Play for Today: 21st January 2016

 

It’s fair to say the past week or so of my listening (and writing) has been derailed somewhat by the passing of David Bowie. There’s been (and is) so much online about the mawkishness/validity of feeling bereaved over the death of Bowie/famous people in general and there’s no need to add to that.

bowielast

All I can say is I used to go on about Bowie almost as much as I do now, and, true to my obituary elsewhere on this site, whatever my mood since his passing, one or another of his songs has suited it perfectly.

Listening to Bowie now is inevitably sadder than it used to be. His work has always been notable for its artificial quality, the adoption of various personae etc, but, unless you don’t believe in being emotionally engaged/moved by works of fiction there’s no contradiction in being affected by his apparently non-personal songs, especially given his brilliantly written lyrics. Anyway, here’s the playlist for today and the past week or so…

bowie 5The Gouster Sessions 1974 (fragment) – This is so frustrating, tantalising and great; the song fragments; Shilling the Rubes, I Am A Lazer, After Today and the rough version of Young Americans come from what is currently my favourite Bowie period and the recording has just a little more grit than the finished album. Bowie and his band sound on top form and the bits of studio banter sound amazingly relaxed and fun given Bowie’s apparent drug intake and exhaustion during that time. I wish the full sessions would turn up and be released.

We Are The Dead (from Diamond Dogs, 1974) – Not morbid humour on my part. I’ve loved this song bowie 4(and Diamond Dogs in general) for years (its only fairly recently been supplanted as my favourite Bowie album by Young Americans) and I’m not sure that he ever sang a song better than this. The part in the first verse where he sings ‘I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way’ over the ominous churchy organ part (so to speak) is to me one of the greatest moments in all Bowie-dom. Hugely atmospheric, perfectly articulated and chilling/moving/ominous. For years I thought the chorus (or semi-lack thereof) let the song down, but I’m not so sure now.

Big Brother (from Diamond Dogs, 1974) – Surely one of the most dodgy and creepy anthemic songs ever written, Bowie sings it like he really does want someone to fool us/shame us etc.  What a great chorus, when he finally hits the high ‘oooh’s (no less lame way of putting it) in the last choruses it becomes uplifting like stadium music is supposed to be; even if the stadium he seems to be evoking is in Nuremberg.

bowie 6Word on a Wing (from Station to Station, 1976) – Speaking of ideologically dubious Bowie material, Station to Station must be one of the creepiest albums ever recorded by a mainstream pop artist; not least because its melange of decadent European culture, emotional withdrawal and exhaustion and overtones of religious and magical yearning are imbued with a dark romanticism. Word on a Wing is just beautiful and weary though.

Sound & Vision (from Low 1977) Bowie at his most withdrawn and sombre still managed to be musically adventurous as well as writing a bona fide catchy pop song; not many people do that.

The Buddha of Suburbia (from the Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack, 1995) – On the whole, Bowie copyright protected imageseems not to have been (in his music at least, but see below) an especially nostalgic person. But writing the music for the TV adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s 70’s-set drama allowed him to look at his early work as others saw it, and this breezy yet yearning song is extremely moving, if you’re me.

Drive In Saturday (from Aladdin Sane, 1973) – Despite what I just wrote above, Bowie’s early work is often nostalgic, but not so much for his own past as for the recent past as seen from the future; the retro-futurism of songs like The Prettiest StarDrive In Saturday  was similar to the ’50s in space’ atmosphere projected by early Roxy Music and seems to have been the raison d’etre for the covers album Pin Ups (1973). Drive In Saturday has a really nice tune.

bowie 3Lady Stardust (from Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars, 1972) – A beautiful, brilliantly produced and performed song that exemplifies everything glam-era Bowie stood for; sexy, glamorous, gender-ambiguous and an immaculate pop song too. Sigh.

 

An Illuminated Eccentric; the art of Christophe Szpajdel

 Christophe

What do black/death metal band Book of Belial and Kim Kardashian have in common? Aside from a desire to spread evil and darkness, the answer is that both have had their names immortalised by the iconic logo designer Christophe Szpajdel. Although inextricably linked to the extreme metal underground by his classic works for a vast array of bands, Szpajdel is first and foremost a great artist and designer and his work now has an audience far beyond the metal subculture to which he still undeniably belongs.

bookardashian

Szpajdel has been drawing bespoke logos since 1987, his big break coming in the early 90s with the classic and hugely influential logo for Norwegian black metal legends Emperor. Since then his work has helped to define the aesthetic style of underground metal, but also become well-known in its own right, being featured in exhibitions and books, including his own volume, Lord of the Logos.

 It’s typical of the UK that, despite being based in Exeter (and having been a UK resident for the past fifteen years), Szpajdel’s work receives far greater acclaim and coverage elsewhere in the world; a real shame, and a situation which will hopefully be remedied as his reputation continues to expand both within and outside of the metal realm.

In conversation, Christophe is funny and informative and has a passion for drawing and, especially, logo design (his own and that of others) which shines through everything he says. It’s worth pointing out too, that in a time when useable graphics have arguably never been easier to come by, he remains committed to the art of imaginative, hand-drawn, pencil and ink images; unique works which have the feel that only comes from manual labour and contemplation.

impiety

Anyway, enough introduction; here’s the man himself – What are you looking forward to in 2016?

CS: This year I have lined up a few exhibitions, I have a possible show in Manchester for March-April at the Gallery Grim and another possibly in London. But I have had quite a long list of exhibitions in the past, so what is more exciting to look forward to is in June, when I have my first proper workshop, which is going to happen in Vancouver, Canada. That workshop is going to be together with [photographer] Peter Beste. This is something really to look forward to. I had a talk earlier today about an exhibition in Romania, in the Carpathian mountains. Last year I had a very successful last-minute impromptu exhibition in Japan. I’m actually looking forward to having a much bigger exhibition there, because that last exhibition became something of a timebomb. It filled the venue, they literally squeezed in, and I had three hours of non-stop autographs. All these Japanese people were taking selfies with me, which is something I have never seen like this before. In the UK, selfies are a big habit; in Japan, selfies are an absolute obsession.  It’s the same with queuing. Here in the UK, everyone is used to queuing, the Japanese have turned queuing into an art form. So last year was a giant leap in my artistic career.”

As mentioned in my intro, Christophe’s name is known worldwide in metal circles, but although his love for and knowledge of metal music is obvious, his real passion is for designing logos, not simply recycling past glories.bruno

CS: Yes, there is always metal, but this year I have made a new experience, I have done some pop culture logos. I drew for Calvin Harris and Bruno Mars, and Kim Kardashian, and Katie Price, Wayne Rooney (laughs).  Also Maverick Sabre –  you know; really popular artists, because I have the will to have my work exposed to a calvharmuch bigger public. And at the moment I’ve been thinking about, just for fun, working on a Beyoncé logo, because she is so much talked about.  So there’s this whole series of pop culture logos, I did EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Shortland Street. So I had some real fun exploring the mainstream. But the metal public is always the most receptive to my work. It’s my public, it’s the one who collects my work. A lot of people who see my work who haven’t been acquainted with the metal scene say that it’s not something they would be going for. Or that it’s nice but it’s grim.

coronat

There was a time when the extreme metal underground was essentially a DIY business at all levels, but its growth, aided by that of the internet over the last two decades has taken your local extreme band from demos, fanzines and tape trading, to small indie labels, to world tours and ‘Norwegian Grammys’, with the concomitant rise of the oxymoron that is ‘big’ underground bands. No genre demonstrates this better than black metal; and it should be noted that the high profile black metal image that has evolved is in part due to the instantly recognisable work of Christophe Szpajdel himself. Classic 90s logos like his ones for Emperor and Moonspell set a style which is still widely imitated 30 years on.

emperor

As the world has changed, Szpajdel has changed with it, but although he puts in full-time hours designing logos, he still doesn’t rely on his art for his income, which means his work is, by the standard of graphic designers with his profile and pedigree, almost ludicrously inexpensive.

WOLVES LOGO

CS: “The cost varies, but really I am aiming for a fee of one hundred US dollars. Anybody who contacts me first must be prepared to pay my fee. This year I am also looking to introduce an hourly rate. I discussed this with some artists in Devon who saw my work, and they told me ‘you really need to concentrate on a contract. Send the client a contract that stipulates that there is $100 initial fee for the first draft; but the first draft includes a finalised logo. If they then want further drafts then you absolutely need to introduce an hourly rate.’ So I am working out those details soon.

old graves landscape

Bands who contact me now for a logo for free, I say ‘if you want a logo then I want to see the 50% deposit. And when I see the deposit in my PayPal account I will then start working on the logos. If I don’t have the deposit then I’m not going to make a move.’

So is the logo done just for fun, or out of enthusiasm for the subject now a thing of the past?

CS: No, because times like now [January], when it’s been quite quiet over the festive period so, I sometimes just dish out a logo to someone, to people who support my work, just to experiment and to exercise my freedom. There’s a woman called Natalie Corless who has posted a lot on my Facebook wall that she likes my logos so I did her an impromptu logo and she loved it. And so she posted and promoted my album on her timeline and she got me some clients! And this was a person who randomly added me on Facebook. And at the end of the day, she liked my work and she got me five clients, who paid $100 each. So these kind of random people who add me on facebook, they’re not as random as you might think.

Do you forsee a time when you will live from just doing your artwork?

CS: Well, I would love to. But since I’ve started charging professionally, I have observed a steep drop of the amount of clients who commission a logo from me. There are lots of other artists, for example Chris Horst, or Gragoth from Luciferium War Graphics. They offer packages. Chris Horst for example specialises in logos, but for $50 he does logos that include drafts, revisions, work on the computer, digitised, vectorised, coloured, all that; for just $50. Gragoth from Luciferium War Graphics, he is offering for $300, a complete package. Like it has album covers, banners, ad banners, website, myspace layouts, reverb nation layouts, logo, all inclusive for $300. And he is having a lot of success.

maries copy

But my work’s selling point is it is unique; it is absolutely handmade. I work in collaboration with some graphic designers to digitise my logos. Because now that I charge $100, my clients expect work exactly, precisely, rigorously, to their expectations. They expect the logo to be vectorised, digitised, they expect it in different formats; .PNG, .AI, Vector file, .RAR, .PDF, .GIF files, all the different formats.”

mavsab

One would think that, as Christophe is now (and has been since the 90s) a well-known name, that bands would request a logo in his trademark style (or one of them), but surprisingly this isn’t always the case…

CS: When I used to do logos in my own style they all got rejected. Now I listen to what the clients want. When they pay the deposit I would like the band to discuss exactly what they are looking for. And actually I want them to send me examples by other artists and not mine, so I can avoid repeating myself. I’m also in very close contact and have been doing quite a lot of collaborative works with a guy called Raoul Mazzero from Italy. He is an absolute genius. He actually helped me how to create outstanding logos, and how to solve the symmetry problems. He’s been a huge help, and we’re looking at a possible Italian show too.”

Is symmetry something you aim for in general?

CS: I actually have an automatic impulse to create symmetrical logos, but I have also done quite a lot of asymmetrical logos. But symmetrical logos are just natural to me. I find a symmetrical logo to be more outstanding, and to be more balanced.

xvarhnah

So what is a good logo to you?

CS: I think the readability of a logo is essential. A logo has to be readable, even in a small format. And I try to convince my clients and my customers that a logo needs to be readable. Not to be overly decorated, especially if it is going to be displayed very small on a poster or on the corner of a CD. On most of the logos I produce I am aiming for readability. And if the client wants a completely unreadable logo I am simply saying ‘why don’t we opt for several designs? Why don’t we think about doing a logo which is made of letters only, which is readable and then a more limited logo for t-shirts that can go more unreadable?'”

carrion

Do you have any interest in doing cover designs etc as well as the logos?

CS: No.  I’ve tried to do it and it doesn’t really come well. I found out that doing album covers is not my speciality. However, I did work last year on a mural in Exeter. This is something I wanted to experience. I love working outside, especially in the summer months. In the winter, I essentially work in my studio. But in the summer I’m working a lot outside.

murial

The mural is a rare Christophe Szpajdel work, not only because of the scale, but the use of colour.

mural

CS: “In my logos I do everything in black and white.  However, there are a few exceptions. For the 2014 Remembrance Day I did a logo with red poppies on it. [since this interview took place, Christophe also designed the beautiful memorial logo for David Bowie below also) Sometimes I like to share my thoughts through an artwork, like a logo. I find that logos come to me a lot better, it’s my vocation as an artist. I find that I prefer to put my hand into one pot, rather than to try to put my hand into a lot of pots.”

remembow

Although Christophe is known for his black and death metal logos, it would be a mistake to regard these as being in one single style; beginning in the 90s with the bold, spiky logos such as the classic designs for Emperor et al, but he also pioneered the naturalistic, organic, ‘spreading roots’ style logos now extremely widespread in the genre (I have chosen his logo for Grim as both a perfect example and a personal favourite) and latterly has turned to increasingly bold, primitive designs.

GRIM LOGO

He has also experimented with various alphabets and styles, a favourite of mine being his masterful and atmospheric Art Nouveau and Art Deco inspired designs.

artsnoovos

decos copy

CS: “I like to do Art Nouveau logos, Art Nouveau logos give fantastic ways for using the space, using space between the letters, rather than pure black metal old school logos, which generally look crumpled. And I think that these usual kinds of logos actually reduce the chance for a band to become well known. Sometimes it’s an ultra-radical kind of orthodox black metal band who wants only to release ten copies of their demo or something, but unfortunately I prefer a logo to be standing out, to be readable. It has to be readable at first sight, but at the same time it has to be outstanding. it has to be kick-ass and memorable, not just a bunch of letters put together, but a logo.

Is creating a simple logo easier or more difficult than complicated one?

CS: “When it’s a complicated and sophisticated logo I mostly get it right the first time. If it’s a simple logo, that is where the client will challenge me. Because in a simple logo, that’s when any imperfection will be seen. And the client will be the first to see it. And this is what I really love; logos to be incredibly easy to recognise straight ahead. [note; the logos Christophe lists here are not his own designs] Think about Gojira; I love that logo. It’s simple, it’s clear, and even if you see it very small, you recognise straight away; that is Gojira and no other band. Think about a band like Tool. They have a perfect logo because it stands out, it’s unique, and it’s appropriate. Or logos like Anthrax; it’s modern, it’s thrash, it’s simple, it’s distinctive, it’s unique. Same, think about the logo of Helloween; or the logo of Malice. Think about Bathory!”

Or indeed Emperor…

CS: “You see, when I did Emperor, they had a sort of logo they used with upside down crosses, and it was too black metal, I thought they needed something simple, and imperious. And I got it right first time. You know, you throw your first dart and you get it right in the centre of the target. Bam! Like that. It’s a logo which is at the same time simple, distinctive, useable in any size, which works in any size and format.”

And of course you now have your own logo…

CS: “Yes, I have the Lord of the Logos, which is my trademark, which is my book.”

lord logo book

It’s a beautiful book, have you plans for more?

CS: “Well, Lord of the Logos, is still available, it’s still sellng. I’m looking to release a second volume, which has a working  title of Ancient Modernism later this year. The title comes from a whole concept I’ve developed . The concept in tundo creationhe new logos is a real travel through time and dimension. So there is a timeline, beginning with really primitive logos I have created. A band called Gau, which means ‘night’ in Basque, this logo is very prehistoric, almost as if it was drawn by dinosaurs. With these very prehistoric plants around, no crows, no wolves. Very prehistoric, almost reptilian, taken from a time there was no mammals, no birds, there were just reptiles and primitive insects; trilobites, and ammonites. And in fact I live in Exeter, by the Jurassic coast, so you can send yourself spinning on a time travel of 200 millions years. So we go from these very simplistic logos, like Undo Creation from Georgia, up to the most sophisticated logos; art deco, or futuristic logos, like I did for Outsider Industries. Or Haunted, an Italian project.

outsider

It seems like, although drawing logos still isn’t your ‘day job’, it’s definitely your main focus…

C.S: “I’m trying to keep myself at the age of 45, forever doing logos. The main reason is being single; all the time being single, so I can concentrate 100% on my logos because this is what gives me happiness. I have never been married, never had children; my first child is that book, Lord of the Logos. And that child is growing all the time, it has been in many hands, and it’s being appreciated by people who have never been listening to metal. Lord of the Logos is really only focussing on what inspires me; it’s photographs and logos. And there are some medieval aspects, but mostly it’s nature. All the photos have been taken by myself, and the logos are all my own work and it reflects the places that have inspired me. It includes many parts of Devon, Dartmoor, Southampton, Oregon, California, south of France, Belgium. Quite a lot of places that I have visited. And last year there was also the release of the compendium, Logos from Hell by Mark Riddick, and I’ve got something like 200 of my works in there; no other artist had 200 logos collected in one compendium book. The book is very heavy.

LOGOS_FROM_HELL_Cover

Collecting works into books creates a great  reference work for graphic artists, but does it inspire you to look back at your old stuff?

CS: “I have been at the moment making a complete retrospective and over the next while… I have been looking to post on Facebook for the first time logos that I did from 1992 to 1999. So a real retrospective that includes some logos like a band called Eternity of Darkness that I did in 1992, something like that; that was a UK band. And Stone Circle. We’re talking about very, very old stuff from the 90s…

What were the logos that first got your attention? In the 70s there were some classics like Kiss…

Yeah; the original [Paul Stanley designed] Kiss logo with the SS style lettering; it’s just exactly the kind of logo that got me as a kid. I started listening to Kiss in 1977. I also loved bands like The Cure. I remember going to see them when I was 12 and it was like going to enter a completely forbidden country. When I went in ’82 it was all the ‘post-punks’ but when I saw them again in ’87, that was the time of all the Goths. There were just loads of Goths; the people you just couldn’t see in the daytime. You just couldn’t see these people outside of some special place like Camden. In Camden you could see all these illuminated people with a vivid imagination; and I am one of them, I definitely consider myself as an illuminated eccentric with a vivid imagination.

 At this point do you have any idea how many logos you’ve done?

It would be easily a good ten thousand. And there are quite a lot of logos that I unfortunately parted with the originals. Because in many cases I’d be drawing on the go and just hand the drawings over to the client. Like a band from Italy called Deathraid, who were a little bit in the vein of the oh-so-legendary Necrodeath…

…brief interlude as we discuss Necrodeath’s Into the Macabre and Christophe reveals that, however wide his tastes and artistic ambitions, his roots are most definitely in the underground metal scene of his youth:

CS: “Into the Macabre very memorable, it’s very simplistic, its raw. It’s got that vibe. The songs are just basically keeping you on your toes. It’s a great blend of thrash, speed metal with that slight black metal edge, but at the same time it’s very insane, it’s very haunting. It’s the kind of album if you hear it once you will remember it for the rest of your life.”

Well, it was recorded before all the genre boundaries were really established…

CS: “Yes, it was just straight from hell metal. And that was what I adored.”

Last year, Christophe’s iconic Emperor logo became, for the first time, a source of something other than pride, when it became the basis for some joke Christmas jumper designs posted online by the Foo Fighters; which still rankles, evidently…

CS: That drove me absolutely ballistic. And I could have sued them, but I had a much nicer idea. I came up with a Foo Fighters logo designed by myself, which has a black metal vibe, but with the FF of Foo Fighters and elements of the Foo Fighters logo but had a black metal, but still readable, Emperor-esque inspiration, without being a barbaric cut-paste like this pathetic Foo Fighters Emperor-esque logo which had been done on a computer.

foo

A lot of people brought it to my attention and there was much going on on my Facebook wall that I finally said I’m gonna ram it down and post the logo. This is how the Foo Fighters logo should be! Woe to the guy who ripped off my Emperor logo and made a right pig’s ear out of it! Of course I had some people who told me I should be honoured. Well! Honoured of having my art being disfigured, desecrated, stolen and mistreated like that? Bollocks. If they really wanted to have an Emperor tribute logo they would have contacted me! They wouldn’t have contacted a lousy, so-called graphic designer, who made this terrible pig’s ear out of it, and on this awful, terrible, shameful Christmas jumper!

So what is  the legal situation with the Emperor logo? Do you have any rights or does the band just own it?

I still have the right to exhibit. I had a massive exhibition; last year started great. I had the Marks of Metal exhibition in Odense in Denmark. There was an encounter between me, who did the Emperor logo and Kristian Wåhlin, Necrolord, who did the Emperor album cover. We actually brought the actual works, and we were there with the works together, making the same kind of statements. We both did these works when we were just Emperor fans, when we were young. I was exactly twenty when I did the Emperor logos, I was still doing my studies and I did it as kind of a hobby. When I did that logo in January 1991, during my first year winter exams, I would never imagine that Emperor would become so big. It wasn’t until 1994 and In the Nightside Eclipse that my name became big. That was when my name spread in the underground and became known among the metallers.

emperor_logo

How do you feel about that logo now? Do you still like it?

Yes, I love it still. It’s become one of the timeless classics. Think about Motorhead, think about  Iron Maiden, think about Abba! Tom Jones, he’s still going on. The Foundations; Build Me Up Buttercup. These are artists and songs I loved and still love. Think of Elvis Presley; these are timeless classics and the Emperor logo is one of those classics. And it’s one of the few logos that is still unaltered after 30 years. And when people meet me they say ‘you’re the Emperor logo guy!’ Of course there lots of  other bands from the 90s whose logos I did; but Emperor is the one that stands out.

Do you feel your focus as an artist has changed much since 1991?

CS: “Well, in the 90s I wouldn’t say that I wanted only true black metal exclusively, but there was no way on earth that I would have been doing the logos for Kim Kardashian and people like that… I do wonder where those will take me…

jamol

Links:

Facebook

Devon Artists Network

Google Plus

Contact: christophe.szpajdel@gmail.com

 

The Slinky Vagabond: David Bowie 1947-2016

bowie

I was listening to David Bowie on the way to work today; I would have been doing that anyway. The fact that his death was reported on the news this morning did make the listening horribly poignant though. And even more, it made me notice just how unique and distinctive his talent was;

“They pulled in just behind the bridgebowkeat
He lays her down, he frowns
‘Gee my life’s a funny thing, am I still too young?’
He kissed her then and there She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere
Heaven knows, she’d have taken anything…”

The montage-like flow of imagery in Young Americans builds up an incredibly vivid, familiar-yet-dislocated image of America as seen from the UK; and it’s poetry. Even better in fact, because Bowie was a singer and musician, it’s poetry that’s accessible and meaningful to people who don’t even understand it as words. Like all of Bowie’s best work it is, musically and lyrically ambiguous; it’s British, it’s American, it’s kind of latin, it’s pop, it’s soul but because it’s Bowie it’s always a different, alien version of all those things.

labyrinthI’ve been listening to David Bowie for more than half of my life, but like most people of my generation, I’ve been very aware of him for much longer than that.
A lot of the tributes that have been made to him have – understandably – been by his peers, or those who experienced his music as something new, exciting and different. For those growing up in the 80s though, his music was at the time more or less mainstream pop with an odd singing voice (Let’s Dance, the Bowie/Jagger atrocity etc) but he was always just there; in the charts, on TV, and maybe above all for my generation, starring in Labyrinth.

1971There were two (as I remember) more or less simultaneous but separate things that led me in my late teens to Bowie’s music; a book about Lou Reed (I was already a big Velvet Underground fan) which led me onto Queen Bitch and therefore Hunky Dory (for a long time my favourite album) and seeing The Man Who Fell To Earth  on TV and therefore listening to Low, which was in my mother’s record collection; and loving it.

manwho

From then on, whatever ways my taste has changed, it has never needed to abandon Bowie; I liked glam and Bowie was  glam (both the light, frothy kind – The Prettiest Star – and the dark, sleazy kind – Diamond Dogs).  I was interested in 1930s German Expressionism and Bowie had recorded Berthold Brecht’s Baal (one of his most underrated records actually). I was interested in Crowley and European culture and electronic music and he had recorded Station to Station. I liked soul and funk and he had made his own weird version of it. And so on, and on. He was interesting and interested in things and was able to turn his interests into his own art without losing either what made it interesting in the first place, or his own personality in the process. It’s also true that although he was often accused of pretentiousness, that means that even his most ‘difficult’ work is never less than interesting; it was only on the odd occasions that he followed fashion instead of leading (or ignoring) it that he was boring.

BowieBaal

I don’t love everything Bowie ever recorded, but there is no period of his career that doesn’t have something great in it, and right up to the last few days of his life (not that I knew that’s what it was) I always looked forward to hearing what he was going to come up with next; and there aren’t many stars with 40+ year careers I can say that about.

RIP David Bowie

A personal Bowie playlist:

  • Please Mr Gravedigger (1967)66
  • Janine (1969)
  • Memory of a Free Festival (1969)
  • Width of a Circle (1971)
  • All The Madmen (1971)
  • The Man Who Sold the World  (1971)
  • Changes (1971)
  • Oh! You Pretty Things (1971)
  • Eight Line Poem (1971)
  • Life On Mars? (1971)
  • Quicksand (1971)
  • Queen Bitch (1971)
  • The Bewlay Brothers (1971)
  • Five Years (1972)
  • Soul Love (1972)
  • Moonage Daydream (1972)
  • Lady Stardust (1972)
  • Star (1972)
  • Ziggy Stardust (1972)
  • Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide (1972)
  • My Death (live) (1972)
  • Velvet Goldmine (1972)
  • Watch That Man (1973)
  • Drive In Saturday (1973)
  • Panic In Detroit (1973)
  • Cracked Actor (1973)
  • Time (1973)
  • Lady Grinning Soul (1973)
  • Sorrow (1973)
  • Port of Amsterdam (1973)
  • Sweet Thing /Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise) (1974)1972
  • Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me (1974)
  • We Are The Dead (1974)
  • Big Brother (1974)
  • All The Young Dudes (live) (1974)
  • Young Americans (1975)
  • Win   (1975)
  • Fascination  (1975)
  • Somebody Up There Likes Me  (1975)
  • Can You Hear Me  (1975)
  • Who Can I Be Now?  (1975)
  • It’s Gonna Be Me  (1975)
  • Station To Station    (1976)
  • Word On A Wing (1976)
  • Stay (1976)
  • Wild Is The Wind (1976)
  • Speed of Life (1977)
  • Breaking Glass (1977)
  • Sound and Vision (1977)
  • Be My Wife (1977)
  • Warszawa (1977)
  • Art Decade (1977)
  • Weeping Wall (1977)
  • Some Are (1977)
  • All Saints (1977)
  • “Heroes” (1977)
  • Sons of the Silent Age (1977)
  • V-2 Schneider (1977)
  • Sense of Doubt (1977)
  • Moss Garden (1977)baal
  • Neukoln (1977)
  • Fantastic Voyage (1979)
  • African Night Flight (1979)
  • Move On (1979)
  • Yassassin (1979)
  • DJ (1979)
  • Repetition (1979)
  • It’s No Game (Pt 1)  (1980)
  • Baal’s Hymn (1982)
  • Remembering Marie A (1982)
  • Ballad of the Adventurers (1982)
  • The Drowned Girl (1982)
  • The Dirty Song (1982)
  • Alabama Song (1980)
  • Modern Love (1983)
  • Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (1982)
  • This Is Not America  (1985)
  • When the Wind Blows (1986)
  • Amazing (1989)
  • Goodbye Mr Ed (1991)
  • The Wedding (1993)
  • Pallas Athena (1993)
  • Looking For Lester (1993)
  • I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday (1993)
  • Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
  • South Horizon (1993)
  • The Mysteries (1993)
  • Untitled No 1 (1993)
  • Ian Fish, UK Heir (1993)
  • Heart’s Filthy Lesson (1995)
  • The Motel (1995)
  • I Have Not Been To Oxford Town (1995)
  • —– nothing against the next few albums but haven’t heard them enough to have favourites —-
  • The Next Day (2013)
  • Dirty Boys (2013)
  • The Stars (Are Out Tonight) (2013)

and hopefully when I hear Blackstar some more songs will make it onto the list

gone

 

Play for Today: 9th January 2016

 

Today’s playlist is mainly stuff that has been playing since Christmastime, so it’s probably longer than it will usually be:

Brian Eno – Before and After Science (1977)

eno

Eno’s last collection of somewhat alien-sounding ‘songs’, definitely good, but compared to his first few it’s a bit all over the place, tending to segue into the ambient stuff that was beginning to be his main focus. I do love his voice though.

 

 

 

Ihsahn – Arktis (2016)

Ihsahn-Arktis

Much as I wish I’d seen the Emperor reunion, I have to say that by now Ihsahn’s solo discography is if anything even better. Arktis isn’t as unclassifiably brilliant as Das Seelenbrechen was, but it’s more straightforward and accessible; arguably as good as anything he’s made.

 

 

 

Blind Lemon Jefferson – Texas Blues; The Complete… (1925-1935)

SBLUECD502_clam3up.indd

113 songs, most by Jefferson and a few by related artists; taken as a whole I like it less than the similar Charley Patton set, but although his work is less atmospheric, Blind Lemon is less repetitive and just as inventive as a guitar player.

 

 

 

Dorje – Catalyst EP (2015)

dorje

Talking of inventive guitar playing, Dorje’s 2015 EP packs as many seismic hard rock riffs and blistering solos as you could reasonably fit into a half hour(ish) running time. Every band member excels here, and more importantly, the songs are up to the standard of the playing.

 

 

 

The Ornette Coleman Trio – At The “Golden Circle”, Stockholm (1965)

orney

The poet Philip Larkin once called Coleman’s music ‘a patternless reiterated jumble’ and that is sort of fair enough (there are no actual tunes to speak of), but doesn’t take into account the beauty of his playing or the telepathy between the three musicians; definitely love it or hate it kind of jazz.

 

 

 

Abbath – Abbath (2016)

abbath

Not quite out yet, Abbath’s debut is the perfect album for those missing Immortal. Like his I album Between Two Worlds (2006) it leans more towards traditional metal than black metal, but this time it feels more like a successor to Sons of Northern Darkness rather than a departure from it.

 

 

 

Kristin McClement – The Wild Grips (2015)

grips

A beautifully delicate and haunting album  which I’ll have to listen to a bit more before writing anything hugely meaningful about it

 

 

 

Black Sugar – Black Sugar (1971)

black sugar

Mostly great Peruvian latin-funk-jazz LP, the sort of thing that would be extremely hard to hear without the internet

 

 

 

PLAY FOR TODAY

An irregular series, being in the nature of a kind of playlist, ‘now playing’ or similar item, with or without further comment, perhaps to be interpreted as recommendatory, but of course entirely subjective in nature…

For Whom The Cowbell Tolls…

wilf

Thanks for this article are owed to Jamie Cowey (for the title) and the anonymous person whose enlightening comments on my original version of this have been incorporated into the section on Honky Tonk Woman

AND SO…

The cowbell has presumably been part of the percussionist’s arsenal since early in the Jazz period, but it really came into its own in the 60s and 70s; but that’s not what this is really about.

‘Cowbell rock’ is, as well as being a hugely irritating electro classic by Pyramyth, almost a genre of its own, and this is a brief (mostly unresearched, therefore probably mostly wrong) glance through it.The obvious disclaimer here is that rock comes from blues  and R&B music and therefore the true history of the cowbell in popular music should feature many more black musicians than are included here. But this isn’t a true history of anything really.

There are notable uses of the cowbell in mid-late 60s pop and rock, notably The Beatles’ Drive My 1 beatlCar (1966), which perhaps surprisingly prefigures the genre with its funky soul influence.  The Spencer Davis Group’s equally soulful Gimme Some Lovin’ (1966) also features possible cowbell* although to my ears it sounds more like a tambourine. *see note on Honky Tonk Woman below

Iron Butterfly’s psychedelic rock monster In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida  is often cited too (including by me elsewhere), though a proper listen to the song reveals that although there may be cowbell there (and it is certainly implied by the beat etc) it mostly sounds like straightforward snare/toms.

So to me (and I am happy to be put right on this), the art of true cowbell rock begins…

The Rolling Stones – Honky Tonk Women (1969) –  before anything else, the intro is purely cowbell 2 stoneand from then on the song establishes cowbell rock;  a rocking, yet laidback beat that holds everything else together. It was to prove hugely influential on the rock of the 70s and every revival thereof up until the present day. Interestingly (this is the part alluded to in the introductory note; thanks anonymous person), it is most likely erstwhile Spencer Davis Group producer Jimmy Miller, rather than the undoubtedly brilliant Charlie Watts, who plays the cowbell.

 

The 70s was the cowbell era and the classics are many and (to a degree) varied:

3 freeFree – All Right Now (1970) – picks up where Honky Tonk Women left off, with even bigger gaps in the riff; more room for cowbell.  Most of Free’s early work should really be in the ‘implied cowbell’ list below

 

 

Velvet Underground – Sweet Jane (1970) – an honorable mention really;  the cowbell (if there is 4VUany) is not very audible but this should be a cowbell classic based on the riff alone (more such nonsense below).

 

 

 

 

5sladeSlade – The Bangin’ Man (1974) – a tongue in cheek, slightly sad song, seemingly alluding to the memory problems the great Don Powell suffered when recovering from a  horrendous car crash; but his  drum/cowbell playing here is peerless.

 

 

David Bowie – Diamond Dogs (1974) – the sleazy death throes of Ziggy provide the

6bowieperfect backdrop for some classic cowbell courtesy (I presume) of the great Aynsley Dunbar. Interestingly, Bowie’s flirtation with cowbell rock outlasted his glam period; check out the Young Americans-era outtake I’m Divine for some classic cowbell with more of a funk flavour.

 

7 the nazNazareth – Hair of the Dog (1975) – basically a compendium of everything cheesy-but-good about mid-70s hard rock; and they came from Dunfermline!

 

 

 

Kiss – Calling Dr Love, Ladies Room, Take Me etc (1976) –  Presumably Peter Criss got a new 8 kisscowbell in 1975/6 because it’s all over the classic Rock & Roll Over album (released November 1976), giving it a looser, warmer feel than the also great but clinically orchestrated Destroyer (released March 1976, shockingly; When they were good, they were productive!)

 

 

BOCultBlue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear The Reaper (1976) – the tempo is slightly too frantic to be classic cowbell rock (though the cowbell is very audible!), but this has to be mentioned thanks to the excellent Saturday Night Live sketch with Will Ferrell.

 

Aerosmith – Last Child (1976) Many early Aerosmith classics have implied cowbell (see footnote),aerosmith but this slow & dirty-sounding masterpiece has the real thing.

 

warWar – Low Rider (1975) – somewhat out of genre being funk, but this song belongs in any discussion of the cowbell in popular music. I’m sure Funkadelic must have used it too, but nothing comes to mind so I’ll leave that for now…

Beyond the 70s there’s still plenty of cowbell action but on the whole not in the classic mould, but a few nice examples are:

Motley Crue – Wild Side (1987) Tommy Lee is not as good a drummer as he or his fans think he is but although he doesn’t use the cowbell properly here, he uses it well.

motleycrue1987

AC/DC – half of their songs (you would think, examples are rarer than one would hope), they kind of built a career on it.

acdc-back-in-black

Pixies – U-Mass (1991) Who’d have thought? But they do it well.

PixiesInfo

Nowadays there’s probably more cowbell rock than ever, but as far as I’ve heard it’s mostly a purely retro/pastiche/tribute thing so  worthy of consideration, but not here…

 

POSTSCRIPT: IMPLIED COWBELL

The list of songs that are, to all intents and purposes ‘cowbell rock’ but have little or no actual cowbell is distressingly long; someone should add some posthumous cowbell to these at the very least:

Edgar Winter’s White Trash – Give It Everything You Got  (1971) Dirty, nasty, gritty, funky rock, oddly the intro is kind of Stooges-like, but anyway; no cowbell.

EdgarWinterWhiteTrashLP1971

 

Black Oak Arkansas – Hot And Nasty (1971) – The title says it all. Would have been hotter and nastier with cowbell though

Alice Cooper – Be My Lover (1971) – Great anyway, but how much greater would it have been a tiny bit slower and with

cowbell?

ZZ Top – Waitin’ For The Bus  (1973) It nearly has cowbell on it. Let’s just pretend it does.

ZZT

Foghat – Slow Ride (1975)  – come on, this blues rock classic has everything except the icing on the cake; where’s the cowbell Roger?

 

Ted Nugent – Cat Scratch Fever  (1977) – same principle as above, maybe Ted is too much of a guitar guy to care about getting the percussion right? Ditto Stranglehold, but that said, I haven’t heard a huge amount of early Ted,  isn’t there bound to be at least one cowbell anthem in that oeuvre?

Whitesnake – Come An’ Get It  (1982) – Whitesnake’s work is a bridge between 70s rock and the harder, more modern 80s version; this would have been a tiny bit better with cowbell though, no?

snaek

Judas Priest –  You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ (1982) – The beat is right, Rob Halford gives the perfectly assured performance the song needs, but Dave Holland does everything right except play the cowbell; possibly they wanted to distance themselves from the 70s at this point

Manowar – Metal Daze and  Shell Shock (1984) Great, great testosterone fuelled nonsense/genius, the former song may have to be featured in a ‘best notes ever hit by a vocalist’ article at some point. But should have got out the cowbell guys; not metal enough I expect.

The Rolling Stones – Start Me Up (1981) and The Cult – Love Removal Machine (1987)  The same song, more or less. Both bands forgot the cowbell though.

In fact, The Cult’s transformation from moody goths to leather-clad rock gods was generally lacking in cowbell, despite the potential of songs like the awesome-anyway Wild Flower. That does however have some tambourine or something similar on the choruses to give that faux cowbell flavour.The-Cult-Electric-Press

 

Overall though, it is the 1970s that is the true era of the cowbell, and this is all just the tip of the iceberg. One of the great things about 70s rock is how much of it there is – and surely there must be many cowbell classics lurking out there, just waiting to be rediscovered by modern ears…

cahbew