Log #149 - Where The Rubber Soul Meets The Abbey Road

When you've been playing weird music for weeks you just want to hear some songs after a while. Hence dipping back in time to the ultimate song-writing of The Beatles this week with a spin of Rubber Soul and Abbey Road.

William Basinski Disintegration Tapes III

Nils Frahm All Melody

The Beatles Rubber Soul

The Beatles Abbey Road
Metallica St. Anger

The Black Keys El Camino

For me, particularly where The Beatles' single hits and compilations have become ubiquitous (and now on Spotify too), an actual review of their proper original chronological album discography and each album's contents is enlightening:

Please Please Me (1963)

With the Beatles (1963)

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Beatles for Sale (1964)

Help! (1965)

Rubber Soul (1965)

Revolver (1966)

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

The White Album (1968)

Yellow Submarine (1969)

Abbey Road (1969)

Let It Be (1970) 

And as for these two records, their track listings were:

RUBBER SOUL 

Drive My Car

Norwegian Wood

You Won't See Me

Nowhere Man

Think for Yourself (Harrison)

The Word

Michelle

What Goes On (Lennon–McCartney–Richard Starkey)

Girl

I'm Looking Through You

In My Life

Wait

If I Needed Someone (Harrison)

Run for Your Life

ABBEY ROAD 

Come Together

Something (Harrison)

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

Oh! Darling

Octopus's Garden (Starr)

I Want You (She's So Heavy)

Here Comes the Sun (Harrison)

Because

You Never Give Me Your Money

Sun King

Mean Mr. Mustard

Polythene Pam

She Came In Through the Bathroom Window

Golden Slumbers

Carry That Weight

The End

Her Majesty

All songs Lennon-McCartney except as marked.

Rubber Soul is the more straight forward album packed full of hits. There is already a maturity to the songs despite this album (albeit already their 6th studio production) coming only 2 years after their debut. In My Life sometimes tops polls of the greatest Beatles song of all but to be honest there are 100s that could claim that accolade - their consistency was astonishing.

Abbey Road is more experimental and heavier moving on from the previous year's The White Album and side two even branches off into concept with mixed results. Perhaps the best songs are actually George Harrison's Something and Here Comes The Sun.

Oddly Abbey Road was actually the true Beatles swansong being recorded after Let It Be which had a delayed release.

Interesting to note that both album covers did not display the name of the group such was the fame of the fab four - a concept of self sabotage that was unheard of in those days and  rarely adopted even later (with the notable exception of Led Zeppelin). There are also some fascinating conspiracy theories all over The Beatles myth but many originating from outlandish interpretations of the covers especially Abbey Road. Most of these centre around the rumour that Paul McCartney had actually been killed in a road accident and replaced by a look-a-like. Note the following from an over analysis of the Abbey Road cover:

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A funeral procession
Lennon wears white, Ringo black and Harrison denim. All colours associated with mourning in some countries. Other interpretations say that Lennon represents the preacher, Ringo Starr is the mourner and George Harrison is the grave-digger. 

McCartney holds a cigarette in his "wrong hand"
Paul held his cigarette in his right hand, even though he is left handed. A cigarette was also known as a coffin nail in slang. [This is ridiculous Ed.]

McCartney is bare footed.
In some cultures the dead are buried without their shoes but:
 

I was walking barefoot because it was a hot day

McCartney is out of step with the others
Oh yes.

The car license plate
In the background we see a Volkswagen Beetle with the plate "LMW 28IF" Conspiracists claim this to mean that McCartney would be 28 if he were still alive, oh and LMW stands for "Linda McCartney Weeps".

The police van
Parked on the side of the road is a black police van, which is said to symbolize authorities who kept silent about McCartney's fatal crash. This shot was a thank you from the Beatle's manager Brian Epstein who bought their silence [he died 2 years earlier so not sure this one adds up. Ed] 

The girl in the blue dress
On the night of McCartney’s supposed car accident, he was believed to have been driving with a fan named Rita. Theorists say the girl in the dress featured on the back cover was meant to be her, fleeing from the car crash.

Connect the dots
Also on the back cover are a series of dots. Join some of them together and you can make the number three — the number of surviving Beatles [please stop, Ed.]

Broken Beatles sign
On the back cover the band’s name is written in tiles on a wall and there’s a crack running through it. This was to symbolise the imminent break up of the band.

The onlookers
In the background, a small group of people dressed in white stand on one side of the road, while a lone person (Paul) stands in black on the other. 

The line of cars
A line can be traced from the VW Beetle to the three cars in front of it. If it is drawn connecting their right wheels it runs straight through Paul's head, with theorists suggesting that means Paul sustained a head injury in the car crash.

The bloodstain
On the Australian version (only?) of the album, the cover showed what could be a bloodstain splattered on the road just behind Ringo and John, supposedly backing claims of a road accident. 

Grim Reaper
If the back cover is turned 45 degrees anticlockwise a crude image of the Grim Reaper appears, from his skull to his black gown. 

Paul's final resting place
If the writing on the wall is split into sections, it conveys the cryptic message, 'Be at Les Abbey'. In numerology the following two letters, R and O, are the 18th and 15th letters in the alphabet. By adding these together (33) and multiplying by the number of letters (2), we get 66, the year Paul is supposed to have died.
On the other hand 3 also represents the letter C so 33 could also stand for CC. Cece is short for Cecilia, with theorists claiming Paul final resting place was St Cecilia's Abbey in Ryde, Isle of Wight. [Didn't the Beatles also pen a song Ticket to Ryde and sing about being on the Isle of Wight when they were 66, or was it 64? Ed.]

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Paul McCartney parodied the cover for his 1993 Paul Is Live album

The location continues to draw fans. You can even view a live webcam which shows traffic waiting as tourists try to snap a shot while crossing the zebra. This was much the case for the real shoot back in 1969. Six hasty shots were snapped in between the traffic. The Beatles chose the one where all their legs were astride and that was it. Imagine arranging all the above too!

Abbey Road right this second

Incidentally I did enjoy the new Danny Boyle rom-com film Yesterday although I'd been playing these albums before seeing it to be fair. There are many amusing scenes including the record companies disdain at the lead artist suggesting his debut album of "unknown" Beatles songs be called a very politically incorrect The White Album, or perhaps even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for some reason, and a hapless Ed Sheeran suggesting Hey Jude should be retitled Hey Dude.

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Log #112 - A Fantastic Voyage To The Centre Of The Ear

Some very surreal titles this week. We have Jesus Life For Children Under 12 Inches, followed by The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish, and a Journey To The Centre Of The Eye before A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden. Now how to make a blog post title out of that lot?

Kid Loco - Presents Jesus Life For Children Under 12 Inches

Talvin Singh - OK

Keith Berry - The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish

Nektar - Journey To The Centre Of The Eye

Hidden Orchestra - Archipelago

Takemitsu - Quatrain / A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden

I wonder if Journey To The Centre Of The Eye was inspired by the classic 1966 Sci-Fi film Fantastic Voyage? The movie, starring Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence, has a submarine crew being miniaturised and injected into a man's body in order to seek out and destroy a brain tumour.

I remember seeing this film as a young boy and thinking it was one of the most fantastic things I'd ever seen. Today, obviously, the special effects are, let's say, dated, to be kind. In fact it was on TV recently and I did record it but the only bit I've bothered watching so far is the key scene where the submarine and crew are reduced before injection into the man's body:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNAffLo1_0c

I should watch the end too. I remember they were plucked out of the patient's eye before being restored to proper life size. A good idea for a sci-fi plot in any case, and one that's been returned to a few times since I believe.

The Nektar album is a concept album (of course) by German prog rockers Nektar. I say German but I think they were actually a British band but were formed and based in Germany. The members' names would certainly suggest this:

Roye Albrighton - guitars, lead vocals
Mick Brockett - special effects
Allan "Taff" Freeman - keyboards, synthesisers, backing vocals
Ron Howden - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Derek "Mo" Moore - bass, keyboards, backing vocals
Keith Walters - special effects

The album is dated but has a great musical theme running throughout and features some lovely raw guitar and Hammond organ. I get the feeling the musicianship is not up to the standards of other contemporary prog rock bands of the time such as Yes or King Crimson for instance but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They are more akin to psychedelic era early Floyd (think Astronomy Domine, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Interstellar Overdrive). The clip below features the beginning of the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQfAuiB0Lg

From eyes to ears. I found The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish by London sound-artist Keith Berry by accident. I was actually searching on ebay for William Basinski (a New York minimalist musician most famous for his The Disintegration Loops series in homage to 9/11) and this album popped up under the search. It was good value with a classy cover (a carefully crafted cardboard gatefold with beautiful artwork), rave reviews and intriguing song titles (I didn't even notice that the ebay seller was Keith Berry himself!). Furthermore there was a bonus CD offered too.

I loved the album - a record of atmospheric otherworldly drones and classical minimalism with lush sustained synth chords augmented by distant rumbles and crackles that echo around your speakers like gunfire in a deserted urban street or walls of sheared off ice sliding into rising seas. It's a dense foreboding sound that suggests wide open barren landscapes scarred by war or ecological disaster, and death.

A barren desolate landscape - from Ken Russell's The Devils

At the start of Can You Elevate Yourself When Surrounded By Dark Waters?... there are loud tears in the fabric of the music that literally sounds like an earth scarring fire has taken hold.

Yet paradoxically there is also birdsong and insect sounds, and running water and the heavy rainfall of an Amazonian rain forest, full of life (Berry himself likens his music to like "closing one's eyes while drifting down a nighttime river"). Or is this just the stirrings of post apocalyptic life only: cockroaches and cicadas emerging tentatively from the ash?

A sonic ecosystem to be experienced, cherished and immersed within.

Bryon Hayes

The sounds are synthetically produced on the whole yet half way through the album the listener's consciousness is jolted by a guitar or koto adding a more stark texture in Knelt Over the Water... It is so surprising it seems out of place at first but like the whole experience actually serves to add further interest to this meticulously constructed album.

Checkout these track titles:

The Sun Rays of Another Pale Afternoon Gently Caress My Hatless Head, Sparkling an Imperceptible Combustion of Illusory Comfort. Your Luminescent Mantle Allures; My Reasons Are First Redeployed, the Disappear Completely While the Glowing Orange of Your Scales Are Convincing Me To Quicken My Decision

Cars Keep Passing By; I Feel Like Rebelling To My Immobile Legs. I Always Dreamed of Translating a Tangible Apprehensiveness Into the Negation of the Present. Suddenly, Everything Seems Futile, Except Our Intense Look To Each Other.

To Me, It's Just an Oddness, For I Listen Through Fingers and Heart. Even If I Can't Hold You In My Hands, I'd Surely Wish You Had It Instead of Me. Do You See Me Now? What Form Do I Have? What Colour, Then?

My Backward Voyage To the Spring: Memories Are Smashed To Smithereens. I Never Thought Much About My Schoolmates, Always Had To Enter That Door Much Earlier Than the Others. Little Did I Know I Would Have Met You There.

Can You Elevate Yourself When Surrounded By Dark Waters? I Wish I Knew - I Couldn't Find the Courage To Jump, That November Evening. I'm Paddling To No Avail, Trying To Find You. Your New Condition Put a Distance That We Need To Shorten.

Fuscous Presages Don't Help Remaining Cool. Numberless Reproaches Have Blocked My Escapes and No One Ever Will Give Me a Ride To Your Place. No One Will Miss My Silences, Too. It's Not Really Inestimable - Still It Has a Value To Me. You Just Seem Not To Care; an Eternity Awaits For You To Understand.

Knelt Over the Water, My Whole Being is a Perfect Zero If Looked From Above. My Devoutness To Intuition Will Deliver Me From Sorrow.

Tomorrow I'll Become Adult: Still I Don't Know Why Should I. Levigating New Angles of Harsh Realities is Not What I Am Supposed To Learn.

You Left Me Behind - But I Can Swim.

Brilliant. There is an interesting mind working here that's got to be worth investigating, agree? I will investigate further, not only other Keith Berry music but also other titles from his home, the Infraction label which seems to specialise in beautifully presented ambience and sound artistry.



Two more very classy albums in the list above this week, both different. Hidden Orchestra play powerful jazz instrumentals with big beats. Their closest contemporary I can think of would be The Cinematic Orchestra who I believe are yet to make an appearance on the blog. I'd say The Hidden Orchestra are slightly heavier. The album certainly sounds best at loud volume. No more time to analyse this week but it's a goody and one I'll return to.

The Kid Loco album is also very classy at what it does. It's a compilation of remixes but holds together very well as a whole album. Very enjoyable and sure it's made a few appearances in my blog before. It certainly feels like one I return to quite often. Tracks are:

The Pastels The Viaduct (On The Right Banke Of The River Mix)
Uriel You Who Are Reading Me Now (Love Experience Mix)
Saint Etienne 4-35 In The Morning (Talkin' Blues Mix)
Talvin Singh Traveller (Once Upon A Time In The East Mix)
Kat Onoma La Chambre (Where Were You Mix)
The High Llamas Homespin Rerun (The Space Raid Mix)
Pulp A Little Soul (Lafayette Velvet Revisited Mix)
Gak Sato Penetrare (Belleville B-Boy Mix)
Badmarsh & Shri The Air I Breathe (Land Of 1000 Strings Mix)
Mogwai Tracy (Playing With The Young Team Mix)
Cornu Youpi (Space Spaghetti Mix)
Tommy Hools Les Réprouvés

See the Talvin Singh number doubles up on his OK album too.

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Log #106 - So Much Good Music Under The Sun

I'm excited about this week's listening. Sometimes it's hard to think of 6 albums to listen to, but this week the CDs were positively jumping off the shelf like those springy sticky toys we used to have.

This was because my interest in ambient minimalist electronica was re-ignited and this opened up a wealth of potential listening from the likes of Tangerine Dream, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Four Tet, and Brian Eno.

Debussy - Preludes Books I and II

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Union Cafe

Tangerine Dream - Zeit

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Fripp and Eno - No Pussyfooting

Blue States - Nothing Changes Under The Sun

Take Tangerine Dream for example. Last year, or maybe the year before, through this blog I became reacquainted with the band mainly via their classic mid 70s albums like Phaedra and Force Majeure.  Checkout a track like Cloudburst Flight if you aren't convinced. But I hadn't ventured deeper into history to hear much of their early 70s work which was much more ambient before they started introducing pulsed rhythms.

Zeit seemed to be the go-to album for most fans of early period Tan Dream. I bought the new remastered double album version containing the original double album plus a live disc. I haven't even got on to the live disc yet. The original album is gorgeous. It's just what I want from an ambient piece of music. Consisting of just 4 "side-long" tracks of chilling dark drone music - you can safely stick it on repeat all day, and go about your business. It's great to listen to passively, as background music.

It's very unobtrusive and as such creeps up on you very subtly. You pick up different things each time you walk past your speaker, things you haven't noticed before.

Contrary to what you may expect I actually find incredible depth and interest in this sort of music. Because it is so subtle there is a lot to discover that isn't immediately obvious. New sounds and textures reveal themselves gradually over repeated plays. It really challenges conventional understandings of what music is.

In comparison The Penguin Cafe Orchestra are relatively mainstream. This album is also a "double" in old money. I think it suffers slightly from covering too many different styles across it's 16 tracks. There are straight forward classical like pieces (these are the most successful), ambient sound effects, and whimsical throwaways. As such, as a whole it does not convey the mood or continuous aesthetic of a piece like Zeit. My favourite PCO album is their debut, Music From...

Fans of instrumental electronic music are in safe hands with the assured Boards of Canada. With only 4 full length albums over a 20 year career (Geogaddi from 2002 is officially their second not counting the excellent extended EP Twoism with which they announced themselves in 1995) they practise quality over quantity.

Spoken word samples are backed by ghostly synth melodies over down tempo hip hop beats. I always think their particular type of analogue synth music sounds vaguely out of tune with it's variations, clicks, flutters, crackles and bends; this makes it all the more organic and earthy.

When I first bought Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting (1973) I remember whizzing through the two side long tracks in double quick time trying to find where they changed (I had it on cassette tape). Of course they didn't change and I was left confused for a long time before realising the point of this classic ambient collaboration. Ironically later releases of the album included a half speed/double length version of one side of the album - The Heavenly Music Corporation (as well as a recording of the entire album in reverse!). I'm not sure how I feel about this. To me it devalues the original, making it seem even more random and thrown together than it did already.

Urban myth says that on release the album was accidentally played on BBC radio backwards (I have no idea how this happened, it sounds very unlikely, but I'm not surprised that the only one who noticed was apparently Brian Eno himself who phoned in to complain). 

Nevertheless with it's epic distorted Frippertronic guitar improvisations over Eno's loops and phased drones it remains an early classic of the ambient genre and entirely unexpected coming from two artists respectively members of the bands King Crimson and Roxy Music at the time. Great cover too.

Fripp and Eno recorded a second album Evening Star (1975). When later asked about a promised third album that had never materialised Fripp sarcastically replied it had already been done in the form of Eno's celebrated collaboration with David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts which appeared in 1981 (Fripp did receive a writing credit).

Cover album this week is Nothing Changes Under The Sun by Blue States which is the stage name (or more fittingly the studio name) for producer Andy Dragazis. The music is less ambient and more chilled down tempo electronica along the lines of Zero 7, Kruder and Dorfmeister, and most of all Air. If you like Air's Moon Safari you'll love this too.

As I've said before this sort of music can run the risk of becoming wallpaper or elevator fodder. It's a fine line but the right side of the line is maintained when the melodies are as consistently good as they are here on beautiful tracks like Diamente or Trainer Shuffle or Heroes' Elegy

Hear Diamente below (with apologies to email readers for whom I don't think videos render - please click into the source blog or try this link >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC6fD_j0Cqw ):

Finally, just occasionally you just need some classical music on a dull Sunday morning, and when you need some classical, you can't get better than Debussy. I'm no expert on classical music but for me he seems to bridge the gap between traditional melodic classical music and more modern discordant 20th Century "classical" music. So you get beautiful melodies, but with originality and a modern edge. It's a win win.

Also there's not much of him as I understand (willing to be contradicted by any Debussy experts out there?). This is a big advantage in any music, but particularly classical where you have not only 400 years worth of history but also multiple copies of the same pieces. Debussy didn't write any symphonies and all his orchestral works can be entirely found on one classic double album, the famous Phillips edition:

https://amzn.to/2J2xmKX

This is so worth getting. Even if you don't think you've heard any Debussy before you will recognise some of the tracks on here. It's a beautiful record that will reward repeated listens. It's your duty to try it even if you are an outright punk rocker! It might just change your life.

[..actually classical is a definition oft misused in classical music. It refers to a particular era in music, rather than a style. So classical is a term equivalent to baroque, or romantic, or renaissance for example. But for the purposes of this blog, and most people's understanding, classical stands for all music that people generally understand and accept as "classical", ie. stuff that uses traditional acoustic wooden and brass instruments like violins and oboes and stuff and is often performed in chambers, quartets and orchestras and... you know what I mean] ... I'm glad you've cleared that up. Ed.

The album in the slot this week isn't actually this one. We have here Debussy's books of solo piano preludes. These are mostly short tracks - mostly very pleasing, although as I mention above, with an edge. It's not pure easy listening that's for sure. Some of these tracks have been made famous in ads and films like The Usual Suspects.

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Log #77 - Exile Sur la Rue Principale - The Rolling Stones in France 1971

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1. Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

2. Paolo Nutini - These Streets

3. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Impossible Dream

4. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Next

5. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Live

6. Holger Czukay - Moving Pictures

~

I came late to the Rolling Stones and they come late to this blog too via, perhaps subconsciously, Marianne Faithful from last week (and also more consciously through considering going to see them for the first time on tour in the UK this Spring).  

When I was younger I considered them a bit of a novelty band, neither tickling my ivories as a heavy metal band or progressive rock.

I consequently didn't really get Exile when I first heard it - as a beginner it didn't even seem to have any of the tunes I was familiar with - the likes of Start Me Up or Brown Sugar that used to get us excited at discos!

Oh how green I was. My dismissal was misguided. The Rolling Stones were and (incredibly) still are a classic rock band with a unique take on a loose and ramshackle form of rhythm and blues, and much cooler than the prog rock bands of the time or the heavy metal bands they preceded. 

Now I get it and can appreciate Exile too. Capturing a moment in time when this band were at their peak the album almost defined the bohemian and decadent rock and roll lifestyle with 18 tracks of raw and spontaneous back to basics swampy honky tonky country blues that were very much at odds with the progressive rock movement of the time and some of their own more expansive experiments of recent times. By single track you may not recognise much as being the best of the Stones but this is an album of atmosphere where the whole is something greater than the sum of its parts like Neil Young's desperate Tonight's The Night.  

A sprawling experience made in the idyllic surroundings of a French villa surrounded by guitars, drugs, hangers on, and pretty girls, those (must have been) the days...

...or were they?

The album and its making is surrounded by rock 'n' roll myth, but what was the reality? The Stones were actually genuine tax exiles forced (against their will) to decamp to France to avoid 93% tax rates in England.

I just didn't think about it, and no manager I ever had thought about it, even though they said they were going to make sure my taxes were paid. So, after working for 8 years, I discovered nothing had been paid and I owed a fortune. 

Mick Jagger

Keith Richards had rented Villa Nellcote, a sprawling mansion near Nice in the South of France and moved there with partner Anita Pallenberg and 2 year old son Marlon in early 1971. The rest of the band followed although they didn't actually stay at Nellcote, renting alternative accommodation nearby.

However once attention turned to recording a new album the Stones' new mobile studio was moved into the basement and Nellcote became the HQ for the band who would drop by with the crew to  record (and socialise of course) although it soon became obvious this arrangement rarely worked for the nocturnal Keith Richards. He was sinking into the throes of a serious heroin addiction and could barely make any scheduled sessions - not on any account of disrespect or rudeness he recalls - he "was just asleep".

In reality, far from luxurious the allegedly former Nazi headquarters from the war was rundown and damp (the basement was cramped and the band's instruments would constantly go out of tune).

It wasn't a great environment for, like, breathing. 

Keith Richards 

Tensions in the band were high. Richards and Jagger (who was often absent, more interested in visiting his new and pregnant wife Bianca who sensibly avoided Nellcote preferring to stay in Paris) weren't getting on and London boy Charlie Watts was homesick. Worse still new boy Mick Taylor was about to join Richards in his drug habit.

The house not surprisingly became a magnet for a multifarious selection of musicians, employees, friends, executives, advisers, groupies, and drug dealers, some welcome, many not. One night a thief walked in and helped himself to Richards' guitars.

We were never by ourselves... day after day, it was 10 people for lunch... 25 for dinner...

Anita Pallenberg

The sessions such as they were became shambolic jams that went on for days, often thwarted by power cuts, with hundreds of takes of rambling songs that were never finished. In fact contrary to the myth, many of the songs were written and demoed elsewhere, including London, and finished off with additional recording and production later in LA. After the birth of Jagger's daughter, Jade, he instructed the band to just carry on recording instrumental tracks and he'd add the vocals later.

Out of decadence and adversity came the Rolling Stones’ defining masterpiece.

Of course despite all this, the band frictions, the shambolic arrangements (both living and musical) and sloppy playing have contrived together to produce a ramshackle masterpiece. But at the time critics, fans, and the band themselves weren't particularly impressed with the outcome. Jagger recalls the muddy mix where his vocals struggle to be heard over the general din:

When I listen to Exile it has some of the worst mixes I've ever heard. I'd love to remix the record, not just because of the vocals, but because generally I think it sounds lousy. 

Richards wasn't sympathetic of course:

Lead singers never think their vocals are loud enough.

The place was eventually raided and Richards was banned from France. He still states: "While I was a junkie, I learned to ski and I made Exile On Main Street." Fair enough. Many consider this Richards' album.

Personnel

The Rolling Stones:

Mick Jagger – lead vocals, harmonica
Keith Richards – guitars
Bill Wyman – bass guitar
Charlie Watts – drums
Mick Taylor – guitars

Additional musicians:

Nicky Hopkins – piano
Bobby Keys – tenor saxophone
Jim Price – trumpet
Ian Stewart – piano
Jimmy Miller – percussion, drums
Bill Plummer – double bass
Billy Preston – piano, organ
Al Perkins – pedal steel guitar
Richard Washington – marimba
Clydie King – backing vocals
Venetta Fields – backing vocals
Joe Green – backing vocals
Gram Parsons – backing vocals
Chris Shepard – tambourine
Jerry Kirkland – backing vocals
Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) – backing vocals
Shirley Goodman – backing vocals
Tami Lynn – backing vocals
Kathi McDonald – backing vocals

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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

~

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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