Musings on the byways of popular culture
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It’s forty years this weekend since David Bowie played three sell out shows at a sweltering Milton Keynes Bowl. Boosted by the huge success of the Let’s Dance single and album, they were his first UK shows in five years. Anybody else there – any memories?
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What does it sound like?:
The current iteration of Soft Machine is a very different beast to the Robert Wyatt era band of the Canterbury scene in the late 60s. – and yet there are still so many similarities in the brand of music they create, a hybrid fusion of prog and jazz. This is the first new studio recording since 2018’s Hidden Details set, and it marks the departure of drummer John Marshall and bassist Roy Babbington. There are a dozen new compositions here, plus reimaginings of two very different older pieces, Joy of a Toy and Penny Hitch. For me, the longer songs work better – Crooked Usage, Fell To Earth and Back in Season all give the band time to stretch out and breathe, with Theo Travis playing a fine hand in all three, ably assisted throughout by the improvisational guitar work of John Etheridge. Despite being around for 55 years now, the band still press forward, constantly seeking new frontiers to explore, and this album is accomplished and impressive while still retaining the defining essence and heady mix of influences and styles that is quintessentially Soft Machine.
What does it all *mean*?
There’s life in » Continue Reading.
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Author:Geezer Butler
Sabbath bassist and main lyricist Geezer Butler recounts his life story in this engaging read. Growing up in a working class family in Birmingham, he recalls happy memories of his childhood and family before moving on to joining bands that would ultimately morph into Black Sabbath. He takes us through the highs and lows of the band’s career with Ozzy eventually being fired and being replaced by Ronnie James Dio for the excellent Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules albums. Some of the stories are quite well known, but it’s good to hear them from the horse’s mouth, and he tells them well with a dry sense of humour and is never shy of poking fun at himself. The story rolls on through a fairly arid period in terms of commercial success before the reunion with Dio under the Heaven and Hell banner, and of course the inevitable final reunion with Ozzy, for the 13 album and accompanying money spinning tour. He doesn’t give away too much in the way of behind the scenes secrets and revelations, but he seems a nice down to earth guy, who is very family oriented and who has retained his long-standing love » Continue Reading.
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Anyone interested in reviewing expanded editions of the first two Stackridge albums, Stackridge and Friendliness…both downloads. Also the new Soft Machine release Other Doors…streaming.only.
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Author:Darren Johnson, Bud Wilkins, Simon McMurdo, Beau Waddell
Alongside bands such as T Rex and The Sweet, Slade were a big part of the soundtrack of my early teenage years, and of course the seventies really bookends the significant part of their career, with 3 singles in 1973 going straight into the chart at number one in the days when that was still a great achievement. What’s more, they still sound great fifty years later – Mama Weer All Crazy Now, Skweeze Me Pleeze Me, Cum On Feel The Noize and not forgetting Merry Xmas Everybody of course. I always really liked their slower ones too that tend to be overlooked – Everyday, How Does It Feel, Far Far Away and the like. This excellent book takes you through the whole decade with them from the glory days when everything they touched seemed to turn to gold, to their gradual fading from the public eye until eventually being rejuvenated by a last minute appearance at the Reading Festival in 1980. Want a good time – stick on a copy of their greatest hits alongside reading this and relive your youth – there’s no better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary » Continue Reading.
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What does it sound like?:
Two of the three essential Alice Cooper albums (the other being Billion Dollar Babies of course) are given 50th anniversary reissues, remastered and sporting a good helping of unreleased bonus content. When I was but a boy, School’s Out was number one in the singles chart and I subsequently bought the album, one of my earliest purchases, and then added Killer to my collection later, probably for a birthday or Christmas. Produced by Bob Ezrin, Killer was the band’s fourth album, appearing in 1971.It’s maybe best known for the perennial Under My Wheels nowadays, but it’s a fine record also containing the eerie Dead Babies and one of the band’s best pieces in the epic Halo of Flies As well as a handful of alternate versions, this release comes with an unreleased live recording of a show at the Mar Y Sol festival in 1972, which as well as featuring a good chunk of Killers also has great versions of Is It My Body and I’m Eighteen and an early version of Public Animal No 9 from the yet to be released School’s Out album. Which brings us nicely to said record, another Ezrin » Continue Reading.
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What does it sound like?:
The album comprises stripped down reworkings of four classic Pink Floyd songs and one taken from Waters’ own back catalogue, all recorded remotely during the Covid lockdown, plus the 2022 rerecording of Comfortably Numb which Waters has been using to open the show on his This Is Not A Drill tour. I was delighted with his inclusion of two of my favourite and often sadly overlooked Floyd songs from The Final Cut, Two Suns in the Sunset and The Gunner’s Dream – indeed I would rank the latter as one of the best things he’s ever written. However, the highlight here is a slowed down bombast free take on one of his solo efforts, The Bravery of Being Out of Range, with an extra newly composed verse incorporated – a really successful treatment. It was a brave decision to begin his current run of shows with such a radical reworking of one of Floyd’s most instantly recognisable and loved songs, Comfortably Numb. The jury is still out on this new version as far as I’m concerned, but fair play to him for trying to do something different. Such is the familiarity of the original » Continue Reading.
What does it sound like?:
A new chapter begins for the band after the sudden death of drummer Taylor Hawkins early last year, with Dave Grohl taking over the vacant seat as well as handling vocals and contributing guitars too, a busy man whose presence, as always, dominates the music here. Understandably in the circumstances, a theme of grief looms large over the entire record as Grohl contemplates his own mortality, the death of his close friend being quickly followed by the passing of his mother. The sound very much harks back to that of the band’s early days, crunching riffs matched by catchy choruses that worm their way into your brain after a few plays, but overall it’s certainly a more sombre listen that its predecessor Medicine at Midnight. The epic ten minute The Teacher is the album’s centrepiece, dealing with the composer’s relationship with his late mother as it shapeshifts through a number of styles while encapsulating his feelings towards her. However, the real tearjerker is the closing stately ballad Rest, which bids a final farewell to Hawkins. As a whole, the album represents something of a cathartic listen, the lyrics being a real strong point, but » Continue Reading.
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What does it sound like?:
Originally released in 1983, this was the first official live album by Sabbath and featured the Iommi, Butler, Dio, Appice line up, with Ozzy long gone and Bill Ward having quit partway through the previous tour. The Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules albums, released in 1980 and 81 respectively, were like a breath of fresh air for the band – they seemed rejuvenated by the new line up and full of fresh ideas and enthusiasm for their more commercial radio friendly sound. Recorded on the Mob Rules tour in the US, this double set mixed the best of the two recent studio albums, Neon Knights, Heaven and Hell, The Mob Rules, Children of the Sea, Sign of the Southern Cross, with vintage Sabbath from yesteryear – prime cuts such as NIB, Iron Man, Black Sabbath, Children of the Grave and Paranoid. Ronnie Dio handles the vocals for these classic songs pretty well given that it’s no easy task to replace Ozzy’s familiar trademark sound, but understandably he sounds more at home on the more recent pieces – only War Pigs falters somewhat due to an overlong drum solo being incorporated, causing the song » Continue Reading.
Author:Allan Jines
Former Melody Maker and Uncut editor Allan Jones has produced this follow up to 2017’s Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down, which won the Sunday Times Music Book of the Year award. This one follows the same format, a collection of shortish recollections of rock star encounters over the years, some funny, some a bit sad really. The anecdotes mostly come from his time in the 1970s with Melody Maker, although there are a handful of later pieces from the years covering his tenureship at the helm of Uncut. Some of the articles appear as they were originally published, whereas others have been revised and expanded, and some are being appearing in print for the first time. I think the appeal of these tales depends very much on your interest in the artists concerned – so a big yes from me to the likes of Ian Anderson, Bryan Ferry, Chrissy Hynde, Peter Gabriel, Robert Plant and Jon Anderson. However there are too many long pieces on the Stiff roster of artists such as Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, The Damned and Elvis Costello, and also on a number of quite obscure artists which rather dragged, but that’s just my » Continue Reading.
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What does it sound like?:
Def Leppard are the latest in a whole line of bands who have gone down the route of creating orchestrated arrangements of their work. This time it’s the Ronal Philharmonic Orchestra who convened with the band at Abbey Road to create these new versions of familiar songs. The selected pieces were deconstructed – some instruments were dropped, others were added and at times Joe Elliott duets with his younger self. On top of this a lush orchestration has been added to give the material a fresh new sound. The album is a mixture of a smattering of songs from their latest album, some of their biggest songs from previous records and a handful of deeper cuts. Indeed the first couple of tracks are lesser known pieces from the Slang and Euphoria albums, Turn To Dust and Paper Sun, both having an attention grabbing eastern feel that reminds me of the treatment given to Kashmir by Plant and Page on their Unledded album. Of the others, for me the slower songs work best – Too Late, Hysteria, Love Bites and Bringing on the Heartbreak all fare well, as do the two similarish big ballads When » Continue Reading.
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Author:Jo Nesbo
This is the first Harry Hole novel since 2019’s Knife. Following the tragic events in that tale, we find Hole adrift in LA, out of the police force and out of his mind with a combination of grief and alcohol. Finding himself in sudden need of a large sum, he reluctantly accepts an offer from a millionaire implicated in a pair of gruesome murders back in Oslo. A complex investigation ensues, as Harry reunites with his old police comrades and soon realises nothing is quite what it appears – who has caused the bizarre injuries to the victims, and why? There are numerous ingenious misdirections as suspects who initially seem dead certs turn out to be dead ends . Red herrings abound before the final denouement, which I have to confess totally blindsided me. Another superb instalment in this long running series which at the last count had sold over 55 million copies – and the author teases us at the very end with a potential follow up – I can’t wait!
Length of Read:Long
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Fans of the previous twelve books in the series, or even his standalone novels.
One thing you’ve » Continue Reading.
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Venue:
The Leadmill, Sheffield
Date: 19/05/2023
Def Leppard is a beast usually only spotted in the world’s stadiums these days, so it was a rare treat to see them outside their natural habitat playing this warm up show in a local club, the smallest venue they’ve played in the UK for 35 years – only 850 tickets were available, which unsurprisingly were snapped up in less than a minute when they went on sale. We were promised a unique set ‘for one night only,’ largely different to the one they will play when they open their European tour with Motley Crue just down the road at Bramall Lane on Monday, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. The show being shorn of all the usual big stadium effects put the emphasis firmly on the music, bringing the strengths of the songs themselves back into sharp focus, and they had the exuberant home town crowd in the palms of their hands right from the off. Kicking off with their high-energy cover of The Sweet’s Action, it was soon into classic Leppard territory – a couple of songs from last year’s Diamond Star Haloes set, Fire It Up And Kick, plus a selection » Continue Reading.
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Author:Alan Parks
This novel is the sixth instalment of this series set in 1970s Glasgow featuring DI Harry McCoy, his faithful sidekick Wattie and his childhood friend and major league underworld player Stevie Cooper. Sent undercover to probe suspected corruption at another police station, McCoy becomes embroiled in an investigation into the suspicious deaths of a number of down and outs across the city. Meanwhile a child is reported missing, a child whose parents are members of a cultish religious movement. Throw in a touch of blackmail to further muddy the waters and an attempt to overthrow one of the major crime bosses in the city, and you have all the ingredients for another firecracker of a novel, one which ends with not one but two major plot developments, one of which I didn’t see coming at all and took me totally by surprise. This is another first class read, and one that ends on a cliffhanger with McCoy at something of a crossroads and pondering what the future may hold – alas we’ll have to wait another twelve months to find out!
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Rankin, MacBride, McIlvanney, tartan noir and of course » Continue Reading.
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Any thoughts…no surprise Archer won’t be available but good to see that Woakes is back, a real asset in English conditions. Ben Foakes can count himself very unlucky to miss out. Ludicrous that the whole series is being shoehorned into such a short timeframe when it should be the centrepiece of the season. Any thoughts on the Aussie squad @junior-wells?
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What does it sound like?:
First released in 1989, this was a transitional album for the band, the first to feature new vocalist Steve Hogarth and the first without Fish – in fact some of the music here was originally destined for the aborted fifth album with the big man. Early versions of some of those songs can be found on the reissue of Clutching at Straws – it seems Fish kept the lyrics, some of which were used on his first couple of solo efforts, while the band kept the music. Anyway, I digress – this set comprises three cds plus a bluray disc, housed in the now usual book sized format, accompanied by new artwork and an informative and very comprehensive booklet. The first cd is a remix of the original album – to my ears it does sound slightly sharper and brighter with previously hidden nuances in the music appearing from the murkier parts of the original production. The second and third discs are a live show from the 2022 Marillion weekend recreating the whole album, before closing proceedings with a couple of much later compositions, Gaza and The Leavers. It’s a good competent performance, providing » Continue Reading.
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Author:Def Leppard
Def Leppard must rank as one of Britain’s most successful and yet most overlooked bands. Over their 45 year career they’ve sold over 110 million albums, their last two US tours have each grossed over 100 million dollars, and since 2018 their songs have been streamed over 5.5 billion times, a quite remarkable figure. Not bad for a band from Sheffield who emerged from the NWOBHM scene at the end of the seventies. They took a lot of flak for focussing on the lucrative US market, but have continued to sell tickets and albums worldwide, and their most recent album, Diamond Star Halos, was a real return to form, although they will always be judged in terms of the massive selling Hysteria album and to a lesser extent its predecessor Pyromania, both produced by the legendary Mutt Lange. This coffee table style book looks back on their whole eventful career, and is printed on the very top quality glossy art paper, ideal for the vast collection of photographs it showcases. It’s presented in a scrap book/collage style, mixing new and archive band interviews with reminiscences from fans, set lists, lyrics, personal correspondence and press cuttings – all in » Continue Reading.
Author:Geoffrey Feakes / David Paton / Jim Romag / Arthur Lizie
I do like a bit of Rick Wakeman, so this book was right up my street. Covering his solo albums, his contributions as a member of Yes and The Strawbs and his session work for the likes of Bowie, T Rex and Cat Stevens, it’s a well researched book written in an engaging style. His work on seminal albums such as Fragile, Close To The Edge and Going For The One still stands out today. However, his solo efforts were more of a mixed bag – I loved and still regularly listen to the first three, Henry, Journey and Arthur but for me the rest of the decade’s output was very much a case of diminishing returns. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the book, and Rick of course is still going strong fifty years later, regularly touring and releasing new music. If you’re a fan, I’d certainly recommend investigating this book, which does a fine job of encapsulating ten years of prime Wakeman.
I must say the prospect of reading the autobiography of one of the founders of Pilot didn’t immediately excite me – older readers will recall the big » Continue Reading.
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Author:The Rebel Accountant
There seem to be a lot of these ‘behind the scenes’ books around, starting a few years back with the secret footballer and now encompassing the legal and medical professions, Finally it’s the turn of the tax practitioner in this book by the rather glamorously but mysteriously named Rebel Accountant.
There’s a double thread to the book – one is an interesting potted career history of the author, while the other takes a brief look at some of the better known tax avoidance schemes (although not all of them still operate successfully). He touches on the carousel scheme, transfer pricing, image rights, IR35, and property ownership via offshore companies, as well as suggesting ways the tax system as a whole could operate more equitably. It does make you reconsider how much tax the man in the street pays – income tax, National Insurance, VAT, fuel duty, alcohol duty, etc etc – and the disproportionate amount of an average or indeed poor person’s income that disappears compared to that of a rich person. Of course people are often willing to pay a bit more if they see a consequent improvement in services, but too often the money raised » Continue Reading.
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Thought we’d heard the last from Paul Simon, but it seems a welcome if rather unconvential new album will be with us soon.
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What does it sound like?:
The album production cycle of one of the world’s premier exponents of metal is glacially slow – this is only their fourth studio album in the last twenty years, coming seven years after 2016’s Hardwired to Self Destruct, although to be fair they maybe lost a couple of years to Covid. The title refers to the first eighteen years of life when they say personalities are shaped into forms that will endure for the remainder of one’s life. As you’d perhaps anticipate, there are no great surprises here – it’s primarily Metallica doing what they are most known for and indeed what they do best. The songs vary from loud, heavy and fast to a more brooding style that still retains the trademark loudness and heaviness! At 77 minutes this would have been a double set back in the day, with most of the individual songs clocking in around the seven minute mark, which seems to have become their optimal song length over the years. Only the closing Inamorata appears overlong – it’s eleven minutes would certainly have benefited from a bit of judicious editing as it leaves the album closing on a bit » Continue Reading.
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Author:James Griffiths / Chris Sutton / Andrew Mon Hughes, Grant Walters & Mark Crohan / William E Spevack
The seventies was the key decade for Queen, and it’s certainly my favourite period from their long career. Seemingly appearing out of nowhere, I still remember seeing their debut album in the window of my local record store (remember them?) and hearing Seven Seas 0f Rhye on the radio. I was intrigued enough to fork out my pocket money and loved the hard rock sound I heard, with its distinctive guitar and multi layered vocals. The follow up is maybe their heaviest album, but by Sheer Heart Attack their sound began to evolve, with four songwriters with very diverse styles beginning to flex their muscles. Now the hard rock was mixed with more pop oriented material, along with funk, ballads and even a touch of vaudeville as other influences came to the fore. Of course, the big breakthrough into the general consciousness of the public at large came with the Night at the Opera album and the Bohemian Rhapsody single, the groundbreaking video for which seemed to be a fixture on Top if the Pops at the time. Success followed success in » Continue Reading.
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What does it sound like?:
By the time this performance was recorded in November of 1974, the band had already performed this piece many times across the world. Their modus operandi at the time was to road test new material before hitting the recording studio ensuring they had ironed out any potential flaws, and thus by the time this gig was recorded (and partially broadcast on Radio One) the show ran like clockwork. I’d put this recording down as a good solid performance, the set having been well honed and indeed finely tuned by the long months spent on the road, and as you’d anticipate, there is more scope for improvisation than on the studio album itself – this is most evident on Great Gig in The Sky, Money and especially in the instrumental interplay on Any Colour You Like. Overall although there are no great surprises here, this is a worthwhile addition to the catalogue that nicely complements the studio album, although its probably one for the hard core Floyd fan rather than the casual listener.
What does it all *mean*?
This performance has previously been available on the Experience and Immersion editions of the album that appeared » Continue Reading.
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Author:Pink Floyd
This LP sized book is published as part of the current 50th anniversary reissue campaign, and is available as part of the box set or alternately as a stand alone item.
It’s divided into two parts. The first comprises 129 rare or previously unseen black and white photographs taken by Jill Furmanovsky over the period 1972-75. They capture the band during the creation of the album, at sound checks, and both backstage and on stage during tours of Europe, the US and Japan. Others images are taken in their free time while relaxing and somewhat off guard, and are perhaps the most interesting and revealing ones here. These are supplemented by a reprint of Chtis Charlesworth’s review of their October 1972 show at Wembley, which originally appeared in Melody Maker at the time. Apart from a list of tour dates and the photo captions, this provides really the only text in the whole book. The second section is devoted to the creation of the iconic album artwork itself, represented by 60 colour photographs from the Hipgnosis team. These document the development of the famous prism design from early sketches to rough prototype layouts to the finished article, which » Continue Reading.
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Bargepole on The Final Cut forty years on
With all the glare of publicity being focussed on the 50th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon, it seems to have been forgotten that this week also marked the 40th anniversary of the last Floyd album to feature Roger Waters, an occasion that seems to have passed without any fanfare at all, let alone any sort of deluxe reissue. It was also the first Floyd release not to feature the keyboards of Rick Wright, whose post Wall exclusion from the band only became common knowledge when the album sleeve listed just three band members. The solemn sleeve hinted at the contents of the album. Missing in action was the inventive imagery of Hipgnosis. Gone were the satirical Scarfe sketches. Instead we have a sombre close up of an ex-serviceman’s jacket on Remembrance Day, while poppies feature prominently on the back cover.
It was certainly a divisive record for both fans and band. Originally intended as an off shoot of The Wall film, a quasi soundtrack titled Spare Bricks, it morphed into a hybrid of that concept, being supplemented with new material inspired by the Falklands conflict and Thatcher’s Britain. David Gilmour » Continue Reading.
