Log #179 - What Next? Heaven Or Las Vegas

Another clean sweep of the magazine this week: everybody out, new lot in please (often precipitated by a visit of friends over the weekend).

Next is many fans' favourite Alex Harvey (SAHB) album. I have it at no. 3 in my personal rundown.

Next from 1973 was Harvey's second album with the Sensational Band although he'd made solo albums before teaming up with the former Tear Gas band who became SAHB. Here he reveals more cabaret than on the rockier debut but there’s also rockabilly and plenty of glam.

The Jacques Brel title track is one of Harvey’s most loved covers perhaps made most famous following a literally disturbing appearance on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test — many people’s first introduction to SAHB:

Yet the band showed they could still rock out with the best of the heavy metal bands of the day with Faith Healer which, with it’s hypnotic pulsing build up, became the band’s live opener, the Led Zeppelin like shuffle of Vambo, and the latter half of album closer The Last of The Teenage Idols.

I don't know if there is a fans' favourite Bonnie Prince Billy album but mine is this one, Lay Down In The Light. Maybe he should be the subject of a forthcoming ranking. I see he has a new album out right now and I will procure it shortly - I'm fan enough to get pretty much anything he does and I very much liked the very low fi solo sample track I heard somewhere. 

I haven't yet caught him live but we're both young enough to have plenty of future opportunities!

SAHB - Next

The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams

Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas

Bear's Den - Islands

Bonnie Prince Billy - Lay Down In The Light

Randy Newman - Sail Away

Randy Newman is a classy performer who I'd also love to see live. Not right up there as a favourite of mine but a reliably great song writer. Another Elton John sort really. I always think of the Toy Story films (for which he wrote many of the songs) when I hear his voice. This 1972 release is a pretty good primer for new Newman fans containing several of his best known songs: Sail Away, Lonely At The Top, Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear and You Can Leave Your Hat On.

Heaven Or Las Vegas is my equal favourite Cocteau Twins album along with Four Calendar Cafe. A brilliant album from a unique band doing something different in the relatively barren '80s musical landscape.

Regular readers will know all about the Erlend Oye project The Whitest Boy Alive, one of the tightest, funkiest pop bands out there. Only two albums, this and Rules, both great.

Last but not least we have the lovely folk harmonies of Bear's Den. I know what you are going to say - "Isn't this like Mumford & Sons?" (after all they co-founded the nu-folk Communion Records label with Marcus Mumford). Well no, it's much better. Islands is a consistently excellent album throughout.

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Log #124 - Introducing Gas and Fennesz

Radiohead - Amnesiac

Gas - Pop

Neil Young - Tonight's The Night Live At The Roxy

Fennesz - Endless Summer

David Bowie - Black Star

Bear's Den - Islands

A couple of albums here that I now consider near the best of the particular artists in question: David Bowie's final album Black Star and Radiohead's Amnesiac. 

With it's jazz honkings and strident bass and drums Black Star couldn't really be more different to Bowie's heyday albums of the early 70s, except for the ever distinctive voice which remained strong to the end. A very powerful final statement from an amazing artist. 

Amnesiac is probably not many Radiohead fan's first choice for favourite album but I much prefer it to the celebrated Ok Computer. 

More detail on Black Star here from an earlier log >>

More detail on Amnesiac here from an earlier review>>

Also two albums from the ambient/electronic genre which I've been reading a lot about - Gas and Fennesz. 

Gas is the stage name for German electronic musician Wolfgang Voigt. Pop (2000) is the third in a trilogy of albums he produced with 1997's Zauberberg and 1999's Königsforst. The instrumental music is heavily layered mostly without beats or perceptible changes. The dense soundscape of repetitive loops and drones reminds me of the William Basinski albums I've heard, particularly The Disintegration Loops, although this is much more easy listening. It's actually very peaceful to listen to - hypnotic, and yes, I would say, beautiful. I think I'll play this album a lot. 

I think the boundaries between "musical" and "non-musical" are in a state of flux. Otherwise, I do not really care about any "musicality" related to GAS. Emotions, structure, aesthetics are more important to me. Melodies in the classical sense are not supposed to be in GAS, although they exist, as hidden and over-layered as the chord changes. But you have to notice them.

Christian Fennesz is an Austrian musician whose modus operandi is heavily treated guitar. Endless Summer is his third album released in 2001, and his most critically acclaimed work. The music is more demanding than Gas and at first I found it quite grating but am now starting to warm to its appeal.

A grainy, blissful album that resembles easy-listening music coming through on the broken broadcast of a distant star.

Mike Powell, Pitchfork

Again, some of the looped droney pieces like A Year In A Minute remind me of Basinski whereas a more melodic piece like Shisheido with it's pleasing chord changes reminds me of the brilliant Four Tet or Blue States. The final and longest track is a fast keyboard loop over loud static from the Terry Riley/Philip Glass school of minimalism. It gradually begins to distort like My Bloody Valentine, or, yes, again Those Disintegration Loops. Like the Gas I have a very strong feeling I'm going to be playing this album a lot this year.

The clip below should be (youtube have changed their software again) a playlist for a couple of tracks from both Fennesz and GAS (capitals applied this time):

Retaining it's place in the player the Tonight's the Night Live album is proving very popular at Bamyasi Towers. With the title track occurring twice on the album the catchy bass riff and vocal chorus seems to be getting more than it's fair share when the player is on random repeat. Members of the Bamyasi family have even started repeating: Tonight's the night, tonight's the ni-ni-ni-ni-night...

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Log #81 - Madcap Humour Masking Serious Musicianship - The Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band

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1. Coldplay - X&Y

2. Hawkwind - Warrior on the Edge of Time

3. Kings of Convenience - Quiet is the New Loud

4. The Bonzo Dog Band - Cornology CD1

5. Bear's Den - Islands

6. Boubacar Traore -  Kongo Magni

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Although many people will be familiar with the Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band’s biggest hit Urban Spaceman (produced by Paul McCartney under the name Apollo C. Vermouth!) and the anarchic The Intro and the Outro (where the band members plus notable guests are introduced with their bizarre instruments) the comprehensive Cornology collection brings together five fully fledged albums and a selection of solo offerings in a sumptuous 3-CD box set.

The three CDs each have subtitles. Volume one is entitled The Intro and contains the original albums Gorilla and The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse. Volume two is subtitled The Outro and contains the albums Tadpoles and Keynsham. Volume three is entitled Dog Ends and contains the band's final original album Let's Make Up and Be Friendly along with early Bonzo Dog singles, odds and ends and solo material.

The band are fondly remembered for their silly humour and dandy tailoring which most obviously influenced Monty Python but aside from the comedy they were also accomplished musicians being masters of a range of genres. 

Drawing largely on their unique readings of trad jazz standards (pumping tubas) and music hall novelties (plumy English accents) the Bonzo’s repertoire is supplemented by eccentric front man Vivian Stanshall’s own comic observations and Neil Innes’ finely crafted Beatlesque pop songs.

He was wearing Billy Bunter check trousers, a Victorian frock coat, black coat tails, horrible little oval, violet-tinted pince-nez glasses, he had a euphonium under his arm, and large rubber false ears. And I thought, well, this is an interesting character.

Neil Innes on meeting Stanshall for the first time.

The Bonzos were admired by contemporaries of London’s swinging 60s scene sharing a residency at the famous London UFO club with Pink Floyd and appearing in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. Despite such exposure lasting commercial success eluded them and they remained an underground cult band on the fringes of the art school circuit. Their quintessentially English brand of madcap humour lampooning colonialism, the upper class, and seaside holidays, didn’t travel well and a badly managed American tour was aborted; “there’s a good chance we won’t get into the country again” said Stanshall. By 1970 it was all over aside from a brief reunion for the self explanatory Let’s Make Up and Be Friendly album.

The most accessible stand alone CD for beginners is probably Tadpoles which includes some of the Bonzo’s best known songs like the singalong Hunting Tigers Out in Indiah and children’s favourite Monster Mash, as well as Space Cowboy. However this is to overlook the surprising depth displayed across the less celebrated of these 72 songs as demonstrated on this particular album by the delicate By a Waterfall and brilliant variations on traditional forms in Dr Jazz and Laughing Blues. Tadpoles ends with Stanshall’s rather apt Canyons of Your Mind resplendent with Elvis vocals and a guitar solo so terrible it is very funny:

So if you fancy something completely different, that the kids will love on long car journeys, and is guaranteed to raise a smile, take a punt on at least one of the Bonzo albums. Before long you will be singing the chorus to Hunting Tigers out loud at the office water dispenser.

Bonzo mainstay Viv Stanshall died in a house fire in 1995

The Intro and the Outro:

Hi there, nice to be with you, glad you could stick around. 

Like to introduce `Legs' Larry Smith, drums 

And Sam Spoons, rhythm pole 

And Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, bass guitar 

And Neil Innes, piano. 

Come in Rodney Slater on the saxophone 

With Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax. 

I, Vivian Stanshall, trumpet. 

Say hello to big John Wayne, xylophone 

And Robert Morley, guitar. 

Billy Butlin, spoons. 

And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes. 

Nice! 

Princess Anne on sousaphone. 

Mmm. 

Introducing Liberace, clarinet 

With Garner "Ted" Armstrong on vocals. 

[Jazzy scat singing] 

Lord Snooty and his pals, tap dancing. 

In the groove with Harold Wilson, violin 

And Franklin McCormack on harmonica. 

Over there, Eric Clapton, ukulele. 

Hi Eric! 

On my left Sir Kenneth Clark, bass sax. 

A great honor, sir. 

And specially flown in for us, the session's gorilla on vox humana. 

Nice to see Incredible Shrinking Man on euphonium. 

Drop out with Peter Scott on duck call. 

Hearing from you later, Casanova on horn. 

Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion. 

Rather wild, General! 

Thank you, sir. 

Roy Rogers on Trigger. 

Tune in Wild Man of Borneo on bongos. 

Count Basie Orchestra on triangle. 

[CBO:] (Ting!) 

Thank you. 

Great to hear the Rawlinsons on trombone. 

Back from his recent operation, Dan Druff, harp. 

And representing the flower people, Quasimodo on bells. 

[Q:] Hooray! 

Wonderful to hear Brainiac on banjo. 

We welcome Val Doonican as himself. 

[V:] Hullo there! 

Very appealing, Max Jaffa. 

Mmm, that's nice, Max! 

What a team, Zebra Kid and Horace Batchelor on percussion. 

A great favourite and a wonderful...

Also in the magazine this week we have what I consider Hawkwind's best album Warrior on the Edge of Time. This is probably their most "prog" album. I love the cover too. It's a simple illustration yet manages to convey the atmosphere of the album.

Bear's Den are not particularly original being another of those lo-fi acoustic groups from the Fleet Foxes school but they are definitely one of the best. Islands is full of melodic numbers beautifully sung in harmony.

I'm not sure about Coldplay. I think they are good but they also annoy me. I don't know why. Maybe their music just seems a bit earnest and possibly overrated? Good at what they do but not particularly original or exciting. I'm new to the X&Y album and on early listens it seems quite heavy which is a good thing in my book. One to return to another time.

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Log #4 - The Whitest Boy Alive - Odd Name / Tight Band

A couple of new entries in the magazine this week. Firstly my new Whitest Boy Alive CD arrived and it's a corker - extremely catchy pop tunes with the funkiest bass lines and the sharpest of beats. A super little band now sadly defunct after only two albums but who live on in part through The Kings of Convenience (who are apparently recording a new album). I've played this album over and over this week, and in the car too on a long journey, so there hasn't been much look in for the rest. KOC retain their place of course and continuing my acoustic/americana/nu-folk mood I've slotted Fleet Foxes into hole number 2. Not too sure about the lead singer on their album any more but the harmonies are good.

1. Bear's Den - Islands
2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
3. Matthew E. White - Fresh Blood
4. Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
5. Afro Celt Sound System - Further in Time
6. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams

Matthew E. White is a class act and Fresh Blood is an effortlessly soulful album. Bear's Den have a knack for some great tunes, lovely Crosby Nash Stills harmonies, and melancholic lyrics. I saw them at a local venue last year and for their encore they dismounted the stage and huddled unplugged in a circle in the crowd to sing an unplugged Bad Blood, the last track on the album. I highly recommend this talented young band.

Finally the Afro Celts hold on to a position largely due to plans to see them early next month. This week it is the turn of Further in Time which I think is one of their earlier albums (actually their 3rd - ed.) and features guest appearances from Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant.

Album of the week: Dreams

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Log #3 - Who's That Girl?

A few new entries in the box this week. First a word on a great young band I saw in Brighton last night. Sam Jordan and the Dead Buoys (nautical spelling deliberate after a clash with a US band of the same name). I told them afterwards they sounded like Bear's Den which they took as a compliment, hence the new entry in the player. Both bands specialise in beautiful sensitive acoustic melodies and gorgeous vocal harmonies, the right side of the Mumfords.

1. Bear's Den - Islands
2. Various - Trojan Dub 3 CD Box Set - CD no. 1
3. Matthew E. White - Fresh Blood
4. Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
5. Wilco - Being There
6. Afro Celt Sound System - Anatomic (vol. 5)

Matthew E. White I first heard on seeing his stunning Rock and Roll is Cold video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co4krl2xge0

The Wilco album I once saw in one of those Top 50 lists. It sounds a bit dated now, and the vocal delivery is rather relentlessly depressing. I think the later Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is probably the better album. But its a double CD with alot of material so probably requires some more listening.

Cover art this week is from the lovely Kings of Convenience album. I have always been fascinated by album cover art - how a design captures an imaginary world or a grainy photo a moment in time. I love the retro feel of this cover with the brown shades, the turntable, the intellectual chess playing boys and the beautiful bookish girl with the mysterious glance. The boys are band members Erlend Øye (left) and Eirik Glambek Bøe (right). But who is that girl? Is she a model, or a real person, or possibly the guest singer Feist?

So I googled "who is the girl on the cover of riot on an empty street" and would you believe it google knew!

The following article by Clarissa Oon is reproduced from the band's website via my google search http://www.kingsofconvenience.org/strait.html :

Boe's Liv Tyler-lookalike girlfriend is on the cover of Riot On An Empty Street, the recent sophomore major-label release from him and bandmate Erlend Oye [I look forward to spinning a Whitest Boy Alive CD I've just ordered - Oye's side project - hopefully in issue #4 if it arrives in time].

Boe gazes at the camera, looking slightly grim as she and geeky bespectacled Oye eye each other suggestively. She was also with them on the cover of their 2001 breakthrough album Quiet Is The New Loud, says 28-year-old Boe, whose stubbled good looks remind one of a younger Viggo Mortensen. Speaking via a temperamental mobile-phone connection from Palermo, Italy, where the duo is playing a gig, Boe says his medical student girlfriend - whose name he mumbles and is lost in waves of static - was initially not meant to be in the picture. Recalling the day they shot the Quiet album cover four years ago back home in Bergen, Norway, psychology student and part-time musician Boe said he and Oye had been driving around getting lots of photos taken.

For the last picture of the day, we said to my girlfriend: 'Come on, you be in the picture with us to remember this day.' 

The shot ended up on the album cover 'because it reminded us of a series of paintings by Norwegian painter Munch, with one person in the foreground and a couple in the background, called Jealousy'.

The reference to Edvard Munch's paintings tells you two things about the Kings of Convenience, whose pensive acoustic harmonies and intelligently laconic lyrics earned them the label 'the thinking girl's boyband' from a Guardian reviewer: One is that Boe, who reads psychoanalyst Carl Jung's writings for work and semiotician Umberto Eco's essays for fun, thinks really deep thoughts. The other, that he and his songwriting band mate - who have been compared to a hip, latter-day version of 1960s troubadours Simon & Garfunkel - lead separate and somewhat competitive lives.

Friends of 12 years who played together in a now-defunct rock band Skog (Norwegian for 'forest'), they called themselves Kings of Convenience as a shorthand for 'the convenience of two people playing guitars together, instead of all the hassle travelling around with a big band'.

They have lived in different countries for the past six years: Boe in their rainy coastal hometown of Bergen, and Oye as a deejay in Berlin. The latter released his solo dance album Unrest early last year. Suggest that it might be more convenient for the two to live in the same country, and Boe explains, in his low gentle voice that 'my life choice and his life choice are different'.

The band is not the reason we live in different countries. The band still exists in spite of the fact that we live in different countries.

Recorded early this year over a six-month period in Bergen, with periodic visits from Oye, Riot has a more evolved sound than its predecessor album, with a few whimsical, dancy tracks amid slow, autumnal numbers. Boe says they take turns to sing lead, and argue a lot. 'We each think each one's voice is better,' he adds, followed by a rustle like a smile at the other end of the line. Still, they are committed to writing songs together, frequently exchanging ideas over the phone.

'Maybe every second month, I'll go to Berlin, or he comes to Norway.'

Sounds like a long-distance relationship. 'Exactly.'

Album of the Week: A toss up between Riot and Islands

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