Musings on the byways of popular culture
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History nerds may enjoy this. A huge project in its’ early stages (we’re currently at early September 1939) that promises a live time line of all the developments pretty much as they happen(ed). I confess I’m gripped already
Went round to my record dealer today. Didn’t buy anything, but there was a Beatles Red Album 2-CD set there with a not unreasonable price of £6 next to it. However, there was also the original price, circa 1993, on an HMV sticker … erm … £30.99.
Seems incredible now – remember, there are no unreleased songs on either the Red or Blue records, and all the Beatles stuff had come out in 1987/1988.
So who bought it, and how on earth did Apple get away with it?
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Dunno if anyone can help but I’ve ( not actually me) mislaid the instructions and the interweb doesn’t help.
All of a sudden it can’t get all the programs I want ( Basically 6music) …it can’t actually get any BBC programs but can get a few, Capital for instance .
I ve tried to reset ( according to Pure’s own instructions on the web) but it doesn’t work. Have taken the battery out too but no thanks.
Anyone?
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What does it sound like?:
It sounds like the snapping-on of headbands! Like the sensuous slide of leggings over inadequately-waxed legs! Like the creaking of cartilage! Like the delicate sound of thunder strained through a Lycra© gusset!
What does it all *mean*?
That Mojoworking will be dragging that dusty exercise machine out from under the bed where he put it the day he bought it, and RRRRRRRRROCKING with Lionel!
Goes well with…
Those weird Chinese “glamour” videos you see in Asian hotels … what? me? No, this bloke I know.
Might suit people who like…
throwing their money away, probably. Look – while I’m here – what is this “Autogenerated Heading” field for?
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I’ll kick things off with this beauty – Slinky, soulful, funky delishiouness – trust me it’s wonderful Childish Gambino – ‘Redbone’
Just a reminder that the best album of the year, properly this century was released yesterday.
It really is a joy from start to finish and clear proof that when David Bowie tells you to get the band back together it’s wise to follow his words.
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The Infinity Sessions, 4 weeks and a lot of footage (in the comments) as previewed by Mousey back in https://theafterword.co.uk/new-ways-to-record-an-album/
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There have been three interesting guests on Jonesy’s Jukebox recently that might interest the AW. Numan, Winwood and May. I personally found Numan’s spot the most interesting.
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If you didn’t manage to catch this last night on BBC4, head over to iPlayer and watch.
Celebrating 50 years of Stax with Jools Holland and his orchestra, Steve Cropper, Booker T, Sam Moore and others, it was a brilliant hour and a half of some of the best music ever written.
Included a version of Sittin On Dock Of A Bay with just Steve Cropper on guitar and Tom Jones on vocals which was sublime. (hopefully linked below)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05dy39f
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04/09/2017
Might be worth a listen if you’re into gritty crime stuff. I just finished the book a couple of days ago and thought it pretty good. May well get her next one.
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Van Morrison should be right up my avenue. But he wasn’t. For years. To be fair, I was only 12 years old when Astral Weeks came out but, in the early seventies, he was, as they say, right in my wheelhouse. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t bite.
Fourteen years, and 11 albums later, I paid attention.
Bob Harris played this song as a pre-release from the Beautiful Vision album. I was lying on my sofa, headphones on. Despite the sofa, I was floored.
Since then, I have bought everything. I have seen him many times (not a duff gig, thanks,) and love his music.
So, what will you admit to coming late to? What was the track that did it?
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It’s Autumn Soon. Doom. Gloom.
It’s an age thing quite possibly but I hate it. Yes, clear blue sparkling days are fine but the nights closing in do me in.
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Maybe it’s because I never loved side1 of Axis:Bold As Love as much as Hendrix’s his other stuff that it’s been played considerably less, see it lags in the middle with a couple of indifferent tracks (Wait Until Tomorrow/Ain’t No Telling), so it’s taken damn near 50 years for this word to leap out and register with me.
He uses romp* on Wait Until Tomorrow.
So unexpected, and from an American. I imagine he read it that very day in a tabloid, Mitch or Chad would have explained it, then straight into his new tune. Suppose he did have form with using current stuff in his act.
So, Massive, any other weird word choices in lyrics?
*Googling the lyrics gets you “run off with me” but I assure you it’s “romp with me”
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I have 2 standing tickets for the PSB show at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill that I can’t now use. Wednesday 25 October, 24 quid each face value. Any sensible offers? They are e-tickets so I can email them.
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Strangely alluring.
Kirsty Wark too if I’m honest.
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Some bearded ponce with a hipster haircut has been clogging up my twitter feed of late, plugging some sort of ghastly ‘musical video’ by his beat combo “The Disappointment Choir”. All perfectly frightful of course – I leave the video here for you all to sneer at (warning, contains hand held keyboard action). Follow them on twitter at @disappointchoir – that will teach them….
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What does it sound like?:
Colosseum’s third studio album, originally released in 1970, is the next in their catalogue to be given a(nother) rerelease, with the addition of three bonus tracks.
This album was recorded at a time when there were some major comings and goings within the band, with only one track featuring all the six official members. There is something of a melancholy air pervading the album, with song titles such as Three Score Years and Ten Amen, Take Me Back To Doomsday and Bring Out Your Dead. Despite this, it’s actually quite a good album, with orchestral brass and stringed instruments being used to supplement their usual sound to create an at times fascinating melange of prog and jazz fusion. The strongest piece is the Jack Bruce/Pete Brown composition Theme From An Imaginary Western, perhaps better known in it’s incarnations on Bruce’s 1969 Songs For A Tailor album or Mountain’s version from the following year. It’s a bit of a shame some of the pieces aren’t longer – just as they start to develop instrumentally and achieve lift off they are brought to too hasty a conclusion. Having said that, the longest piece here, The Time » Continue Reading.
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Venue:
Mama Roux’s, Digbeth
Date: 31/08/2017
I have always rued my missing of the early RW gigs as a duo with Danny Thompson, so when this came up, I was in like a shot. This is the problem with artists who are world famous superstars in the Afterword, because the reality is always so slightly different. As I arrived at the venue, to be ticked off the list of 7 who had pre-ordered, I came to realise I am, as ever, following a niche taste. I think there were perhaps 20 people, stocky men in their prime, much as I, shuffling around in the somewhat bleak surroundings. First on, and already on stage, tuning up, was support, Bill Mackay, who has done some recordings with Ryley, and it was a fine line between the end of tuning and the start of his set. Solo electric guitar without vocal is a tough act to pull off, which I think he did. A bit reminiscent of a recent exposure to Duke Garwood, lots of echo and no shortage of volume, a power play of string plucking, picking and strumming, all sorts of styles incorporated in the same piece, from ragtime to » Continue Reading.
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The handclap used to be an essential percussive element in Pop music. It is a very human sound, whose pitch and texture isn’t entirely predictable. It depends on a well functioning, but inevitably flawed, human brain and the presence of two hands. Its rhythm isn’t always accurate. It invariably adds energy, excitement and risk to a song’s performance. Because humans are involved, things can so easily go wrong. That’s why it is becoming increasingly scarce. It’s a sound, more often these days, replaced by a machine.
My record buying began at peak Glam. Almost all Glam records featured handclaps. T.Rex’s Get It On has everything, a great guitar riff, honking sax, wailing backing vocals, strings, even a Rick Wakeman glissando, but without the handclaps it would be nothing.
The prize for best handclapping stamina must go to The Stooges. No Fun lasts nearly five minutes. The handclaps drive it relentlessly on without pause, without hesitation and without missing a single beat. They remain resolutely undistracted throughout all the chaos, including the wild fuzz guitar solo in the last two minutes which thrashes all over Iggy’s vocal.
For off-beat smatterings that decorate rather than drive a song, you will go » Continue Reading.
I’ve never been interested in drugs. I dabbled a bit with dope when younger but I wasn’t keen and I was always too much of a control freak to try acid- the thought of being out of my head for eight hours whilst talking to dragons makes me shudder to this day. Lennon may have written some of his best tunes on it but I suspect that a mere mortal such as myself would just stand there with my tongue stuck to the fridge for half a day convinced that the milk is creating weird poetry. Perhaps, on my death bed, I might try heroin because that way I can get all the alleged benefits without the hassle of addiction. Anyway, my point is that whilst I am personally repelled by most forms of chemical stimulation (apart from booze), most of my favourite artists and bands have been unashamed consumers. It made me wonder if there were any good musicians, singers or bands who shunned drugs throughout their career? I know Zappa was famously ‘clean’. Any others?
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Yes, there’s a new Mogwai album out today (“Every Country’s Sun”).
I’m not going to review it, because I’m too busy listening to it a lot, but I will say that, based on the couple of spins it’s had so far, I think this may be the best thing they’ve done since the very early days.
After the career low disappointment that was “The Rave Tapes”, ECS appears to have seen the band head back to basics: there’s more loud/quiet, more drums and a much greater sense of impact and propulsion.
There are also tracks called “Coolverine” and “Don’t Believe The Fife”, the latter of which would be worth the price of entry alone in my book.
Oh, and there’s this – “Battered At a Scramble”. My favourite thing they’ve done in a long, long time – FINALLY, a return to that whole “great lost Siamese Dream instrumental” sound they had on “Young Team”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ucOEj0Kr8
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Calm down – not the difficult muscle building exercise. During my playlist building hour today I ended up with this wonderful track, so because it’s Friday and the first day of a new month, I give you The Trashcan Sinatras – ‘Weightlifting’
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In a rare turn of events, the first Friday of the new month is also the first day of the month! so please gather round and tell us all – what have you been listening to / reading / watching / generally getting up to ? and also is there anything coming up that we should know about ?
Forthcoming from Equinox on October 2 – ‘The Godfather of British Jazz’:
The Godfather of British Jazz; The Life and Music of Stan Tracey; Clark Tracey
Some great albums here. And memories.
