2024 – welcome to the/a future(s)

 

Another year – and the actual name of the year itself gets ever stranger and more unlikely and exotically futuristic, if you grew up in the era when the film 2001: A Space Odyssey was still set in the future. And here’s the annual attempt to get something onto this site at the beginning of the year – just made it in the first week this time – and hopefully, to post more often. The goal is a minimum of once a month but I think goals are better than resolutions so that’s as far as I will go.

2023 was the usual mixed bag of things; I didn’t see any of the big movies of the year yet. I have watched half of Saltburn, which so far makes me think of the early books of Martin Amis, especially Dead Babies (1975) and Success (1978) – partly because I read them again after he died last year. They are both still good/nasty/funny, especially Success, but whereas I find that having no likeable characters in a book is one thing, and doesn’t stop the book from being entertaining, watching unlikeable characters in a film is different – more like spending time with actual unlikeable people, perhaps because – especially in a film like Saltburn – you can only guess at their motivations and inner life. So, the second half of Saltburn remains unwatched – but I liked it enough that I will watch it.

Grayson Perry – The Walthamstow Tapestry (detail)

I didn’t see many exhibitions last year but am very glad that I caught Grayson Perry’s Smash Hits in Edinburgh. I didn’t really plan to see it as assumed in advance I wouldn’t like it, but in fact I loved it and ended up having a new respect for GP that only partly evaporates whenever I see him on TV.

Kristin Hersh by Peter Mellekas

I can’t be bothered going in depth about my favourite music of the year because the year is over and I’ve written about most it elsewhere. Old teenage favourites came back strongly: Kristin Hersh’s superb run of albums continued with Clear Pond Road. I hadn’t thought a lot about Slowdive in years but I really liked Everything is Alive and was very pleased to see them get the kind of acclaim that mostly eluded them when I was buying their first album a million years ago. Teenage Fanclub’s Nothing Lasts Forever and Drop Nineteens’ Hard Light were good too, and The Girl is Crying in her Latte by Sparks was probably my favourite of theirs outside of their early 70s classics. There were some excellent black metal (or black metal-related) albums too; much as I don’t like to think of Immortal without Abbath, Demonaz did himself proud with War Against All. Niklas Kvarforth returned to form with the brilliant Shining and Skálmöld’s Ýdalir is as good as anything they’ve recorded. In less guitar-oriented genres, I loved Kid Koala’s Creatures of the Late Afternoon and the latest Czarface record but my favourite album of the year if I had to choose one was the loveably lo-fi and enigmatic compilation Gespensterland.

I read lots of good books in 2023 – I started keeping a list but forgot about it at some point – but the two that stand out in my memory as my favourites are both non-fiction. Lauren Elkin’s Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art  is completely engrossing and full of exciting ways of really looking at pictures. I wrote at length about Elena Kostyuchenko’s I Love Russia here. Kostyuchenko introduced me to a country that I only knew via history and stereotypes and her book is an exercise in what good journalism should be – informative, interesting, compassionate and readable. Both of these books cut across a wide range of subjects and examine unfamiliar things but also analyse the familiar from unfamiliar points of view; you should read them, if you haven’t already.

 

It’s no great surprise to me that my favourite books of the year would be – like much of my favourite art – by women. Though I think the individual voice is crucial in all of the arts, individuals don’t grow in a vacuum and because female (and, more widely, non-male) voices and viewpoints have always been overlooked, excluded, marginalised and/or patronised, women and those outside of the standard, traditional male authority figures more generally, tend to have more interesting and insightful perspectives than the ‘industry standard’ artist or commentator does. The first time that thought really struck me was when I was a student, reading about Berlin Dada and finding that Hannah Höch was obviously a much more interesting and articulate artist than (though I love his work too) her partner Raoul Hausmann, but that Hausmann had always occupied a position of authority and a reputation as an innovator, where she had little-to-none. And the more you look the more you see examples of the same thing. In fact, because women occupied – and in many ways still occupy – more culturally precarious positions than men, that position informs their work – thinking for example of artists like Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage or – a bigger name now – Frida Kahlo – giving it layers of meaning inaccessible to – because unexperienced by – their male peers.

The fact that women know more about themselves but also more about men than men do – because they have always had to – gives their work an emotional and intellectual charge often missing from those who belong comfortably within a tradition. This is a pretty well-worn idea – it’s why outsiders like Van Gogh or dropouts like Gauguin’s work speaks to us more clearly than the academic, tradition-bound art that they grew up with. Anybody on the margins, in whatever sense, of “mainstream society” has to have a working knowledge of that society, just to exist. Society has far less need to understand or even notice those people. – therefore their points of view are likely to not only be more individual, but more acute when it comes to observing the world in which they live. Class, race, gender; all of these things are always fascinatingly central to art and art history and the gradual recognition of that fact is making art history ever more exciting and vibrant. For now at least; we live in a time of conservative backlashes which attempt to restore order to those with a comfortable position within yesterday’s world – there will probably be an art historical backlash at some point, and the reputations of the mainstream stars of art in Van Gogh and Gauguin’s day, like William-Adolphe Bouguereau will find their reputations restored.

If that backlash comes, it will be from the academic equivalent of those figures who, in 2023 continued to dominate the cultural landscape. These are conservative (even if theoretically radical) people who pride themselves on their superior rational, unsentimental and “common sense” outlook, but whose views tend to have a surprising amount in common with some of the more wayward religious cults. Subscribing to shallowly Darwinist ideas, but only insofar as they reinforce one’s own prejudices and somehow never feeling the need to follow them to their logical conclusions is not new, but it’s very now. Underlying  ideas like the ‘survival of the fittest’, which then leads to the more malevolent idea of discouraging the “weak” in society by abolishing any kind of social structure that might support them is classic conservatism in an almost 19th century way, but somehow it’s not surprising to see these views gaining traction in the discourse of the apparently futuristic world of technology. In more that one way, these kinds of traditionalist, rigidly binary political and social philosophies work exactly like religious cults, with their apparently arbitrary cut off points for when it was that progress peaked/halted and civilisation turned bad. That point varies; but to believe things were once good but are now bad must always be problematic, because when, by any objective standards, was everything good, or were even most things good? For a certain class of British politician that point seems to have been World War Two, which kind of requires one to ignore actual World War Two. But the whole of history is infected by this kind of thinking – hence strange, disingenuous debates about how bad/how normal Empite, colonialism or slavery were; incidentially, you don’t even need to read the words of abolitionists or slaves themselves (though both would be good to read) to gain a perspective of whether or not slavery was  considered ‘normal’ or bad by the standards of the time. Just look at the lyrics to Britain’s most celebratory, triumphalist song of the 18th century, Rule Britannia. James Thomson didn’t write “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves; though there’s nothing inherently wrong with slavery.” They knew it was something shameful, something to be dreaded, even while celebrating it.

But anyways, the kind of avowedly forward-looking people we that are saddled with now, with their apparent concern for the future of the human species – especially the wellbeing of thus far non-existent future humans, as opposed to actual real living humans are, unlike the Amish, okay with progress, in the material sense of cars, computers, aircraft, spacecraft. But that only makes their core concern with traditional values and what is natural/unnatural even more nonsensical. If the defining thing about human beings is nature – men are like this, but not like that, women are like that, but not this; that nature dictates that compassion and medical science ate wasted on the weak and inferior, etc, then why draw the line at controlling gender and reproduction? Why get excited about the use of vaccines, or whether or not people “should” eat meat? If nature/”natural” really is the be all end all of human existence, why wear clothes, drive cars, cook food, use computers, build houses?  At what point does nature dictate what we do or can or should do? Isn’t everything humans do inherently natural because we have the capacity to do it and actually do do it?

Again, despite the supposed rationalism that fuels the superiority complexes of so many powerful people in whatever sector, their bullshit traditional ideas are dictated against – and always have been – by the lived experience of almost everyone in the world. If ‘real men’ are strong, rational and above all heterosexual, how come most of us will have met, throughout our lives, emotional, irrational men who can’t cope with pressure, who aren’t in control of themselves or their environment? How come homosexuality has existed since the beginning of recorded time and does not go away no matter how traditional or repressive society becomes or how much generation after generation insists that it is unnatural? If ‘real women’ are weak, gentle, sentimental, maternal, submissive and above all heterosexual, how come (etc, etc, etc, etc) Because of decadent western society? Well Western society is partly founded on the ideas of Ancient Greece, which though pretty misogynistic, famously did not have quite the same views on sexuality. And how come these people equally exist in every other society too? Could it be that traditional ideas of ‘human nature’ have nothing to do with actual nature but have always existed in western patriarchal societies simply to reinforce the status quo in the interests of those at the top of the hierarchical tree? From monarchies to oligarchies to modern democracies and communist states – all of which have their own ruling class, even when it is explicitly labelled otherwise – it’s been in the interest of those in charge to prevent anything which fundamentally changes the way things work.

For similar reasons, people in western society (perhaps elsewhere; I am no expert) who live unremarkable and mediocre lives within essentially complacent, and often apolitical circles are increasingly drawn to right rather than left wing extremism to gain prominence and (importantly) material success. Extremist views across the spectrum are entertainingly “edgy” and titillating to people who like to be entertained by controversy and/or shocked by outrageous behaviour, but right-wing views are far more acceptable within the media – and therefore are far more lucrative and rewarding – because they don’t threaten the financial basis that underpins the media and political structure.

So in short – only joking, this will be a long sentence (deep breath). If comedian or podcaster A) gains millions of followers who are excited about disruptive ideas that undermine the state by questioning the validity of the (sigh) mainstream media, by interrogating ideas of media ownership and the accumulation of wealth and power and so on, that represents a genuine threat to Rupert Murdoch, Viscount Rothermere, Meta and Elon Musk in a way that comedian or podcaster B), gaining millions of followers who lean towards ideas that disrupt society by attacking progressive, egalitarian or (sigh) “woke” culture does not. Regardless of the actual or avowed political beliefs of these media magnates, is comedian/podcaster A or comedian/podcaster B going to be the one they champion in order to tap into the zeitgeist (which media magnates have to do to survive)?

BUT ANYWAY, it would be nice to think that these things would be less central or at least more ignorable in 2024. It would also be nice if people in power could not enable the worst elements in society (where the two things are separable). It would be more than nice if the governments of the world would listen to people and end the butchering of helpless civilians. It’s important to remember that it is in the interests of governments – even relatively benign ones – that people in general feel powerless. But we’re not. If making resolutions works for you then make them, if not then don’t, if you have goals then aim for those and you may achieve something even if not everything you want to achieve. But if something is unacceptable to you, don’t accept it. You may have money, power, time or you may have little more than your own body and/or your own mind, but those are 100% yours and the most important things of all. Happy New Year and good luck!

dancing about architecture: the non-art and non-science of music reviews

On the rare occasions that anyone asks me anything about my writing, it’s usually about music reviews. The consensus seems to be that a good review (I don’t mean a positive one) should either be ‘listen to the music and say if it’s good or bad’, or ‘listen to the music and describe it so that other people can decide whether it’s their cup of tea, but keep your opinion out of it’. As it happens, I’ve given this subject a lot of thought, not only because I write a lot of reviews, but I also because I read a lot of reviews, and some of my favourite writers (Charles Shaar Murray is the classic example) manage to make me enjoy reading about music even when it’s music that I either already know I don’t like, or that I can be fairly certain from reading about it that I won’t like. Because reading a good article about music is first and foremost ‘reading a good article’.

Anyway, over the course of pondering music reviews I have come to several (possibly erroneous) conclusions:

* “star ratings” HAVE TO BE relative and all stars don’t have the same value. For instance, one might give a lesser album by a great artist 3 stars, but those are not the same 3 stars one would give a surprisingly okay album by a generally crappy artist.

* Musical taste is, as everyone knows, entirely subjective, but reviewing (for me at least) has to try be a balance between objective and subjective; just listening to something and saying what you think of it is also valid of course.

* Objective factors alone (see fun pie chart below) can never make an otherwise bad album good, but subjective factors can.

* ‘Classic’ albums make a nonsense of all other rules.

Let’s examine in more detail, with graphs! (are pie charts graphs?):

Objective factors:

factors that objectively might contribute to the quality of an album

Objective factors (see fun pie chart) are really only very important when the reviewer doesn’t like the music: when you love a song, whether or not the people performing it are technically talented musicians/pitch perfect singers etc is entirely irrelevant.

But, when an album or song (or movie, book etc) is dull or just blatantly abysmal, some comfort (or conversely, some outrage and annoyance) can be gained from the knowledge that at least the participants were good at the technical aspects of what they were doing, even if they are ultimately using those skills for evil.

Subjective Factors:

the true gauge of how highly you rate a piece of music; not a very helpful chart though

Although there are many subjective factors that may be relevant; nostalgia for the artist/period, personal associations, all of these really amount to either you like it or you don’t; simple but not necessarily straightforward.

The positive subjective feeling ‘I like it!’ can override all else, so that an album which is badly played, unoriginal, poorly recorded and awful even by the artist’s own standards can receive a favourable review (though the reviewer will hopefully want to point out those things)

Meanwhile the negative subjective feeling ‘I don’t like it’ can’t help but affect a review, but should hopefully be tempered by technical concerns if (an important point) the reviewer feels like being charitable. They may not.

Ideally, to me a review should be something like 50% objective / 50% subjective (as in the examples somewhere below) but in practice it rarely happens.

“Classic” status:

The reviewing of reissued classics can be awkward, as ‘classic’ status in a sense negates reviewing altogether; it is completely separate from all other concerns, therefore said classic status can affect ratings just because the album is iconic and everyone knows it. Reviews of new editions of acknowledged classics usual become either a review of what’s new (remastered sound, extra tracks etc) or a debunking of the classic status itself; which as far as I know has never toppled a classic album from its pedestal yet.

Classic album status is normally determined by popularity as much as any critical factors, but popularity itself shouldn’t play a part in the reviewer’s verdict; just because 30,000,000 people are cloth-eared faeces-consumers, it doesn’t mean the reviewer should respect their opinion, but they should probably acknowledge it, even if incredulously. Sometimes or often, classic status is attained for cultural, rather than (or as well as) musical reasons*, and it should be remembered that albums (is this still true in 2020? I don’t know) are as much a ‘cultural artefact’ (in the sense of being a mirror and/or record of their times) as cinema, TV, magazines or any other zeitgeist-capturing phenomenon.

* in their very different ways, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Thriller and The Spice Girls’ Spice were all as much ‘cultural phenomena’ as collections of songs

another pointless chart

SO ANYWAY; how does this all work? Some examples:

I once offended a Tina Turner fan with an ambivalent review of the 30th anniversary edition of Ms Turner’s 1984 opus Private Dancer.

As a breakdown (of ‘out of 10’s, for simplicity) it would look something like this:

TINA TURNER: PRIVATE DANCER (3OTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)

Objective factors
* musicianship – 9/10 – hard to fault the adaptability or technical skill of her band
* songwriting – 6/10 – in terms of catchy, verse-chorus-verse efficiency & memorableness these are perfectly good songs, if a bit cheesy & shallow & therefore a waste of Tina Turner
* production – 9/10 – no expense was spared in making the album sound good in its extremely shiny, 80s way
* originality – 0/10 – as an album designed to make TT into a successful 80s artist, it wasn’t really supposed to be original, so hard to actually fault it in that respect
* by the standards of the artist – 2/10 – in the 60s/70s Tina Turner made some great, emotionally forceful, musically adventurous and just great records. In 1984 she didn’t.

Overall: 26/50 = 5.2/10

Subjective Factors

* I don’t like it: 1/10 (but not 0, because Tina Turner is a legend and it would be wrong to deny that somehow)

Overall 5.2/10 + 1/10 = 6.2/20 = 3.1/10 = 1.55/5 (round up rather than down, out of respect for Tina) = 2 stars

and in fact I did give the album two stars, though I didn’t actually do any of the calculations above; but it’s pleasing to find out that the instinctive two stars is justified by fake science.

by way of contrast, a favourite that seems to be an acquired taste at best:

VENUSIAN DEATH CELL: HONEY GIRL (2014)

Objective factors
* musicianship – 1/10 – David Vora’s guitar playing is not very good, plus the guitar is out of tune anyway, and his drumming is oddly rhythm-free
* songwriting – 2/10 – the songs on Honey Girl are not really songs, they may be improvised, they don’t have actual tunes as such
* production – 0/10 – David pressed ‘record’ on his tape recorder
* originality – 10/10 – Vora doesn’t sound like anyone else, his songs are mostly not about things other people sing about
* by the standards of the artist – 9/10 – I like all of Venusian Death Cell’s albums, they are mostly kind of interchangeable, but Honey Girl is one of the better ones (chosen here over the equally great Abandonned Race only because of the uncanny similarities between the cover art of Honey Girl and Private Dancer).

Overall: 22/50 = 4.4/10

Subjective Factors

* I like it: 9/10 (but not 10, because if encouraged too much David Vora might give up and rest on his laurels. Though if he did that I’d like to “curate” a box set of his works)

Overall 4.4/10 + 9/10 = 13.4/20 = 6.7/10 = 3.35/5 (round up rather than down, out of sheer fandom) = 4 stars

And in fact I did give Honey Girl four stars, but I’ve yet to hear of anyone else who likes it. Which is of course fuel for the reviewer’s elitist snobbery; win/win

Star Ratings

 

 

 

I’ve used scoring systems above, but the writers I like best rarely use scores or ‘star ratings’. I don’t think anybody (artists least of all) really likes star ratings or scores because they immediately cause problems; if, for instance, I give the Beach Boys’s Pet Sounds four stars (and the critical consensus says you have to; also, I do love it), then what do I give Wild Honey or Sunflower, two Beach Boys albums that are probably demonstrably ‘less good’, but which I still like more? But at the same time, I suppose scores are handy, especially for people who want to know if something is worth buying but don’t want an essay about it – and who trust the reviewer. The best ‘score’ system I’ve ever seen is in the early 2000s (but may still be going?) fanzine Kentucky Fried Afterbirth, in which the genius who writes the whole thing, Grey,  gives albums ratings out of ten ‘cups of tea’ for how much they are or aren’t his cup of tea; This may be the fairest way of grading a subjective art form that there can possibly be.

Critical Consensus

I mentioned the critical consensus above, and there are times when it seems that music critics seem to all think the same thing, which is how come there’s so much crossover between books like 1000 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (I always feel like there’s an implied threat in those titles) and The Top 100 Albums of the Sixties etc. I’m not sure exactly how this works, because like most people I know who love music, my favourite albums and songs aren’t always (or even usually) the most highly regarded ones. My favourite Beatles album isn’t the ‘best’ one (Revolver, seems to be the consensus now); Songs in the Key of Life is the Stevie Wonder album, but it’s probably my third or fourth favourite Stevie Wonder album; I agree that Bruce Dickinson is a metal icon but I kind of prefer Iron Maiden with Paul Di’anno (granted PD wouldn’t be as good as Bruce at things like Rime of the Ancient Mariner but it’s less often mentioned that Bruce is definitely not as good at singing Wrathchild etc as Paul was.) Much as I genuinely love The Velvet Underground and Nico, I genuinely love the critically un-acclaimed Loaded just as much; there are so many examples of this that the idea of an actual critical consensus that means anything seems like nonsense.

I’m content to like it even if you don’t

I’ve been writing music reviews for many years now, but my own involvement with ‘the consensus’ is rare and the only solid example I can think of is a negative one. I thought – and I still think – that Land, the fourth album by Faroese progressive metal band Týr, is the best thing they’ve ever done. I gave it a good review, not realising that the critical tide was turning against the band, and, for whatever reason (fun to speculate but lack of space is as likely as anything), my positive review never appeared in print. It wouldn’t have made any real difference to the band or to the album’s reception in general, but it did make me feel differently about albums that are notoriously bad (or good). Who is deciding these things? I’m a music critic and I’m not. And although I – like, I think everyone – take reviews with a pinch of salt anyway (someone else liking something is a strange criteria for getting it, when you think about it), I have to admit if I hadn’t had to listen to Land (which I still listen to every now & then, over a decade later), I wouldn’t have been in a hurry to check out the album after reading again and again that it was dull and boring.

Throughout this whole article the elephant in the room is that, at this point, the whole system of reviewing is out of date. You can almost always just listen to pretty much anything for free and decided yourself whether you like it, rather than acting on someone else’s opinion of it. But in a way that makes the writing more important; again, like most people, I often check things out and stop listening at the intro, or half way through the first song if I just don’t like it – except when I’m reviewing. Reviewers have to listen to the whole thing, they have to think about it and say something relevant or contextual or entertaining.* And if the reviewer is a good writer (Lester Bangs is the most famous example, though I prefer Jon Savage or the aforementioned CSM and various nowadays people), their thoughts will entertain you even if the music ultimately doesn’t.

 

*worth a footnote as an exception which proves the rule is a notorious Charles Shaar Murray one-word review for the Lee Hazlewood album Poet, Fool or Bum: “Bum.”

Play For Today: special summer bonanza edition Part One

 

It’s been ages since I’ve posted a playlist, so I thought I’d change the format slightly. Background: I write about music a lot for various publications, but as a music journalist I also receive hundreds of promo type emails every week and, when something looks interesting I download it and save the release in a folder marked with the month, to be properly checked out later (sometimes much later). So I thought ‘going forward’ (I hate that phrase, what did people used to say?) that at the end of each month I’d go over the items of interest and see if they really were interesting, and write a little bit about them.

Now is as good a time as any to start, but to get it rolling I thought I might as well do a look back over the summer, which I think I did years ago on my old website. Anyway, let’s get on with it.

Going right back to the beginning of June, an album I really liked and have kept listening to is…

C Joynes & The Furlong BrayThe Borametz Tree
Thread Recordings

This vinyl-only release is the brainchild of acclaimed folk guitarist C Joynes, aided and abetted by a starry ensemble consisting of the Dead Rat Orchestra, plus fellow experimental guitarist/multi-instrumentalists Nick Jonah Davis and Cam Deas. The Borametz Tree takes its name from the fabled “Vegetable Lamb of Tartary”, a tree supposed to produce sheep as its fruit (also the title of one of the album’s best songs) and it’s a suitably exotic and otherworldly collection of tunes. Otherworldly is perhaps misleading; in fact the multi-textured music here is very much of this earth, often many different corners of it at once. The album opens with the richly reverberating “Triennale” which sets the scene with its atmospheric, droning combination of elements from different western, eastern and African folk music traditions; but which all gel beautifully to make a familiar yet alien whole. It’s incredibly elusive; the aforementioned “Vegetable Lamb…” begins sounding perhaps Scandinavian or even Scottish, but strangely could equally be Arabic; and this kind of melange characterises the whole album, somehow encompassing everything from bluegrass to the music of the steppes. Mysterious, wild and invigorating.

Also in June (actually 31st May)…

Cellista – Transfigurations

Transfigurations is interesting, an album distilled from a multifaceted performance art project, it’s part experimental (but relatively orthodox) songs, albeit with the cello as the central instrument, part sound-collage, part social commentary, part spoken word performance. The album kicks off with ‘Rupture 1’ (the album is punctuated by five politically-charged Ruptures) featuring an excerpt from an old news report about the Black Panthers in the May Day protests of 1969, beginning a theme of civil unrest that runs through the whole album. At various times it reminded me of the mini-album Jarboe and Helen Money made together a few years ago; kind of an obvious comparison, but to me this was more satisfying. Although less indomitable than Jarboe’s, Cellista’s vocals are more melodic and the songs (or at least the handful of more conventional ones like ‘Confessions‘ and standout, ‘Look Homeward, Angel’ featuring Dem One)  are straightforwardly affecting. The actual cello playing reminded me less of Helen Money than of the fantastic Julia Kent; atmospheric and (that word again) mysterious. The album is, deliberately, very timely (Cellista explained while promoting the work that “Transfigurations is a response to the world we inhabit. It is meant to allow us all, singularly and as a community, to see the ruptures that punctuate our place in the present”), but the framing of our time (specifically 2017 in fact) as a time when always-present tensions have risen to the surface reinforce the idea that the issues of our time are the issues of all time. It’s a good album.

Elsewhere in June, I quite liked…

Wasuremono – Are You OK?
The Wilderness Records

Quite liked it in small doses, at least. It’s very nice and all, but taken as a whole its slightly twee and fragile retro, sometimes synth-pop indie style made me think of Philip Larkin on The Beatles; “like certain sweets, they seem wonderful until you are suddenly sick. Up till then it’s nice, though.” Philip Larkin, All What Jazz, Faber & Faber, 1970, p. 102

Speaking of retro (and what would pop culture in 2019 be without the ghosts of the 80s and 90s hanging over it?) I quite liked K. Michelle DuBois’ “summer single” ‘Waves Break’ which sounds weirdly like Jan Hammer producing The Cure c. Japanese Whispers but with the Bangles doing the vocals. I seem to quite like K Michelle DuBois against my will; I checked out her album Harness last year, decided it sounded like the kind of music you get on Buffy style teen soaps, ie not my cup of tea, but then ended up listening to it quite a lot anyway. Not at all sure about this video though.

One of the problems with promos is they are sometimes sent out so far in advance, for understandable reasons, that you tend to listen to and then forget about them before the release date is even near. The example that led to this observation is the unpleasant but extremely powerful new album by Margaret Chardiet’s industrial project, Pharmakon. The promo has been with me since June, the album itself (Devour) is out on August 30th via the reliably great Sacred Bones Records.  I’m not sure I’d say I ‘like’ Devour, but it’s a hypnotically ugly record, paradoxically chaotic and controlled, emotional and yet kind of blank and icy. More tuneful than I had expected though; if you don’t like the single ‘Self-Regulating System’ then you probably won’t like any of it.

end of part one!

The Dead Cannot Contradict: R.I.P. M.E.S. 1957 – 2018

Mark E. Smith 1991 by Matthew R Lewis

There have been a lot of obituaries for the great Mark E. Smith in the last week. This will not be one of the better ones, but it is my one. In my experience, the bands you love in your teens are, although they have a special place in your memory, mostly not the same bands you listen to for the rest of your life (to date). But unlike most of my favourite artists from those long years between 16 and 20 or thereabouts, I never went off The Fall, I just didn’t listen to them very often. But whenever I did, they seemed just as strange and clever and funny and unique as they had the first time I heard them.

The Fall are legendarily supposed to be a hard band to like, or to get into, but I never found it to be so. The hard-to-like quality obviously has something to do with their spiky, unpredictable sound (and Mark E. Smith’s indomitable/hectoring voice) but is perhaps also due to the fact that – for the most part – their music doesn’t appeal to the emotions, it is not (hopefully) about you; nobody (as far as I know) wallows in The Fall, the way as an adolescent I wallowed in The Cure or The Smiths or the Cranes or whoever it might be. The first Fall song I heard was a snippet of then-current single ‘Telephone Thing‘ (a funky, catchy wah-wah-led pop song with a phone-tapping theme, which namechecks EastEnders actress Gretchen Franklin – i.e. as typically atypical as any Fall single) on The Chart Show, which was enough to make me buy its parent album, Extricate. As a reader of the music weeklies (Melody Maker was my favourite, but I often bought NME and Sounds as well) I was of course aware of The Fall, and specifically Mark E. Smith, at that point – as he was to remain – a figure who polarised the magazines’ writers, while – unlike say Morrissey or Robert Smith – having the (admittedly sometimes grudging) respect, seemingly, of all of them.

Extricate is in itself a classic Fall album, but it was intriguing in all kinds of ways. I liked. firstly, the tunes, but also the the mix of the un-selfconscious artiness of the abstract cover painting/assemblage by contemporary artist Anthony Frost, with the barbed humour of the lyrics (the album contains the classic ‘British People In Hot Weather‘as well as the aforementioned ‘Telephone Thing‘ and (I have the cassette version) ‘Arms Control Poseur‘). But one of the great things about coming to this – or I think any – Fall album as an introduction to the band, is that it hints at so much more than it contains. This, the reviews said, was an unusually accessible/conventional Fall album and indeed, Mark E. Smith’s sleevenote reinforced that impression:

There is no central track, as I’ve/we’ve tried to give out The Fall as it should be and not as it is perceived. Therefore, the first half of the disc reflects on things witnessed and/or sensed, while the second half is NOW. This means there’s a thin dish-up of stories and characters etc, but that format’s well flogged and pushed of recent, so hopefully EXTRICATE’s simplicity will confound all bores, imitators and anxiety mongers./ EXTRICATE! All the best from M.E.S.

This was odd. Mark E. Smith reminded me of nothing so much as Alex from A Clockwork Orange; sophisticated, articulate, menacing but not unfriendly. A few years later, when I began to read Wyndham Lewis I was reminded irresistibly of Mark E. Smith. And indeed the whole of The Fall’s early work is extremely Vorticist/BLAST-like. I didn’t know though until quite recently that Mark E. Smith was a fellow Wyndham Lewis fan (though I think MES often agreed with Lewis where I don’t) – it seems so obvious now.  And the reference to stories and characters was intriguing; if this was The Fall gone normal then what did they sound like before?? I think the next album I bought might have been the essential compilation of early material Palace Of Swords Reversed; here were ‘Marquis Cha-Cha‘, a story about a Lord Haw Haw character stranded in South America which opens

“He can never go home
Stranded in South America, nothing to go home for
Just another Brit in the bar
Hernandez Fiendish comes over to me
Offers a job as broadcaster…”

who else was writing songs like that? Or ‘Leave The Capitol‘ (“exit this Roman shell!“) or, even more peculiarly, ‘Wings‘:

“Day by day
The moon gains on me
Purchased pair of flabby wings
I took to doing some hovering”

And that’s just the lyrics; another thing about The Fall that made an impression on me early on was that, although MES was incredibly fussy and perfectionist about the band’s music, he wasn’t snobbish in the usual way; no tune, if it was catchy, was too silly for Mark E. Smith. Think of the speedy but somehow miniature-sounding rock guitar on ‘Underground Medicine‘ or loping, bouncy beat to ‘Gramme Friday‘ or the oddly jaunty, countryish ‘Fit And Working Again‘. or the kazoo on ‘The North Will Rise Again this was ‘angular’ (the definitive descriptive term for late 70s/early 80s UK indie rock) if you like, but it was not standard ‘post-punk’ music, nor was it (as it could easily have been) twee in that beloved ramshackle UK indie/C86 kind of way. Perhaps because Mark E. Smith was not (99% of the time) a melodic singer, the band could play anything behind him and it sounded right. When, at the beginning of one of my favourite songs, ‘Slates‘, MES shouts ‘this is the definitive rant‘ he’s nailing part of the charm of his work. As long as the rant was in place, no tune was too small, too jingly or too silly to make something worthwhile out of.

After Palace Of Swords Reversed I bought anything I could get my hands on. Luckily there was a lot of it, and it was mostly pretty affordable, especially the stuff from the band’s then slightly maligned, now justly celebrated mid-80s period of relative commercial success. In itself, that success was odd and underlined just how unique the band, and specifically Smith’s vision, was. I loved that Mark E. Smith saw nothing elitist or strange about working with a ballet company, or in writing for the theatre and working with ‘serious’ artists and yet the people I knew who derided Morrissey as being “poncy” never seemed to think that about MES. The fact that he refused to separate the ‘high’ arts from his work with The Fall was so powerful. Everyone knows, for example, that Brian May is an astrophysicist, but imagine if astrophysics had somehow been indivisible from his work with Queen; they would have been far a more peculiar and far less successful, but also (with no offence intended to the band or its members) probably more interesting band.

Although most of my favourite Fall albums are the early ones (especially Dragnet, Grotesque (After The Gramme) and Hex Enduction Hour) those 80s albums with the Mark and Brix-led lineup(s), especially The Wonderful and Frightening World Of The Fall are pretty unassailable and perhaps the least overtly commercial ‘commercial’ period of any band I can think of. The band stayed good though, and although I am not a Fall completist (a vocation rather than a hobby) I’ve found that any Fall record one picks up will have something great on it; and there aren’t many bands with a 40 year career you can say that about.

A few random but significant (to me) Mark E. Smith/Fall things:

  • my favourite Fall release of them all is Slates (1981); typically awkward, it is a brilliantly ungainly 6-track 10″ which Mark E. Smith was proud of as it was too long to qualify for the singles chart but too short for the album chart; not that it was likely to trouble either one. Plus, it opens with MES shouting “Pink press threat!
  • I must be impressionable; I think I got into Albert Camus because The Fall were named after one of his books.
  • I don’t remember which music paper it was in, but Mark E. Smith was a guest reviewer in one of the weeklies c.1992 and gave Morrissey’s Your Arsenal a surprisingly positive(ish) review. One phrase that stuck in my memory (perhaps incorrectly) and seems definitively MES-ish to me is “the guitar player has too much equipment”
  • When I first read (in the late 90s?) Christopher Isherwood’s autobiographical novel Lions And Shadows (1938) the idea of ‘The Other Town’, the sinister unseen parallel reality accessed through various apparently ordinary gates and doorways in Cambridge reminded me irresistibly of the band, especially the bizarre, creepy but also funny narrative songs like the (actually quite Lovecraftian) ‘Impression Of J. Temperance’ :

“A never seen dog breeder
This is the tale of his replica
Name was J. Temperance
Only two did not hate him
Because peasants fear local indifference
Pet shop and the vet, Cameron…”

 

  • when I finally listened to the classic German band Can it was because the Fall song ‘I Am Damo Suzuki‘ made me curious about them
  • one of the key things about The Fall’s music is its palate-cleansing quality; their music makes almost any other comparable popular music sound sentimental in comparison. And yet on the rare occasions (‘Bill Is Dead‘, ‘Edinburgh Man‘) when MES is sentimental the songs are among his best.
  • Edinburgh Man‘ was probably the first song I heard by a band I liked that was about a place I knew
  • I have been a Fall fan for half of my life, but I’ve only met maybe 4 or 5 other people who like them (though I realise they are quite popular)
  • I never particularly wanted to meet Mark E. Smith, but I’m very sad that he’s dead.

 

 

PS – the title for this piece is from an enigmatic line in the – obviously – highly peculiar song New Face In Hell: 
The dead cannot contradict/Sometimes the living cannot

Inevitably, the Releases of the Year 2017 (part two)

 

The list continues, at this point with no rhyme or reason and in no particular order, so…

The Doom Trip label went from strength to strength in 2017. The Doom Mix Vol 1. compilation should be heard as a matter of course (personal favourite: the brilliantly atmospheric Sink Into Skin by Unbloom that reminds me of post-punk/early goth things like Bauhaus and The Cure but has a tune I haven’t heard before), but in addition they released some fantastic albums this year, the two standouts (for me) being –

Rangers – Texas Rock Bottom 

Rangers – Texas Rock Bottom

I haven’t heard a lot of Rangers’ previous stuff, but the bits I remember are kind of lo-fi/psych/chillwave/Ariel Pink-ish – no bad thing, but not really my thing. Texas Rock Bottom is a different beast entirely. More song-based, it has a timeless melodic appeal, in some ways reminiscent of the more laid-back US indie rock of the 80s/90s, like The Replacements or early REM, with a Byrdsian jangle but also some distinctively underground/indie quirks; It’s really good.

 

 

 

Skyjelly – Blank Panthers/Priest, Expert Or Wizard

Skyjelly – Blank Panthers/Priest, Expert Or Wizard

This long, bizarre album/double album is an ear/brain-addling mix of yammering experimental things: psychedelia/krautrock/punk/no wave/pop/noise and stuff like that – it’s not all great, but there’s so much of it, and it’s so completely peculiar that after months of listening I’m still not used to it, but it’s still good.

 

 

 

 

My Favourite Things – Fly I Will, Because I Can (self-release)

My Favourite Things – Fly I Will, Because I Can

I can’t remember how I came across  Dorothea Tachler’s Brooklyn-based band, My Favourite Things, but their self-released album Fly I Will, Because I Can became one of my favourite things (…) in 2017. Melancholy, warm and dreamy, Tachler and her bandmates have created an affecting, beautiful and strangely intimate listening experience. I kind of don’t want anyone else to like it, but I also want everyone to hear it; that kind of album.

 

 

Grift – Arvet (Nordvis)

Grift – Arvet

I’m not sure that I like Arvet quite as much as Grift’s brilliant debut Syner; but I’m almost certain that it’s a better album. In many ways it’s very similar – bare, sparse, wintry pastoral black metal-inflected but very individualistic atmospheric music. In fact, Erik Gärdefors’ vision has barely changed, perhaps it’s just that it’s familiar to me now, so feels less like a forlorn soul wandering the woods and more like Grift; great album either way.

 

 

 

More to follow, no doubt!

 

 

Inevitably, the releases of the year 2017 (part one)

 

I’ve been thinking about the releases of the year for the past few weeks and made some (naturally very similar) lists for various places, so I thought I’d begin my countdown of releases of the year (as usual, in no order) here with some worthy things that I somehow overlooked/forgot about when compiling my other lists. So just to start…

Quinta – The Quick Of The Heart (Peeler Records)

Quinta – The Quick of the Heart

Released back in July, The Quick Of The Heart is a beautiful and magical album that took a while to grow on me, but that has stayed with me through the many ups and downs of a year that was often not much fun. Quinta is a multi-instrumentalist and member of the experimental string quartet Collectress (whose superb 2014 album Mondegreen was my release of the year back then) and this album ranges from minimalistic piano pieces to lushly arranged songs, all with their own unique, delicate atmosphere. The album is more song-oriented than I expected, and the fresh, breezily unorthodox tunes are both accessible and unusual. The Quick Of The Heart is one of those albums that creates its own discrete sound world, quite unlike anything else I can think of; a lovely, refreshing record.

Recommended track: A Tutorial For Little Karen

Julie’s HaircutInvocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin (Rocket Recordings)

Julie’s Haircut – Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin

This great album was released back in February, far back enough, in fact that I thought it was out last year. While I like some psych/spacerock/krautrock type stuff, the problem with the genre (if you can call it that) for me is that it can be completely immersive and thrilling or, if not feeling it, extremely boring. Italian band Julie’s Haircut are not immune to the latter kind of non-hypnotic meandering, but when they are good they’re great and there is far more good stuff on this album than filler.

 

Recommended track: Zukunft

 

Jesca HoopMemories Are Now (Sub Pop)

Jesca Hoop – Memories Are Now

Again, released at the beginning of the year and so escaping my lists until now, Jesca Hoop’s latest album is a superbly focussed set of songs grounded in folk, Americana and experimental pop. Any way of describing it makes it sound more complicated than it is, and the most obvious points of comparison (she occasionally sounds a bit like Kate Bush) are a bit misleading; but it’s a really good album.

 

 

Recommended track – Unsaid

Zeal & Ardor The Devil Is Fine (self-release)

Zeal & Ardor – the Devil Is Fine

Z&A’s black metal-infused blues or whatever you want to call it is one of the strangest-sounding (as a description), but at the same time most accessible (as music) melanges of styles I’ve come across; unholy gospel music that gets better and stranger every time I hear it.

 

 

 

 

Recommended track: Blood In The River

IslajaTarrantulla (Svart Records)

Islaja – Tarrantulla

I didn’t really realise I liked this album a lot until songs from it kept popping into my head at random times after I’d given it a few listens. Over the last few weeks though, the slightly queasy mix of experimental synth pop, honking sax, Blade Runner-atmospherics and alternately fragile and vocoder-heavy vocals has proved extremely addictive; I like it a lot.

 

 

 

Recommended track: Sun luona taas

 

and more later…

Anatomy of an Earworm

Despite the title, this isn’t really about earworms as such – although they certainly have a place here – this is to do with the background music/soundtrack to your – or my – life. There are serious, life-changing conditions like ‘Musical Ear Syndrome” (kind of a musical tinnitus) where the sufferer constantly hears music and in the cases of artists like Kristin Hersh or Nile Rodgers, these kinds of phenomena (not that theirs are the same, as far as I know) can be part of what fuels their creativity. That isn’t me. What I – and I suspect many people – have, is songs I already know, playing ‘in the background’ more or less constantly.

I decided to try to keep track, for a day, of what those songs were. Not an easy task, as trying to remember them if one doesn’t make a note of it is extremely difficult, once the moment has passed – and also because it seems likely that focusing on that background noise might well alter the experience.

Be that as it may, I tried to make a note whenever I could throughout the day, of what was ‘playing’ – and it’s an odd mixture. Most surprising to me are how few of the songs are ones I would normally listen to, or like, or have listened to or heard (to my knowledge) recently. Also surprising is the segue from one to another, which happens mostly without noticing and which seems to have no logic to it that I can see. The medleys are even stranger. Also odd that events like conversations, concentrating on work, watching TV etc seem to have little or no impact on the flow of the music, it just gets quieter for a bit.

So here, with many gaps, and with a few notes and repeat offenders marked in red – is my internal playlist for today. It is still ongoing of course (currently James Taylor’s cover of Tom Waits’ Shiver Me Timbers). I don’t see any patterns, but I do notice that most of these songs are surprisingly cheerful given what I mostly listen to on purpose; so that’s nice.

The day began around 6am with a shower; a key place for earworms and related music, in my experience – without further ado…

  • Barbizon by Debz
  • Don’t You Want Me by The Human League (I have never liked this song)
  • Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton
  • What’s The Frequency, Kenneth, by R.E.M.
  • Keep on Running by The Spencer Davis Group (but with silly alternative lyrics relating to what I was doing at work at the time)
  • Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by The Beatles (one of the few Beatles songs I really dislike)
  • Van der Valk theme tune (I have never seen Van der Valk, why do I know the theme tune??)
  • Save Your Love by Renée and Renato
  • Street Life by The Crusaders
  • I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend by The Ramones
  • Smokebelch I by The Sabres of Paradise (mainly just the bass)
  • Your Smiling Face by James Taylor
  • Orfeo ed Euridice – a particular bit from (I think) Act 1 of Gluck’s baroque opera
  • The Invisible Man by Elvis Costello
  • Knock Out Eileen by LL Cool J & Dexy’s Midnight Runners (strangely likeable mashup given my hatred of one of these songs – found on youtube)
  • Theme to Monty Python’s Flying Circus
  • Only Shallow by My Bloody Valentine (actually a non-existent, jaunty , squeaky synth-pop cover of the tune of the verse to this song, I’d like to really hear it)
  • jingle from a TV advert for Mitchell’s Self Drive c. 1981 (with the lyric that kids used to sing to it: ‘Mitchell’s Self Drive/Where people eat pies”)
  • I Only Want To Be With You by Dusty Springfield
  • It’s A Shame by Bilbo Baggins
  • Temples of Syrinx by Rush
  • Rockit by Herbie Hancock
  • NIB by Black Sabbath
  • Car Thief by The Beastie Boys
  • Hook It Up by The Donnas
  • How Deep Is Your Love by The Bee Gees (the verse of this song gets stuck in my head often)
  • Your Woman by White Town (genuine earworm that was stuck in my head for days, I had no memory of what it was, didn’t remember the lyrics and had to search for ages to discover what it was; irony – hated it then, hate it now)
  • The Eye of the Witch by King Diamond
  • Good Times, Bad Times by Led Zeppelin
  • Georgie Girl by The Seekers
  • Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town by Talking Heads
  • Bergerac theme tune (not actually seen Bergerac since the mid 80s)
  • I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts (just the tune, but still!???)
  • The World In My Eyes by Depeche Mode
  • medley: You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon & Down Under by Men At Work (had this bizarre medley playing in my head every morning for months; oddly when it’s not ‘playing’ I can’t work out where the segue happens)
  • The Neverending Story by Limahl
  • Good Times by Chic
  • Fascination by David Bowie
  • Lovely Day by the Pixies
  • Graceland by Paul Simon
  • Shiver Me Timbers… but that you know.

Hmm.

 

 

Play For Today – Current Playlist 8th February 2017

 

The world is not making me very happy at present (my thoughts on all that are covered to an extent here, so I won’t go on about it) – but I am still enjoying music at least, so here’s a selection of things that are currently sounding good to me:

Diamanda Galás and John Paul Jones – The Sporting Life (Mute, 1994) – I always find it surprising that a vocalist as completely extreme and melodramatic as Diamanda Galás can be as straightforwardly moving as she (sometimes) is – pretty pop by her standards, but a great album, with John Paul Jones creating perfect settings for that amazing voice.

Apokrifna Realnos
Apokrifna Realnos

Apokrifna Realnost – Na Rekah Vavilonskih (AnnapurnA Productions, coming March 2017) –  I would never have expected to love an album of archaic ritualistic/devotional music clandestinely recorded in Macedonia in the late 80s; but there you have it. It’s unsettling & deeply beautiful.

Teksti-TV 666 – 1, 2, 3 (Svart Records, 2016) The Finnish guitar-overlords are credited with playing a weird amalgam of punk, rock, shoegaze, krautrock etc; and I suppose they do, but the songs on this album are, underneath the noise and strangeness, pretty catchy indie rock that I wouldn’t expect to like but really do – it’s a great album.

Sauron – The Baltic Fog (Wheelwright Productions, reissue 2017) I wrote at length about this great Polish black metal release for Echoes and Dust, so won’t say much here. But it has all the atmosphere you’d expect from mid-90s black metal and some good tunes.

Heavy Tiger – Glitter (Wild Kingdom Records, 2017) – Very easy to like Swedish rock that is (lazy comparison) like The Ramones meets The Donnas with added glam attitude (plus good songs)

Heavy Tiger by Niclas Brunzell
Heavy Tiger by Niclas Brunzell

Blake Babies – Innocence & Experience (Mammoth Records, 1993) – On the whole I prefer Juliana Hatfield solo, but this compilation of the Blake Babies is pretty great.

David Bowie – Station to Station (RCA, 1975) – One of my favourite albums, this just seems to get better and better. Even if it just consisted of the supremely creepy title track & Word on a Wing it would be one of the best things Bowie ever recorded.

Makaya McCraven – In The Moment Deluxe Edition (International Anthem, 2016) – There’s so much amazing music in the 28 tracks here, plus literally some of the best drumming I’ve ever heard; superlative, brilliant jazz.

Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night (Asylum, 1974) – Unsettling times sometimes call for comforting music, and this warm, funny, poetic and melancholy album is one of my favourites.

If I Could Kill Myself – Ballads of the Broken (self-release, 2017) – If you are unconvinced by (or just despise) depressive black metal this will probably not change your mind. Lo-fi, raw and revelling in the miserable characteristics of the genre, it’s not (and I assume isn’t meant to be) subtle, but has atmosphere and good tunes aplenty.

 

kills

MEAM, Myself & I: Part One: the formative years

 

Where does your taste in music come from? Why do you like some things but not others? It’s mysterious, but to try and find out, I thought I’d look at the issue from the (my) beginning. So what is the first music you remember hearing? For me (and I imagine many people) it’s a hard question to answer. I know what music was around when I was little; but decades of nostalgic compilations have re-shaped the music of the 1980s into that modern idea; ’80s music’ and, along with TV shows, have blurred the line between what I know I should or could have heard and what I actually remember hearing. On the other hand, like most people whose parents listen to music, some of the first things I remember hearing (in my case things that were not contemporary pop music, mostly) can be pinpointed easily to them.

Thinking back to early childhood I can picture my parents’ stereo (a wooden 70s behemoth with built-in speakers which may have once had legs but which I remember sitting on the floor) very clearly. Often, LPs would be lying on top when the lid was closed and the covers are as evocative of childhood to me as the music. Although this was the early 80s, the majority of records being played were from earlier eras; the  albums that spring to mind being The Dark Side of the Moon, Joni Mitchell’s Blue and For the Roses, Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, Lou Reed’s Transformer, a live LP by Donovan and various albums by Bobs Marley and Dylan. More up to date, but less frequently played (as I remember it) were Talking Heads’ Remain In Light and Bowie’s Low. As is only right and proper, when I got old enough to want to listen to music myself, I initially scorned all of these things, though I eventually came round to liking almost all of them.*

fidlerBut what did I hear first?  Who knows?  I remember my mother playing guitar and singing, but ridiculously, the actual song that stands out as the first identifiable thing I remember, can name and even know some of the words to is neither parent music, nor standard chart fare; it’s Day Trip To Bangor by Fiddler’s Dram, which sets the date I began to really absorb music at around 1979; which makes sense, as until around that point I had hearing problems. As earliest memories go it could be more significant – I didn’t like it (or dislike it, as far as I remember), I can’t picture the band, it isn’t the soundtrack to a specific event. I just remember it, like I remember Crown Court and Pebble Mill At One being on TV in the afternoon if I was ill at home instead of being at school. It’s also to the end of the 70s that the first 7” single actually owned by me belongs and it’s also a typical-of-its-era novelty record, by the already long-in-the-tooth comedy group The Barron Knights – ‘A Taste of Aggro’. It’s the kind of random thing that little kids like; it features parodies of ‘The Smurf Song’ and Boney M’s ‘Rivers of Babylon’ (‘there’s a dentist in Birmingham…’ ). In my first year or two at primary school I also remember liking at least one Adam and the Ants song, I liked Toyah and Hazel O’Connor when they were on TV, I liked the disco version of the Star Wars theme and ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan.  Other music-related memories of the time are pretty vague; I remember older kids who were punks and (more scary to small-child me) skinheads, but I don’t think I ever heard their music at the time.

gimpbeast
Number of the Beast with appropriately sinister chip in the title track

It’s surprising to me to find that the first music I liked that I stayed a fan of for any length of time arrived so quickly after these things. In 1982 while I was still at Primary School, I heard ‘Run To The Hills’ by Iron Maiden and loved it. Iron Maiden divided my classmates and my parents hated them, but when Number of the Beast came out I was able to borrow the LP from one of their friends. I promptly broke it (slipped out of the inner sleeve and a strangely fangs/horns-like shard broke off of it, ruining the first track on each side) and had to pay for it. The plus side is that I still have an original pressing of Number of the Beast, albeit one that doesn’t actually have the title track (or ‘Invaders’, less of a loss) on it. A slightly later memory I think, is my dad telling me if I liked Iron Maiden, I should listen to this – and showing me the Grateful Dead’s eponymous 1971 live album. I think he presumed that the passing resemblance between the skeleton on the cover and Eddie would make it appeal to me. It didn’t – but that is probably my favourite Grateful Dead album now. Iron Maiden were destined nominally to remain my favourite band for a good four or five years, but I don’t think I really listened to them – or anything really – much until I went to high school a few years later. I don’t remember buying any other records before ’86 or so and other musical memories from the Primary school-era are thin on the ground and mostly negative.  I hated ‘Come On Eileen’ (still do), Thriller came out; I liked the video but don’t think I cared much about the music one way or the other. A lot of musical likes were inevitably more to do with context (or videos) than anything else; I quite liked Huey Lewis and the News, because of Back To The Future, I hated ‘Money For Nothing’ by Dire Straits (still do) because of the video and the band’s appearance (and, naturally,  the song itself). I quite liked Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ because of the video (especially the claymation bit), I hated ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’, I didn’t like ‘Take On Me’ or its video, I quite liked The Police. I didn’t mind Spandau Ballet too much but didn’t like the way Tony Hadley held his microphone(!), I thought Whitney Houston was pretty but didn’t like ’I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ very much,… Those kinds of things.  It wasn’t really until High school that I started liking (or hearing) things that weren’t in the charts or parent music.

*The intro to Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ still has the power to make me feel simultaneously bored and tense, however.

Coming as soon as I get around to it; Part Two (btw, the stupid title pun refers to the neuropsychological term MEAMs – ‘music-evoked autobiographical memories’)

Just for fun: the ‘I know I heard it at the time’ playlist; in chronological order – which is not necessarily how they are in my memory – definitely not all recommendations or anything (to say the least!!), and absolutely not the songs I like best from that era – these are just the ones that most evoke my early and pre-teen childhood to me…

VOL 1: 1978 – 1986

  • Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (1978)
  • Boney M – Brown Girl in the Ring (1978)
  • Blondie – Heart Of Glass (1978)
  • Fiddler’s Dram – Day Trip to Bangor (1979)
  • Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 (1979)
  • Lipps Inc – Funkytown (1979)
  • The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays (1979)
  • Gary Numan – Cars (1979)
  • Martha & the Muffins – Echo Beach (1980)
  • The Goombay Dance Band – Seven Tears (1980)
  • The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (1980)
  • The Nolans – I’m In The Mood For Dancing (1980)
  • Bad Manners – Special Brew (1980)
  • Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Geno (1980) & Come On Eileen (1982)
  • The Pretenders – Brass In Pocket (1980)
  • Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime (1980)
  • Adam And The Ants – Antmusic (1980)
  • Stevie Wonder – Happy Birthday (1980)
  • The Piranhas – Tom Hark (1980)
  • Chas & Dave – Rabbit (1980)
  • Ottawan – D.I.S.C.O. (1980)
  • Blondie – The Tide is High (1980)
  • OMD – Enola Gay (1980)
  • Diana Ross – Upside Down (1980)
  • Tony Basil – Mickey (1981)
  • Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddap You Face (1981)
  • Altered Images – Happy Birthday (1981)
  • Aneka – Japanese Boy (1981)
  • Christopher Cross – Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) (1981)
  • Shakin’ Stevens – Green Door (1981)
  • The J Geils Band – Centerfold (1981)
  • Musical Youth – Pass The Dutchie (1982)
  • Duran Duran – Hungry Like The Wolf (1982)
  • Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science (1982) and Hyperactive! (1984)
  • Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Annie I’m Not Your Daddy (1982)
  • The Belle Stars – Sign Of The Times (1982)
  • Michael Jackson – Beat It (1982)
  • Renee & Renato  – Save Your Love (1982)
  • New Edition – Candy Girl (1983)
  • David Bowie – Modern Love (1983)
  • Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (1983)
  • Mike Oldfield – Moonlight Shadow (1983)
  • Herbie Hancock – Rockit (1983)
  • Status Quo – Marguerita Time (1983)
  • Nena – 99 Red Balloons (1983)
  • Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short (1981) & Gold (1983)
  • The Cure – The Love Cats (1983)
  • Deniece Williams – Let’s Hear It For The Boy (1984)
  • The Specials – Nelson Mandela (1984)
  • Madonna – Material Girl (1984)
  • Harold Faltermeyer – Axel F (1984)
  • Philip Bailey with Phil Collins – Easy Lover (1984)
  • Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me (1984)
  • Nik Kershaw – I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me (1984)
  • Chaka Khan – I Feel For You (1984)
  • Murray Head – One Night In Bangkok (1984)
  • Ashford & Simpson – Solid As A Rock (1984)
  • Giorgio Moroder & Philip Oakey – Together in Electric Dreams (1984)
  • Russ Abbot – Atmosphere (1984)
  • Falco – Rock Me Amadeus (1985)
  • Cyndi Lauper – Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough (1985)
  • DeBarge – Rhythm Of The Night (1985)
  • Five Star – System Addict (1985)
  • Diana Ross – Chain Reaction (1985)
  • Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer (1986)
  • Suzanne Vega – Left of Center (1986)
  • Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk – Love Can’t Turn Around (1986)
  • Steve Winwood – Higher Love (1986)
  • Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t have To Take Our Clothes Off (1986)
  • Psychedelic Furs – Pretty In Pink (1986 – re-release)

and so many more….

five-star-system-addict

 

Play For Today – Current Playlist 3rd January 2017

 

A new year, a (slightly) new look, yet another playlist! This time, things I am listening to as the year begins, including (naturally) some things that I got for Christmas…

patti-smith-resized

  1. Patti Smith – Radio Ethiopia (Arista, 1976)

2. IC Rex – Tulen jumalat (Saturnal, 2017)

3. Aidan Baker w. Claire Brentnall – Delirious Things (Gizeh Records, 2017)

4. Kristin Hersh – The Grotto (4AD, 2003)

5. Jeff Parker – The New Breed (International Anthem, 2016)

6. Scott Walker  – Pola X (soundtrack, Barclay Records, 1999)

polaq

 

7. Wardruna – Runaljod; gap var Ginnunga (Indie Recordings, 2009)

8. Hardingrock – Grimen (Candlelight Records, 2007)

9. Endalok – Úr Draumheimi Viðurstyggðar Signal Rex, 2017)

10. A Tree Grows – Wau Wau Water (Rufftone Records, 2016)

11. Kristin Hersh – Crooked (Throwing Music, 2010)

12. The Beach Boys – Holland (Brother/Reprise, 1973)

13. Ela Orleans – Circles of Upper and Lower Hell (Night School Records, 2016)

14. Julie’s Haircut – Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin (Rocket Recordings, 2017)

15. Yurei – Night Vision (Adversum, 2012)

16. Jesca Hoop – Memories Are Now (Sub-Pop, 2017)

17. Christine Ott, Tabu (Gizeh Records, 2016)

18. The Veldt – In A Quiet Room (Leonard Skully Records, 2017)

The Veldt by Christopher Harold Wells
The Veldt by Christopher Harold Wells

19. Kiss – Dynasty (Casablanca, 1979)

20. Heikki Sarmanto Serious Music Ensemble – The Helsinki Tapes Vol 2 (Svart Records, 2016)