Sitting in front of the computer on Sunday night, aimlessly clicking around on social media, notification came via Rolling Stone of the death of Lou Reed. Reaction was predominantly shock, and a refusal to accept the news, as it was then unconfirmed by other news agencies or sources close to Reed himself. This duly arrived within an hour or so, and my Twitter feed was converted into a streaming eulogy in tribute to a true original the like of which we are unlikely to see again.
Adrian or I borrowed a Velvets LP from the library, I can't remember which one, it might have been White Light White Heat. It was very much a gateway album to noisier territory than the prog and classic rock and NWOBHM stuff we were at that time obsessed with. From the Velvets you went into the Stooges, the MC5, Bowie, all the US pre-punk and CBGB acts, and then home to more contemporary stuff like JAMC, Smiths and Primal Scream. Adrian embraced all this earlier than me; I took a detour via the Doors and spent a year or so listening almost exclusively to old blues records before starting to buy up the Velvets and enjoying lyrics about scoring drugs, incomprehensible S&M type encounters, and strung out love songs like Pale Blue Eyes.
Ady reckons that after a while he had listened so exhaustively to the Velvet Underground that he had absorbed them into his bloodstream, his DNA, and there was no need to actually play the records again...Of course, what happens when an artist dies, everyone starts listening to the old stuff again - on Sunday night I played Sister Ray twice in a row, and thrilled at the relentless repetitious noise, at the same time recognising again how many bands took that template and ran with it for decades afterwards.
My favourite Lou Reed record is a toss up between the third Velvets album and the collaboration with John Cale in tribute to Andy Warhol, Songs For Drella. Listening to Transformer this evening, it sounds like a pop album rather than a decadent paean to subversive sex, heroin, and horsing around with David Bowie.
Sweet Jane is another favourite, I just love the way he sings 'suitcase in my heeeeand'.
His delivery (I hesitate to use the word 'singing') is great on this track, it lifts a simply chorded song into something really exciting and special:
9.10.13
Bless The Weather
I'm still not sure how it happened but yesterday morning I was able to download, via Google Play, the new John Martyn box set, The Island Years - for £1.27. That's 259 tracks across 17 CDs, something of a bargain. I noticed a couple of tweets suggesting that Play.com, Google Play and a couple of other download retailers were offering the box set, which is on Amazon at over £150, for less than the price of a pint.
I assumed that it was one of those periodic listing errors by the website which would prove to be null and void in the event, but no, all tracks duly arrived and I'm now listening to Bless The Weather, one of many John Martyn albums I've never heard. I've previously stuck to what I assumed was pretty safe territory with him - Solid Air, One World, and Live At Leeds, that's it.
By the time I got to see John Martyn live, it was 2007 and he'd had his legs amputated and cut a slightly befuddled figure, clearly seeking direction from bandmates about set list etc, but when he sat and played he was mesmerising. Here's a link to the first part of the BBC documentary from a few years ago, which was interesting enough but gave little clue about the real person.
I assumed that it was one of those periodic listing errors by the website which would prove to be null and void in the event, but no, all tracks duly arrived and I'm now listening to Bless The Weather, one of many John Martyn albums I've never heard. I've previously stuck to what I assumed was pretty safe territory with him - Solid Air, One World, and Live At Leeds, that's it.
By the time I got to see John Martyn live, it was 2007 and he'd had his legs amputated and cut a slightly befuddled figure, clearly seeking direction from bandmates about set list etc, but when he sat and played he was mesmerising. Here's a link to the first part of the BBC documentary from a few years ago, which was interesting enough but gave little clue about the real person.
8.10.13
And we dance to the music, and we dance
At a book signing last year I asked James Fearnley if as a writer in The Pogues he felt intimidated by Shane MacGowan. His memoir Here Comes Everyone is a vivid retelling of life with the Pogues and their bibulous singer and principal songwriter. Whether Phil Chevron felt a similar burden from comparison with MacGowan I don't know, but after recording Thousands Are Sailing I hope he felt the equal of his more celebrated bandmate.
Seeing the Pogues live half a dozen times in the last 25 years, 'Thousands' was always special, even when it was MacGowan, lyric sheet in hand, who was slurring the lyrics if Chevron was too ill to appear. A yearning tribute to the Irish diaspora and their new lives in America, the song is moving but unsentimental, especially when MacGowan was extemporising the lyrics: 'In Brendan Behan's footsteps, I spewed up and down the street'.
So I'm sad to hear of Phil Chevron's death today, and I'm playing If I Should Fall From Grace With God, remembering the gigs and the beery Brixton chorus, Thousands Are Sailing:
Seeing the Pogues live half a dozen times in the last 25 years, 'Thousands' was always special, even when it was MacGowan, lyric sheet in hand, who was slurring the lyrics if Chevron was too ill to appear. A yearning tribute to the Irish diaspora and their new lives in America, the song is moving but unsentimental, especially when MacGowan was extemporising the lyrics: 'In Brendan Behan's footsteps, I spewed up and down the street'.
So I'm sad to hear of Phil Chevron's death today, and I'm playing If I Should Fall From Grace With God, remembering the gigs and the beery Brixton chorus, Thousands Are Sailing:
1.10.13
Talking With The Taxman About Hookworms
I spent a happy hour, on and off, listening to a Radio 4 podcast this morning. The series looks at classic albums and the artists who made them, usually from a distance of 15 - 20 years.
I bought Talking With The Taxman About Poetry when it came out, from a shop in Newark long gone, called Inner Sleeve. It was a few weeks before I left for university and I was - still am - a big fan of Bragg. So listening to the man reminisce about the circumstances, political and personal, around the recording of this album was delightful to me.
I felt the emotional intensity of Levi Stubbs Tears in a way which I don't remember when I first heard it. For me it was always the relationship songs which hit hardest with Bragg, which isn't to overlook the likes of To Have And To Have Not or Between The Wars. The Saturday Boy, The Warmest Room, and Greetings To The New Brunette are all terrific pop songs from an artist often brushed over as a one-note political balladeer.
So I'm at home with a cup of tea - listening to the album for the first time right through for years, and fretting again about whether it's worth scouring the new releases pages of the heritage rock mags and the social media feeds of all manner of record labels, blogs, review sites in search of a release half as diverting as the aforementioned Bragg album, or Hatful Of Hollow, or Maxinequaye, or Bandwagonesque or any number of other records which now seem very long in the tooth but which repay any number of repeated listens. I am sceptical that the latest neo-psych CD currently being drooled over online will be played more than once or twice. Trust me, I've had a desultory flick through Fuzz, by Fuzz, and it was very underwhelming.
Can it be anything else? Coming as it does many decades after those unsurpassable early Sabbath albums, as well as all the other cooler than cool touchstones that the bloggers like to froth about - Blue Cheer, in this instance. If you can only talk about a record in reference to other records, well, that's a bit of a dead end isn't it? It's hard not to sound churlish here; I've spent a good part of this year listening to the kind of psych rock which is currently, and briefly, one assumes, in vogue - the undisputed highlight being the Hookworms album. At least they impart a fresh intensity to the genre, they are not stoned noodlers, there are no side-long jams or recycled fuzzy riffs disinterred from the early 1970s (although I detect a fondness for Hawkwind, which the band denies). Instead they lock into a ferocious punch and groove on the album opener Away/Towards - genuinely, I think the best album opening track I've heard for years - yet they have a lightness and imagination sufficient to carry off slower numbers like In Our Time.
Answering my own question, yes there are new albums being released which are absorbing, exciting and rewarding, the Hookworms debut 'Pearl Mystic' being an example. My problem is sifting them out from other far more mediocre fare which receives breathless plaudits from reviewers who are either still in short trousers or who have difficulty distinguishing between music which is genuinely diverting and that which is serviceable but pedestrian.
Here's Leeds' finest filmed in their studio:
I bought Talking With The Taxman About Poetry when it came out, from a shop in Newark long gone, called Inner Sleeve. It was a few weeks before I left for university and I was - still am - a big fan of Bragg. So listening to the man reminisce about the circumstances, political and personal, around the recording of this album was delightful to me.
I felt the emotional intensity of Levi Stubbs Tears in a way which I don't remember when I first heard it. For me it was always the relationship songs which hit hardest with Bragg, which isn't to overlook the likes of To Have And To Have Not or Between The Wars. The Saturday Boy, The Warmest Room, and Greetings To The New Brunette are all terrific pop songs from an artist often brushed over as a one-note political balladeer.
So I'm at home with a cup of tea - listening to the album for the first time right through for years, and fretting again about whether it's worth scouring the new releases pages of the heritage rock mags and the social media feeds of all manner of record labels, blogs, review sites in search of a release half as diverting as the aforementioned Bragg album, or Hatful Of Hollow, or Maxinequaye, or Bandwagonesque or any number of other records which now seem very long in the tooth but which repay any number of repeated listens. I am sceptical that the latest neo-psych CD currently being drooled over online will be played more than once or twice. Trust me, I've had a desultory flick through Fuzz, by Fuzz, and it was very underwhelming.
Can it be anything else? Coming as it does many decades after those unsurpassable early Sabbath albums, as well as all the other cooler than cool touchstones that the bloggers like to froth about - Blue Cheer, in this instance. If you can only talk about a record in reference to other records, well, that's a bit of a dead end isn't it? It's hard not to sound churlish here; I've spent a good part of this year listening to the kind of psych rock which is currently, and briefly, one assumes, in vogue - the undisputed highlight being the Hookworms album. At least they impart a fresh intensity to the genre, they are not stoned noodlers, there are no side-long jams or recycled fuzzy riffs disinterred from the early 1970s (although I detect a fondness for Hawkwind, which the band denies). Instead they lock into a ferocious punch and groove on the album opener Away/Towards - genuinely, I think the best album opening track I've heard for years - yet they have a lightness and imagination sufficient to carry off slower numbers like In Our Time.
Answering my own question, yes there are new albums being released which are absorbing, exciting and rewarding, the Hookworms debut 'Pearl Mystic' being an example. My problem is sifting them out from other far more mediocre fare which receives breathless plaudits from reviewers who are either still in short trousers or who have difficulty distinguishing between music which is genuinely diverting and that which is serviceable but pedestrian.
Here's Leeds' finest filmed in their studio:
7.5.13
if charlie parker was a gunslinger,there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats: Ray Harryhausen dies at 92
if charlie parker was a gunslinger,there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats: Ray Harryhausen dies at 92: Stop motion master Ray Harryhausen stares down one of his creations. I think I speak for all the Gunslingers when I say there goes a big ...
15.12.12
Favourite tracks of 2012
Time for the obligatory end of the year run down of my favourite tracks from 2012. This is a necessarily partial list, I decided to leave out songs from some of the more familiar albums of the year which I enjoyed a lot - Dexy's, Alt-J for example, in favour of a list which maybe works a little better as a mix tape. that's the idea, anyway.
First up, Bob Mould - The Decent. It's been a while since I bought a Bob Mould record, his most recent solo stuff has either left me cold or passed me by, but this track from his album Silver Age rocks like the best of Husker Du / Sugar.
Apparently hailing from a neglected hamlet in darkest Sweden whose denizens still follow some kind of voodoo worship (viz. the colourful imagination of the press release authors, one assumes), come Goat. A terrific album of fuzzy Afro Kraut psych. If I was feeling churlish I would say it was constructed very deliberately to appeal to a certain type of jaded muso much like myself; be that as it may, it's still a thrilling record.
We booked Stealing Sheep for the Southwell Folk Festival two years running when they were still in their fuzzy felt folk incarnation. This year they have broken out in full guitar toting psychedelic mode, good to see them getting plenty of recognition.
Stealing Sheep - Shut Eye
I admit to finding this track via a mid-year list in the Guardian - oh, the shame. It was their jazz album of the year so far, by Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, this is a lovely track:
Roberto Fonseca - Bibisa
Hookworms are from Leeds, they play regularly and I have contrived to miss them at every opportunity, something I must put right in the new year. This track is from a split 7" release with Kogumaza on the Gringo label from Nottingham, it's splendid psych drone and bodes well for the album which is due next year.
Hookworms - Form and Function
Earth played the Brudenell Social Club on my birthday this year, it was a super night of slow stretched out hiss and drone. The album Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II probably edges it for my favourite of the year.
Earth - His Teeth Did Brightly Shine
I can't remember how I happened upon this track, it may have been via the excellent Norman Records. In all honestly I think the recording goes back a couple of years, but who cares. Featuring the metronomic Jaki Liebezeit on drums, Magnetik North - Dr รถn In Koln.
http://magnetiknorth.bandcamp.com/track/dron-in-k-ln
Definitely an album which you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy / endure, The Seer by Swans is pretty intense and I'm looking forward to seeing them for the first time next year.
Swans - Lunacy
More motorik Krautrock throb and drone,this time from the West Country of England rather than downtown Dusseldorf: Beak - Yatton
Lau had previously left me fairly cold, but Race The Loser is a fantastic record which combines folk with influences of electronica and modern composition (whatever that it is) and it completely comes to life on stage.
Patti Smith played in Leeds this September and was magnificent, the new material blends very well with the best of her back catalogue. The first half of the album is fairly straightforward, then later on things stretch out and get more experimental, I love it.
Field Music released another terrific record, Plumb, after the double album Measure in 2010. We saw them at the Brudenell and again at Green Man and on both occasions they were outstanding, probably my favourite live act of the year. Crunchy and melodic, stuttering time signatures, the acceptable face of prog!
And that's it. Yes it's a bit droney / psychey / krauty, that's what I've enjoyed most this year. No acoustic guitars or miserable singer songwriters! I think there's been some growth..
First up, Bob Mould - The Decent. It's been a while since I bought a Bob Mould record, his most recent solo stuff has either left me cold or passed me by, but this track from his album Silver Age rocks like the best of Husker Du / Sugar.
Apparently hailing from a neglected hamlet in darkest Sweden whose denizens still follow some kind of voodoo worship (viz. the colourful imagination of the press release authors, one assumes), come Goat. A terrific album of fuzzy Afro Kraut psych. If I was feeling churlish I would say it was constructed very deliberately to appeal to a certain type of jaded muso much like myself; be that as it may, it's still a thrilling record.
We booked Stealing Sheep for the Southwell Folk Festival two years running when they were still in their fuzzy felt folk incarnation. This year they have broken out in full guitar toting psychedelic mode, good to see them getting plenty of recognition.
Stealing Sheep - Shut Eye
I admit to finding this track via a mid-year list in the Guardian - oh, the shame. It was their jazz album of the year so far, by Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, this is a lovely track:
Roberto Fonseca - Bibisa
Hookworms are from Leeds, they play regularly and I have contrived to miss them at every opportunity, something I must put right in the new year. This track is from a split 7" release with Kogumaza on the Gringo label from Nottingham, it's splendid psych drone and bodes well for the album which is due next year.
Hookworms - Form and Function
Earth played the Brudenell Social Club on my birthday this year, it was a super night of slow stretched out hiss and drone. The album Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II probably edges it for my favourite of the year.
Earth - His Teeth Did Brightly Shine
I can't remember how I happened upon this track, it may have been via the excellent Norman Records. In all honestly I think the recording goes back a couple of years, but who cares. Featuring the metronomic Jaki Liebezeit on drums, Magnetik North - Dr รถn In Koln.
http://magnetiknorth.bandcamp.com/track/dron-in-k-ln
Definitely an album which you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy / endure, The Seer by Swans is pretty intense and I'm looking forward to seeing them for the first time next year.
Swans - Lunacy
More motorik Krautrock throb and drone,this time from the West Country of England rather than downtown Dusseldorf: Beak - Yatton
Lau had previously left me fairly cold, but Race The Loser is a fantastic record which combines folk with influences of electronica and modern composition (whatever that it is) and it completely comes to life on stage.
Patti Smith played in Leeds this September and was magnificent, the new material blends very well with the best of her back catalogue. The first half of the album is fairly straightforward, then later on things stretch out and get more experimental, I love it.
Field Music released another terrific record, Plumb, after the double album Measure in 2010. We saw them at the Brudenell and again at Green Man and on both occasions they were outstanding, probably my favourite live act of the year. Crunchy and melodic, stuttering time signatures, the acceptable face of prog!
And that's it. Yes it's a bit droney / psychey / krauty, that's what I've enjoyed most this year. No acoustic guitars or miserable singer songwriters! I think there's been some growth..
12.11.11
The smell of whiskey burning
It's been a busy couple of weeks for live music, Thursday night was Steve Earle at the Irish Centre in Leeds.
It galls me to report that the first time I saw Steve Earle was with Jim in 1987, when we were 19. I still have the ticket. That was before his (that's the artist, not Jim) jailing for heroin / crack / firearms offences, after which - for me - his songwriting really took off and he recorded a sequence of fantastically immediate records which mixed bluegrass, folk, country and psychedelia. In all honesty I have lost track of his recent albums but I was looking forward to seeing him play with a band for the first time since at Cambridge Corn Exchange which must have been about 10 years ago.
The Irish Centre is a terrific venue, intimate and atmospheric, and I was struck by the fact that Elaine and I were clearly younger than most of the audience - I guess the audience has aged with Mr Earle. He has a crack band with him at the moment, including a terrific guitar player called Chris Masterson , as well as his current wife (the uxorious Mr Earle has been married seven times), Alison Moorer.
It's odd - the first half dozen tunes were unfamiliar to me, presumably being drawn from the later albums, but after 30 minutes or so he played 'My Old Friend The Blues', which I found very moving for reasons which escape me right now. It's not a tune which has hitherto made me misty-eyed in any way, but something about it on Thursday made me come over all emotional.
Friday night we scarfed a quick curry after work and beetled off to see Ewan McLennan, at the Grove in Leeds; apparently one of the oldest folk clubs in the country. The Grove is a perfect pub - a bit grubby, but very friendly and with fantastic beer. It has a warm fug of conviviality, and the atmosphere in the back room for the gig was very jovial.
We booked Ewan for the Gate To Southwell Folk Festival three years ago, he was so good we invited him straight back; he's a terrific singer and a very good guitarist, he reminds me of Dick Gaughan. At a time when politically motivated singers and musicians are hard to find, Ewan is combining his own excellent songwriting with a refreshing choice of covers, whilst nailing his political colours to the mast in a way that few of his contemporaries seem to be doing. More power to him.
It galls me to report that the first time I saw Steve Earle was with Jim in 1987, when we were 19. I still have the ticket. That was before his (that's the artist, not Jim) jailing for heroin / crack / firearms offences, after which - for me - his songwriting really took off and he recorded a sequence of fantastically immediate records which mixed bluegrass, folk, country and psychedelia. In all honesty I have lost track of his recent albums but I was looking forward to seeing him play with a band for the first time since at Cambridge Corn Exchange which must have been about 10 years ago.
The Irish Centre is a terrific venue, intimate and atmospheric, and I was struck by the fact that Elaine and I were clearly younger than most of the audience - I guess the audience has aged with Mr Earle. He has a crack band with him at the moment, including a terrific guitar player called Chris Masterson , as well as his current wife (the uxorious Mr Earle has been married seven times), Alison Moorer.
It's odd - the first half dozen tunes were unfamiliar to me, presumably being drawn from the later albums, but after 30 minutes or so he played 'My Old Friend The Blues', which I found very moving for reasons which escape me right now. It's not a tune which has hitherto made me misty-eyed in any way, but something about it on Thursday made me come over all emotional.
Friday night we scarfed a quick curry after work and beetled off to see Ewan McLennan, at the Grove in Leeds; apparently one of the oldest folk clubs in the country. The Grove is a perfect pub - a bit grubby, but very friendly and with fantastic beer. It has a warm fug of conviviality, and the atmosphere in the back room for the gig was very jovial.
We booked Ewan for the Gate To Southwell Folk Festival three years ago, he was so good we invited him straight back; he's a terrific singer and a very good guitarist, he reminds me of Dick Gaughan. At a time when politically motivated singers and musicians are hard to find, Ewan is combining his own excellent songwriting with a refreshing choice of covers, whilst nailing his political colours to the mast in a way that few of his contemporaries seem to be doing. More power to him.
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