Log #162 - The Veedon Fleece Brothers Undress

Some treats this week. We spin Beck's latest (although a new album Hyperspace is out later this month) and also The Felice Brothers' latest. Top of the magazine we have two classic albums in the smooth jazz rock form of Steely Dan and Donald Fagen (one half of Steely Dan of course and Donald's first appearance solo at the blog). Centre midfield is taken up by one of Van Morrison's greatest albums and the revolutionary samplefest debut from DJ Shadow.

Steely Dan Aja

Donald Fagen The Nightfly

Van Morrison Veedon Fleece

DJ Shadow Endtroducing
The Felice Brothers Undress

Beck Colors

Compiled almost entirely from samples DJ Shadow's groundbreaking Endtroducing received critical acclaim on its release in 1996. No doubt a technical achievement the fear might be that the means trumps the end, but actually the album is very cohesive and contains excellent tracks of down tempo trip hop.

A full list of samples used track by track is shown at this website -  http://www.musicismysanctuary.com/dj-shadows-endtroducing-sample-list

Of most interest to me the list includes artists Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and Nirvana, not that you'd be able to tell.

Veedon Fleece is a truly beautiful album. Somewhat over(dj)shadowed by the greatness of its surroundings. Released in 1974 Veedon Fleece was possibly Van Morrison's last great album (for a while at least) following in the footsteps of a run of classics like Moondance, Astral Weeks of course, and St. Dominic's Preview, plus the live double Too Late To Stop Now which came out earlier the same year. It would be another three years before the underwhelming A Period Of Transition would demonstrate a change in style.

Live, human, and dynamic. Richly atmospheric loose-limbed arrangements that parallel ‘Van the Man’s’ tenderly gentle and wildly explosive deliveries. 

Griffin Anthony

Veedon though is slow and easy with Van at his most soulful - I don't think I've heard his voice pitched so high on any other album, possibly channelling his Al Green or Marvin Gaye. Where Astral Weeks is stringy and Moondance is brassy, this one is pianoey.

Some artists sing about individual personal feelings, some are more outward looking and will comment on the state of the world and politics for instance. Then you get the uniqueness of an artist like Dylan who tells long dense stories littered with proper nouns (for better or worse Ian Felice is similar). But I don't think I know of an artist whose songs recall such a sense of place. 

Often this is implicit, 

but sometimes explicit 

as in Streets Of Arklow. Arklow is a town on the east coast of Ireland Morrison visited in 1973 (he was living in the US at the time):

And as we walked
Through the streets of Arklow
In a drenching beauty
Rolling back 'til the day
And I saw your eyes
They was shining, sparkling crystal clear
And our souls were clean
And the grass did grow

I'm also intrigued what Linden Arden Stole The Highlights means:

Linden Arden stole the highlights
With one hand tied behind his back
Loved the morning sun, and whiskey
Ran like water in his veins
Loved to go to church on Sunday
Even though he was a drinking man
When the boys came to San Francisco
They were looking for his life

Morrison described this made up character as "an image of an Irish American living in San Francisco - it's really a hard man type of thing".

I still don't understand how he stole "highlights".

Reviewing Van's discography I'm frankly shocked to realise there are 2 albums up to Veedon Fleece that I don't think I've actually heard in their entirety. They being Hard Nose The Highway and His Band And The Street Choir. I don't know how this has happened and I  promise to rectify immediately Ed. with a visit to ebay. Sure I'd find these for £3 or so at World of Books or Music Magpie.

Undress is the latest album from The Felice Brothers. The band, being generally media darlings, usually get great reviews for both their studio work and their live shows, and this is no exception. However on initial listens I have to admit I was slightly disappointed. Of the dozen tracks there are 4 or 5 that are up to the Brothers' usual high standards, which ain't bad by anyone's measure, but also two or three that are on the weak side. The balance are literally middle of the road.

The lyrics, mostly from Ian Felice who is often compared to Dylan, are important in the Felice Brothers' songs, and many reviews highlight a shift from introspection to a more outward looking view on the state of our political world such as in the sing-a-long Special Announcement:

I can promise more berries
On Blueberry Hill
I can promise you this
Charlie Parker on the ten dollar bill
I'll gather up all the cash
Toss it to the birds
Burn down the Stock Exchange
The Federal Reserve (It's going down)
I'm saving up my money
To be president

and the title track:

Smell the chrysanthemums
Republicans and Democrats
Undress
Even the evangelicals
Yeah, you
Lighten up, undress
Shake the maracas
Everyone's nude on Family Feud
Undress
Under the mushroom cloud
The Pentagon
Undress
Lady Liberty
Crimes against humanity
Undress
Caesars of Wall Street
Brooklyn Bridge
Undress
Comanche and Iroquois
Exploitation, genocide
Undress
Bank of America
Kellyanne
Undress
Read me the Riot Act
Vice President and President
French Kiss

Many of the songs on the new album are motivated by a shift from private to public concerns. It isn’t hard to find worthwhile things to write about these days, there are a lot of storms blooming on the horizon and a lot of chaos that permeates our lives.  The hard part is finding simple and direct ways to address them.

Ian Felice

However, like Dylan, it's the odd genius line of juxtaposition that delights in Felice's lyrics, like exchanging pleasantries under pleasant trees.

Despite my lukewarm feelings about the album the Felices, to be fair, are a band who have rarely stood still, each release pushing new boundaries which can confuse their fans at first. Here original brothers Ian and Felice are joined by new bassist Jesske Hume and drummer Will Lawrence (third brother Simone left in 2009 - his subsequent output as The Duke and The King and as a solo artist are due an examination at a later date). They've also lost long term fiddle player Greg Farley which goes some way to explaining how this record has taken a step away from their popular ramshackle brand of rootsy americana (never more ramshackle as on the previous release Life In The Dark) into a more polished mainstream rock sound.  

The Brothers are touring the UK in January and I also see The Black Deer Festival have pulled off a blinder for next summer:

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Log #70 - Consummate Duophonic Pop with Overlooked Triophonic Prog

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1. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

2. Charles and Eddie - Duophonic

3. Beck - Colors

4. Can - Sacrilege 2

5. Foals - What Went Down

6. Keith Jarrett - The Koln Concert

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Two more charity purchases this week. One was Charles and Eddie and the other was a book actually which I'll include here as it is on music.

The Charles and Eddie album is from 1992 and I remember having it when it first came out, on cassette I think as I either remember it from my car or from my "gap year" when I was travelling in Asia and bought a bunch of cassettes down the Khao San Road. I also remember they co-hosted some M-TV program. 

Duophonic is a nice album which still sounds good today. Would I Lie To You is the famous track but there are lots of other familiar ones on here and the general standard of all the songs is high. Their keenly produced disco and soul music sounded something like Michael Jackson or the Bee Gees. Not bad for 49p. Sadly Charles is no longer with us having died as long ago as 2001. Eddie is still going as part of LA-based duo The Polyamorous Affair.

The Koln Concert from Keith Jarrett is a classic jazz piano album. It fascinates me how he has produced such beautiful music from what appears to be variations on just a couple of chords. I assume it is improvised. It certainly sounds like it. As such it sounds like music straight from the soul like it is being channeled from some higher source. Is that how all great musicians feel? You can hear him breathing and moaning over the music in places as if he is possessed.

Keith Jarrett tinkling the ivories of "The Unplayable Piano" in a most unusual way

I do wonder how much this is myth but according to this TEDtalk the genesis of this best selling jazz and solo piano album (of all time) was accidental. Apparently the piano presented to Jarrett at the concert hall was faulty - out of tune, poor of tone, and with sticky black keys! After some persuasion Jarrett decided to go ahead with the concert and by being forced to work around the limitations produced an unintended masterpiece. A clear case of less being more.

To learn more about this landmark album have a read of this excellent review here>> http://somethingelsereviews.com/2010/05/19/keith-jarrett-the-koln-concert-1975/

The book I picked up is The Train In The Night by Nick Coleman. This is right up my street as it is basically the musical recollections of a 50 something man (an idea I have had before for a book) who unfortunately is going deaf. Being 50 something I think means having lived through a certain development of music over the decades that I imagine will never be repeated again. You could say the same about life generally I guess although maybe every generation feels the same about that? Coleman's taste seems fairly similar to mine too. He writes that his first 7 records he bought were a rather impressive list as below:

Nazareth - Razamanaz

Lou Reed - Transformer

Genesis - Nursery Cryme

Yes - The Yes Album

Derek and the Dominoes - Layla

Gong - Camembert Electrique

The Rolling Stones - Goat's Head Soup

That certainly beats my first seven, admittedly from a few years later, which would have been mostly ELO followed by a bit of Rainbow and Black Sabbath.

Man walking across a field with an Andy's Records carrier bag

On the Genesis album he writes: "Nursery Cryme was a fallback position. Deploying my new stevedore's swagger, I'd bravely gone to buy Genesis's latest album, Foxtrot, at the stall on the market in town only to find that they'd sold out. Miller's were out of it, too. Not one of the three other, lesser, record shops had it either. Consternation. [Friend] Andy had been quoting passages of Foxtrot's side-long epic Supper's Ready at me for days and I had a hunch that its surreal yet baroque outlandishness would fit me like a glove. Given that Andy's [good-looking] sister Linda was also known to be a Genesis fan - [her boyfriend's local prog rock group] Hamilton Gray owed quite a lot to the fine-boned Charterhouse boys - it might have given Linda and me something to talk about at the bus stop, should such a frightening yet wholly desired event ever transpire. In the circumstances, therefore, it just had to be Genesis. And so, in the absence of Foxtrot, the group's previous record would have to do. It was cheap too: £1.69.

"I still have the thing and still love it, even though I can now only hear it properly in my head, and even then not very clearly. I hope that my own children will love it in due course, too. History says that Peter Gabriel-era Genesis were a slightly unnecessary folie amusante arising from rock's need in the late Sixties to expand its formal horizons in a way that matched its artistic ambitions and enlarged social scope. History also sneers at Genesis for being posh; for not being even slightly Mod. Well history can do what it likes. The middle-class boy writing these words was wholly transfixed at the age of thirteen by the defiant remnants of the shut-down old man who voices The Musical Box and, now that he is partially shut down himself, the boy sees no reason to pretend that pastoral English prog rock didn't have its moments of outlandish emotional clarity."

Reading this section was timely. I've been revisiting quite a lot of Genesis myself recently - in fact not so much revisiting as visiting for the first time. I do love discovering new bands! I've consequently softened my views on post Gabriel Genesis. Sampling the "in-between albums" (in between Gabriel's last 1974 album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and the fully realised 1980 pop album Duke) I've been impressed, even with Phil Collins' singing which I'd previously described as "constipated". Impressed to such an extent that I currently have ebay bids running on what I call the Genesis Mark One and a Half albums as below:

.. And Then There Were Three (the in-betweeny albums)

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Log #69 - From Raising Hell to Raising Sand

I pick up a lot of CDs from Charity Shops - often for a £1 or less! For example this week I came across Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand album which I'd heard a lot about but had never listened to (it's a cracker).

Of course there's always a lot of junk in the charity bins too - the same old rubbish gets recycled before eventually ending up in landfill presumably. It is rare to find a good album - logically the good stuff is usually kept so rarely recycled. Think about it - you don't see much Neil Young or Bob Dylan do you?

On the other hand there are a lot of artists that repeatedly show up in charity shops. It occurred to me that the most common album I see in charity shops is this one from Texas. I've never heard it but it must be a complete duffer. I imagine an anaemic middle of the road pop/rock band with a crap name fronted by an attractive singer. Ubiquitous in the CD collections of middle England. "Tick standard" as Keith Lemon would say. I could be wrong. I really should hear at least one track before my condemnation. I'll try one. Hang on... I tried Say What You Want. Don't know if this is representative but it's the first one that came up on Youtube. Predictably the video just centres on the singer who is all breathy and sultry with the occasional breaking croaky (sexy) voice in an X-factor style. The music was less expected. More disco and easy listening than I imagined.

Maybe it deserves an award? What other consistent showers in charity bins would give this one a run for it's money?

Perhaps as more and more people go digital old collectors like me may have further chances to pick up gems amongst the rubbish as people give away their whole collections.

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1. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

2. Neil Young - Hitchhiker

3. Beck - Colors

4. Genesis - Turn it on Again, The Hits

5. Can - Ege Bamyasi

6. Can - Sacrilege CD1

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The 2009 Grammy Award winning Raising Sand album was a very pleasant surprise. There are moments with these sorts of records where it's a case of "you go", "no your turn", "no after you" with the key players taking it in turns to lead. So we get some Alison Krauss songs and some Robert Plant songs and not all that many that feel like genuine duets. There's also some country and some rock, but mostly it's old time rock with production by T-Bone Burnett giving the sound a nice live band feel. Actually the songs are nearly all old covers mostly from the 60s written by the likes of Gene Clark, The Everly Brothers and Allen Touissant. There's also a song by Tom Waits and Waits' long time guitar collaborator Marc Ribot features in the band. Plant's voice has matured well beyond his 70s screaming heyday and now exudes a much more laid back and effortless confidence.

Lots of good songs including current favourite Please Read The Letter featured below:

I think I'll be checking out Plant's latest album Carry Fire soon too having heard some impressive samples somewhere recently - probably on Jools Holland.

A quick word on the Can albums this week (there will be more in a Can retrospective review currently in production). Ege Bamyasi is just about the perfect Can record covering all their best bases in barely 40 minutes, which is quite remarkable when some of their extended jams usually take up half of this time alone. The Sacrilege album is a set of remixes circa 1997 (when drum 'n' bass was the flavour of the month) by artists like Brian Eno, The Orb, Sonic Youth and U.N.K.L.E. The results are mixed and most successful where the remix artists have moved the furthest from the original. Where the originals are already very drum and bass heavy it is not sufficient to just augment the drum and bass which seems to me to often be the case with remixes. 

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Log #68 - Lovely Cardboard Covers (albeit not necessarily legible!)

Good evening pop pickers. What do we have here this week?  Not a large degree of change since last week - but brand new entries from The Goat Roper Rodeo Band and DJ Vadim, and slightly new entries from Genesis and Can with fellow old timers Beck and Neil Young leading the way.

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1. Beck - Colors

2. Neil Young - Hitchhiker

3. The Goat Roper Rodeo Band - Cosmic Country Blue

4. Genesis - Turn it on Again, The Hits

5. Can - Anthology 25 Years CD 1

6. DJ Vadim - The Sound Catcher

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First the slightly new. The Can Anthology is a double CD in chronological (mostly) order. So CD1 contains the earlier tunes taking us from Monster Movie through Tago Mago to Ege Bamyasi. CD2 concentrates on Future Days and later plus some really early tunes from the Monster Movie sessions that surfaced on the Limited/Unlimited compilations. As I think I noted last time CD2 in particular is a useful way to hear a sample of latter day Can without the need to buy all the post Future Days albums which are not as strong as the earlier ones. CD1 therefore by definition has the stronger tracks but is less essential, certainly to any regular Can fan who will have the original albums (which contain the full length recordings of important tracks like Mother Sky and Hallelujah). That's a long winded way of saying I tend to play CD2 of this Anthology the most. Anyway, not a substitute for the original albums but nevertheless 29 tracks of Can which is never bad!

Last week I was playing something called Genesis's Turn It On Again, The Hits as well. But this is a different CD (or 2 CDs actually). It's called the Deluxe Tour Edition. I don't really see the point. It's not even live. It's got a silver cover and the other one was white. This one has white writing on silver which is infuriating as you can't read it (why do bands do this?)(more on Beck later). There is loads of overlap between the two releases - both heavily weighted towards the late period Genesis. Interestingly I put it out on Twitter last week that there wasn't anyone out there who liked both prog Genesis and pop Genesis. Actually there is and I discovered quite a lot of love for the Phil Collins version of the band even from fans who were familiar with their prog era too. I must say I'm growing to like the pop side of the band more too. Some of it is annoying tripe of course, but there are some good tracks too and I was wrong to write off all Genesis post 1976. There's certainly nothing wrong with title track Turn It On Again.

Pop brings me nicely to Beck's Colors. I suggested this was a bit light weight last week but I've grown to like it. It's short and sweet and very catchy. It really reminds me of something other than Beck but I can't put my finger on what at the moment. Plenty of single material including Up All Night which my son tells me is being used on playstation FIFA. The CD comes in a nice cardboard cover - I do like cardboard covers and I'm pleased to see many more manufacturers are producing them now (as an illustration 67% of the albums above are presented thus). They give the product that old LP feel in miniature. They don't make a horrible noise when you drop them like plastic CD covers which always end up chipped and cracked. So nice outer sleeve Beck but... as for the inner booklet - its ridiculous. The bizarre layout of the lyrics, the mismatched colour schemes, and the tiny typeface make it all illegible and thus pointless (why do bands do this? - lyrics can still be printed large enough to be seen on a CD - I used to love reading all the blurb on an album but this is rarely possible with CDs). Am I labouring the point too much? Surely the music is the important thing. Yes, of course, but the tangible feel is all part of the experience - if you aren't convinced have another read of my essay on the subject.

DJ Vadim is a new entry this week but not his first appearance in this blog. Born in Russia and raised in London DJ Vadim's mixes languorous down tempo beats of reggae and hip hop. Another beautifully presented CD in a nicely designed cardboard sleeve which nearly made it as my cover piece this week.

The other new entry belongs to young Welsh hipsters The Great Roper Rodeo Band. I came across these lads by accident at a festival and loved their confident energetic acoustic roots country (cosmic?) blues. In fact they were the highlight of the weekend. I was surprised to hear they came from Wales looking and sounding so authentically "americana" with their cowboy shirts and strong accented vocals (I reckon they'd go down a storm on tour in the US). 

I'm not yet sure this recording fully captures the live experience but nevertheless it does give a flavour of their gigs and setlist including my current favourite the very emotional Don't Believe in You. In the quite crowded bluegrass market this very talented trio standout and should go far. Great (cardboard!) cover too.

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Log #67 - From Prog To Pop

Many bands of course change direction during their careers. Sometimes this is a natural progression or development. Sometimes it's an unavoidable result of changing personnel or a result of burnout leaving bands bereft of new ideas (how many bands shoot their loads completely with a tremendous first album which has in essence been many years in the making, but then understandably fail to follow up with a decent sophomore six months later?).

With the advent of punk and new wave in the mid to late 70s, many existing bands such as prog rock giants Genesis became "dinosaurs" and had to adapt to survive (or did they? Ed.). The Genesis transformation appeared dramatic and sudden with the release of Duke in 1980 but in actual fact had really begun a few years and albums earlier with the departures of key personnel setting in train subtle changes well before that transformative album.

German Krautrock trendsetters Can were already ahead of their time when they launched in the late 60s - their change in the mid-70s was a little more gradual as rather than punk and new wave, which they were already close to in the beginning and arguably influenced, they began to introduce elements of reggae and world music into their sound (being ahead of their time again).

The results were less than impressive though and like Genesis their core fans deserted. Genesis carried on obtaining unbridled commercial success with a new set of fans who had never heard Supper's Ready and didn't care. Meanwhile Can disbanded in 1979 leaving their original legacy largely intact notwithstanding a disappointing and short lived reunion album at the end of the 80s.

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1. Beck - Colors

2. Neil Young - Hitchhiker

3. Bruck - Violin Concerto No. 1

4. Genesis - Turn it on Again, The Hits

5. Can - Anthology 25 Years CD 2

6. Handsome Family - Honey Moon

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I have two greatest hits/compilations/anthology CDs in the player this week from these two important bands.  As regular readers know this is not normally something I advocate. But sometimes these catch all releases serve a purpose - for example you may not like the band enough to buy all the albums so just want a sample, or you just want to sample as a beginner before venturing deeper. 

In the case of Can, I do love the band (I was even named after them!), but this Anthology seemed a good choice in order to cover a lot of ground economically (having bought many of the albums before on vinyl which I no longer hold, I don't always replace all like for like with the CD formats). In particular this anthology has a good selection of their latter day material (post 1975) that doesn't really warrant purchase in its entirety (the key music from Can can be found on their first half a dozen albums or so starting with Monster Movie and ending with Landed in 1975) (but do check out their solo albums too Ed.).  Subsequent albums had their moments as the band dabbled with world, disco and reggae music, but the core Can sound which had made them so exciting and influential had gone.

Where a band is famous for extended improvisations a compilation album will also run the risk of inappropriate edits. How exactly can Hallelujah or Mother Sky for example be cut down to 5 minute samples? Having said that this compilation does it pretty well and the shortened tracks are not too grating - of course you've got to make sure you do hear the full versions of Hallelujah and Mother Sky on their original albums (Tago Mago and Soundtracks respectively), but note this CD does at least have the bonus of the unedited 20 minute You Doo Right from Can's debut album.

Similarly, yet more marked and (un)celebrated, was the change in Genesis around the same time. There can't be many bands who became so different as music fashions (and personnel) changed. This hits compilation is very heavily weighted to the latter day Genesis beginning particularly with the 1980 Duke album (although the change set in with the departure of Peter Gabriel and then Steve Hackett in quick succession following their Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974), and Wind and Wuthering (1976) albums respectively) - there are only two Gabriel era tracks on this 18 track album!

Unlikely Rock Trivia: Genesis were discovered by now disgraced record producer and radio presenter Jonathan King.

In fact being far from a fan of Phil Collins I have never had any desire to hear any post Gabriel Genesis. However this CD was a gift. Also my interest was piqued somewhat by an excellent ranking rundown I read here > http://www.prog-sphere.com/specials/genesis-albums-ranked/ which encouraged me to reassess (notice how the album covers deteriorated with the music too!).

What do I think now? Well, much the same really although I would say the chasm between the two incarnations is possibly slightly narrower than I had realised. They are still completely different bands and Collins is no Gabriel (keener prog era Genesis fans will also not underplay the influence of Hackett too). The prog era band produced some amazing original music with a charismatic front man. The pop music version went soft and became a vehicle for Phil Collins' constipated singing, thumping snare and syrupy love songs, covered in Tony Banks' synthesized cheese.

Are there any fans out there who like both the prog-Genesis and pop-Genesis?

From this to this - two very different beasts

And from this to this... nuff said

However it's not so bad and without the comparison of the original band Genesis Mark II may have been a perfectly reasonable pop band. Duke which was an affront to the existing fans was not such a bad album in itself (similarly time has been kind to King Crimson's 1980 comeback album Discipline for example which was a shocking release for their prog fans at the time but now seems quite revolutionary). To be fair, and in hindsight, Genesis Mark I.V did enjoy a prog swansong of sorts with three good post Gabriel albums that have each aged well - A Trick of the Tail, Wind and Wuthering (both 1976) and And Then There Were Three (1978), while downsizing from a five piece to an eventual trio (remarkably neither Gabriel or Hackett being replaced).

A few other new entries this week which may warrant more words at a later date. We have Beck's latest Colors which is very poppy and dare I say quite shallow compared to his usual work. I do love Stay Up All Night though.  Neil Young's Hitchhiker is a solo acoustic album from the mid-70s featuring slightly altered versions of songs from Rust Never Sleeps and various other previously unreleased tracks.  The title track is excellent and I love the version of Powderfinger which gives the song a completely different atmosphere. Best of all is Campaigner though with its famous refrain - "even Richard Nixon's got soul".

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Log #63 - Happy, Sad, Silly

Two brand new 6cd blog virgins this week with new entries from Gong and Tim Buckley. We've doubled down on Nick Cave, Beck's consistent showing continues, and there's a welcome return for probably the greatest live band on Earth!

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1. Beck - Guero

2. The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers

3. Tim Buckley - Happy Sad

4. Gong - The Best Of

5. Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus

6. Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues

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Beck goes more pop and rap with his much loved Guero LP - probably his most similar outing to the popular jumping shaggy doggy covered Odelay.

Nick Cave's Abattoir Blues is the heavier twin to The Lyre of Orpheus. Kicking off with the almost heavy metal Get Ready for Love the album peaks with two of Cave's greatest pop songs: There She Goes My Beautiful World and Nature Boy. Taking the double album together the consistent quality of the songs across these 17 tracks represents a high point in Cave's illustrious career.

Hey, the Nature Boy track is so good, it's time to start embedding these videos to enhance playability (doesn't Cave always wear a suit well?):

Tim Buckley used to be famous but is now probably more famous for being the father of Jeff Buckley whose only proper album Grace became a modern classic. Both had angelic voices and died young - Tim aged 28 from a drug overdose, Jeff aged 30 from drowning (both narrowly avoiding the infamous 27 club). Tim Buckley started out as a singer songwriter but progressed from folk based guitar songs into more experimental jazz and rock fusion becoming influential to artists like John Martyn. This is evident on this record with the 12 minute improvisational Gypsy Woman where Buckley demonstrates his vocal range.

Tim and Jeff Buckley

Gong are an interesting band also straddling multiple genres of music including rock, prog, jazz, even punk and er um "space rock" a la Hawkwind. For a band adept at such a range of styles a Best Of compilation will never fully satisfy on account of sudden shifts in atmosphere. On grounds of continuity and context Best Ofs are best avoided except as gateways into the real albums. This compilation has a fair smattering of tracks from Gong's classic period known as the Teapot Trilogy - real albums Flying Teapot, Angel's Egg and You. Of these three my favourite (Steve Hillage inspired) album is You. Outside of this lot the more rock based and earlier Camembert Electrique is pretty good too and is represented on this compilation by a 13 second track entitled Squeezing Sponges Over Policemen's Heads! Like Frank Zappa and the Bonzo Dog Band, Gong's inherent musicianship is not taken too seriously and they will sometimes tip their hats to outright silliness.

Go directly to You, Do not pass Go, Do not collect any Best Ofs

Gong's You cover, and my own picture of Chichen Itza Temple in Mexico

Last up, but by all means not least, is many people's favourite live band, The Felice Brothers and their eponymous album (actually officially their fifth although some appear to be unavailable now so this seems to be generally accepted as their second proper album after Tonight at the Arizona). One of their go to tracks is Frankie's Gun but honestly this is just one of numerous foot stomping singalong Americana anthems you could choose to highlight their style. 

I don't know if this accompanying film of a boys' motorcycle trip has any relevance to the song or the lyrics, and it doesn't feature the band members, but it has a lovely nostalgic good time feel. Frankie's Gun was also bizarrely featured in the closing credits to an episode of the BBC comedy series Outnumbered encouraging many fans of that show to investigate this unknown band further.

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Log #62 - Two Very Different Crooners

First up this week we have Sheffield crooner Richard Hawley. Hawley was a member of 90s Britpop band The Long Pigs who I know absolutely nothing about. I think his greater claim to pre-solo fame may have been his subsequent stint in Pulp. For both bands he was on guitar duties. I wonder if his lovely baritone voice lay undiscovered until he branched out as a solo artist in 2001 with debut Late Night Final. I also wonder how many other bands have failed to unearth vocalists within their ranks that could possibly have been better than their chosen lead singers - Jarvis Cocker was undoubtedly a great front man but was he the best singer? 

Richard Hawley with Jarvis Cocker playing for Pulp

Such comparisons are at best unfair and at worse irrelevant. I argue the singer is the most important component of a band's character, and therefore the most irreplaceable.  Could Led Zeppelin or the Arctic Monkeys for example have continued without Robert Plant or Alex Turner respectively? What about drummers John Bonham and Matt Helders, or bass players John Paul Jones and Nick O'Malley? Sure the musicians have their own characters and styles and are essential components of the group, but a different singer is more immediately noticeable than a different drummer or bass player. Take Black Sabbath - when Ozzy left them they pretty much became reincarnations of the Ian Gillan Band and the Ronnie James Dio Band playing Sabbath covers. When the original band reformed with Ozzy, but minus drummer Bill Ward, they sounded like Black Sabbath again.

Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley are different types of singers fronting bands playing different types of music.

Richard Hawley in his more natural habitat

Coles Corner is a real place as pictured on our head album cover above. In a bygone era courting couples would meet on the corner outside the old Coles Bros department store in Sheffield. Here we see Richard waiting with a bouquet of flowers below his own name in lights. Today the actual corner building houses a very unromantic HSBC bank and Starbucks. I don't think Richard Hawley, or Coles Corner, is famous enough to warrant fan pilgrimages to the location like a Ziggy Stardust or Freewheelin'!

Coles Corner, Sheffield, yesteryear and today

I know what it's like to live here in Sheffield and therefore it seems perfectly logical to write about it.

The music is old time romantic - rich velvety vocals, reverberating Gretsch guitar, and lush strings. Check out The Ocean. Lovely. A pop star, like many, not accustomed to modesty, the aforementioned Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, on acceptance of the 2006 Mercury Prize for best album, stated that Hawley, whose album was also shortlisted, had been robbed.

Hawley would be nominated again 6 years later for his atypical electric guitar freakout Standing at the Sky's Edge album. I would have felt sorry for folks attending gigs during that tour expecting Coles Corner!

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1. Beck - Guero

2. Beck - Mutations

3. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

4. Richard Hawley - Coles Corner

5. Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus

6. Autechre - Untilted

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In a similar vein to Coles Corner we have Marvin Gaye's classic album What's Going On. (By the way shouldn't that be a question? Maybe not). It took me years to get this and a few more years to get it, literally. It's nice background music, easy listening. More depths to be discovered over the years no doubt. Rarely does an out and out classic fail to deliver in the long run.

Marvin Gaye and that raincoat

A few more plays of the Autechre album and it starts to make a bit more sense. I'm still trapped in the metal shipping container but I can get some sleep despite the chill as my mind locks into some semblance of repetitive beats and patterns.

Relief this time comes in the unlikely form of The King of Goth and Doom, The Prince of Darkness, Nick Cave - a possessor, like Hawley, of another deep baritone, but somehow very different, voice. But this album is anything but depressing... surely one of Cave's most accessible and pleasing albums and representing (along with its twin release Abattoir Blues) a high watermark in his creativity. Great songs with brilliant melodies including pop songs like Breathless, piano ballads like Easy Money, bloody narratives like the title track The Lyre of Orpheus, rock anthems like Supernaturally, and banked choir epics like Carry Me and O Children. This album pretty much has it all. In fact I can't get over how good this is - is there any other songwriter of Cave's equivalent working today? Get yourself a copy right now!

Eurydice appeared brindled in blood

And she said to Orpheus

If you play that fucking thing down here

I'll stick it up your orifice!

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Log #61 - Grounded in the Sands of Time

More raw americana from Green on Red this week including a solo effort from their guitarist Mr Chuck Prophet, local loveliness from acoustic duo Scott and Maria, an early album from the ever consistent Beck, a psychedelic classic from space rockers Hawkwind, and a frankly bonkers album of clicks and beats from electronic veterans Autechre!

1. Green on Red - Here Come The Snakes
2. Chuck Prophet - Homemade Blood
3. Scott and Maria - Bright Star
4. Hawkwind - In the Hall of the Mountain Grill
5. Beck - Mutations
6. Autechre - Untilted

Chuck on Red

Unfortunately following the roaring success of Here Come The Snakes last week my filing system has failed to uncover any further Green on Red albums (so far) but consolation arrives in the form of one of their guitarist's solo albums - Chuck Prophet's Homemade Blood released in 1997. A cool title, a cool cover, and by the way a cool name Mr Prophet too.

Green on Red guitarist Chuck Prophet on vocals

A good solid rock guitar album which could be Green on Red, except, of course, the vocals aren't the same. If a Green on Red hadn't come before, Prophet's smoother voice would not suffer from comparison with Dan Stuart's compelling bark.

Those Psychedelic Warlords

Here we have a mid 70s Lemmy infused Hawkwind demonstrable through the heavy distorted bass and most obviously where Lemmy takes lead vocals - Lost Johnny a case in point and a clear sign post to Motorhead who actually went on to cover this very track.

Classic track is the opener The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke) - this title pretty much sums up what Hawkwind were all about and could have been their calling card if it hadn't have been for the single success of Silver Machine. Dave Brock's driving rhythm guitar riffs on two chords over Lemmy's three note bass (this period Hawkwind seemed to be almost entirely devoid of electric lead guitar with melodic breaks provided by synthesizers, sax or flute).

The longer guitar driven tracks are interspersed with some beautiful instrumental passages courtesy new member Simon House excelling on violin and keyboards.

Early Hawkwind with Lemmy on location with Game of Thrones

The title is an obvious riff on Greig's famous classical piece of similar name - the Mountain Grill was apparently a West London cafe frequented by the band. The image couldn't be further from the brilliant album art work by Barney Bubbles depicting a crashed spaceship grounded in the sands of time.

275 Portobello Road

Beck Mutates

Beck's albums are consistently good. They draw on various styles, usually between albums rather than within the albums themselves. Was n't he another one of those hailed as a new Hendrix or Dylan when he burst upon the scene with Odelay (the one with the shaggy dog doing the high jump) in 1996? Mutations came just two years after that breakthrough and reminds me of the Beatles - mostly the more psychedelic John Lennon stuff like Tomorrow Never Knows. Great melodies and even some harpsichord! Take the very 60s feel of Lazy Flies as an example.

Golden Boy Beck

The Yes of Techno

After listening to Autechre I feel a bit like I did with Yes last week where I wrote:

What to make of them? Are they musical geniuses or just random noodlers? Does their music have structure and form or is it all over the place without any context or continuity? 

That statement can pretty much apply to their Untilted album. It is pretty full on. Very industrial techno recorded at a breakneck bpm.

It's rather like being locked in a cold dark shipping container whilst being repeatedly hit over the head with a metal baseball bat. 

So like Yes the music is seemingly random on first hearing but all the more interesting for that. And like all interesting music it does something odd to your mind. I would start with small doses though - the whole album in one sitting is quite a challenge.

Autechre's Anti Criminal Justice and Public Order Act EP

Remarkably the apparent randomness has a deliberate provenance. In 1994 Autechre released the track Flutter as part of their Anti EP in protest against the new Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of that year. The Act prohibited "raves" which were defined as gatherings of 9 or more people where music characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats was played. Autechre responded with the notice that Flutter had been programmed in such a way that no bars contain identical beats and can therefore be played under the new law. However they also advised DJs to have a lawyer and musicologist present at all times to confirm the non repetitive nature of the music in the event of police harassment!

Rochdale duo Booth and Brown of Autechre

There are quite a lot of duo electronic artists out there - Boards of Canada, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Chemical Brothers etc. I don't suppose they necessarily need two to record the music, but maybe an extra pair of hands is necessary to "play" it "live"?

Acoustic Lovelies

Scott and Maria

Now for something completely different. Thank the lord for that. I've been released from the shipping container and am now lying on a hillside on the Downs soaking up the sunshine of Scott and Maria who offer a gentle and soothing antidote to my Autechre headache.  Their website says their music is a medicine for our times and I would add it is certainly medicine for Autechre (isn't random play a marvellous invention!).

For a real flavour of their lush celtic tinged harmonies check out their anti fracking and deforestation anthem This Land beautifully filmed in the Sussex countryside.

New album Bright Star sees Maria's soaring voice fronting Scott's acoustic guitar strummings with occasional extra flavours of violin and percussion thrown in to provide a heady mix of catchy Kings of Convenience / Simon and Garfunkel gorgeousness.

Timeless Goldie

Finally a quick word on a bonus gig I attended last week. Drum 'n' bass artist Goldie is touring with the Heritage Orchestra. Not knowing much about Goldie and taking the name of his backing band literally, I could barely imagine what to expect. In the event I was impressed - not so much by some of the jazzy soulful song numbers which don't always seem to suit the rhythms of drum 'n' bass, but certainly by the banging instrumentals played live with two frenetic drummers! I had assumed all drum 'n' bass was electronically recorded so was taken aback by the use of real drummers. I found this short film about the reworking of Goldie's classic Timeless album for live band.

Goldie directs live band

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