Log #167 - Young Doves Old Streets

Albums one and two from young Paolo Nutini and four from old Neil Young.

Paolo Nutini These Streets

Paolo Nutini Sunny Side Up

Neil Young Mirror Ball

Neil Young Hawks And Doves
Neil Young Tonight's The Night Live At The Roxy

Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps

More consistently excellent soulful rock from Scottish singer Nutini. I'm surprised at the number of catchy tracks in both these albums. But not only catchy, but brilliantly constructed and superbly performed. Very impressed.

Much more to come from Neil Young as I continue work on an album ranking. Here we have four albums all at the excellent end of the variable Young scale released between 1973 and 1995 (actually the live Tonight's The Night wasn't released until 2018 but was fundamentally a 1973 album):

Mirror Ball - a surprisingly excellent collaboration with Pearl Jam.

Hawks And Doves - one of Young's lesser known albums which nevertheless contained two or three of his greatest acoustic songs.

Tonight's The Night Live - very similar to the original studio album with in-between track banter and an encore of Walk On from On The Beach.

Rust Never Sleeps - half acoustic, half heavy, all classic Young.

The strong finish to the year from Neil Young will secure his place once again at the top of my appearances chart in the upcoming Year End Polls. Will anyone ever catch him?

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Log #166 - A Caustic Voice

Paolo Nutini Caustic Love

Sibelius Complete Works for Violin and Orchestra

Satie Piano Music

Debussy Preludes
Granados Goyescas

Debussy Orchestral Music (CD 1)

I really like Paolo Nutini's voice - it has that gravelly souly quality of a Rod Stewart or Joe Cocker. Oh, go on then, a caustic quality.

Caustic Love is his third and most recent album coming out in 2014. He's not prolific, the first two were released thus:

These Streets 2006
Sunny Side Up 2009

In my mind's eye I sort of place him in that hard to define James Morrison, Scott Matthews, category - two other very good souly singers. The music mind map certainly agrees with the former of these comparisons:

Nutini may just be the best of the three but I need to hear more.

For now though I'm loving this track  >>

And the opening track is a stormer too, no doubt a live favourite >>

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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 #78 - Dots and Loops from the French Metro

Unique indie darlings Stereolab are bookended in the magazine this week by SAHB's 7th best album and a second outing for my recently acquired Chicago Greatest Hits compilation. The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street is retained for a well deserved second week with Paolo Nutini's soulful debut album, and Supertramp's classic pop album Breakfast in America makes (surprisingly) it's first appearance in the blog.

Incidentally, music aside, one of the most interesting things I've found out about this 1979 Supertramp album recently is the conspiracy theory behind the album cover which allegedly depicts, or predicts, 9/11, when viewed in a mirror. Have a look...

(whoever sees these things?).

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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. Stereolab - Dots and Loops

5. Chicago - The Heart Of 1967 - 1997

6. Supertramp - Breakfast in America

~

Anyway moving swiftly on to the music, record of the week is Dots and Loops from Anglo/French indie band Stereolab who were most active in the 90s. Dots and Loops, their fifth album, came out in 1997 and brought with it a more mature chilled jazzy lounge sound departing from their previous guitar driven rock characterised by minimalist motorik stylings.  The band continued recording in the noughties releasing 4 more albums despite the death of singer and guitarist Mary Hansen who had been a member of the group since 1992.

Very cool, very black and white, very French

The breathy female vocals (mostly in French) allied with the dreamy moogs and vibes reminds me most of contemporaries The Cocteau Twins. In fact I'd be surprised if the two did not come close in the music map. Let's take a look:

Well look at that! No Cocteau Twins in the frame! I can only conclude that Dots and Loops is not representative of the band generally with this music map very much laying emphasis on their indie guitar and krautrock leanings with even a nearby showing for Can (I think you'll find that if you enter Cocteau Twins in the mind map you'll see a lot of common ground with the bands in the above map, Ed.)

Stereolab fronted by partners Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier with the late Mary Hansen right

Tragedy strikes (from the BBC archives)

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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 #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.

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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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Log #21 - The Conceptual Art of Thick as a Brick

1. Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick
2. Barclay James Harvest - The Harvest Years
3. Barclay James Harvest - The Harvest Years
4. Barclay James Harvest - Gone To Earth
5. Eilen Jewell - Sea of Tears
6. Paulo Nutini - Sunny Side Up

Head album this week is the Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick opus. This really was a concept album - deliberately so. Leader Ian Anderson, in response to the critics calling the Tull's previous album, Aqualung, a concept album (wrongly in his view - "it was just a bunch of songs") decided to deliver the mother of all concept albums.

...We were spoofing the idea of the concept album.

Hence we have Thick as a Brick which is essentially one composition spread in two parts of 20 minutes each. The concept as it were wasn't anything grand. It told the story of a schoolboy who was disqualified from a poetry competition. The schoolboy in question, one fictional Gerald Bostock, is pictured on the album cover which doubles as the St. Cleve Chronicle newspaper.

What of the actual Gerald Bostock? He was child model Andre C Le Breton who 45 years on works as a music engineer and record producer whilst dabbling in his own compositions which he describes as weird German underground trance blending light and dark electronic noise. Sounds great!

Apparently the design of the album cover took more time than the actual music. As for the music I can't say I've studied it as a whole much before this weekend. I'm familiar with the opening acoustic riff and Anderson's proclamation:

Really don't mind if you sit this one out. My word's but a whisper - your deafness a shout!

...and other passages are very catchy and like all good concept albums weave in and out at various points. As a whole opus it actually rocks - with loads of excellent Hammond organ and harlequin / renaissance court type one-legged flute.

I would never compare what we did back then to jazz rockers like Weather Report or the Mahavishnu Orchestra - they were really amazing musicians - but we were a little more sophisticated than the usual riff rockers you'd find on the scene.

Ian Anderson

A few years ago I saw Jethro Tull at a festival down in Devon where they were showcasing not only the original Thick as a Brick, but also a new follow up album TAAB 2 - it sounded pretty good although not so holistically well rounded. The live show was excellent too, part drama with a young actor, dressed in overalls holding a broom, taking on most of the singing. Anderson's strum on his miniature guitar of the opening of the original was one of my most exciting gig experiences ever!

The giant Ian Anderson today with tiny guitar

I do love the lengths people can go to on the internet - I'm a bit of a sucker for conspiracy theories for example which are rife. But isn't it great how people find worth and meaning and inspiration in such things. So by way of example someone has gone to town on Thick as a Brick. Check out http://thickasabrick.net for a comprehensive interpretation of the album. The writer of that website Paul Tarvydas makes an interesting point by way of explanation of his (over?) analysis:

"I don't actually think that an artist consciously decides to write with the detail I've expressed. A true artist feels certain emotions and convictions, then writes/paints/composes items which 'go with that flow'. It is up to us, the appreciators of this art, to parse the original intentions of the artist and to express them in more rudimentary terms. To make them more accessible to the masses (including myself). A truly good artist will make his/her expressions interpretable in more than one way." 

Yes and no. I think there is a lot of over interpretation in art. In many cases I think the author is being more random than they are given credit for.  Anderson actually admits this in his Aqualung quote above. Ironically a piece of art that is open ended usually benefits from multiple different interpretations - a hallmark of great art in my opinion.

I have really enjoyed rediscovering Barclay James Harvest this week. That goes for both their old stuff as showcased on the Harvest Years double compilation (covering most of their first three albums) and even the more soft poppy Gone to Earth. As with Afro Celt Sound System earlier in this annual log they were a band I was not expecting to be playing this year. Pleasant surprises.

Eilen Jewell is just great at what she does - which is Americana/Country. I've seen her a few times and the live band - guitar, double bass, and drums, is so tight. The guitarist Jerry Miller is particularly fantastic in that hard to define efficient musicality way - ie. not flashy but with a superb feel for melody. Check them out live if they come to a venue near you.

The Eilen Jewell Band - guitar legend Jerry Miller in customary Stetson

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Log #1 - Bret Anderson is Alive and Well (and He Knows It)

Not one for mp3s and digital downloads I've always preferred my music physical and tangible. Not only for the feel and look but also I feel the art form of an album presents a sum greater than its parts. Would we have had a "Sgt. Pepper's" or "Astral Weeks" without the concept of an album?

But I can see the advantages of having an endless stream of music. Several years ago when my CD player expired I replaced it with a 6-CD magazine changer I found on ebay for around £30. Providing not an endless stream of music but a good 5 hours worth, plenty enough for a weekend. It has been one of my best ever purchases.

This weekend I was shuffling through my 6 CDs and realised my current choices were what I would consider atypical of my usual tastes. How did I get here I thought to myself? Would this be symptomatic of a permanent change in taste or were there good temporary reasons for my choices?

So here the idea of a journal of listening was born. I aim to log the 6 CDs each week with comments and thoughts, perhaps justifications and reasons, even reviews.

The 6-CD changer log #1:
Paulo Nutini-Sunny Side Up
Suede-Suede
Badly Drawn Boy-Have You Fed the Fish?
Sufjan Stevens-Carrie and Lowell
Carole King-Tapestry
Afro Celts-Seed

Mesmerising Suede front man Brett Anderson (Yui Mok/PA )

I don’t have the same out of control lifestyle that I used to have but I’m able to find these pockets of interest within everyday life.

Record of the Week: I love the Paulo Nutini, a lovely new discovery, but I was even more surprised at how much I liked previously unheard Suede when I saw them headlining the recent TTP festival here in Brighton - their debut eponymous album wins it this week. Suede contains many of their anthemic songs that were performed with enthusiastic swagger on stage with singer Bret Anderson channelling his best Bowie/Jagger.

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