Twang welcomes Blue Boy and Dai to the pod to discuss Van Morrison. There’s little to argue with about the quantity and usually the quality of the various Vans we have seen, and “Astral Weeks” is given suitably reverential treatment other than one member who moans about the noodly flute player. They agree that through the transcendent Celtic soul and deep mysticism there is a rich vein of Van humour to be discovered, and not a mention of harmonicas.
The Afterword #80: The Vancast
by 92 Comments
To get you in the mood…
Thanks for the organisation and excellent leadership @Twang. If you included my witterings about setlists, this is the one I was (mainly) going on about :
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/van-morrison/2009/wamu-theater-at-madison-square-garden-new-york-ny-2bf77c36.html
All wittering present and correct other than me rambling on about Tanita Tikaram which is on the cutting room floor!
No doubt available in the 10th anniversary super deluxe edition in 2029.
….but available only at eye-watering prices on Amazon for several years before for no apparent reason.
Skiddly-bop!
Yes The Complete Afterword. Hours, literally, of fun.
Outtakes: The Stoned Philosophers?
I’m looking forward to my next bath.
So are your poor neighbours.
Oho!
Wow – quick work Twang! Thanks again for all the work you put into these
Pleasure BB. I happened to have a free hour this afternoon and as the other Van thread was hot I thought I’d put it up immediately.
Can I say that that noodly flute on Astral Weeks is one of the few times I tolerate that accursed instrument. Moondance on the other hand is one of my least favourite “high period” Van albums due to its overbearing presence.
Didn’t say this but side 1 of Moondance is pretty much the best side of music anyone ever managed!
Cocktail lounge jazz IMO
Stoned Me, Into the Mystic etc. You are entitled to your opinion but it’s wrong 😉
Mrs Wells says the same thing. I have it but I never play it. Of course Caravan is great but prefer it on Too Late or the Last Waltz. Into The Mystic wonderful song but heartily sick of it. The others? Nope, just leave me cold and I have 90% of his catalogue.
Listen to The Junior, I said listen to The Junior. Repeat 45 times then fade
It’s so true about Side One, its magnificent, but perhaps because of over familiarity with the material, I rarely play it. Also the steep decline in quality songs on the other side is probably another reason I rarely bother. On the other hand I love Hard Nose The Highway. That was the first Van Album I bought. I love every song on it including the much derided Being Green.
Exactly Bingers, exactly. And HNTH was my first album too. Autumn Song and Purple Heather were the songs for me.
If I’d been well enough to pod the other evening, I’d have been singing the praises of Hard Nose The Highway as well. A transcendentally fabulous album. It’s a long story, but I’ll paraphrase by saying that I’d heard proto Van first in my nipperhood (Domino etc), then took a long break via prog rock and ver blues, finally found Astral Weeks via a curious route and fell for it immediately. Sadly, ongoing impecuniousness (I was a teacher FFS) starved me of more Van for several years, until the glorious educational facility that is the Bristol Central Library music section loaned me a copy of Hard Nose The Highway which blew me away and my wallet subsequently never recovered.
Any love for St Dominic’s Preview? It was my gateway drug just around the right time to then immerse myself in Too Late to Stop Now. Awesomely good
It’s the forgotten classic – usually summarised as “Listen to rhe Lion and that song about a darts player”. Not a bloody note wrong on it. Dude was on the roll of all rolls in those years.
Indeed. The wallet hammering included – in no particular order I can recall – Band And Street Choir, Veedon Fleece, Tupelo Honey, St. Dominic’s Preview*, Moondance, Wavelength and A Period Of Transition in the first few weeks alone. A time now remembered fondly but with alarm – and relief – as ‘the Barclaycard years’. I was Vanmungously investing, delerious with having discovered a whole body of work that had passed me by. Too Late To Stop Now was the absolute culmination of the initiate period of my worship. And then I bought Common One, and was transported once more…
*my copy of St. Dominic’s is a cheapo on one of those budget vinyl reissue labels that Warners used to do; “Original ROCK Classics”, FFS. The sleeve notes – no idea if they are the same ones as the original vinyl release – are pretty informative, and are littered with review quotes etc. The band line up is just bonkers stellar, and the notes end with the sentence, “A masterpiece, pure and simple.”. I won’t argue with that.
Looks like many love their first Van experience most. After Astral Weeks, as I mentioned, my first was Beautiful Vision which I still adore. I didn’t get Hard Nose the Highway until much later. If I were to rank his first 6 proper solo albums, it would be like this:
1. Astral Weeks
2. Moondance.
3. St Dominic’s Preview
4. His Band and Street Choir
5= Tupelo Honey
Hard Nose the Highway
And then there was Veeden Fleece …
Actually St Dominic’s could be no. 2, but I really liked the “alternative Moondance” that came out on Record Store Day (last year?)
As I said in the pod he didn’t make a bad album in the 70s, just some slightly less good than others, and as Dai said that run continued right through the 80s. It’s an astonishing body of work. My order of the first 7 (including VF) would be
1 St Dominic’s Preview (fantastic all the way through but Listen to the Lion, the title track and Almost Independence Day are magnificent)
2 Veedon Fleece
3 Astral Weeks
4 Tupelo Honey
5 Moondance
6 Hard Nose the Highway
7 His Band and Street Choir
Gotta be (at least for today):
1. Fleece
2. Preview
3. Weeks
4. Hard
5. Tupelo
6. Moondance
7. Street
I have the Original Rock Classics version of Music in a Doll’s House – as you say, excellent sleevenotes. Also in that series – Fleetwood’s Then Play On and summat by The Electric Prunes.
Moondance was my way into Van back then and I found Astral Weeks very difficult until much, much later. I think you have to remember that this was an extraordinary record to put out at the time for someone in rock music. I’m guessing most on here came to Van later on, so the impact would be quite different, and others have covered this territory, not to mention the song itself during the intervening 50 years (!) or so.
It seems that those who love Moondance are most likely to find Astral Weeks unappealing, and vice versa. Once you have one Van album though, you’re sure to end up with a few more.
Van is a blind spot for me. Except for Astral Weeks. I had heard other albums before it and enjoyed Moondance in American Werewolf. I think it’s the Jazz in Astral Weeks that touches my funny bone. I also like that single with Them. That’s it. Sorry.
“Into the Music” is his most accesible, for non Van fans, I think. All of his seventies stuff, as discussed above, is fantastic.
That’s some blind spot, Tiggs!
Thoroughly enjoyed that, thanks! I guess I’m like a lot of people – more than a casual fan, have several albums (mostly the early stuff), really enjoy what I know, but am a bit intimidated by the later discography. This helps, ta!
Me too. I learned a lot!
Looking forward to this one – Van has been part and parcel of my musical life for a good long while. A couple of years ago I wrote a long piece about him for The Great Albums blog (their podcast is occasionally worth checking out). Its a bit long winded and in retrospect overly wordy (just like Van!) but if interested its here
http://www.thegreatalbums.com/blog/2017/1/11/the-yarragh-john-almond
Nice blog Feedback. Shame you were washing your hair on the podcast night.
I must have missed the RSVP !
Interesting talk, ta. You mention the influence on Springsteen, who of course worshipped Van and chose Madame George as one of his Desert Island Disc songs. I came across this interesting article:
“(Morrison) loathed how seemingly all of the era’s defining heartland rockers had ripped him off — Americans like Bob Seger, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp covered his songs, while singer-songwriters from the English heartland, including Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, also owed him an obvious debt.
But the most egregious of these thieves, in Morrison’s mind, was Bruce Springsteen. “For years people have been saying to me — you know, nudge, nudge — have you heard this guy Springsteen?” Morrison griped to The New Age in 1985, right when Born in the U.S.A. was at its most ubiquitous. “And he’s definitely ripped me off … [and] I feel pissed off now that I know about it.”
https://www.theringer.com/music/2018/11/28/18115160/van-morrison-life-career-albums-astral-weeks
Hence the pointed lyrics on A Town Called Paradise from 1986:
Copycats ripped off my songs
Copycats ripped off my words
Copycats ripped off my melodies.
Classic Van, that song. On the one hand it’s a gorgeous example of his romantic and spiritual side, about open landscapes and the ancient highway. On the other hand…you know, those BASTARDS….
Really good chat boys – one of the best pods to date (IMHO). Couple of observations – re whats his legacy I agree that early Bruce as well as Bob Seger were definitely listening to Van. Later on so was Adam Duritz with his band Counting Crows. But I think you have to look at his impact on the Irish/celtish artists like the Pogues, Damian Rice and definitely Bono. And of course Phil Lynott was pure Van the Man but with a pair of twin leads guitars.
In terms of albums I think his fabulous run from 1967 ended with ‘A Night in San Francisco’ in 1994 and with just a few gems since – Healing Game, Magic Time and Back on Top. You guys didn’t rate Days Like This but it does contain Van’s last great ‘stream of consciousness’ song Ancient Highway’ which is up there with some of greatest.
(greatest)
I was recently listening to Dingley Dell and realised that Damien Rice sounds a lot like the young Alan Hull. (This is most striking, ironically, on Poor Old Ireland)
Graham Parker on his early records is like a harder-edged Van. I don’t know if he’s ever cited the Tore Down A La Rimbaud Hitmaker as an influence.
In his early days, Parker readily acknowledged his admiration for Van and Otis Redding.
Ha! Fair enough. He’d obviously modelled The Rumour on the Caledonian Soul Orchestra.
Bloody hell! I’ve just discovered that saxmeister John “Irish” Earle played on the theme to Fraggle Rock!
I’m sure this has been posted previously but for those who missed it….
I just remembered Van shouting “I like it” is after the first “dum didly dum dum” chorus in “Venice USA” on “Wavelength”.
Van looking decidedly buff on the cover of Wavelength. Didn’t last long. Not that I can talk.
You’re not a pop star so it doesn’t matter.
That’s always been my excuse.
And while we’re doing retractions and corrections the aborted album before Period of Transition was, as any fule kno, made with the Crusaders and not the Meters as I said.
If that was available in any form, and I obviously wouldn’t download it if it was, what would it be called?
Sounds brilliant! With Larry Carlton I wonder?
There is some amazing material on The Philosopher’s Stone.
Therw also may be something called The Real Pholoopher’s Stone, which I know nothing about and wouldn’t know about it even if I did know about it which I don’t.
I was not here and my name is Gladys if anybody asks.
Philosopher’s…
….possibly
And the Talk Talk album is (of course) Spirit of Eden.
What do people think of the live Astral Weeks from 2009 ? I think it works pretty well but surely the most amazing thing is the sleeve – with Van looking trim and smiling with a set of Osmond white perfect teeth !
I went to see him do this at the Albert Hall – possibly the most unpleasant concert occasion ever as had to sit next to a really smelly bloke, if it was a cartoon then wavy lines and flies would have been hovering over his head. Maybe this needs a separate thread.
The most amazing thing about the AW gig is that he did it at all. His visits to his deep past usually consist of a begrudging, Ramones-speed version of Moondance performed with the enthusiasm of a teenage boy doing his maths homework.
Agree with Moose. I think it is a lot better than I expected. Dont play often but when I do am pleasantly surprised.
I remember a truly transcendent show at York Barbican, around 1991, when near the end and completely out of the blue, he launched into ‘Ballerina’. Cue collective meltdown…
As I mentioned, I loved the show. Have it on vinyl which is getting hard to find. Nice to have that bizarre cover in full 12×12 size!
Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I had a friend who used to work in Silicon Valley. He told me that one of them there Californian zillionaires desperately wanted Van to play a private live concert for him. Van got sick of all the approaches and said “I’ll play you the whole of Astral Weeks for a million dollars”. A year later…
Just sayin’, I said just sayin’, sing it with me, I said
….except he played it skiffle-style, so Madame George was finished after 2 minutes (hur)
Not the hugest of huge Van fans but I do love Enlightenment and this track in particular, which has the honour of being one of the few pieces of music that Mrs A and I actually both like
I love Enlightenment too. Real Real Gone was a great lead-off single.
Also of that ilk, Poetic Champions Compose – with those gorgeous sax instrumentals and the majestic The Mystery. Play it feckin’ loud!
My first Van purchase post the 80s Best Of.
“I am down on my knees at the wireless knobs… Telefunken, Telefunken… Fats did not come in without those wireless knobs… Lester Piggott 10/1 and we let the goldfish go… Come in, come in, come in, Ray Charles. Justin, Justin, where is Justin now? What’s Justin doing now? Just, where is Justin now?”
Proper mad
Talk on the pod of whether Hymns to the Silence would be better as a single album. Answer yes it would – turns it into a definite Van Top 10. Here’s one I made earlier
https://open.spotify.com/user/johna_online/playlist/2z6ukjZI4DfKGyRULuhi7T?si=nKMRT9EtQ–T1S1sHspAFQ
Not bad but I couldn’t possibly omit See Me Through II/ Just a Closer Walk With Thee. That second ‘SIDNEY BECHET SUNDAY AFTERNOONS IN WINTER’ and the ‘Previous Previous Previous!’ taking us back exultantly into the old hymn sends shivers down my spine every time.
Something tells me @colin-h is familiar with that track.
I think so!
SYDNEY BECHET SYDNEY BECHET PIES N’ APPLE CRUMBLE VIMTO SPANGLES NEBUCHADNEZAR THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION ROGER THE DODGER ZOOT MONEY ZOOT MONEY CHARLIE CHESTER AN’ TOMMY TRINDER, MAX WALL, MAX HEADROOM, FRANZ KAFKA, SIR KEITH JOSEPH, VINCE CABLE AN’ REGGIE BOSENQUET, ARTHUR ASKEY COMIN’ THROUGH THE ETHER WITH PARIS BUNS AN’ THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, WB YEATS, GRAND DUKE FERDINAND, VLAD THE IMPALER, THAT GUY OUTTA EAST 17 – BRIAN HARVEY, BRIANB HARVEY, GLORIA IN EXCELSIS, TORE DOWN A LA GAMBO…
Ah, Mr H, we’ve been expecting you…..
Good one Col.
All you have to do is project the image of a Paris Bun in the night sky and CH shows up.
😀
True story – a cafe near me was being frequented by Van two or three years back. it used Spotify playlists. I created a list of ‘Van influences’ for them – principally, people Van shouts about in his mystic rants. Sure enough, they play it when Van happens to be in and his ears prick up, ‘Is that Sydney Bechet? What is that – I haven’t heard that one…’
That’s nice!
Of course you could get it wrong and just play a lot of Scritti Politti.
Wait for it….
Max Headroom. Is that an Aussie reference?
I was in the theatre last night thinking “I hope some boofhead doesn’t sit in front of me”. I knew that very fine Oz expression from here.
Actually I just had a go at this myself and ended up with 76 minutes and still had some tracks I was sorry to exclude. So I take it back. It’s a brilliant double album.
🙂
Come on gang, remember this epic thread?
Fantastic thread. I can’t listen to that album now without imagining Mini shouting out ‘Jack!’ at regular intervals (steady Moose…).
I see it ends with my not looking forward to his new album Keep Me Singing on account of its awful title and cover. Turns out it’s absolutely brilliant and two tracks especially, Holy Guardian Angel and In Tubiron are right up there.
Jesus. Anyone would think we had nothing better to do with our time…
Look at the dates, it went on for (astral) weeks
And if I may refer you to this Vanathon a few years back
And these were the Afterwords greatest Van Hits
Good stuff. I got into Van through Phil Lynott being such a massive fan. All the early Lizzy albums are shot through with his influence, perhaps becoming successful only when they dropped the introspection.
Another great podcast chaps. Van was the first artist for whom I tried to be a completist. Think I have most of his stuff until the mid 90s but now I’d barely listen to anything beyond the mid 70s. I may go back to him some day once I get out of this American wormhole I’ve been in for the last 25 years.
I absolutely adore Hardnose the Highway. Doesn’t appear to get much love so I was delighted to hear it discussed. Second only to AW in my book.
Session musicians – Ronnie Montrose Played on Tupelo Honey, yes Ronnie Montrose.
What about Dead Girls of London with Frank Zappa? It’s on YT. Don’t know the back story there.
I love the AW, if only for the fact Tikaram is described as ‘young and up-coming’. Her first album came out in ’88.
As always – lovely chat, fellas!
Bless their ancient hearts.
Only just got round to listening to this podcast but it was an excellent one.
Well done chaps!
And it’s done the thing that all good music books/podcasts do in that it made me go back and listen to the albums again.