Log #161 - Tom's Industrial Years

Tom Waits is quite a difficult artist. In retrospect my tastes may have changed as I didn't enjoy this album as much as I remembered (house members overhearing the record likened Waits' strangled vocals to the sound of someone dying!). 

Franks Wild Years (officially no apostrophe although it only makes grammatical sense to have one) followed Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs in what seemed a trilogy (indeed some characters reappear through the run although I'm not certain a theme or concept was intentional). Certainly in my mind the 3 albums each developed Wait's new "clanky industrial" style, each containing multiple short 2 minute sketches. 

Contained within this album, the 3rd, are certainly some classics like Hang On St. Christopher, Cold Cold Ground and Telephone Call From Istanbul, although the latter in particular is much more exciting on the live follow up album Big Time which drew heavily on Franks Wild Years.

Mojave was the third of ten albums from Boston "Alt-Country" band Willard Grant Conspiracy. The band were a revolving collective (like the "lesser spotted", at this blog, Lambchop) centred around singer Robert Fisher who sadly passed away in 2017.

The music is typical alt-country fayre; many tracks using the formulaic 3 or 4 chord slow acoustic guitar strum opening joined by portentous drums on the 9th bar. Fisher adds further gravitas with his hefty baritone. 

I'd probably be happy to leave it there, Mojave (1999) being my only WGC excursion, but I understand their best album is Regard The End (2003) and I've stumbled upon parts of Let It Roll (2006) which sound excellent. So, more to investigate.

I like what I've heard of Paolo Nutini. I'd written the name off prematurely as some teeny bopper but I then caught him on Jools Holland. He has a soulful voice (like James Morrison and Scott Matthews) with just that hint of gravel that makes it interesting.

That's all for this week folks. Full listing below:

Laura Marling Alas I Cannot Swim

Curtis Mayfield Love's Sweet Sensation

Paolo Nutini These Streets

Tom Waits Franks Wild Years
Willard Grant Conspiracy Mojave

Terry Riley Shri Camel

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Log #99 - Old Wave From The Bush

1. Echo And The Bunnymen - Killing Moon The Best Of

2. Cast - All Change

3. Curtis Mayfield - Love's Sweet Sensation

4. Badly Drawn Boy - Have You Fed The Fish?

5. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

6. John Surman - Coruscating

A bit of an odd week this one (after such a storming selection last week). Why? Well, the first two CDs in the magazine I actually found, in a bush, on my walk home from work (along with REM and Gang of Four). Who chucks their unwanted CDs into a bush (rather than car booting them, leaving them on the wall, or simply throwing them in the bin)? 

They aren't ones I would have otherwise. Certainly not the first one. Why not? Well, I saw Echo And The Bunnymen once live at Glastonbury and they were rubbish (and even worse, rude to the crowd calling us a bunch of hippies - was anyone else there?). 

Is it fair to damn a band on one brief appearance? Maybe not, but you do remember. Another band I saw live once which had a similar effect on me was Florence And The Machine. I know Florence is quite cool and popular these days but frankly she couldn't sing in tune. Maybe she was just having an off day, and Echo and the boys were likewise just having a bad day at the office. It's perfectly acceptable - we all have them, Van Morrison famously has a lot of them (although he doesn't let this affect his voice!).

Ok, so it is with trepidation that I slot the first half of this monumental 36 track Echo greatest hits compilation into the player (I had similar trepidation with a Bruce Springsteen anthology a few weeks back). It's all new to me. I have no idea what the Echo hits were.

It's better than I expected but obviously the singing is monotone, the songs sound the same, and the music is unsurprisingly stuck in the 80s. Why is it that 80s and 90s music seems to sound more dated than the 60s or the 70s? I imagine that is just an illusion and perception or maybe merely a personal preference. Or maybe there was just more variety then (and now) so giving you more opportunity to find what you like.

I liked The Puppet though and Over The Wall has a Tangerine Dream pulse beat - eh?

I don't know the music that well from the period but am fairly confident in stating that it is similar to a number of other bands in fashion at the time - Flock of Seagulls, The Cure, Teardrop Explodes etc. Perhaps being kind I'd say they sound a bit more on the Smiths / Joy Division edge of the genre but lacking the originality or impact of either of those bands.

I know I should give more time to this but unfortunately when you get older you realise life is too short to invest too much energy into stuff you aren't that interested in (or reading a book that doesn't grab you in the first 50 pages or so). 

Back to the bush for you my Echo (or the back of the filing cabinet for a few years).

Cast is another band I saw at Glastonbury - most likely the same year (1996 or thereabouts?). They rode in on the Britpop coat tails of Oasis and Blur with their retro rock fundamentals and scored some singles hits including Alright and Fine Time from this album. Based on the 90s guitar rock blueprint Cast did nevertheless have a 60s feel and even sound like very early Who in places, and a lot like fellow post Brit poppers Suede.

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Log #6 - More Than One Way to Play a Guitar

Not a classic week this week, with only one album keeping it's spot this weekend; Efterklang's Piramida. The sumptuous Efterklang have just released a new album actually (Leaves) which has been described as some sort of interactive opera which they will be performing at the Barbican, London, early next year. I've heard a couple of tracks and am wondering, although it is admirable they continue to push the envelope, if they may have over stretched their ambitions this time. However in the meantime the effortlessly graceful Piramida continues to impress. If you like this one check out Magic Chairs next, their previous album which contains most of their best known tracks.

1. Efterklang - Piramida
2. Al Di Meola - Cielo e Terra
3. Tricky - Maxinquaye
4. Curtis Mayfield - Love's Sweet Sensation
5. Soft Machine - Third
6. Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

As a keen amateur guitarist I used to listen to alot of classical repertoire as a student - John Williams, Julian Bream, Segovia, Narcisco Yepes and John Mills. I was also keenly aware of the most revered electric guitarists out there - David Gilmour, Rory Gallagher, Neil Young, Andy Latimer, Richie Blackmore (who is reforming a version of Rainbow I hear), Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix of course, although I missed the point at first and snobbily frowned upon these electric maestros for not using their little finger of their left hands (right in Jimi's case) and barring the bass strings with their thumbs (a no-no for the classically trained). In a similar fashion I also dismissed any electronic music at the time for not using real instruments and therefore not requiring skill (my favourite band as a teenager was ELO as they played proper instruments like violins - and wasn't Jeff Lynne great at the last Glastonbury?).

I was completely unaware of whole areas of guitar playing in between these two extremes of classical and rock - acoustic, flamenco, blues and jazz for instance. I remember this began to change when a friend played me a record called Friday Night in San Francisco by three legendary acoustic guitarists I had never heard of - Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia basically jamming at breakneck speed in front of a live audience. Skillful and exciting that record paved the way towards my love now for the visionary acoustic players like Tommy Emmanuel and Will Ackerman. Having said that the featured record in this list, Al Di Meola's Cielo e Terra actually sounds a bit dated now and is very reminiscent of the 80s guitar fashions of synth-guitars and Ovation electro-acoustics. It is similar to Pat Metheny's revered Offramp album which I play a lot more. I always like the cover though, reproduced above, and there is at least one stand out track in the 9-minute Traces (Of a Tear).

On the other hand Tricky's hip hop masterpiece Maxinquaye still sounds fresh and current. It came out around the time of Portishead's stunning debut album Dummy. Maxinquaye is as good.

Curtis Mayfield's album may be a compilation. It's smooth and sensual as you'd expect with several well known tunes. Mayfield's latter years were unfortunately dogged by ill health after a serious injury resulting from an on stage accident where a lighting rig fell on him.

I used to have an old cassette of Soft Machine music. I don't know what the music was but it had a lovely organic groove with organ and drums - the lack of a guitarist was interesting. Their albums are called 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. Most of their music is instrumental which is a good thing when drummer Robert Wyatt is your vocalist. This one, Third, has lots of jazz honks and squeaks and not much groove. The rest of the family call it "car-crash" music.

I have never heard anything like Boards of Canada. Their instrumental electronica music literally sounds out of tune, but is strangely entrancing. Completely original - it is a different kind of "car-crash" music and it's brilliant.

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