The Stone Roses

Tonight's randomized selection is the Stone Roses. I remember being in the Admiral Rodney (a pub, not a sailor) aged about 19 and a friend of Dan's was back from his first term at Manchester Uni, and he was raving about a band called the Stone Roses, who were going to be huge, etc etc yawn...and so it came to pass.

I was ambivalent about them until Fool's Gold came out; I bought the 12" and then belatedly bought the album, looking forward to their new stuff which if FG was anything to go by would be funky and rocking...

As any fule kno, the much mooted 'new stuff' took 5 years to emerge, and turned out to be a fairly passable Led Zep LP which betrayed the cocaine ingestion of its creators almost as blatantly as Black Sabbath Vol 4.

Never saw them live, perhaps a mixed blessing, given that Ian Brown's pitch is notoriously unreliable, but Ady saw them a couple of times and said they were great.

Someone once said of Rod Sewart, 'never was such a great talent pissed up the wall on such rotten material', (or words to that effect), and it's tempting to cast a similar accusation at the door of the Stone Roses - only Mani went on to anything really worthwhile, anchoring Primal Scream.

Listening to the debut album again, there are undoubted moments of greatness (and plagiarism - ironic that Mani should eventually join the band who's Velocity Girl was ripped on She Bangs The Drums) but there were albums around at the time which I still prefer - by The La's, Shack, and Happy Mondays.

I may be hungry, but I sure ain't weird

Taking a random dive into the murky waters of my cd collection, the Helster came up with Safe As Milk, by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Released in 1967, and featuring a young Ry Cooder on guitar...

Clive bought me this album for my birthday one year, and whilst it took a little while to clutch it to my bosom, it's now one of my favourite Beefheart albums, and an interesting record to compare with other 1967 releases more typical of the prevailing flower power times - Piper At The Gates of Dawn, or Sgt Pepper, for example.

On the terrific opener, Sho Nuff 'N' Yes I do, the good Captain (Don Van Vliet to his mum) claims to have been 'born in the desert, came on up from New Orleans'....and then the band crashes in, led by Cooder's slashing slide guitar...

It's marvellous stomping electric R'nB, with heavy influences of Howlin Wolf, Elmore James, and Muddy Waters. Some people are frightened away from Beefheart by the skronk and honk of Trout Mask Replica, but Safe As Milk is a pretty conventional blues rock album - well, conventional in Beefheartian terms anyway...

Beefheart retired to paint in the Mojave desert in the 80's, but in recent years members of the Magic Band reconvened to play some of his old tunes. I saw them twice, at the Rescue Rooms, the first occasion being one of the finest gigs I have been to - the band were just sensational, and clearly relished the chance to play this frenzied, crack tempo music for folks like us who missed out first time round.