Musings on the byways of popular culture
So… what are all the old punks (1977-81 variety) up to? What’s new in the worlds of 999, Plastic Bertrand, the Uk Subs Bench and the rest? Let me kick off with the most recent footage of Sham 69, playing at some Christmas do in France…
I skimmed through the whole of the year 1970’s issues of Melody Maker a couple of days ago, scanning a few Quintessence concert ads (as you do), and I was struck by one name – among the many before-they-were-famous listings and had-their-moment names and fleeting ‘who they?’ names: Writing On The Wall.
The name was utterly unknown to me and yet they were working solidly throughout that year, supporting some big acts, headlining shows of their own, and obviously doing well enough for promoters to take out ads with the name in large font.
As I’ve been typing this Maha Dev from Quintessence happened to phone and I asked him, ‘Have YOU heard of Writing On The Wall?’ Answer: No! Even their contemporaries seem to have had no idea of this hiding-in-plain-sight Scottish progressive behemoth.
After a year’s worth of MMs I leafed through a Nov 7 1970 ‘Sounds’ that I’d just acquired, for its two-thirds of a page feature on Quintessence, and there, as if by magic, on the other third of the same page is a short feature on WOTW.
It’s 18 months since their debut LP ‘Power Of The Picts’, and they’re talking about a » Continue Reading.
Hard to imagine a market for this: a 16 disc UK box set…
My pals Johnny and Adele very kindly agreed to put a couple of videos together for two songs on my forthcoming record, Sunset Cavaliers. Here’s my homage to the late, great Billy Thorpe…
…I have an album coming out, in February. The estimable Peter Muir, Mogul of Market Square – taking the risk of appalling hubris off my own shoulders – has created a vid for the opening track, ‘Blues For The Mahavishnu’ [Radio Edit] (and yes, I know there’ll be a few smiles at the very idea that something like this will ever appear on the radio… 🙂 ).
Chris Spedding plays lead guitar on the track, with Premik Russell Tubbs on soprano sax, my regular collaborators Ali MacKenzie (bass) and Cormac O’Kane (piano), plus Cardiff Lou from Wookalily (drums) and Lee Hedley from the Mighty Mojos on harmonica. I’m on acoustic and the mono-synthy homage to 1979.
Hope some of you enjoy it – no worries if not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC5lyrpfH_A
I take my hat off to all these bar bands (most in New York, I suspect) who have a go at Mahavishnu covers. Here’s a new posting, very well atmospherically filmed with great sound and good playing (albeit that the synth’s violin setting suddenly makes the tune sound like it should have been an early 80s sitcom theme tune).
The musicians are:
Keyboard – Fabian Ballago Bass – Mohammed Omer Guitar – Carl Nordling Drums – Johan Sundvall
Enjoy!
…we only need to raise 25 quid for them, or they cease to be electable (!).
Anyone want to throw in a quid?
No, me neither.
I may be late to this, but I just found out that Herbie Goins – mid 60s British soul/R&B man (ex USAAF), who took over as singer with the Night-Timers from Ronnie Jones, after Ronnie was ill-advisedly persuaded to go on a solo cabaret tour with the Bachelors.
One of the notable incifdents in Herbie’s tenure was the first-ever release of a John McLaughlin composition (John being the band’s guitarist), ‘Cruisin”, on a B-side. Yes, it’s atypical, yes it shows why John is not noted as a great lyricist, but it certainly grooves in that slightly angular, off-centre way we would come to expect a few years down the line…
I’m off to see a rare reheating of The Brush’s 1970/71 Skid Row repertoire souffle tonight in Dublin! And I shall be bringing earplugs (and Mrs H, who will also bring earplugs).
Let’s rock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyfYWYyyvww
Having just been in touch with the Pacemeister, late of this parish, I thought we should catch up with his activities downunder. Shane tells me he’s been doing really well in the Aussie blues chart with his Trio’s latest album, and his form band the Bondi Cigars have a comeback album on the go too.
Here he is in fabulous form a year ago. (There are plenty more recent vids on youtube, but I just loved the feel of this one, and it’s atmospherically filmed.) That Pacemaker – he’s a class act!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q87_BcC8fds
Here’s a newly posted vid of a bar band playing Mahavishnu Orchestra’s ‘Trilogy’. The timing goes a tad wobbly here and there, but I take my hat off to them. Indeed, I take my hat off to them for actually being a bar band with a gong…
Has anyone else here ever seen a bar band with a gong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irqX9kemO3w
I mentioned recently that I’d been to a couple of Wookalily TV recording events for a show that was inexplicably Not Allowed To Be Talked About. Now that the series in question has gone overground (advertising itself on BBC ticketing outlets), we can kick all that cloak and dagger guff into touch.
The wonderful Wookalily will be appearing on a forthcoming BBC4 series called ‘Britain’s Best Part-Time Band’. It seems to be some sort of competition, though not open to the public – all filmed in advance of broadcast. Comedian Rhod Gilbert and various music legends get to travel around the UK, see some bands, have a laugh and decide who they like best at a regional level and then, presumably, at a national level.
The Wookaladies are through from NI, and will be filmed again on January 15th at a live open-to-the-public thing in Belfast along with regional winners from the Celtic fringes. Tickets from the link herein.
Meanwhile, line up those mince pies and a steaming flagon of mulled wine, put your feet up and watch the Wookas on the considerably lower-budget NVTV performing six songs (some of their best, plus one real turkey). There are four chairs » Continue Reading.
The BFI ‘Ghost Stories For Christmas’ box set is essential for this time of year. Set aside 30 minutes and hearken to the sonorous voice…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV84nXzZrkA&list=PLRiywIdis46j3NgKJl9KeYWiHRsA2SV5M
My pals the Wooka-ladies were filmed in performance for, how shall I put this, ‘an extra-local broadcast in the not too distant’, last Saturday, in front of a select coterie of their greatest fans, closest family members and assorted people who had nothing much else to do on a wet and miserable Saturday afternoon in Belfast.
Unfortunately, I can tell you nothing whatsoever about the show, as the Wooka contracts suggest that if a word is breathed to anyone, a crack squad of BBC hitmen led by a figure like, say, Alan Yentob flying in with his Bond-villain cat at colossal expense will descend upon all their houses, sieze all their belongings and throw them in prison, never to see daylight again. Similarly, once the show is broadcast and available for anyone to see, they must not mention it for months to anyone. (You think I’m making this up?)
Meanwhile, here are Wookalily with no frills and not much amplication, filmed in a disused warehouse by an amateur enthusiast.
I was wanting to buy a Detectorists DVD for a friend who would almost certainly enjoy but I was put off by some seriously negative online comments on the technical quality of the visual aspect (from sharp to washed out and murky).
Does anyone have the official DVD versions? Is it really that bad?
What a crying shame that a brand new cinematically filmed, lovingly crafted TV series can be bunged out in some crappy transfer (if indeed that is the case)… Just get it right…
Just a heads up that Ralph ‘The Ralphmeister’ McLean at BBC Radio Ulster is having a 60s British R&B show tonight on his Rock’n’Soul show.
The likes of Them, Animals, Yardbirds in the first hour (8-9) and the Pretty Things in conversation in the second hour (9-10).
Available to ‘listen again’ or whatever it’s called if you miss it tonight…
Check out this fellow, playing four parts himself with split-screen video. AND his name is Tom Penguin. How much better can it get?
This is astoundingly close to the sound and feel of the two original pieces. Phew…
‘And so, over to the Graham Bond Organisation, the wildest both musically and in appearance… behind the drums sits Ginger Baker, looking like a Francis Bacon portrait in 3D… and Mr Bond himself, a Balzac in dark glasses…’
Thus said Steve Race, a somewhat po-faced man in the 1960s BBC, introducing Graham, Ginger, Mike Falana and Dick Heckstall-Smith, the 1966 incarnation of Graham’s various legendary 60s bands, on ‘Jazz Beat’ at the Playhouse Theatre.
Three years earlier, as the delightfully looser George Melly declared to an unsuspecting pipe and slippers listenership on the same station, introducing an earlier gang with the dsame Hammond-toting leader: ‘Good evening – ‘Jazz Club’, and not a banjo in sight, but of course it’s been a hard winter…’
And so began a bit of history in the making: the onslaught of R&B on the British jazz world. The three Bond Quartet sessions from 1963 (Bond, Bruce, Baker, McLaughlin) are striking in still being somewhere between jazz and R&B – Jack Bruce still playing double bass, McLaughlin’s guitar definitely more jazz than blues, the repertoire more Ray Charles than Muddy Waters. But it was the still the forefront of a big change.
Trad clubs up » Continue Reading.
My co-author John has very decently been sent a review of our book on uilleann pipers from a french magazine. Neither of us are much good at languages. John likes to share reviews on his social media pages. Anyone here fancy translating a few phrases from it into English for us before he does so?
The Wheels of the World – 300 years of Irish uilleann pipers
A la vue de pareil titre, on ne peut qu’être enthousiasmé. Mais au moment de l’ouvrir point une certaine appréhension, car ce type d’ouvrage est parfois rébarbatif. Eh bien, pas de souci avec cette brique très agréable ! Pas besoin de suivre une ligne toute tracée, car les seize chapitres vous permettent de choisir, de plonger directement à la découverte de Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy, Leo Rawsome, John Doran, Paddy Keenan, Liam O’Flynn (de Planxty), des cornemuseux de l’Ulster … En outre, chaque chapitre est très clairement formaté, avec des commentaires de diverses personnes (cornemuseux et autres) imbriqués dans le texte. On trouve facilement les passages qui nous intéressent le plus. Ainsi on découvre que Séamus Ennis, lorsqu’il jouait des airs lents, pensait aux mots, à l’histoire racontée sur ces airs. De » Continue Reading.
And now they’re going after the Tremeloes…
Here’s an endearing clip of Liv with Aussie pub rock colossus Billy Thorpe, singing and chatting, probably from the early 2000s…
I thought there was something a bit too familiar about Enya’s new record. Honestly, if it takes her 7 years to come up with this there’s something seriously wrong…
Just a heads up that Series 2 of this fabulous (and to my mind very AW-esque) BBC4 comedy drama series (fear not, no laugh track) starts this Thursday. Four episodes of Series 1 still on iPlayer.
That said, the conceit of the trailer for Series 2 is ghastly: a faux-Hollywood Blockbuster voiceover which is not only wrongheaded (even in the context of being ‘ironic’) but actually makes the speech in the clips hard to hear. Have they learnt nothing from that ‘mumblegate’ thing last year?
Here is a fabulous piece of anthropology: a half-hour doc on 60s countercultural lifestyles in London, featuring nearly 5 mins of Quintessence rehearsing the title track at All Saints Church in 1969 (from 17:10 – 22:00).
http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-getting-it-straight-in-notting-hill-gate-1970/
My attention was drawn to Phil Hare today. He has a new album of instrumental pieces available, at a very modest price. See: www.philhare.co.uk
