Keep pushing boundaries, and eventually you breach a few and forget they are were for a reason. Mostly he was acting legally and had consent, and you often can be a cnut and remain inside the law. But some of his activities transcended consent, and I suspect others will be exposed by young women who got more than they wanted from him. The folk who are supporting him in his current hour of need are hardly ones I’d want defending my actions. Would he want someone treating his daughters the way he has treated women? I suspect not. He seems a very damaged person, and his guru schtick deeply sinister, given how good he clearly is in manipulating people. Views?
Hawkwind – Space Ritual Ultimate 50th-Anniversary Package:
What does it sound like?:
If you don’t know “Space Ritual” and you like rock music, you really should. It’s definitive in so many ways; of Hawkwind; of British-style psychedelia of the early 70s; of the intense loud music that would, in different later evolutions, become heavy metal, punk, post-punk, electro, and krautrock; and of a music that can unite Hell’s Angels, hippies, ravers, science nerds, and basically anyone who likes (or liked) to dissolve their egos into music and light. “Space Ritual” is a concept album of the concept performance which drew together many strands of psychedelic-informed thought on this side of the Atlantic. It conveys what happened when some heads in Notting Hill who were into science fiction and Marvel comics merged tripping off one’s nut while watching the Apollo missions and attending a re-run of “2001: A Space Odyssey” in a fleapit cinema into a song series and performance. The 50th Anniversary re-release comprises a remaster of the original album, live recordings of the show in Liverpool, Sunderland, and London (from where the original recordings derived), and a stereo remix by another Stephen; Stephen W Tayler (not Wilson, as can seem inevitable for these things); the » Continue Reading.
Attention the massive: missing Bobby Crush punk melody
I am POSITIVE I once saw a Bobby Crush set on some late night Saturday “down with the kids” post-pub show in which he did a punk melody, including hits from The Buzzcocks. I have tried online resources but my search has been, so far, futile. Did anyone also see this, or was it the fevered product of 80/-, “Crucial brew,” and a couple of bifters?
If anyone can direct me to the clip or piece, many thanks. In a moment of genius, I have contacted him directly. This may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Are there other items seen but somehow missing from the global archive (and I don’t mean Huw Edward’s saucy selfie), please add them here – maybe someone else will know…
Frank Zappa – Funky Nothingness
What does it sound like?:
“Funky Nothingness” is a largely instrumental triple-CD package recorded in the period around which Frank Zappa released “Chunga’s Revenge” and “Hot Rats” (i.e., 1969 to 70). As always the case with Frank Zappa, there was an awful lot going on in the background, with touring, many production jobs (e.g., Captain Beefheart’s classic date-night album, “Trout Mask Replica”, and the even-more “Hot Rats”-like jazz rock album, “King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa”), and, and, and …. Zapparians will know he never bloody stopped, and he generally recorded it all as he went along. Zappa saw the emergence of the violin in rock, and Don “SugarCane” Harris regularly obliges here. Zappa also saw blues-rock taking dominance for teenage rockin’ combos, and rightly wanted to mark his tree there. In a time when listening audiences were often mildly intoxicated and amenable to long-form bits of music which eventually showed a pattern, “jamming” was also a thing; again, if anyone could make this happen, Frank Zappa, with his musical bones, could.
This is both the glory and the tragedy of “Funky Nothingness”. As a single album, it is great. As a double, it’s good. » Continue Reading.
Blinking hot
You may have noted, it is quite warm. Heard this last night. Genius. Other perfect summer songs below, please.
Happy Forever – Mark Volman’s musical adventures with the turtles, Frank Zappa, T Rex, Flo and Eddie, et al
Author:Mark Volman and John Cody
“Happy Forever” is a book covering the life and career of Mark Volman, “world famous funny fat person”, as Frank Zappa once accurately but cruelly described him. Working with Howard Kaylan for over 50 years in The Turtles, Flo and Eddie, with Frank Zappa, and adding their distinctive backing vocals to T Rex, Bruce Springsteen, Alice Cooper, David Cassidy, Blondie, and The Ramones, you’ve probably heard them, even if you think you haven’t. Volman was the archetypical smart school slacker clowning due to undiagnosed ADHD, falling into music as he could sing excellent harmonies with Kaylan. The Turtles had the fortune to bag a handful of perrenial cheerful, tuneful hits (“Happy Together”, “Elenore”, “She’d rather be with me”, etc) early in their careers. Live, Volman and Kaylan continued the spirit of vaudeville in their performances, with skits, musical jokes, ad-libbing, and many parodies, along along with organic changes to their sound; the brilliantly-titled track “Illegal, Immoral, and Fattening”, for example, was a classic bit of 70s rock. I remember finding their version of “The Wall” hysterical, and a great deflating of the pomposity of original version (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXjVJXjj0dM)
For a while they were the » Continue Reading.
Hawkwind – Warrior on the Edge of Time (Stephen Wilson remix)
What does it sound like?:
“Warrior On The Edge Of Time” (WOTEOT) is Hawkwind’s proggiest release, though retains the garage punch and Euro-motorik which always place them to the hipper side of the underground subculture, and later inspiring punks, post-punk, acid house, ravers, and new age travellers. By 1975 Hawkwind were quite a big (quid) deal; US tours, playing Wembley, slicker everything. Behind the scenes, it was getting messy as only Hawkwind know how, and over the next 18 months Lemmy, then Nik Turner would be out, the former for drug incompatibility, the latter as his saxophone playing was being intentionally played over vocals and other player’s solos, disrupting the musical performance, the band now being a more professional unit than the free-form happening of yore where this was no longer “cool”.
WOTEOT always sounded quite clean relative to the grimey skinning-up surface that was their previous output, and Stephen Wilson has done a lovely job making it even more pristine, layers of er, “nicotine”, being removed, and making “Assault and Battery/ The Golden Void” (oh, those titles!) even trippier than dimly recalled. The poem “The Wizard blew his Horn” follows – a bit fantasy for me, as » Continue Reading.
Anyone seen Moose?
My surreptitiously filthy post in the birdwatching thread was, if you will, a “moose call”. If he was around, he’d have bitten on that (oo er). But no response. Is our lad unwell? If he can’t rise to such prompts, do we need to send out a search party? Mildly concerned…
Mark Stewart (The Pop Group)
Obituary
Early 80s student disco music par excellence. Wankers in demob suits and “interesting” hair dancing “creatively” and hoping their Rory Gallagher albums are not exposed when you visit them for a late-evenign smoke.
What’s all the fuss about?
I have heard many pissy comments about Yes’s performance of “Tales from Topographic Oceans” in it’s entirity when it was released a half-century ago. I really can’t hear what is so wrong with it, bar that it is Yessish stuff played perfectly, and loads of it. It might appeal more to fans or the refreshed, but isn’t that the point?. A live performance of “Heaven and Earth”, now THAT would be painful, even if it is marginally shorter.
This leads to a broader point; there has been a lot in the music world that I couldn’t see what the fuss was about, and even if I liked it, it just seemed modestly novel; the Sex Pistols and Nirvana both struck me as rock bands being jolly cross. Rap? Well, as I liked Gil Scott-Heron from the 70s, so spoken world and African-American poetry was not that much of a shock. Acid House was a reminder of me speeding up my brother’s Tangerine Dream albums to 45 rpm to make them more sonically exciting. More of a challenge has been Beefheart, Napalm Death, and getting my head around music by The Slits, which I now see as far more radical » Continue Reading.
Well THAT was a surprise….
Sadly, Ozzy Osbourne is not well enough to tour again. I am not snarking or being cynical here. He’s clearly unwell, and if we consider the grim sight of Phil Collins last year, I do think that Ozzy is making the right choice. His ouevre is ideal for a holographic spectacle, and could play wherever metal is liked.
Peter, you spoil us
30 years ago, I first returned an album to a shop as unsatisfactory. That album was “Us”, by Peter Gabriel, which I thought pretty useless. I had loved his albums up to the “Birdy” soundtrack, and “Passion” suggested there might be more juice in the orange, so, not for the first or last time, was disappointed by someone who I thought “had the touch” (See what i did?)
Here we are again; all that time, talent, and heavy friends. But, IMHO, could try harder. I can’t but imagine this being done by Brian Pern. I have a seat at the Birmingham show, but feel it may be sad occasion, that ship having sailed.
https://planetradio.co.uk/planet-rock/news/rock-news/peter-gabriel-panopticom-single/
Nik Turner (1940 – 2022)
Obituary
Stacia posted on her Facebook page
“It is with deep sadnessThat I have to share with you that NikTurner Passed away this morning. I am heartbroken as I’m sure you all are resting peace Nik Safe journey over the rainbow bridge love you always your Stacia XX”
Holidays In Eden (deluxe edition) – Marillion
What does it sound like?:
“Holidays In Eden” (HiE) was the first Marillion album where all the material was written by the band and then newboy, Steve Hogarth. There had been inevitable development in the band (then together for a decade, more or less, drummer and singer coming in a bit later), but huge success in the mid-80s then loss of loud frontman meant that while big enough to play 2 nights at Hammersmith, in relative terms, as the phrase goes, their “appeal was becoming more selective”. They needed more hits like “Kayleigh” to get the pop market as well as the regular fans, so hopefully replacing the fans who moved on when Fish did, or soon after. A poppier sound had worked for Peter Gabriel and Genesis, so why not Marillion too? The band were happy to create and try new things, but not to compromise TOO much. In came producer Chris Neil, who had form livening-up The early 90s Moody Blues and “Mike and the Mechanics” (be still, my beating heart). This is better than that sounds, being an album very much in the spirit of later albums by The Police, late-80s U2, or enormodome Simple Minds. » Continue Reading.
“Grab ’em by the pussy”
So Donald Trump used to need showtunes, and in particular, “Memories” from “Cats”, to calm down when he had a tantrum. It reminds me of a patient I had who would not leave the lavatory until you played his Max Bygraves tape. I know Trump’s visual taste is naff, but Andrew Lloyd-Webber? What an insult to the confirmed batchelors and the wonderful showtunes they composed.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/donald-trump-played-song-cats-27355368
Frank Zappa – Erie
What does it sound like?:
“Erie” is the latest in the series of archival Zappa concert recordings. Shows were captured for Edinboro, Erie, South Bend, Montreal, and Toledo from between 1974 and 1976, and involve configurations of his line-up involving variously double-drummers, Eddie Jobson, developments of the “Roxy and Elsewhere” band, and a show from several weeks after the band recorded “Zappa in New York”. If you like an awesomely tight band with jazzy rhythm and blues, crunchy guitar solos, not too much in the way of snorks and avant-garde experimentation, but plenty of knob jokes, and with songs like “Stinkfoot”, “Cheepnis”, and “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow”, and the formative versions of “Tryin’ to Grow a Chin” and “City of Tiny Lites” (a super variant complete with George Benson-like scat singing and funk), you’ll be in excelsis. The later concerts have quite a bit from the then current “Zoot Allures”, too; what’s not to like? FZ is in his cheesy-carnie incarnation with wry, sardonic, and stage comments you love or hate, and “The Poodle Lecture” will separate the men from the boys depending on where this differentiating dimension you lie. For the older, TRUE FANS, who think he » Continue Reading.
Bodies
Author:Ian Winwood
Many enjoy the salacious rock n’ roll stories, the madness, the excess, “the sights, the sounds, the smells…” as Marti Dibergi would put it. Some of us may have had a phase of indulgence and tasted the fun, along with a few salutary reminders of the consequences on neurones, finances, and one’s personal life. We also know some people in the music world have drunk and inhaled deeply, and it has not ended up well for them, with addictions, mental health problems, or even death being consequences of not keeping these things in perspective. “Bodies” is an autobiographical book which frames the misadventures of Ian Winwood, columnist for “Kerrang!” as he finds like-minded spirits in the “loud musics” (his integrative term for punk, metal, and trad rock), and explores the messes people get into. This he did whilst interviewing and reviewing for his magazine, and I suspect most of us could be easily drawn into indulgence, given the way it was enabled by complicit but purblind record companies and publicists. Winwood bounces between his own personal losses and difficulties (he is very honest about his own mental health problems and addictions) and those of his interviewees and colleagues,
Forgotten youth cultures
I was talking with a sociology type and they were saying that many youth cultures were really the record companies appropriating some street fashion to push a band or a new type of music, and were not really that based on a subculture of any kind. It got me wondering about youth subcultures that came and went, or were pretty much artificially forced to start with. Others are local scenes and forgotten as they were marginal to a London-centric rock media when we were dependent on the inkies.
I would see the 80s Essex funk scene as something that was actually big but marginalised as not rock enough.
The hippie traveller scene, likewise, but too uncool so near to punk.
Grebo – too west midlands?
Punk pathetique – never even started really.
Oi – cancelled or engineered out?
were there scenes that have been forgotten, have some been buried due to social and cultural factors? Were you part of a forgotten sociological subgrouping?
Views, readers?
Bill Bruford Making A Song And Dance: A Complete-Career Collection
What does it sound like?:
Bill Bruford is the Zelig of interesting non-4:4 music, and he (mostly) moves on, suggesting he is genuinely “progressive”, rather than “just playing nostalgia for the old folks” (see what I did there?). “Making A Song and Dance: A Complete Career Collection” is a 6-CD retrospective of Bill Bruford’s work as collaborator, leader, guest, and improvisor of his and other people’s music. CD1 comprises his work with “Yes” and the “Larks Tongue’s” era of “King Crimson”, with all the best bits of both, perhaps because the focus is on the ,music and the arrangements. “Starless” remains a stately gem, and “Larks Tongues in Aspic (part 2)” (on CD 2, with all of the 80s “Talking Crimson/ King Heads” content) defines intellectual-instrumental heavy metal. How I’d like to hear Metallica cover something from LTIA or “Red”. UK is represented with “Nevermore”, which is a bit ho-hum compared to if they’d included the “In the Dead of Night” Suite with the tour-de-force of percussive syncopation, “Presto Vivace”. Maybe there wasn’t space, or licencing was a concern.
CD2’s “Talking Crimson” compilation sees the emergence of what I consider Bruford’s Achilles heel: electronic drums. Yes, I know they » Continue Reading.
A sentiment we can all share
Terrible times, as I can’t see a nice way out of the current pickle. This is a nice version of Timmy Thomas’s “Why can’t we live together?” . I wish I wasn’t posting it.
Marillion – An Hour Before It’s Dark
What does it sound like?:
Marillion are an act which could have a t-shirt with their name on a Marmite jar, such are the polarised views about them. They are a very different band from 35 years ago, and really shouldn’t have to keep apologising. They took a different direction with the change of singer (we cannot call him “new”, given Steve Hogarth has been with them since 1989 and the band have rarely looked back). Yes, there were still soaring guitar breaks, but they were concise and to the point, the focus is on tunes and ensemble playing and excellent arrangements rather than flash mock-classicism, and lyrics are contemporary. The last album, “FEAR” was far superior to that normally heard from a bandof their age, and the response from a mature audience desperate for a decent album from a name band in this field led to Marillion’s star rising again, with sold-out tours, and grown men (and long-suffering wives) overcome by the emotional sensibilities and harsh realities of the lyrics. And that was before COVID and the invasion of Ukraine. This album continues that arc.
“An hour before it’s dark” is a reflection of mortality and tempus » Continue Reading.
Authenticity
Arthur Cowslip raises the issue of authenticity on the “RIP Meat Loaf” thread. I must admit to thinking the concept of “authenticity” is largely idealist/ essentialist / existential tripe, particularly when people are composing creative things for a commercial entertainment market. What I do like is “authentically inauthentic” (where people play with artifice as part of the expression, Bowie being an expert, and where it can turn into irony). If people are creating for themselves and genuine outsiders, then they may be authentic, but an awful lot of authenticity is derivative. And to call yourself authentic is like calling yourself “cool”: desperate. But at the same time, some music sounds sincere, and other music doesn’t. Views of the massive?
https://www.facebook.com/mouseonmars/videos/314214030627827
Death of Burke Shelly
And why is the page not framed in black given the death of Budgie sqwarker in chief, Burke Shelley? For Shame. Power Trios became synth duos, and now we have one man bands. Its diminishing returns.
Good doc on 70s Throbbing Gristle
This fair took me back to the messy side of the 1970s (at least that which I saw around me, given i was at school for all but a year of it). The number of greatcoat gurus and confused art ponces trying to get their brains back in to their heads after a little too much acid was remarkable, and this is very much how I have seen Genesis P Orridge, the other members of the Throbbing Gristle collective being a little saner but no less weird. Abba, they weren’t. But strangely enough, TG rather defined how things would go in other ways. Maybe that’s the Chris and Cosey element.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012950/other-like-me-the-oral-history-of-coum-transmissions-and-throbbing-gristle
John Miles – dead
Now largely forgotten and perfectly wrongly timed as his crafted rock came up against the sea change to punk rock, John Miles has joined the great gig in the sky. This track is probably his best known, and a prime chunk of bombastic cheesy nonsense it is – not that I see that as a bad thing, especially with those profound lyrics (which Jarvis Cocker once used as a speech showing magnificent good taste). John Miles also had the funky “slow Down”, “High Fly” and, er, others.. I saw him at Reading in 1977. Harmless, competent, “good generic rock”. He was clearly technically good, given he later worked for Tina Turner in her stadium years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF6mk2Sq4yY
