Run Run Rudolph!
Tim Robson and Elfs
Last January I - somewhat bizarrely - promised to publish a list of my favourite Christmas songs. But like a drunken middle-aged man with performance anxiety, who's just met a gorgeous girl and is a bit out of practice, I sadly failed to deliver (the Xmas article).*
Sorry.
And so here we are, one year on, with my growing readership unaware of what my taste in Christmas songs is. How can that be and must it be tolerated? Obviously not. It's time to let y'all know. Let me remind you of what the categories were:-
- Carols
- Hollywood type Christmas songs (roughly 40's to the 60's)
- Cheesy Christmas pop songs (roughly 70's to the 90's)
- Folky / world music type Christmas songs
- Miscellaneous
Well, I'm gonna do some listening in the next few days, remind myself of the contenders, maybe record a video of me playing a couple. Who knows? My axe is cold and needs to be warmed up. On camera. And actually this is important stuff. Food, family, music; hopefully these are givens and so pretty universal. Food I can cover in a later post. But music. Well, it was my first love.
One day I'm gonna write a classic. Maybe in an attic? Cause I'm an addict. An addict for shite lyrics.
So, from London, bon soir.
Cheers
Tim
*Yes that metaphor was too long. Just having fun with words. It's clearly not based on personal experience. Well, except a story my friend Dan told me. He tells me he's fine now, I believe.
Top 25
I thought I'd take a look at what my i-tunes says are my top 25 tunes. My i-tunes takes input from the following:-
The computer itself
My i-phone
My kids ipads
The ipod in the car
So therefore my top 25 tunes are not purely my tastes. Luckily for me, my girls play - and then over play - a particular song, and then never play it again. I'm a bit more constant in my likes!
To get in my top 25, you have to have been played at least 106 times (Henry Purcell - Rondeau). To top the charts, you need 265 plays (Vivaldi - RV535 iV Allegro - concerto for 2 oboes).
What do we find in the list Tim?
Vivaldi - 7 'tunes' or 28%
Lucie Silvas and Taylor Swift are the only other artists that appear more than once (2 each).
Classical - 11 tunes or 44% (as well Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Beethoven, Elgar and Debussy)
0 Beatles. In fact the nearest Beatles song has 'only' been played 46 times (their final rooftop, complete with police, going-down-fighting Get Back).
1 Stones (live Street Fighting Man 1971)
1 Coldplay (Viva La Vida - Tiberius? Constantine? Pilate?)
3 definitely from my girls (Taylor - Shake it Off and Blank Space, Iggy Azelea - Black Widow)
1 from Iceland - Yohanna Funny Thing Is
0 Elvis (The highest Elvis - at 32 plays - is the rather mawkish Don't Cry Daddy)
Randoms - Neil Diamond (Glory Road), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Save the Population), GRL (Lighthouse), Todd Rundgren (I Saw the Light)
Dance - Matrix & Futurebound - Control
Most recent addition - Shania Twaine - You're Still The One. Added in February 2016. 110 plays.
So what does any of this prove?
I'm commuting again. I tend to listen to classical and Vivaldi on trains
The top 25 played (apart from Elgar, Vivaldi and Lucie Silva - Breath In) doesn't match up with my self-defined favourite songs.
I'm self-amusing again. Sorry. Music is important to me!
More updates next year when I reveal the shocking news that Vivaldi totally takes over the top 25 list (and he might, looking at the many, many concerti bubbling just under the top 25).
Split pea soup for lunch.
Tim
Frigidus and the Lost Battles of Britpop
Blur battle Oasis for the future destination of Britpop at Frigidus.
There are many battles in history whose importance recedes with time.
One thinks of, randomly, The Battle of Colline Gate, the Battles of Frigidus, Poitiers, Marston Moor, Assaye, Goose Green, whatever whatever, blah blah. History is a bitch. 'Now' is all that counts. Apparently everything that happens now has never happened before.
But what about a real battle from history: Oasis v Blur 1995?
Yes - I realise that was a dreadful segue, a shocking attempt to shoehorn some history into an article about two mid 90's Britpop English bands. Sorry.
I liked Blur from the start. Leisure's one of my favourite albums ever. I think I was one of the very few people who bought their post Leisure single Popscene in 1992. I loved Modern Life is Rubbish. Saw them at the Reading Festival 93, a festival in Brighton and then on the Sugary Tea tour late 1993 at Sussex University where Damon crowd surfed on my head (and I took the set list off the mixing desk). I was so happy when Boys and Girls made number 5 in 1994. I celebrated with them on their late 94 tour at the Event in Brighton.
But from 1994 onwards there was also this five piece combo from Manchester who played loud and wrote songs that didn't pretend to be clever - they just went for the balls. And they had a singer who had it all - the swagger of Ian Brown, the attitude of Lennon, the voice of a rock god.
The first song I ever heard from Oasis was on some free-with-the-magazine Q compilation CD. Slide Away. Wow! I mean, at last my retro tastes - Beatles, Stones, Led Zep, Who, Sex Pistols had a modern application! Oasis did loads more but I always return to this moody song from Year Zero of the Gallagher consulship.
See the video below of Oasis in 1994.
In 1995, in the great battle of the singles - Country House v Roll With It, my head said Blur but my heart was always Oasis.
Me being me, I actually bought both.
I have tended my own garden too long
Classic album cover
I wandered empty streets down
Past the shop displays
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alleyways
As I walked on..
There was a time when watching Dustin Hoffman – as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate – floating around in a swimming pool wearing shades was the height of cool. Or I thought so, anyway. The music playing in the background was pretty cool too – an extended version Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel.
What’s not to like about Simon and Garfunkel? Folky guitar, intelligent lyrics, flawless harmonies. I have all five of their original albums, plus sundry live stuff, box sets, unreleased material, even their 70’s collaboration, My Little Town. It's music I continually come back to, a bridge to my childhood, to adolescence, to the care-free days of youthful summer through to shadowy evenings of judgement.
Ignoring the false start as a teenage duo – Tom and Jerry - their career lasted about six years. Following their unsuccessful first album Wednesday Morning 6am, Paul Simon went off to England to play as a solo artist. Here he wrote (and recorded) many of his greatest songs learning from the greats of the British folk scene. But the phenomenal success of The Byrds and Mr Tambourine Man, opened up a demand for folk-rock and,unknowingly, the duo began to take off. Back in the States, their record company remixed the acoustic The Sound of Silence and added bass, drums and an electric lead and – eh viola! – a number 1 record was made.
And so followed The Sounds of Silence, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme, Bookends and finally Bridge Over Troubled Water. Add some non-album singles and that was about it. The Graduate doesn’t have new material on it not found elsewhere (apart from an abridged acoustic version of Mrs Robinson)...
For Emily (Wherever I may find her)
Some of Simon’s best imagery populate this touching love song. He generously allows Garfunkel to sing lead. And he does it well. So good is their live performance of this song that the version on the UK Great Hits album is pretty much definitive. Simon says he wrote this about an imaginary girl, an imaginary situation and the loss of hope of ever finding her. Kind of stole my idea 50 years before I had it...
April Come She Will
A deceptively simple song, using the months as a backbone to the story of a love affair that starts, grows and dies. Simon at his folkie best.
Blessed
Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me? // I have tended my own garden too long.
The forlorn cri de coeur at the end of this stylish whinge always gets to me. About how the writer has been ignored, rejected whilst other groups (The Blessed) have been favoured in his place. In the final line there is a sort of epiphany as the writer realises that the fault lies more with him than others or Fate.
The Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
If he wrote nothing else, Simon would be up there amongst the rock gods with this epic. Ridiculously quotable, endlessly thought-provoking, it was a major song before the illicit re-working by Tom Wilson of Columbia Records. The added beat, bass and electric guitar however, propel it to a different, higher plane.
The Boxer
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminder of every
Cut that made him cry out in pain
“I’m leaving! I’m leaving!”
But the fighter still remains.
FFS - how can other writer in the popular music sphere fight against this? Thing is, Simon could write tunes too. With his left hand he had talent, with his right abundance.
Scarborough Fair
There is some dispute about whether Simon nicked his arrangement from Martin Carthy. Maybe, maybe not. But Simon and Garfunkel's version pisses on all other versions. Yes, even Nana Mouskouri's version. If you don't like this then you have no soul. From the tune, the counter melody, the delicate acoustic guitar, the harpsichord, the close harmony - lovingly sung, this is the perfect tune to be drifting aimlessly around in a pool to in a Mike Nicholls film.
Notable others - Overs, The Dangling Conversation, The Only Living Boy in New York, Mrs Robinson, Homeward Bound. Basically most of them. Yeah, Leaves That are Green, Bleecker Street. Loads. Old Friends. I am a Rock. Kathy's Song. Red Rubber Ball (huh? Look it up). The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine (for those who have a tendency to W).
Tim
This doesn't happen often...
"Did you write this, Tim?" asks Tomaso.
As you know I love Vivaldi and especially his oboe concerti...
But I've just found this gorgeous piece by Tomaso Albinoni (1661 - 1751). Oboe Concerti in D Minor op 9,2 largo. It adopts the canon format (repeated cyclical sequence) of his most famous piece - Adagio in G Minor. And then, and then, the oboe comes in, lyrical and plaintive. It's rare these days that I find something so beautiful. I close my eyes, listen, and everything is fine with the world.
Love this piece.
Thought I'd share it with you.
Move over Vivaldi. Let Tomaso take over.
Riffs! Shouting! Power!
Yeah. Probably get a better image later.
I was writing a blogpost this week about my favourite hard rock songs (what's that granddad?). And then I thought, nah, better to trace the development of hard rock, heavy rock and punk in just five 60's records. As you do. And so, blushed with Battersea Art Centre's cheapest white wine, discounted 10% because I'm a member, here is my list of the five stepping stones to heavy rock.
And of course, by selecting five early 60's records, one doesn't deny the journey up to this point. Muddy Waters riffing like a bastard. Little Richard amping up the vocals. Chuck Berry giving every subsequent guitarist a rock blueprint. And Elvis. Of course Elvis. But, where to start? As I've written before, you can trace rock back to Beethoven's thunderous riffs, Vivaldi's repeated motifs. But I'll restrict myself to the first half of the 60's else I will disappear up my own arse (again).
So what am I looking for? Anger. Loud overdriven guitars. A sense of musical anarchy barely held in check. Riffs. Screaming singers.
The Beatles - Twist and Shout (Feb 1963)
Yeah, everyone knows this song and The Beatles version. One of the Beatles best ever covers (up with Long Tall Sally, Dizzy Miss Lizzie, Bad Boy, Money). But what propels this song forward is John Lennon. After a full day recording the Please Please Me album, he literally shreds his vocal chords as he provides one of rock's greatest vocals ever. The instrumentation is so-so, standard early sixties sound. It's the singing, the call and response, the AH-AH-AH-AH-WOOO bit that makes this song special. Compare the muscular and aggressive Beatles' version against The Isley Brothers' original. No contest. Lennon pisses on them and starts heavy rock.
The Kingsmen - Louie Louie (April 1963)
When researching this (seriously Tim?) I found that Louie Louie was recorded after The Beatles' Twist & Shout by two months. Who knew? Who cares? Massive hit in the 60's. Revived in the 70's for the film Animal House. What can one say about this? An absolute shocker of a recording, slapdash, careless, badly recorded. A total fuck up. But in that carefree, shouty, riff heavy style, we have the embryo hard rock and punk. It was recorded in just one take for $50. with singer Jack Ely yelling as loud as he could at a mike lodged above his head just to be heard above the instruments. A million pub rock bands heard this and learnt the way forward. Inspiring.
The Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man (Nov 1963)
It's not often The Beatles and The Stones went head to head. But - song hustling - John and Paul gave the Stones this song to get the London boys into the charts (number 12). The Beatles went on to record I Wanna Be Your Man themselves for the With The Beatles Album. Now, whilst The Beatles version is polished and lively, The Stones go straight for the balls. Or more to say, Brian Jones does. The ferocity and aggression he gives to his slide guitar lead is a wonder to behold. He did it one take. Bizarrely, not heard much these days. First time I heard it, way after other Stones stuff - as it's not on an album nor on most Greatest Hits compilations - I was blown away with Jones' wall of noise. 1963? Are you sure? But it is step three onto heavy rock.
The Kinks - You Really Got Me (1964)
Riff heaven. Taking up the baton from the Kingsmen and amping up the power. Guitarist Dave Davis creates this song's dynamic. He cut his amp with a razor blade to create the fuzzy, 'heavy' sound. He then throws out a volley of notes in the solo; mad, nonsensical but the inspiration for many a guitarist's solo (I include myself here!). Long rumoured to be played by session man and pre Led Zep Jimmy Page, it was in fact Dave Davis. The first song you can really head bang to. And air guitar.
The Who - My Generation (1965)
The song where it all comes together! Riffs, heavy guitar sound, fucking mental rhythm section, powerful singer. Feedback. Anarchy. Power. Driven by The Ox and Moonie; their powerful backing gives Townsend the space to riff away and Daltrey to stutter like a pilled up prick chucked in front of mike at closing time shouting out his story. The final minute where Moon goes mad, Daltrey screams and Townsend and Entwhistle lock together is one - one - of rock's finest moments. It is this that points to the future - not least The Who's own guitar smashing versions of this very song. And leads them down the path that ends with rock's finest moment - 'Won't Get Fooled Again.'.
And then. And then. What came next? To follow. In another post... Well I hope so! I've written it and it's ready to go so; to follow, the best hard rock tracks ever!!
Sad Songs Say So Much
Automat, 1927 Edward Hopper. Yeah. Hopper knows. Listening to The Smiths probably.
Often we are sad. Things don't work out or we feel nostalgic for a past that was probably every bit as melancholy. So, what music to play? To feel sad? To get music to match the melancholic mood? Classical? Rock? Pop? Bossanova? Well, all of the above.
Debussy - The girl with the Flaxen Hair. Beautiful, sad, melancholic. Fading beauty, pale shadows, misty memories, dawn tears. I love this piece.
The Smiths - Please, please, please let me get what I want. The Smiths. Morrissey. Hero of many a lonely bedsit. The first and the best Smiths miserable songs. Oh how I used to put this on repeat!
Guns n Roses - November Rain - Sad. Sad. The shining flame that was GnR came up with a handful of classics but this one... Man... I remember 1991/2. I lived it. Everything was raw. Real. First time. Beautiful song.
Blur - Miss America. My secret. 1994. That was a year!
A-ha - You'll Never Get Over Me. From their flawless comeback album - Major Sky, Minor Earth. Beautiful. From the masters of melancholy a late career fightback. Check out the counterpoint melody.
Abba - The Winner Takes it All. Fuck this is sad. The best Abba song for sadness. The way Agneta says 'but you see' and then holds that high note on the last chorus just breaks your heart. One of my top ten records ever.
Van Morrison - Beside You. Well, I've mentioned this already. Just perfect. Fucking perfect. If you want to blub and think about what might have been and what used to be, then this is your song. Perfection.
The Eurythmics - Savage. I've written a full blog post on this song. It breaths. Annie is always the master of melancholy. But the guitar solo! Less is more. Stunning.... Yeah... Let's move on!
Elgar - Nimrod. Yeah, I've already mentioned this but, when I'm feeling sad - the power, the majesty and uplift of this piece always makes me feel better. Shake the house with this one and shake away the blues!
Everything but the Girl - On My Mind. Before they were famous... Private. Memories... A story told a thousand times but never with a happy ending. A different era. Different times. See the video below.
Elton John - Sad Songs. Not his best song but - hell - Bernie describes this feeling of sadness so perfectly! A more authentic song would be Sacrifice. I used to play this in a studio only group in 1994. Happy memories. Things mattered. Ultimately, we didn't.
Dry your tears. Tomorrow can always be better!
Tim
Between West Street and Bleecker Street
"Hey Buddy; take me to Bleecker Street."
“I saw a shadow touch a shadow’s hand. On Bleecker Street.”
When I first went to New York, American Express put me up at The Marriott on West Street. After a hard day in the office I would ask my colleagues out for a beer. And sometimes they would oblige... For a beer. One beer. Before departing for New Jersey. Leaving me alone in New York.
The Marriott on West Street is down at the bottom of Manhattan Island, all skyscrapers, bustling with life during the day but dead after work. What to do? On my first trip to New York?
Letting art be my guide, I summoned a yellow taxi and told the cabbie to take me to Bleecker Street. Due to the Simon and Garfunkel song, it was the only uptown street I knew. So he took me - circuitously I found later - up to Greenwich Village.
And so I wandered around. Had some beers in 'coffee shops' where I had to get used to putting dollars on the bar before ordering my drink. Lighting up a Marlboro - yes, you could do that in those days - I thought hey! - this is living. All my idols - Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, had walked these very streets. All I lacked was my own Suzi Rotolo immortalised on The Freewheeling Bob Dylan:-
Now that image is well known. Less well known is the cover of The Paul Simon Songbook where Paul poses (influenced by Dylan, no doubt) with his then girlfriend Kathy Chitty (of Kathy's Song fame):-
The album cover above is framed and hung in my lounge.
So what does this show? Not much, in the receding view of history. A first time visitor to a great city goes somewhere mentioned in a song. But to me it was real. It was living art. All of my life - then - seemed to be an unwritten novel, a poem - a song, awaiting to be sung.
I suppose life is an ever diminishing version of that little story: The search for the new, the openness of naivety, the finding of oneself, wherever that may be. I suppose we all search for the thrill and expectation I felt during that first taxi ride between West Street and Bleecker Street.
And sometimes we find that feeling. But usually we don't. We all live in between.
Tim
A Little Bit of Folk
Those were the days! Acoustic guitars, jamming in the sun. Hair.
When I was in service in Rosemary Lane
Other than the homegrown Lisa Stansfield concerts I went to in the mid 80's - about which I've written before - Steeleye Span at the Manchester Apollo was one of my first ever 'gigs'. Young Tim loved the folkie sound! Simon and Garkunkel have to be top five for me. I love British / American folk music. It often gets characterised as twats with beards, beer bellies, fingers in their ears singing about sailors and shady ladies!
Which is basically what Rosemary Lane is about. Actually, I had the privilege of seeing the late, great, Bert Jansch live in concert in Brighton in 1990's. He didn't do Rosemary Lane. Bastard.
I've often thought that it would make a great book or film to depict the British folk scene in the mid-60's. The scene that created Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, John Renbourne, Jackson C Frank, Simon and Garfunkel, and loads of others. They all knew each other, played in the same places, did versions of the same songs. Nicked each other's guitar style.
So let me be your guide though some the highlights of the great folk boom of the 60's / 70's - which probably reached its apogee with Sandy Denny duetting with Led Zeppelin on The Battle of Evermore - a crossover folk rock song like no other. The mighty Zep did what they did with the blues - amped up the power, took what's best in the genre, co-opted the best female folk voice ever, and created the folk hammer of the gods.
Anyway - here's Tim's top 10 acoustic / folkie / whatever list.
Top Ten Folkie / Acoustic Music
1) Bert Jansch - Rosemary Lane (1971)
2) Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where the Time Goes
3) Steeleye Span - All Around my Hat
4) Martin Carthy - Scarborough Fair
5) Simon & Garfunkel - Bleecker Street
6) Van Morrison - Beside You
7) Gordon Lightfoot - In the Early Morning Rain
8) Pentangle - Light Flight
9) Renaissance - The Northern Lights
10) Jackson C Frank - Blues Run the Game
Number 6 also appears on my top ten songs ever. I could pick half a dozen Paul Simon songs for this list but I limited myself to one.
Extra Waffle about Bert Jansch
One of the most influential guitarists ever to come out of Britain. Solo artist, part of the folk supergroup Pentangle and then back to solo again. Jansch seems a genuinely nice, self-effacing guy, as I can recall when I saw him back in the 90's. Needle of Death, from his first album, is such a sad song, tear-jerking even now, and as empathetic a song as I've ever heard. It Don't Bother Me, from his second album, is classic Bert - folkie, intricate guitar figures, detailing love's woes. But I'll plump for Rosemary Lane. Traditional song, rendered traditionally, this was the first folk song - after Steeleye Span - to really get to me. It details the seduction of an innocent servant girl by a travelling sailor. He loves and then leaves. Jansch's version - like Dylan's House of the Rising Sun - reverses the sexes, he sings from a female point of view. Love this song. Bert Jansch - a great soul who died in 2011 - the guitarist's guitar player.
Renbourne left and Jansch right. Scat singing. A bit of jazz, a bit of blues, some folk and a whole lot of soul.
Defer, Delay and Enjoy!
"Hello. Is it me you're looking for?"
Owlsey and Charlie, twins of the trade // come to the Poet's room.
Back in the 1980's (or was it the 1880's, seems a long time ago) we practised what is known in economic parlance as 'deferred gratification'. Some of you older readers will remember that; some of my younger readers will be scratching their heads and asking 'wot's that? lol!!'
Mainly it manifest itself by saving up money for something, taking a half an hour bus trip into Rochdale town centre, buying a single or computer game, getting the bus back again and sitting and listening to said record or load said computer game (to find it didn't work).
It was an interesting system of meeting wants; making the buyer wait for a period of time before certain wants were met. The theory goes that, by making the end-user wait, they put more value on the goods or services eventually purchased.
Well that was the theory anyway.
Now, with the internet, most wants can be met instantaneously or much more quickly than previously. If I want a track or a book or want to read about the Battle of Zama or The Franco-Prussian War, I can do so with just a few mouse clicks. It would have amazed my younger self, and it's still pretty revolutionary to my older self.
But what does it do for the soul? If your wants are met so easily? No waiting. Often no saving. Just click, click, move on? Do we value things less?
Deep questions. Sort of pint three philosophical ramblings before ordering a whiskey and going off on a rant about Southern Rail or broadband speeds.
So, do I value music less now than I did in 1984 when I'd make that bus journey into Rochdale, buy Lionel Ritchie's 'Hello', take the bus back and put it on the turntable, play it eight times in a row and realise it wasn't that great after-all (sorry - Lionel, it's not that bad actually. Just making a point. Could have picked Nena - 99 Red Balloons, but you came to mind first)?
I think that residual value might have something to do with when it was bought. Extraneous factors. When you're sixteen, pretty much everything is new, everything is the first, everything marks the way to a whole series of other choices. At 48, although I like new tracks, none of them will ever have the impact on my brain as the first time I heard Jumping Jack Flash or The Battle of Evermore.
On my itunes, I have more or less everything from my past I like, filling in the gaps and buying stuff I've never heard is the nature of the game. Most of the hard-to-get tracks have been found (thanks Jay).
One eluded me for years. Jefferson Airplane's Mexico. A single without an album. A musical orphan, hard to find. Well, I found it today. As my original copy was on a long deleted 80's compilation Best of Jefferson Airplane cassette, I hadn't heard the track for, I dunno, fifteen years.
And I still like it. For it's lyricism, it's musicality but also because I remember Tim took the bus to Rochdale town centre, went to the library, hired the cassette, took the bus back, thought most of the tracks crap but loved this, the last track on the album.
Interestingly, I thought the track dealt with some 19th century Mexican revolution, perhaps involving Napoleon III and Maximilian. A romantic, nobel interpretation. Now - thanks to Wiki and online lyric sheets - I know it's actually about cannabis smuggling and Richard Nixon. FFS. I could have done without that unasked for want - curiosity - being met. Deferred or not.
I Love The Way You Walk...
I am, I said. "I know," says the weird chair with bunny ears, "Tell me about it."
Spring has hit the UK! London (and Sussex) is warm and cheerful with daffs handing the baton over to bluebells before the grinning faces of Marguerites sprint down the back straight and breast the tape of summer. Girls are wearing summer dresses and I've even put away my John Lewis mac. At least for this week (though, perversely, it's now raining in London).
I was dancing around in the kitchen the other night making a curry and playing some decent tunes. When I dance, I dance. When I rock, I roll. When I cook, I dance. And so the circle turns. There is nothing new under the sun. For everything there is a season. Anyway, I was blasting out The Crystals 'Da Do Ron Ron' which is one of the best feel-good songs ever. But - sorry Phil - not great in the lyrics department. So I thought I'd do a quick article on crap lyrics, starting with:-
The Crystals - Da Do Ron Ron (1963)
"Yeah my heart stood still. Yeah, his name was Bill."
Nuff said. Great song (BTW - I think the last 20 seconds of this song, a classic anyway, when Spectre goes into overdrive, is possibly one of the finest moments of pop - ever!). Barmy lyrics though.
Cast - Sandstorm (1995) (who? Yeah, I know. Scouse group. Bass player of the La's. Briefly famous.)
If there was a list of books that will never be written 'The wit and wisdom of Cast's lyrics' must be, unlike their records, Top 3. John Power writes the shittiest lyrics. He can't see a lady without discussing how she 'walks' and, yes, this leads inevitably to a comment on how she 'talks'. Searing insight mate.
The true awfulness of his lyrics come in the following double couplet with a happy ending:-
Let me take you by the hand
Try to understand, walk me to a land, try to understand
I ain't nothing but a man
Neil Diamond - I Am, I Said (1971)
As is well known, I am Neil's biggest fan. The moody man in black of the 60's, to the long hair denim Live At the Greek incarnation through his later years as Mr Sparkly Shirt... He's my guy. So this one hurts.
I Am, I Said is one of my favourite songs. About his sense of disenchantment at the false promise of fame, his relocation from New York to LA, his disintegrating marriage; this is the ultimate facing yourself in the mirror and telling it as it is song. The lyrics are actually very good, but Neil drops the world's biggest clanger in the chorus:-
I am I said, to no one there // And no-one heard, not even the chair.
Not known for their listening skills chairs, usually Neil. I can't defend this lazy writing.
Rhythm is a Dancer - Snap! (1992)
This one is suggested my good friend and ex-colleague Glenna. I actually quite like the lyric for its ridiculousness and Euro-babble nonsense. It's hard-hitting, uncompromising and plainly daft.
"I'm as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer"
Yeah, mate. Did Goethe or Hegel write that, first? Bollox it may be but, it can't be denied, it's a great dance tune.
Billy Bragg / Kirsty McColl - New England (1983/4)
I was 21 years when I wrote this song // I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.
Huh? They're good lyrics, surely Tim? Yes, actually they are, I agree. But compare and contrast to Simon and Garfunkel's 'Leaves That Are Green' from 1965:-
I was 21 years when I wrote this song // I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.
Eh? How's that happen? Pure laziness and, er, theft. It's not as though Billy's usually crap at lyrics (even if his politics are shit). Even New England has some of the sharpest lines from a pop song ever. Poor, very poor. But I do have a good idea for the opening of this novel I'm writing:-
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Sounds good, yeah?
And now, as I have to complete a new short story inspired partially by the literary conceit adopted by Thomas Hardy in The Well Beloved, I must leave you.
From Battersea, good night
Tim
Purple Rain.... RIP
The news came through, in ripples, in shocked voices, that Prince was dead as I wrote my economics article below. No, surely not. Too young! But no, it's true. FFS.
I'm not gonna be some obituary service (Christ 2016 is such a shit year) but Prince. Prince!! Only ten years older than me. Such a talent. So cool. Such integrity.
I grew up in the 80's. No more to be said. If you were there, you knew what Prince meant.
What I'm really glad about is that - well annoyed by some no-mark singing Purple Rain on the Voice a couple of weeks ago - I made my kids watch the below video of Prince battling and beating the elements at the Super Bowl in 2007. They know he's brilliant. All this week, spookily, I've been listening to Purple Rain on my way to work. Eights minutes of brilliance - that guitar solo!
Lots of Purple Rain, Kiss, Sign o' the Times and, my own fav, I Could Never Take the Place of your man, being played at my house tonight.
RIP Prince.
1993 seems to have been a good year...
I was halfway through a blogpost on great gigs from history that I didn’t go to but wish I had. But I ran out of steam chugging through some old familiars - Elvis, Beatles, Stones. Yeah, yeah yeah. Whatever granddad. I've saved the draft so it will doubtless appear on these pages one spring morn when I'm short of ideas about urban architecture or obscure ancient philosophy.
I decided a more interesting, truthful and insightful article might be to record some decent gigs I actually did see. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, I lived once and have the stolen set-lists to prove it! Whilst Taylor Swift puts on a helluva show, and Sam Smith has a high voice, I have been in the mosh pit a few times in the past and have worn the spilt lager with pride. So let's sift the memory for musical gold and share some nuggets with you.
Teenage Fanclub / Julianna Hatfield Trio - Brighton Event 1993
The Fannies were touring their album Thirteen which, although containing the classic homage to the late great Gene Clark - called imaginatively 'Gene Clark' - was a bit shit and a let down after Bandwagonesque. But they're good live and played The Concept and Everything Flows and were generally loose and in what you could term 'high spirits'. What was a revelation however was the undercard, Julianna Hatfield. I knew her not before that cold night on Brighton seafront. She was great! I've been a fan ever since. The Trio was loud, heavy and just right in those dancing days of grunge before Kurt chewed on a shotgun and blasted us into Britpop. And she played one of my - now - all time favourites - I Got No Idols (guitar version). So, a special night all round. Not sure I got laid later on but it feels like I did. In my memory.
Probably didn't though.
Rod Stewart - Hyde Park 2011
Always loved Mr Stewart but bollox'd on free corporate VIP booze I farkin' luv'd the Rod! Ronnie Wood was there, Stevie Nicks did that floaty thing, Adam Ant reminded us it was an awfully long time ago since he was famous. I was around the back in the VIP area, artfully smoking cafe cremes and drinking Gin and Tonics, laconically watching the backstage live video monitor and soaking up the atmosphere of a corporate fat cat. Then, before I knew it, I was mingling with the plebs in the crowd yelling my head off with Rod for 90 minutes. I remember a phone message I left someone from the gig - hoarse, drunken, shouting along to Sailing or Baby Jane or Hot Legs... Happy Times.
Lisa Stansfield and Blue Zone - Rochdale Football Club 1986
Musically, a bit of a bore, frankly. I was there because I did Classical Studies with Lisa's then musical, and now real-life, partner Ian Devaney. I knew Lisa from years before when we were both in the school play together. Oh the stories I could tell! But on that night I was not there for the music (not really my scene). No, young be-mulleted Tim was mainly trying to chat up girls from my sixth form. I was about as successful at this as Blue Zone was storming the charts. But I remember Lisa providing me with a live personal soundtrack as I cranked out those mid-80s chat up lines to young girls with big hair and shoulder pads.
Blur – Reading Festival 1993
This has gone down in history as the day Blur re-invented themselves and played a storming set on the second stage that ushered in Britpop. Yes, they did premier quite a bit of Parklife and yes they played most of my personal favourite, Modern Life is Rubbish. I hate festivals usually so what the hell was I doing there? Wish I knew. Glad I did but no idea. In retrospect the music at the festival was mainly shit – the headliners were The The FFS – so you can see why Blur caused all those writers of NME to mythologise their set as year zero for a British fightback. Seen Blur many times before and since but this was the best gig I have ever seen them play. Interestingly enough, Radiohead were on before Blur and I probably saw them for a couple of minutes dashing back from Eddie Izzard. But who knows - they were shit in those days.
More tales from 1993 (and other years) another time. Won;t be talking about my experiences watching New Model Army, Dr and The Medics, Tanita Takarum, Sleeper, Alexander O'Neil (why oh why oh why)....
Laters, potatas
Tim
Maybe, Maybe, Maple Ladies...
It was only recently that I realised that a great many of the female singers of my favourite songs were all from Canada. I've spoken in the past about my conversion, slowly like Constantine and Christianity, towards female music. It was a process that could never be pinned down to a specific date but, as in The Battles of The Milvian Bridge or Frigidus, it's only later that the real significance can be discerned (or imputed retrospectively).
Canada has produced some pretty damn fine female singers. Let's take them in chronological order, as they appeared to me, shall we? And give them a song each.
Alanis Morrisette - Head over Heels
Anyone who doesn't like Jagged Little Pill (1995) is a fucking idiot. There aren't many perfect albums out there. The odd Beatles long player, Astral Weeks - Van Morrison, Achtung Baby - U2, The Byrds first album, but Alanis delivers HUGH on her third album. It's funny, provocative, and the music is as tight as it gets. I picked Head Over Heels because I think it's the most complete song on the album, musically and lyrically. It's optimistic and happy, a honeymoon period song. The sort of song you'd always hope someone would write about you before they find you out.
It was, of course, the high water mark of Alanis. A bat-shit crazy hippy, she'd delivered her one stab at posterity before disappearing up her own backside. She's still there allowing her to hand over to her fellow compatriots...
Celine Dion - Think Twice (1994)
Okay, so she's like your mum and hogs the middle of the road like some corporate VP asked to comment on anything controversial at a staff meeting. And seriously, what was the point of General Wolfe dying folks? Vous avez un fucking rire. True but no one denies that the girl can sing and sometimes, given serendipity and the right song, she's queen of the last dance, erection section. I always liked 'Falling into You' which is dreamy and fluid, and shows off Celine's beautiful tone. But recently I've been drawn towards Think Twice. She floats in this song, serenely sailing towards the island of beautiful melodies, thousands of waving lighters marking the way. Noodling heavy guitar and treated drum 90's beats, provide the requisite soft-rock back drop to this classic. And that high sustained note! You go girl!
Fun fact; Think Twice was written by British song writer Andy Hill, who, if he did nothing else, is famous for writing all my favourite Bucks Fizz songs including the 80's pop masterwork that is Piece of the Action.
Well I know it sounds funny but I don't wanna be in love // I just want a piece of the action.
Another unsung British hero.
Shania Twain - You're Still The One
I had a view about Shania Twain for years - namely that she was sexy and sassy and the singer of comedy lightweight country songs that had punning titles - step forward, Man, I Feel Like A Woman. And then I came across this song. A totally different vein. There's a vulnerability about her voice, it sounds raw, late night, cracked; honest. No jokes, no routines, just a sincere acoustic strum you could image down The Bluebird Cafe (yes, I watch Nashville). I love the backing vocals and the way they anticipate Shania's lead on the chorus by half a bar - "You're still the one..." The tune is special but the way she delivers it. Man, I Feel That Woman's Power.
Shania's got a very devoted fanbase and reading their comments about the behaviour of her erstwhile husband, Mutt Lange, who's the subject of this song, is instructive. Apparently Mutt thought it good idea to cheat on the beautiful Shania with her best friend. Classy mate. Real classy. I guess Mutt's no longer the one.
Avril Lavigne - Take Me Away
She's like so, whatever // And you could do so much better
Sure she's a brat and - like Pink - if her lyrics are anything like her real personality, she's probably really hard to be with... But. But. I love her shouty grungy guitar driven sound, even if she is, in her own words 'A motherfucking princess'. I first got into Avril around 2003, about the same time as Lucie Silvas. I'd play her album 'Let Go' constantly - getting down to Sk8ter Boi, Complicated, chuckling to the smut of Things I'll Never Say. But the apogee of Avril, for me, was her second album, Under My Skin, where the guitars are ramped up to eleven, the vocals still crystal clear, the harmonies challenging, not smooth. This is RAWK album, sung by a teenage girl backed by some severe amplification. Hell yeah! I could pick any of the songs on this album - Together, Forgotten, My Happy Ending - but Take Me Away is probably the most representative - borrowing grunge trick number 1 (this is the quiet bit / this is the loud bit), angsty lyrics, great singing, great harmonies.
I can't handle this confusion / I'm unable... // Come and take me away,
Footnote to the Avril story. My girls have graduated a little away from Taylor Swift and into shouty arms of Avril. I'm cool with that. I'm down with the kids, yeah. I was there first! Now I just await their conversion into Beatles fans. Elvis fans. Stones fans. I'll save The Smiths for myself!
Classical Britain
In did those feet in ancient time walk upon Rochdale's green and pleasant hills?
My British soundtrack...
Let's start with classical first. I'll return to rock, pop and folk later... I'm not exactly breaking any barriers with my selections here. They are all rather safe and well known. But, that doesn't stop them from being damn fine tunes and each in their own way, evocative of Britain.
Elgar - Nimrod, from the Enigma Variations
Majestic and stately, respectful and slow to anger but shaking the earth with its wrath when roused, Nimrod is England in musical form. Or at least, my England. A lot of people go with Pomp and Circumstance as the patriotic high point of Elgar and I agree that Land of Hope and Glory is a perfect, end of the proms, flag waving, ditty. But Nimrod... Swelling is the description I would go with. Building and building until it's power dominates the room but then, fading just as swiftly as it has come. Along with Vivaldi's Winter (Largo) this is one of two essential classical pieces for me. And to me - it is England - not boastful nor proud but solid, right and beautiful.
Parry / Blake - Jerusalem
There's a recording of me and my mate Stephen singing this in 1986 accompanied by my drunken Casio keyboard playing (with clap-clap drumbeat). Not my greatest recording ever. I only say this as an illustration that it's always been a favourite of mine. Based on a poem by William Blake (written whilst in West Sussex - green and pleasant land, indeed), the musical setting was provided by Hubert Parry in 1916. Rightly Jerusalem has come back recently as an anthem for everyone (the Suffragettes used to use it with Parry's permission) and not just the Tory Party. If England needs a national anthem, this is it.
And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green
Anonymous (but let's go with the Vaughn Williams setting) - Greensleeves
One from Tim's Desert Island Discs circa 1975. Who could not like this medieval song from the 16th century? Probably not written by Henry VIII, it is nethertheless a window into Tudor times when so much of our national story was forged (Church of England, the break with Rome, religious tolerance, Shakespeare, the first colonies, a powerful queen, the successful defence of the realm by the nascent royal navy). I particularly like the interpretation of the lyrics that suggests that the Lady Greensleeves was a whore because whores' dresses were green from lying in the grass so much! No, let's give the lady a little more class than that, shall we? I like the Vaughn Williams orchestral fantasia version because it seemed to summarise Merrie Olde England as characterised by, say, the Carry On Films. There's something very English about the tune and something very post-war about the WIlliams' setting (even if he did write it in the 30's).
Yeah, I know. All three are very English. Sorry about that Celtic fringes. Occasionally England needs to be heard too!
George Martin
Okay - The Clash had it right. "No Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones."
Because they're the big three, right? The Crassus, Caesar and Pompey of rock. And I agree. I remember being sad in 1977 at The King's death. I was fucking angry when Lennon was shot in 1980. I loved it when Travis performed a George Harrison tribute at The Brits in 2001 to kids too stupid, too gauche, to understand the death that had just happened.
And so George Martin passes away.
He would be famous for many things but his decision to sign The Beatles has to rank as one of the cleverest, smartest, most profitable decisions ever made. He auditioned the Beatles in June 1962. In March 1964 the Beatles were numbers 1-5 in America.
Let me just say that again in case any of you younger people don't get it.
In March 1964 The Beatles were numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 in the American charts. So fuck off any One DIrections out there. You are literally shit under McCartney's shoe. And John Lennon? Seriously ladies, go and get another tattoo and fuck the Queen of Chavs. Leave the music to George Martin and the Beatles. You are, quite simply, nothing.
Because behind The Beatles was always George Martin. The Beatles would still have been The Beatles without him (see She's Leaving Home and, shamefully those twats on Newsnight who highlighted The Long and Winding Road - a Phil Spectre orchestration)... But in a million ways he pushed and facilitated The Fab Four.
- Can't But Me Love starts with the chorus because of him
- Sgt Pepper was all about George Martin
- He invented ADT (automatic Double Tracking)
- He scored Yesterday for strings
- He made I Am Walrus the kick-ass proto-type Oasis it is
- He made Strawberry Fields Forever from pieces of Lennon brilliance.
- He came up with idea for Please Please Me - an album in a day. He also speeded the single up to give the Beatles their first hit.
- He does a mean rock n roll piano. Check out Rock N Roll Music - that's George rocking out on the ivories.
- He went independent from EMI in 1967 and so broke the monopoly of the record companies on how their artists sound
- A million, billion things large and small that created the greatest rock and pop group ever. My views on this are not sanguine, nor debatable.
And on top of everything he was a genuine English gent who fought in the war, the sort we seem in short supply of these days - restrained, decent, modest and competent. A good bloke.
Sorry this is so inadequate George; you deserve much better from me.
RIP
Tim
The Contrast Between Harmony and Invention
Although I'm best known for my rock criticisms, for my long and extended discussions of the might and majesty of I think I Love You by the Partridge Family or the soft rock velvety fist of The Carpenters' Goodbye to Love, in reality, I actually spend most of my time listening to Vivaldi.
When? Well, when I write. When I commute. When I eat. Always Vivaldi. Now there's a joke (not that funny but I'll repeat it) that says that Vivaldi didn't write 500 concertos but one concerto 500 times. While there are recurring motifs and musical cycles in his music, to dismiss the Venetian maestro as a one trick pony is to underestimate him hugely. And you'd also miss out on some great music.
I would argue - and do! - that the mathematical precision creates a comforting level of expectation and familiarity in the listener. I love hearing him follow the rules of a musical spine. So that he can then, like a great Blues artist, use this solid platform for all manner of interpretation and invention.
I'll pick three Vivaldi pieces that I rate above most. And I'll start with something well known:-
Winter - The Four Seasons (Largo)
For years I hummed this tune unknowing of what it was until an Italian colleague placed it for me - no, not within The Four Seasons - but in the larger parent movement - Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione. Or Opus 8. If there is a more beautiful tune in the world, I don't know it. This melody, so fluent and so evocative, is framed against the tick tock of pizzicato strings. The flowing lines and rise and fall of the melody, against the mechanical sawing of the backing strings, creates magic. Every time! Straight to Number One!
Mandolin Concerto - RV 134 (Allegro)
Dig those power chords! This is classical music delivering the ferocity and riffology of Led Zeppelin, 250 years before Jimmy Page plugged his Gibson into a Marshall stack. Feel the full force of this baroque wall of sound. Showing that classical music can provide depth and power 100 years before Beethoven smashed it all the way to 11 in his 5&9, this is head banging stuff. If you like classical with attitude, this is your track!
Concerto for 2 Oboes - RV 535 (Largo)
The Vivaldi lover's Vivaldi. Interweaving and delicate oboe lines cross and uncross, creating peace, magic and love. This is probably the piece I'd pick for 'and I listen to classical too' slot on Desert Island Disc. Less well known that the Winter piece, it shares with it a dignified beauty. It's so stately you want to salute it as it flows past you graceful and serious. Music for grown ups.
* * *
There's more. So much more. Vivaldi didn't restrict himself to an album every two years with a couple of singles in between. No, the red headed Venice boy, cloistered with his orphans in the Ospedale della Pietà churned them out for years. La Stravaganza, L'Estro Armonico, the hits just kept coming. And then stopped, abruptly and he lay completely forgotten for two hundred years.
As we know though, he came back in a big way. Adverts, films, best ofs; he's now up there with the classical big boys. Seek him out.
Or don't. I don't care. But if you see me on a train this is what I'm listening to.
s-ciào su bitches
Tim
Hit & Run Lover : Gigging in the 90's
Shambolic at Sussex University, on 1995's Still Hazy After All These Beers tour.
Who knows? Memory is a fickle thing. Like making a film, we choose what to remember, what to recall, what to forget. So the story below may have been unintentionally changed during the intervening years. Like all good history, a certain judicious editing and some appropriate embellishing helps it pack a more meaningful punch. But - hey! - enough of my yacking!
So, back to summer 1995: Oasis and Blur were duking it out in the charts. Brit Pop was in the air and we all thought it was the mid 60’s once again. Down on the South Coast my group, Shambolic, was on the much ignored at the time, but now completely forgotten, Still Hazy After All These Beers tour which consisted of a gig in Worthing Battle of the Bands (we lost), one free festival at Sussex University and two painful gigs in dreadful Brighton pubs for no money.
Our very badly photocopied poster with which we promoted the tour in Brighton laundrette windows reads as if I was trying to provoke an audience rather than attract one. Underneath the group’s name was the motto, or threat, “We flip you over and play your b side”. A little further down, and against a backdrop of three silhouetted figures, the following quotes were helpfully italicised:
Adrian (drums): Actually I’m a chartered surveyor.
Roger (bass): I don’t worry about rhythm or notes that much. It’s more instinctive than that.
Tim (guitar and horn): I tend to get the girls.
Down at the bottom the blurb painfully suggested three chords, two haircuts, one pound entry fee; zero talent.
And if you had paid that one pound, what would you have got? There’s a live tape out there which includes a performance of my song (and later book) Hit and Run Lover at one of the larger gigs on the Beers Tour of 1995. ‘Out there’ in this case means there’s a tape in my kitchen drawer and probably Roger the bassist’s got a copy too. So about as out there as a gay sixteen year old in China.
Anyway, the ‘limited edition’ tape contains the full performance of Shambolic playing the ‘anti racism and transgender awareness’ free festival at Sussex University in 1995. It wasn’t quite Woodstock. There was stage mounted behind East Slope and so, from this height, the sound could be heard right across campus. Various local bands were interspersed with humourless harangues by po-faced left-wing student politicians who all seemed to be bearded ex public school boys called Josh talking shite about the working class. Despite this, it was a lovely early June evening and there was a large and mellow crowd. Roger handed the guy on the sound deck, a stoned student, a C90 tape of Gerry Rafferty to record over. And so Shambolic at Sussex University has been preserved for posterity with occasional leaks from Baker Street in the quiet bits where the roar of the crowd should have won the audio scrap with 70’s AOR. But the quality of what’s committed to that tape? Need it be said? It’s not quite the Who Live at Leeds.
It starts with a voice shouting out: “Get off you wankers,” as I drunkenly try to tune up before petulantly demanding another beer. Denied, I ask the audience to raise their hand when they think I’m in tune. The mike picks up mild derision from the massed ranks of not too interested students who - to be fair - had just suffered a twenty minute oration from the co-chair of the Sussex University Revolutionary Communist Party on the subject of, oh I forget. I don’t think even he knew what he was banging on about. Leftie bollocks anyway. I was pissed so I wasn’t really listening. Roger, bored of my tuning and trying to move things along, stormed up to the mike and yelled like a smacked arse, “Okay you might recognise the start of this one, the rest of it is called Hit and Run Lover.”
Sadly, Roger forgot that he had a bass strapped to him and so clumsily smashed the neck of it against the mike stand as he turned to go back to stage left. BOOM! Cue much hilarity amongst the audience at our expense. Actually at Roger’s expense because I can remember joining in the derision, curling my fist and shaking it rhythmically in his direction. Wanker! Good start. Good band harmony.
So how should the song have started? Well I used to graft the chord sequence from Nirvana’s Smell’s Like Teen Spirit to cheaply liven up the beginning of Hit and Run Lover. It confused people long enough into listening before I lurched into my own song. It was a musical amuse-bouche. However, at this gig, on this recording, shall we say I adopted a more 'freestyle' approach?
I hit one or two stray chords shockingly out of tune before crashing into Smells Like Teen Spirit. The thing is though, being pissed, even I was confused as to what I was supposed to be playing. Random chord followed random chord as I thrashed the guitar desperately trying to find my way back to the tune. Roger, never quick in these matters, frantically tried to work out what I was up to and, not surprisingly, failed. His bass is mostly quiet in this introductory period except at those key points where a wrong note might be exposed most mercilessly. At those points he plucked his thick strings as hard as he fucking could. TWANG! Meanwhile Adrian delayed his entry until he thought he knew the beat. And then changed it four times in the opening ten seconds. For some reason he threw in an epileptic drum roll just as I was quieting down for the verse. Absolute anarchy. This wasn’t freeform jazz – it was a haphazard shambles without even the excuse of deliberate dissonance to redeem itself. Crap, in fact.
My voice comes in, hoarse, drunken and out of tune. Words are stumbled over, ad lib asides offered between lines; solos are fluffed. The tape records the band sticking shakily to the predefined structure of verse-chorus, verse-chorus, before I go rogue by forgetting the middle eight - brazenly yelling into the mike, “Don’t worry, they won’t notice, carry on”. I then proceed to ruin this by standing on my guitar lead pulling it noisily out onto the stage floor cutting off what was already shaping up to be a pitiful and painfully out of tune axe-man solo. Adrian stops drumming, Roger continues his bass and, sans guitar, I rap some observational bollocks about some bloke in the audience’s mother giving a crap hand job for a tenner. Roger stops in disgust just as Adrian comes flying in on the crash symbol like he was providing the soundtrack to the second coming. And so Hit and Run Lover ends on a fluffed and out of place drum solo accompanied by a barely heard, and off mike, ‘wanker’ from yours truly directed at who knows who.
A pensive, almost shocked, silence greets the end of this master class in mediocrity. Bring back the commie guy for some serious hard line Marxist shit! Anything but this!
“Can I have a hot dog?” I bellow drunkenly into the mike. This probably made more sense at the time and yet now serves as a fittingly appropriate coda to the song, the band and the era.
***
And yet I can't remember a time when I was happier.
What else for a cold January night? Xmas music, of course!
Well - that's Xmas 2015 finished. Flushed away around the U bend of history. The tree is packed up, the lights stuffed in boxes, baubles awaiting their mid-year dropping and natural selection. My cat turns over and yawns. It rains.
But what I want to talk to you about - obviously being as it's January - is Xmas music. I know, Tim the contrarian strikes again. I could argue that I've had a month of listening and sifting my favourite Christmas songs but, I won't. I just like to swim against the tide. Nob.
Christmas music, can be divided into five categories. Yes, this is like, the law, so I will abide by the categorisation:
- Carols
- Hollywood type Christmas songs (roughly 40's to the 60's)
- Cheesy Christmas pop songs (roughly 70's to the 90's)
- Folky / ethnic type Christmas songs
- Miscellaneous
I'll be posting the results of these hotly fought contests over the next few hours / days / whatever. An agog nation holds its collective breath.
Merry Christmas
Tim
This Week's Hot Hits!
I'm back with some picks from my current playlist. Turn them up - especially the last!
Flares and Manchester!
Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection
Manchester swagger. Ian Brown schooling Liam Gallagher. Epic guitars, epic bass, powerful drums. Epic Length. Flares. Daft hats. John Squire, Mani, Reni cooking up a storm. Ian Brown singing in tune. So good they don't even bother going for the chorus until two verses have passed and then the song goes into a four minute axe-led instrumental that is anything but guitar-wank. The dog's bollocks of the indie scene; it's vastness, virtuousity, and Manc cockiness always gets men of a certain age onto the dance-floor. Tim coughs and moves on.
Pele and Bobby Moore Swap Shirts 1970 Award
I Think I Love You - The Partridge Family
Like a shadow at the edge of town, a half-forgotten dream, this song dances on the far horizon of my earliest memories. David Cassidy was hip when I was young (along with the Osmonds, T-Rex, David Essex). He may have been a pretty boy in a hit TV series cashing in with a pop career, but, by god, it's a whacky song, weird and episodic, with a kick-ass chorus. A true pop classic.
Obligatory Stones Live Track!
Midnight Rambler - Live at Leeds 1971 (Sticky Fingers Special Edition)
Keef whacks a foot thru his amp, and stomps his way - in a dirty-blues fashion - through this Let It Bleed epic. Add Jagger giving a shit on his vocalisations, playing a blues harp like a blind cotton picker on double time. Chuck in Mick Taylor - the most under-rated of the cohort of great British blues guitarists - adding dextrous licks like a bastard. Yeah it's 13 minutes long but put it on when you walk the dog, when you're at the gym, when you're cooking; when you're trying to explain to your kids just what the hell rock music is about. The Stones at their best. The Greatest Rock n Roll Band in the world, indeed.
1966 or 2012 Award
The Noisettes - That Girl
How this song wasn't written, recorded in the 60's and then discovered a couple of years ago, I don't know. Unbelievable nostalgia bait it may be, but I love the retro feel, the boy and girl harmony, the impeccable taste, the aching hip vibe. 2012 FFS. Why aren't this group more famous? Took me ages to track this down. A party track.
Incongruous but Special Award
The Carpenters - Goodbye To Love
The Carpenters invent soft-rock, the power ballad! Typically gorgeous Carpenters song, sad, touching, well orchesterated. Karen's aching beautiful vocals. Richard's perfect arrangement. And then. And then. Tony Peluso fucks it all up with the guitar solo handed down from the rock gods themselves - heavy, fuzz toned, did-you-spill-my-pint hardness, providing the perfect foil to the Carpenters middle of the road class. It shouldn't work but it kicks ass! A fusion that, Rousseau-like, pushes human progress towards something better. A song that just pisses on all imitators that followed. Long Live Tony! Long Live Karen!
But for now this is my song. And it's goodbye to love.
Laters
DJ Tim