looked great in their new white safari suits, and it was good to see the Revered D Wayne Love playing a more active role than on recent tours when he seemed content to puff on a Tony Soprano cigar and weave about the stage mugging for the audience. His wife now features as an occasional singer, complementing the excellent Devlin Love.
Looking forward to testifying again in Sept / Oct...
thanks to Jim for the pic (one of 750 taken on the night...)
Next stop Mogwai and Malcolm Middelton tomorrow night outdoors in that London. It's a non stop whirl of gig going, let me tell you...
I hoofed it down on the train straight from work, and met up with Jim and Graham at the Lower Red Lion for a few pre-gig beers.
The venue was not in any sense sold out - lots of room to move, and a fairly reserved crowd, at first. For the first time in perhaps a decade I found myself 'down the front', and I had a splendid time, the new material sounded terific, the band looked great in their new white safari suits, and it was good to see the Revered D Wayne Love playing a more active role than on recent tours when he seemed content to puff on a Tony Soprano cigar and weave about the stage mugging for the audience. His wife now features as an occasional singer, complementing the excellent Devlin Love.
Looking forward to testifying again in Sept / Oct...
thanks to Jim for the pic (one of 750 taken on the night...)
Next stop Mogwai and Malcolm Middelton tomorrow night outdoors in that London. It's a non stop whirl of gig going, let me tell you...
8.7.07
You Know I've Been Thinking About Not Coming Down
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Rds8m7GMA
terrific slow buring Spiritualized clip...
5.7.07
I'm a Self Destructive Fool
I am a big fan of Loudon Wainwright III.
Tonight, the iPod machine hit upon 'Swimming Song', which is one of my favourites of his, but one I hadn't heard for ages...
I think the first time I heard Loudon - or 'Loud' to his mum - was when Jim and I were hiking in Derbyshire. We were holed up in a pub in a village somewhere on the outskirts of Matlock, too weary to walk the last few miles into town, in the ceaseless rain. It seemed that we had missed the last bus out of the village, and we were facing a dreary trudge into Matlock. We were half heartedly hitchhiking on the road out of the village, when a guy in an estate car pulled up and offered us a lift into town. He was playing some whiny voiced bloke on the tape machine, and on enquiry we were advised that we were listening to the great LW3. We struck up a rapport with our driver, who insisted on dropping us at the Matlock youth hostel, and waiting outside until it was clear that they had spare beds. A true gentleman.
Saw Loudon in concert not too long after that, with Jim and Dan at the Concert Hall in Nottingham. He's great live - songs which can seem earnest and maudlin on record are transformed into hilarious monologues on the stage - When I'm At Your House being a memorable example.
At certain points during the concert Wainwright would produce a yello slip of paper from his shirt breast pocket, consult it momentarily, then fold it and replace it. I assumed that it was his set list, or the lyrics to a new song, but I later read an interview where he claimed that it was a note from his analyst (LW3 is notoriously neurotic). Apparently the message was 'You are a good person! You're doing a great job!' I'm thinking of taking something similar to work with me...
Tonight, the iPod machine hit upon 'Swimming Song', which is one of my favourites of his, but one I hadn't heard for ages...
I think the first time I heard Loudon - or 'Loud' to his mum - was when Jim and I were hiking in Derbyshire. We were holed up in a pub in a village somewhere on the outskirts of Matlock, too weary to walk the last few miles into town, in the ceaseless rain. It seemed that we had missed the last bus out of the village, and we were facing a dreary trudge into Matlock. We were half heartedly hitchhiking on the road out of the village, when a guy in an estate car pulled up and offered us a lift into town. He was playing some whiny voiced bloke on the tape machine, and on enquiry we were advised that we were listening to the great LW3. We struck up a rapport with our driver, who insisted on dropping us at the Matlock youth hostel, and waiting outside until it was clear that they had spare beds. A true gentleman.
Saw Loudon in concert not too long after that, with Jim and Dan at the Concert Hall in Nottingham. He's great live - songs which can seem earnest and maudlin on record are transformed into hilarious monologues on the stage - When I'm At Your House being a memorable example.
At certain points during the concert Wainwright would produce a yello slip of paper from his shirt breast pocket, consult it momentarily, then fold it and replace it. I assumed that it was his set list, or the lyrics to a new song, but I later read an interview where he claimed that it was a note from his analyst (LW3 is notoriously neurotic). Apparently the message was 'You are a good person! You're doing a great job!' I'm thinking of taking something similar to work with me...
1. This summer I went swimming,
This summer I might have drowned
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.
2. This summer I swam in the ocean,
And I swam in a swimming pool,
Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes,
I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool.
3. This summer I swam in a public place
And a resevoir, to boot,
At the latter I was informal,
At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.
4. This summer I did the backstroke
And you know that's not all
I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
And the old Australian crawl, the old Australian crawl.
5. This summer I did swan dives
And jackknifes for you all
And once when you weren't looking
I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.
3.7.07
Pass Me My Pipe and Slippers
The latest issue of Mojo was on the doorstep for me tonight, and what a cavalcade of fun it is.
In a fit of pique, which has turned out to be quite justified, I cancelled my subscription last month. I was fed up with endless retread articles on classic rock acts, and crappy 'tribute' cds.
Turns out I had paid up for the next three issues, so I continue to be offered articles on tired old eighties cash cows like The Police, who are featured heavily in the latest issue. What a tired and humourless bunch of old hacks they were.
Then we get page after page devoted to Genesis (the boring Phil Collins fronted version, who have also recently reformed to their bank managers' glee). Then more wistful bobbins about Jeff Buckley, a piece on Frank Sinatra, an interview with Yoko Ono, and I was searching for anything remotely connected to the 21st century. Then I found it - the album of the month...is Interpol.
It's enough to make an old man reach for the NME...
In a fit of pique, which has turned out to be quite justified, I cancelled my subscription last month. I was fed up with endless retread articles on classic rock acts, and crappy 'tribute' cds.
Turns out I had paid up for the next three issues, so I continue to be offered articles on tired old eighties cash cows like The Police, who are featured heavily in the latest issue. What a tired and humourless bunch of old hacks they were.
Then we get page after page devoted to Genesis (the boring Phil Collins fronted version, who have also recently reformed to their bank managers' glee). Then more wistful bobbins about Jeff Buckley, a piece on Frank Sinatra, an interview with Yoko Ono, and I was searching for anything remotely connected to the 21st century. Then I found it - the album of the month...is Interpol.
It's enough to make an old man reach for the NME...
1.7.07
Film legend Dennis Hopper, 71, introduced Lily Allen
BBC1 devoted itself to mind freezing tedium all day yesterday - nothing new in that, except it was unbroken coverage of the lachrymose Diana 'tribute' concert which slouched on and on and bloody on for what seemed like a month.
Bryan Ferry was introduced by...Boris Becker and John McEnroe. Gibbering over one another about him making records for 35 years, wearing nice clothes, liking 'the laydeeez', etc etc. Even worse - Lily Allen was introduced by Dennis Hopper..who must be feeling very, very ashamed...after a long controversial and often squalid career, this was surely the nadir..
Bryan Ferry was introduced by...Boris Becker and John McEnroe. Gibbering over one another about him making records for 35 years, wearing nice clothes, liking 'the laydeeez', etc etc. Even worse - Lily Allen was introduced by Dennis Hopper..who must be feeling very, very ashamed...after a long controversial and often squalid career, this was surely the nadir..
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