Log #205 - The Hall At The Edge Of Time

Deeper we go into my old heavy rock roots this week. I follow up Led Zep's debut album with another listen of the classic IV. I pick up on a relatively little known Canadian rock band. I reacquaint myself with Black Sabbath's most progressive album, and dive into possibly Hawkwind's greatest two albums. Carly Simon retains some calm from last week's playlist. 

Led Zeppelin - IV
April Wine - Harder...Faster
Hawkwind - In The Hall Of The Mountain Grill
Hawkwind - Warrior On The Edge Of Time
Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Carly Simon - No Secrets

Led Zep's IV has a great balance of heavy rockers and acoustic whimsy. Black Dog is a powerhouse of blues rock - incorporating one of Page's greatest riffs and Plant's call and response moans. I'd never heard anything like it on first hearing. Now, years later, I still think it's pretty unique. Then you've got the Tolkien influenced Misty Mountain Hop and The Battle Of Evermore (with Sandy Denny). The Bonham showcase When The Levee Breaks and the hippie flower power Going To California. And Stairway To Heaven of course which is a little tired but I still love the jaunty middle section with it's "bustle in the hedgerow".

April Wine were alright. Attempting the monumental 21st Century Schizoid Man was probably not a wise move though - it has none of the show stopping power of the original.

Brilliant stuff from Hawkwind. I love both these two albums which both follow a similar pattern with alternate rock anthems and instrumental or spoken word interludes. The rock tunes are often based on just 2 or 3 stuttering guitar chords with Lemmy's heavy bass underlay. The interludes are simple piano figures, crude synthesizer effects, sawing violin, or, in the case of Warrior, spoken monologues from sci-fi writer Michael Moorcock (who also wrote lyrics for The Blue Oyster Cult).

In The Hall Of The Mountain Grill (the band's fourth album) is the more basic and less polished album. Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke) is a classic Hawks tune.  There are a couple of tracks on the band's fifth album Warrior On The Edge Of Time that approach some of the best progressive rock of the mid '70s, namely Assault and Battery / Golden Void and Magnu, where the band present monumental walls of sound. One of the most intriguing tracks for me when I first heard this album was the heavy motorik beat instrumental Opa-Loka which foretold my interest in krautrock. Surprisingly the band changed their sound after Warrior choosing to go down a more "new wave" road. The line up changed too with Lemmy, who had described Opa-Loka as "fucking rubbish" and Warrior generally as "a fuck up", moving on to form Motorhead.

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Log #178 - Black Budgie

Sometimes one needs a complete change and following some relatively light folk over the last couple of weeks I just wanted to blow some cobwebs away with some heavy rock for week #178. 

Radiohead - Kid A

Black Keys - Attack & Release

Black Sabbath - 13

Black Sabbath - Never Say Die

Budgie - The Best Of

AC/DC - High Voltage

The Black Sabbath listening has been part of my research for my latest ranking article which you can find here >>

Over the last couple of weeks I've played 24 Black Sabbath albums which has been an illuminating experience. I already knew the first 8 albums well (the vintage Ozzy years), plus the first couple of Ronnie James Dio albums. I also had a copy of the 2013 comeback album 13 which I last reviewed favourably here >>

13 is a powerful album that doesn't sound dissimilar to some of the band's '70s albums. Never Say Die! (Ozzy's last album before the comeback) ain't too shabby either and was also favourably reviewed here >>. Unaccountably it gets a bad rap from Sab fans.

What was most interesting though was hearing the "more recent" albums - post 1982, mostly for the first time. Most are relatively anonymous to be fair but there were a few that stood out from the bunch >> The Devil You Know (2009) and Dehumanizer (1992) fared fairly well in the ranking.

The period was fraught with a revolving door of band members, many only staying for one record, many quitting and returning (Dio himself came and went 3 times) - the one constant member, guitarist Tony Iommi, firing and hiring at will forever seeking a return to the glory days. However for the most part his band became followers of the heavy metal fashions of the '80s and '90s rather than the innovators they once were.

Reaction on Twitter was concerned...

Welsh rockers Budgie imo were a very underrated band. I don't think the band name helped:

I loved the idea of playing noisy, heavy rock, but calling ourselves after something diametrically opposed to that.

Burke Shelley

I must admit I haven't heard many of their actual albums and this Best Of is ostensibly their best stuff, and it is cracking good rock full of exciting guitar riffs. They remind me a bit of Rush actually, and actually even look like Rush physically. Much of the iconic Budgie artwork was designed by Roger Dean.

Budgie

You know what you are getting with AC/DC, ie. basic good riffing rock. Most their songs start off with an Angus Young riff, before a one note Cliff Williams pumping bass comes in, followed by crashing Phil Rudd drums, and then a squawking Bon Scott or Brian Johnson singing about birds and booze. Great stuff! This album, High Voltage, was their first international release in 1976 combining tracks from two albums that had had limited release in their home country Australia only.

So I was expecting basic rock, but not this basic. This album is a lot more bluesy than subsequent albums I have heard.

It's also got the classic It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll) made famous by the Jack Black School Of Rock film.

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Never Say Die! Eddy Reassesses Black Sabbath's Much Maligned Breakup Album From 1978

Come on Sabbath lovers. Never Say Die!, Ozzy Osbourne's final album with Black Sabbath (before the 2013 reunion) is actually a cracking good album! Like Technical Ecstasy before it, it only suffers relatively from comparison with the earlier albums, that were even better, but as a standalone rock album from 1978 it knocks the spots off most competitors.

Granted the sound is different from what we were used to, with a more conventional rock sound — the tracks are more upbeat, the guitar is tuned higher and the overall production is super polished. There are even elements of jazz which is not entirely alien to the Sabs going back as far as their debut album (although admittedly instrumental honker Breakout is taking it too far).

There is a reason the best bands have a good singer.

Another track that doesn’t work too well is the messy closer Swinging The Chain where Bill Ward takes up vocals again as he did more successfully on It’s Alright from Technical Ecstasy (there is a reason the best bands have a good singer).

However where the new polished production really comes together well is on tracks like Junior’s Eyes which has a funky drum and bass backing a chugging guitar, and a catchy chorus, and Air Dance which has fluid guitar and piano arpeggios and goes full on jazz fusion in its second half.

The overall continuity of sound and style is pleasing and in the title song Never Say Die! the band nail down one of their most exciting rockers ever — enough to keep even the most cynical fan happy.

I also love the cover with the hooded pilots, stormy sky, and iconic Sabbath font (another from Hipgnosis).

Despite it's difficult provenance and the messy aftermath leading to Osbourne's replacement by Ronnie James Dio Never Say Die! remains a fitting, albeit underrated, (first) swansong for vintage period Sabbath.

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Black Purple - The Inspiration Behind Spinal Tap

Black Sabbath's Born Again appeared in 1983 with a disturbing cover that reminded me of the final fade out scene from the terrifying Rosemary’s Baby film.

Departed vocalist Ronnie James Dio was replaced with ex-Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan. Unfortunately despite the anticipation this latest dream team didn’t really mesh, with Gillan’s high pitched frenetic screaming not best suited to the Sabbath sound.

More metal in sound the album was also marred by a rushed and muddy production, however tracks like Zero The Hero with its dirty low down riffing did recall former glories. Ironically Digital Bitch also recalled former glories of… Deep Purple, being pretty much a remake of Highway Star.

The Hawkwind like instrumentals Stonehenge and The Dark showed the Sab’s had (through regular backing member Geoff Nicholls) finally mastered fruitful use of the synthesizer after some amateur attempts on earlier records.

The Born Again episode was also characterised by a farcical tour. Gillan, who could not grasp the lyrics to Sabbath’s back catalogue, struggling to read his script through dry ice surrounded by oversized Stonehenge monoliths and a dancing dwarf. They even took to doing Smoke On The Water for goodness sake — talk about wheels of confusion. You couldn’t make it up and evidently the Spinal Tap script writers didn’t need to!

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Album Review: 13 by Black Sabbath

Well the first thing to say straight off the bat is that 13 actually sounds like... well erm... Black Sabbath! For an old fan like me this is really exciting. Apparently producer Rick Rubin told the boys (men in their 60s at the time of this 2013 recording) to refer to their feted debut album and forget everything subsequent to that thus treating this project as if it was going to be their second album.

Does it succeed on that basis? Does it sound like a second album from a band that had just released their debut Black Sabbath a few months earlier?  Well, it's close, remarkably so, considering the passage of time and the various traumas and false reunions that have affected the original band members since their original disbandment in 1978.

In fact there are some tracks on 13 that (almost too deliberately possibly?) sound remarkably similar to tracks from their debut album, certainly in structure. Ozzy Osbourne's voice sounds amazing. Tony Iommi's guitar riffs are thick and lush and there are some great distorted slow arpeggios. Geezer Butler's bass is pumping and high in the mix particularly on the blues stomp of Damaged Soul which even features harmonica (although there is some debate whether this is Osbourne or not).

It's almost there, it's almost a perfect comeback. There's no denying the chemistry of the original band members. But something isn't quite the same. Is it the drumming? Perfectly decent but maybe Brad Wilk doesn't quite have the special galloping swing of original member Bill Ward and is perhaps complicating things with an over indulgence of fills and rolls. Or is it the production which almost inevitably is going to be different from 40 years ago? It's loud, deep and  heavy, but sounds more modern and perfect in the vein of the metal wall of sound you get from the likes of Metallica, not quite as organic or edgy as the original Black Sabbath. Or does it sail too close to pantomime and parody sometimes particularly on the very Black Sabbath (the track) like opener End of the Beginning?:

Reanimation of your cyber sonic soul
Transforming time and space beyond control
Rise up and resist to be the master of your fate
Don't look back before today - tomorrow is too late

Then the final track finishes with the same tolling bell and thunder which announced Black Sabbath on their debut in 1970. Is this a neat completion of the career circle or a corny reference? *

Although there are suspicions that this record has been "enhanced" in the "modern way" to something beyond what this band could do live these days (particularly with the vocals one suspects) reports from the studio sessions maintain this was not the case and the tracks, although painstakingly mixed, were essentially laid down by the band as you hear them:

The basic tracks were recorded live in the studio, with only the vocal later being replaced, mostly because the lyrics were not finished yet. The rhythms and tempos are very tight, but people make the mistake of thinking that this means things were fixed. That does a disservice to these guys. They've been playing for 40 years, and what you hear on the album is the natural result of how they've developed over that time.

 Engineer Andrew Scheps

The songs themselves only number eight** which is a welcome old skool classic album number. But the tracks are multi-dimensional with changes of tempos and keys - a characteristic of many of the Sab's ambitious early numbers - yet continuity both within tracks and across the whole album is excellent.

The lyrics are spot on classic Sabbath too - all about life and death, your soul, religion and the universe (they of course went a bit "goblins and pixies" after Osbourne left which is odd really as Butler wrote most of the lyrics and remained a member of the band off and on long after Osbourne had gone but this indicated the influence of Osbourne's replacements which included most famously Ronnie James Dio).

Give me the wine, you keep the bread.

All in all this could easily be an album from 70s Sabbath - perhaps not their second or third but certainly a sixth or seventh and at least an equal of Technical Ecstacy or Never Say Die! in both quality and sound. Take a song like The Loner for instance, one of the more straight forward rockers on the album. Could this or could this not be from almost any one of Black Sabbath's 70s albums?

I'm impressed. It surpasses my expectations hugely and by virtue of Ozzy's voice alone, which in my opinion was irreplaceable, immediately launches itself into one of their best records in the context of their full career.


* "13" did not become Black Sabbath's final album - a live album followed the same year and then two "The End"s came out in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The first was an album length "EP" featuring outtakes from the "13" sessions with some live tracks from the album, and the second was a recording of the official final show which oddly didn't feature any tracks from "13".

** note there is a "deluxe" version of "13" with 4 bonus tracks.

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Log #95 - Another Year Of The Cat

A masterful album that seems to transcend all personal tastes - Al Stewart's 1976 masterpiece Year of the Cat is universally loved by all.

1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
2. Richard Hawley - True Love's Gutter
3. Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat
4. Roni Size and Reprazent - New Forms
5. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
6. Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down In The Light

Just the one Black Sabbath CD retains its place this week - the second half of We Sold Our Soul... this covers tracks from all of their first six albums (strangely the first half of the partly chronological double album only covers their first two albums). Enough said on Black Sabbath for now pending release of my album ranking shortly for which this compilation has been good research

I recently read a review on Guardian Music for a Belle and Sebastian album. It was in a series on favourite albums from staff writers and possibly the public too at the time (the article seemed to suggest that, but on visiting the links the opportunity to write your own reviews had long disappeared - I think this review was posted in 2011). I did however discover Readers Recommend where readers can recommend tracks on a particular subject for potential inclusion on a playlist. This week's subject was "Obsolete Items". I nominated Triumph '73 by The Felice Brothers and Highwayman by Jimmy Reed but actually covered spectacularly by US grunge rockers Arbouretum. I also nominated (Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball by Van Morrison but that offer was removed for some reason. I doubt either remaining nomination will make the shortlist. All 3 tracks are contained in this embedded mini playlist below. By the way most the obvious ones have gone before and you can't renominate any song that has appeared already in the series - this is known as a "zedded" song. What fun these private members' clubs have.

Anyway from that site I also discovered a parallel project at www.song-bar.com. Over there they were inviting nominations for songs of "Remaining or Staying". I nominated Stayin' Power by Neil Young and Soldier On by Richard Hawley. And that's how, to cut a long story a bit shorter, I came to have True Love's Gutter in the series this week. It's a beautiful record - possibly Hawley's most intense and atmospheric (this clip of the epic Soldier On also features a beautiful video):

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat

And that's how Al Stewart's great Year of the Cat track begins. This album was doing the rounds when I was a young student and was one of those soft pop records that seemed to transcend all personal tastes being universally loved by all.

It is simply a masterful collection of great songs - lovely melodies and excellent musicianship. But playing this again this week what struck me most were the lyrics. Each song tells an evocative story that takes you to a place and time.

Great lyrics of exotic escapism run like a thread through this album.

Lord Grenville:

Go and tell Lord Grenville that the tide is on the turn
It's time to haul the anchor up and leave the land astern
We'll be gone before the dawn returns
Like voices on the wind

On The Border:

The fishing boats go out across the evening water
Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border
The wind whips up the waves so loud
The ghost moon sails among the clouds
Turns the rifles into silver on the border

If It Doesn't Come Naturally Leave It:

Well I'm up to my neck in the crumbling wreckage
Of all that I wanted from life
When I looked for respect all I got was neglect
Though I swallowed the line as a sign of the times
But dealing a jack from the back of the pack
They said - You lose again

Flying Sorcery:

With your photographs of Kitty Hawk
And the biplanes on your wall
You were always Amy Johnson
From the time that you were small

Broadway Hotel:

You told the man in the Broadway Hotel
Nothing was stranger than being yourself
And he replied, with a tear in his eye
Love was a rollaway
Just a cajole away

This album came out in 1976 and became Al Stewart's go to record. I don't know if he had much success elsewhere but is still touring today playing to dedicated fans in small venues. I saw an amusing clip of him at a backstage signing where a fan said he was surprised he was still going and doing "this". He quite rightly said, "Of course, what else would I be doing?". When you think about it that makes complete sense. It's not like he would decide to give up and become a plumber or school teacher.

One minor gripe on my CD reissue. It has a couple of live tracks, fine, but also an interview. This just disrupts the flow of the music and doesn't have a place here.

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Log #94 - A Mighty Return

Well the first thing to say straight off the bat is that 13 actually sounds like... well erm... Black Sabbath! For an old fan like me this is really exciting. Apparently producer Rick Rubin told the boys (men in their 60s at the time of this 2013 recording) to refer to their feted debut album and forget everything subsequent to that thus treating this project as if it was going to be their second album.

Does it succeed on that basis? Does it sound like a second album from a band that had just released their debut Black Sabbath a few months earlier?  Well, it's close, remarkably so, considering the passage of time and the various traumas and false reunions that have affected the original band members since their original disbandment in 1978.

In fact there are some tracks on 13 that (almost too deliberately possibly?) sound remarkably similar to tracks from their debut album, certainly in structure. Ozzy Osbourne's voice sounds amazing. Tony Iommi's guitar riffs are thick and lush and there are some great distorted slow arpeggios. Geezer Butler's bass is pumping and high in the mix particularly on the blues stomp of Damaged Soul which even features harmonica (although there is some debate whether this is Osbourne or not).

It's almost there, it's almost a perfect comeback. There's no denying the chemistry of the original band members. But something isn't quite the same. Is it the drumming? Perfectly decent but maybe Brad Wilk doesn't quite have the special galloping swing of original member Bill Ward and is perhaps over complicating things with an over indulgence of fills and rolls. Or is it the production which almost inevitably is going to be different from 40 years ago? It's loud, deep and  heavy, but sounds more modern and perfect in the vein of the metal wall of sound you get from the likes of Metallica, not quite as organic or edgy as the original Black Sabbath. Or does it sail too close to pantomime and parody sometimes particularly on the very Black Sabbath (the track) like opener End of the Beginning?:

Reanimation of your cyber sonic soul
Transforming time and space beyond control
Rise up and resist to be the master of your fate
Don't look back before today - tomorrow is too late

Then the final track finishes with the same tolling bell and thunder which announced Black Sabbath on their debut in 1970. A neat completion of the circle or a corny reference? *

Although there are suspicions that this record has been "enhanced" in the "modern way" to something beyond what this band could do live these days (particularly with the vocals one suspects) reports from the studio sessions maintain this was not the case and the tracks, although painstakingly mixed, were essentially laid down by the band as you hear them:

The basic tracks were recorded live in the studio, with only the vocal later being replaced, mostly because the lyrics were not finished yet. The rhythms and tempos are very tight, but people make the mistake of thinking that this means things were fixed. That does a disservice to these guys. They've been playing for 40 years, and what you hear on the album is the natural result of how they've developed over that time.

 Engineer Andrew Scheps

The songs themselves only number eight ** which is a welcome old skool classic album number. But the tracks are multi-dimensional with changes of tempos and keys - a characteristic of many of the Sab's ambitious early numbers - yet continuity both within tracks and across the whole album is excellent.

The lyrics are spot on classic Sabbath too - all about life and death, your soul, religion and the universe (they of course went a bit "goblins and pixies" after Osbourne left which is odd really as Butler wrote most of the lyrics and remained a member of the band off and on long after Osbourne had gone but this indicated the influence of Osbourne's replacements which included most famously Ronnie James Dio).

Give me the wine, you keep the bread.

All in all this could easily be an album from 70s Sabbath - perhaps not their second or third but certainly a sixth or seventh and at least an equal of Technical Ecstacy or Never Say Die! in both quality and sound. Check out The Loner below, one of the more straight forward rockers on the album. Could this or could this not be from almost any one of Black Sabbath's 70s albums?

I'm impressed. It surpasses my expectations hugely and by virtue of Ozzy's voice alone, which in my opinion was irreplaceable, immediately launches itself into one of their best records in the context of their full career.

1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 1
2. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
3. Black Sabbath - 13
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Bjork - Homogenic
6. Francois And The Atlas Mountains - Plaine Inondable

Some context, and comparison, is possible by way of the order of my magazine this week with Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll compilation taking up the first two slots. This classic compilation covers tracks from their first 6 albums, for many their golden era which has never been equalled. It is true, where longevity is a very rare commodity, both then and especially now, to have produced 6 albums of such consistent quality was a remarkable achievement:

Black Sabbath
Paranoid
Master of Reality
Vol. 4
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Sabotage

Even the two that followed although much less popular are excellent records:

Technical Ecstacy
Never Say Die!

Which is Your Favourite Black Sabbath Album?

The first 6 original Ozzy fronted Black Sabbath albums dominate fans' favourites. In fact I commissioned a Facebook survey which bore this out with the Ozzy years dominating the vote although Dio's Heaven and Hell does split the top 6.

Rather than one or two albums outstripping the rest, which you would often get with many bands, there is a wide range of support across all the first 6 albums (plus Heaven and Hell) which tends to confirm this consistency, but practically nothing post Dio (I expect there are some hidden gems amongst those too but probably not many of us have heard them).

The results out of 337 votes were:

1. PARANOID with 66 votes
2. BLACK SABBATH 59
3. VOL 4 42
4=. MASTER OF REALITY and SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH 41
6. HEAVEN AND HELL 31
7. SABOTAGE 27
8. MOB RULES 11
9. 13 8
10. NEVER SAY DIE 4
11. LIVE EVIL 3
12. TECHNICAL ECSTACY 2
13. BORN AGAIN 1
14. TYR 1




* "13" did not become Black Sabbath's final album - a live album followed the same year and then two "The End"s came out in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The first was an album length "EP" featuring outtakes from the "13" sessions with some live tracks from the album, and the second was a recording of the official final show which oddly didn't feature any tracks from "13".
** note there is a "deluxe" version of "13" with 3 bonus tracks.

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Log #93 - They Sold Their Souls For Rock 'N' Roll

Black Sabbath were really something else. They had a unique sound instantly recognisable. This sound was employed and developed over their first 6 albums from 1970 to 1975. This classic compilation We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll draws from these 6 albums. Two later albums featured singer Ozzy Osbourne following this compilation before the band sacked him and set off on a revolving door's worth of new members. Although they had their moments most notably on the Dio fronted Heaven and Hell album they had essentially become another metal band having lost a lot of their uniqueness - a uniqueness that was pleasingly reignited on their recent reunion album 13.

This compilation in it's own right is an excellent record. However the first 6 albums are so strong that I would really prefer readers to just buy the original albums. We Sold Our Soul For Rock N Roll draws heavily on the first two albums meaning their third (and their best in my opinion) is neglected with only two tracks - luckily one of them being Children Of The Grave which I think was the first Sabbath track I ever heard and one that stopped me in my tracks with a "Wow, what is this?!"

For new listeners see if it has the same effect on you:

Sadly there is also only one track from their fifth album the groundbreaking Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 1
2. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
3. Chris Rea - The Road To Hell
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Various - Rock Chronicles: The Seventies
6. Francois And The Atlas Mountains - Plaine Inondable

Last entry in the 6 way slot this week is a curious affair from little known band Francois and the Atlas Mountains. I know little about this band. I saw them at a festival years ago and was suitably impressed enough to buy their album which translates as Flood Plains.  Here you go >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A0n%C3%A7ois_%26_the_Atlas_Mountains

It would appear they are a Belgian/French/Bristol collaboration.

One of their songs reminds me of Imagine by John Lennon. Let me see if I can find it.

Actually more like Paris 1919 by John Cale or Belle and Sebastian.

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Log #92 - A Supreme Festival of Love, Jazz and Dad Rock

1. The Cardigans - Life
2. Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die
3. Chris Rea - The Road To Hell
4. Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
5. Various - Rock Chronicles: The Seventies
6. Neil Young - Greendale

Love Supreme 2018

It's festival season again and a particularly hot and sunny one here in England. This Sunday I visited the excellent Love Supreme Festival in beautiful Glynde, Sussex (more famous for the Glyndebourne Opera Festival).

The festival has grown appreciably since my last visit (or was this just the weather with many festival goers now so spoilt for choice they don't always have to pre-book any more?) but the site was still able to absorb the numbers (albeit the bars did run out of all except cider early).

One of the joys of the festival is the interview area known as the Jazz Lounge. Here artists talk about their music and inevitably their insights and enthusiasm encourage you to attend their slots later on and subsequently gain more out of their performances. One such highlight this weekend was world renowned tabla player Zakir Hussain who emitted such amazing sounds from his array of tablas that I could barely believe what I was hearing. Subsequent standard drummers sounded dull in comparison.

Mavis Staples followed with an energetic set of blues and soul infused with protest and anger from the US civil rights movement in the 60s. It was nice to see an established old time star without a massed band of keyboards, percussionists and backing singers. Her band consisted of drummer, bassist and electric guitar (and a couple of backing singers to be fair) and sounded all the better for it (I find the live sound of such old time acts inevitably blows newer bands out of the water).

I hotfooted over to the main stage to see a bit of Funkadelic but I didn't understand them - I think they had gone heavy rap or something (or maybe they were always like that?). On my way back to the Round Top to catch one of my favourite artists Steve Winwood I stopped by to appreciate a young upcoming talent in the jazz field, one Keyon Harrold who played trumpet like Miles Davis but also sang beautifully (sometimes instrumental music can get a bit tiresome and leaves one yearning for a song occasionally).

The young, cool and talented Keyon Harrold

Steve Winwood didn't disappoint. I've seen him before and he played a similar set of well known hits (many of which the casual punter would not realise are his). For instance I'm A Man and Give Me Some Loving from his Spencer Davis Group time, his own solo big hit Higher Love, and Can't Find My Way Home from the Blind Faith album, but the highlights were a Traffic classic from the listed album Empty Pages which I wasn't expecting, and the fantastic guitar rocker Dear Mr. Fantasy as an encore I was both hoping for and expecting.

An amazing talent on guitar, organ (with bass pedals!) and voice, ably demonstrated on the superb Traffic album John Barleycorn Must Die. I've banged on about it before being a bit of an old timer but this is when music was real and amazing (1970!).

The headliners for the night were Earth Wind and Fire. They did have a mass of people on stage of whom three were in the original band. They played a lot of easy listening ballads which didn't really float my boat but finally got to the tracks the fans were waiting for Boogie Wonderland and September and everyone went home sun kissed and happy.

Greendale

Greendale is an unfairly maligned Neil Young album. Sure it just sounds like one long jam and the plodding tracks just go on and on but there's a great barroom sound from Young and his band Crazy Horse and the effect is somewhat hypnotic and soothing. The album is a sort of concept album about a family living in a fictitious small town called Greendale but I can't say I've paid that much attention to the story.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

A departure from their previous albums Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (their 5th coming out in 1973) is the closest Black Sabbath ever came to prog. Just check the track titles to figure - A National Acrobat, Spiral Architect and Sabbra Cadabra. Amongst these ambitious epics are two typical riff heavy rock monsters in the title track (many fans' favourite Sabbath track of all) and Killing Yourself To Live plus a couple of down tempo tracks - the acoustic instrumental Fluff and the innovative synthesized Who Are You?

It was a different album altogether with a new sound. We experimented on that and it turned into a creative high-point which took us to a different level.

Tony Iommi

For many years this was my favourite Sabbath album (and cover!) before I settled on Master of Reality as the true greatest!

The Road To Hell

Most pleasant surprise award this week goes to Chris Rea. I was given this album a while back and have paid little attention to it; I thought I knew all I needed to know about Chris Rea, a middle of the road guitar journeyman with a gravelly voice and a hit back in the 80s. The hit was the title track to this album and it's a decent track. But there is more especially with the Looking For a Rainbow track where Rea's slide guitar builds to a David Gilmour like climax.

Dad Rock

Talking of being an old timer I know most the tracks on this naff 70s rock compilation. It's starts off with Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell for goodness sake. From there we progress through standard fayre from Free, Black Sabbath, Judas Preist, T-Rex and Deep Purple. The most interesting tracks are less well known - the instrumental Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group, Tomorrow Night by the piano funky Atomic Rooster and Sylvia by Dutch progsters Focus.

Life

Lastly we have a lovely pop record by The Cardigans. The voice of lead singer Nina Persson is a bit high and twee which makes their cover of the aforementioned Sabbath Bloody Sabbath even more bizarre. I think it works well:

It's not the band's only Sabbath cover - apparently the guitarist and bass player played in heavy metal bands previously. It does make you wonder why, just why?

Since you’re here…

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Log #73 - Servants of Springsteen

Lead album this week is a new release from Brighton progsters Servants of Science. I am a lucky owner of an actual limited edition CD. Someone (it may have even been the band) told me the CD format is dead but... I just can't believe it. Anyway thank you S of S - I get to enjoy the local artwork in sumptuous cardboard sleeve (the band must have had fun walking down Brighton's London Road in space suits) and everyone who has read my Beck issue knows I love a cardboard cover.

The Return of the Mellotron

First chord into this new album from the Servants of Science and I was transported back to the Court of the Crimson King. It was that mellotron what did it your honour. Blame it on my childhood.

As for the music on The Swan Song I think the Servants are on to something with a form of focused chilled prog rock. The first crashing mellotron chord has King Crimson written all over it of course (of course I say, but not a sound you hear too often - not these days, or even back in the 70s to be fair - I did spend a lot of time and pocket money looking - and not even one I heard the last time I saw a recent form of the quintessential purveyors of the mellotron, King Crimson themselves). Good on you, Servants, for revitalising this vintage sound again.

From ELO to SOS

I remember when I was a teenager in the 70s - I'd cut my musical teeth on ELO (I thought it was cool to have violins in a band, and even a conductor, it claimed, on the inner sleeve blurb) and then heavy rock (and, I admit it, metal too - I maintain there is a distinction but would have difficulty defining it). From Rainbow and Black Sabbath (who I'm still playing evidently) it seemed like a natural progression to continue upon a well worn path towards prog rock - Pink Floyd were my bridge between the more base Led Zeppelin and the symphonic expanses of Yes and Genesis before I graduated with full prog rock honours and an armful of King Crimson albums on loan from my lanky friend Guy who had "girl's hair" and smoked dope. 

There weren't that many to be honest (King Crimson albums, and guys like Guy) and I wasn't interested with their ill advised at the time (but brave and revolutionary in hindsight) venture into pop and dance with the Discipline trilogy in the early 80s (a shift many such bands made apparently involuntarily). So having exhausted the short lived Crimson heyday (leader Fripp unexpectedly disbanded the original incarnation in 1974) I searched for similar sounding bands, namely bands that had that mellotron bank of strings sound. I didn't even know what it was at the time but I would recognise it when I heard it.

The King Crimson Discipline Trilogy 1981-84. Disappointing at the time but now warrants a revisit.

In Search of the Lost Chord

I searched in vain for what seemed like a long time (it was probably only months). Along the way I discovered space rock like Hawkwind, and Krautrock like Can - some more obscure prog like Eloy, Nektar and Grobschnitt, and dabbled with contemporary prog like Marillion. The Moody Blues went close but proved a bit too twee and mainstream for me. The closest I found at the time was Barclay James Harvest - it was that mellotron, and they employed it as much as King Crimson although in hindsight they were missing that hard edge.

So you understand that first Servants of Science chord on album opener Another Day. It does something to me! It's an important moment. I've actually just noticed it's not actually the very start of the record (there is some Brian Eno synthesizer flutter just before) but this is the moment, like King Crimson did with Epitaph back in 1969, when Servants of Science really announce their arrival.

Swan Song sounds like Servants of Science have somehow hacked into my brain to ascertain exactly the type of music that stimulates me, and then created an album to reflect that.

Andrew Haynes

The Swan Song is a short album, granted, but short is good (while you try the album why not read Eddy's essay again if you aren't convinced) - it's actually a massive plus point - quality over quantity, continuity over random filler - and Eddy offers a big hooray for any band these days that releases an album of 7 tracks - just 7. He can almost imagine the old side 1 and 2. Who needs 14 tracks of filler?) But it doesn't end there with that one chord...

Evidence would suggest these men have some Yes albums on their shelves

...that Crimsonesque chord sets out the S of S stall for sure, but the music that follows (and I hope the band don't mind me saying) continues to trigger bookmarks of other bands I discovered all that time ago... I can hear Camel and Nektar, there are elements of Genesis and Marillion, and the conceptual interludes especially recall Pink Floyd.

Isn't it great how any music goes nowadays - we no longer have these strict fashions where certain music is in vogue. Anything can happen now, and it's fine to repeat stuff, it doesn't all have to be new. If it's good it's good. 

Flaming Lips, Pizzas, and Earth

A relatively more modern reference comes in the form of The Flaming Lips. Apart from their live shows I'm not a massive fan of the Lips - mainly on account of Wayne Coyne's voice - much spectacle over little substance. But the voice here is much better, and actually reminds me of Suede for some reason (and there's a man Bret Anderson who knows how to be a front man).

Tedium Infinitum, an obvious single if such a concept existed in prog or in tangible form (let's say an obvious digital download, Ed.) is Flaming Lips covering Major Tom and could have been a massive hit in another time and space. Epic centrepiece Peripheral builds from Sigur Ros cool to a crashing Godspeed You Black Emperor climax. The eponymous track with it's echoey vocal over pulsing piano could easily be a song from The Wall although the gorgeous sustained guitar solo is very Steve Hackett. By contrast album closer, the ten minute anthemic Burning in the Cold, is more Dark Side of the Moon with a great Gilmour sounding guitar solo. Not bad references...

...and it all knits together in a coherent and satisfying whole to tell a story about an astronaut who observes the world going up in flames from space (but not before picking up a pizza on The London Road).

Free delivery within 500 mile radius

The Science of Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen is one artist I can't hear in the Servants of Science album. Which is fine as I've never really liked him and this Essential Album has literally about 39 tracks on it. That's a helluva lot of listening. I had to buy it though as it's my livelihood (or soon will be) to review such things and he's really famous and must have a lot to offer and an amazing back catalogue of music that has up until now passed me by (he's not the only one, and I'm not the only one). It was also only £1.49 in the charity shop your honour again (and it looked mint). I understand he is great live.

Speaking of live you can catch the Servants of Science at the Prince Albert in Brighton in April. I'd be intrigued to hear how they recreate their epic album live.

~

1. Servants of Science - The Swan Song

2. Bruce Springsteen - The Essential CD 1

3. Coldplay - X&Y

4. Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love

5. The Jayhawks - Smile

6. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll CD 1

~

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Album Cover Friday Fun Challenge! (Difficult) - ANSWERS REVEALED

Here again are the pictures for my earlier Album Cover location challenge. The initial collage below shows the locations as they are today where the original famous (or not so famous in some cases) album photos were shot.

A hover over will reveal the actual album covers.

Admittedly some of these pictures were obscure or just plain difficult unless you happened to have had the particular albums. Some of the albums are not even that famous and may not even be recognisable from the hover over! For example how many people had the Blue Oyster Cult live double album On Your Feet or On Your Knees with it's very spooky gothic church cover (2,2) actually located in up town New York? I was a great fan of their brand of sci-fi rock and in particular Buck Dharma's excellent guitar evident in extended glory on this album, but I don't think many of my contemporaries, even my rock fan friends, ever shared my enthusiasm, which is a shame as some of their early albums in particular are quite unique.

Speaking of gothic churches the San Franciscan turquoise church door was the backdrop for Van Morrison's split trouser shot for his St. Dominic's Preview album (1,3), an album that I personally think is right up there with his magnificent Astral Weeks.

The location for Black Sabbath's debut album cover shoot was not a gothic church but actually a water mill on the Thames in Oxfordshire (4,3). Of course the mysterious black figure adds some sabbath menace to this otherwise idealic country setting. Urban myths abound that the figure was an apparition that only appeared when the film was developed! Bassist Geezer Butler said such a dressed figure attended a gig many years later claiming to be the girl on the cover.

Who but the most avid and observant Mike Oldfield fans would get the aerial shot of the Welsh/English border especially without the glider (1,2)? Oldfield had retreated to the Hertfordshire region, known as Hergest Ridge, to live and record an album of the same name following the success of Tubular Bells.

Famous music locations, hover over to reveal the albums

Some of the remaining pictures are more famous and I was surprised no one got Pink Floyd's Hollywood studios Wish You Were Here shot (4,2), or Led Zeppelin's New York apartment block featured on Physical Graffitti (with actual cut out windows in the sleeve)(1,4).The other Led Zeppelin shot at (3,2) is a bit of a cheat as it is actually the back portion of the Led Zep IV cover which was shot across a park in Birmingham - quite a drab location relative to the Lord of the Rings flavoured delights inside.

The Who's obelisk from Who's Next (2,3) was taken at Easington Colliery, a former mine in County Durham in the North of England, and both the Oasis cover for What’s The Story (Morning Glory)? (1,4) and David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust cover (1,3) come from London's Soho. The famous K.West sign in the latter belonged to a long gone fur clothing company and is absolutely nothing to do with a premonition Bowie had about Kanye West. Another London shop long gone is Axfords Clothing in Vauxhall, South East London, as pictured on the Ian Dury album New Boots and Panties!! (3,4). If you look closely at the album cover you can also see the reflection of the Woolworths shop front across the street, another British institution no longer with us. Moving north of the river again you can find the less than exotic tower block in Islington which provided the night shot for The Streets' Original Pirate Material album.

Across the pond we have three New York street scenes used respectively for Bob Dylan's Freewheelin' (1,1), Neil Young's After the Goldrush (2,4) and the Doors' Strange Days (4,4), and finally Eric Clapton's 461 Ocean Boulevard (3,3) which is literally a shot of his home of that very address, Miami, in 1974.

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Log #16 - More Drinking from the Tributaries

1. Black Sabbath - The Best Of
2. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2, CD 2
3. Jazzland - Remixed
4. Captain Beefheart - Safe as Milk
5. Xen Cuts - CD 1
6. Comfort Zone Compilation - Vol. 1

Government Stealth Warning: Don't Drink From the Mainstream

I'm starting this week's post with the above warning which I just noticed on the spine of the Xen Cuts CD. It's a fairly good warning which I'm happy to abide by most the time, not through, I hope, any music snobbery or need to be different for the sake of it, but just because I honestly prefer mostly (but not exclusively) non-mainstream music.

What is mainstream anyway? A couple of posts ago I referred to Andy Kershaw's comments on the death of George Michael and offered a few tentative comparisons myself, but concluded that it's all just taste and none of us have any right to proclaim our taste is "better" than someone else's. How can you compare music from completely different genres anyway? Where would you start with classical music for example - it might be "better" on many measures but perhaps not in pure terms of enjoyment.

Amazingly the Xen compilation was issued in 2000 in celebration of 10 years of the Ninja Tune label. Seventeen years on and it still sounds fresh and current. CD no. 1 is rap orientated including this intriguing list format tune from The Herbaliser.

The Jazzland record is a compilation of smooth electronic/dance jazz from the Norwegian Jazzland label featuring mostly remixes of Bugge Wesseltoft tunes. The tracks are mostly extensive instrumental tunes although vocals from Sidsel Endresen appear on one of the most catchy numbers (remixed twice on the album): You Might Say. This track, with it's insistent electronic bass, reminds me of Blue Monday.

You know when you have quite an extensive collection of albums and you go to the shelf looking for something in particular and you can't find it (you may not have reached for it for many years - usually I'll just choose randomly from the shelf without searching for a particular album) - well, sometimes I'm looking and I can't see. It's not in the main A to Z section, nor the overflow, nor the bedroom or car. It's probably been long lent and forgotten. I think this happened with a previous copy of Jazzland. Eventually I bought it again.

The other day I was looking for a Fripp and Eno album I was sure I once had. It's not even one I would have been likely to lend out to anyone but I couldn't trace it so its back on the buy list. And who has my Barclay James Harvest Live 1974?

You know you have too many albums when you are in a shop considering the purchase of a CD and you can't actually remember if you already have it or not!

Quickly, there isn't much of special interest on the Comfort Zone album, although the CD packaging is one of the best. There was a second volume which I "moved on" to ebay at some point. This one could go the same way to be honest. It's pleasant enough easy smooth down tempo beats from no one you or I have ever heard of except Thievery Corporation.

What can I say about the next three artists that hasn't been said before? I love them all. I discovered Captain Beefheart after reading a review of Clear Spot which up to a decade or so ago frequently appeared in those top albums of all times lists (along with the celebrated Trout Mask Replica of course). Clear Spot is a lot more accessible than Trout Mask and is usually bundled with the equally brilliant Spotlight Kid - together representing one of the best "compilation" rock CDs you can buy. I think in the period when the Captain produced these two albums he had reached a peak following his primitive early blues recordings (as this Safe as Milk album is) and the avant garde experiments of the endlessly interesting (but sometimes quite hard to listen to) Trout Mask. I also think it was so cool for the Captain to simply retire from music in the early 80s and live out the remainder of his life as an artist in the Mojave Desert (cooler than dying young to be honest). Imagine the offers and temptation to reform the Magic Band and make a comeback but I'm certain he never did. A true maverick and genius. I'm going to break with my rule here a bit and rather than choose a song from the featured album I'll pick one from Clear Spot.

Captain Beefheart with friend, collaborator and fellow oddball Frank Zappa

Likewise Black Sabbath were a unique concept when they burst on to the scene in the late sixties. Many know the stories - poor working class boys growing up in a deprived area of Birmingham, guitarist Tony Iommi losing the tips of his fingers in a factory accident which forced him to de-tune his guitar strings (giving forth to the doom laden low down riffing), an obsession with death, carnage, black magic, devil worship and the occult, and the band named after a Boris Karloff horror movie.

The only black magic Sabbath ever got into was a box of chocolates.

In actual fact the myth of black Sabbath was a bit of a happy coincidence which they somewhat reluctantly embraced, as Ozzy Osbourne indicates above. They weren't really into these dark things and their lyrics, when you actually listen to them, are surprisingly pro-christianity (lyrics from After Forever reproduced below).

Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope - do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light and I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our days

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realise before they criticise
that God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realise that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes! I think it's too late.

Crucifix wearing Black Sabbath just back from Sunday School

This compilation covers mostly the early Ozzy years with a few Ian Gillan and Ronnie James Dio tracks at the end, and it's a pretty good retrospective. Of course nothing can match the original albums (although the debut is represented almost in its entirety here) - and the first five or six of Sabbath's are stupendous, my personal favourite being Master of Reality - but this is a pretty good starting point for a new fan or someone not expecting to invest in multiple albums.

Aphex Twin aka Richard James

Abrupt turn completely left field to the Aphex Twin ambient album (cover feature) known as SAW2. This record officially has no track names. It's a collection of intriguing loops, sounds, clicks, pulses, and soundscapes, practically all drum and rhythm free. Very unique and interesting and a bit more going on than the truly ambient wallpaper type Eno music. There is a track half way through CD2 that reaches the ethereal heights of Eno's Ascent track from Apollo featured earlier in my playlist. Compare the two.

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