Recently in music Category

I've always had a massive soft spot for Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds. I think that the album must have originally been released pretty soon after I read the book for the first time. And it must have really struck a chord with me. I borrowed a copy from the library, recorded it and listened to it constantly for several months. That was all, it would appear, thirty years ago.

When I went to university in 1981 we were all cool and trendy and listened to bands like ABC and Dexy's Midnight Runners. But there was always a time late at night, sitting in someone's room in the halls of residence when War of the Worlds would go on the turntable. And I have a distinct memory of at least one conversation when we were planning a stage show based on the record.

The stage show eventually saw the light of day in 2006. At the time I didn't have my ear to the ground and it passed me. I was most disappointed when I found out. But it as the thirtieth anniversary of the original release is upon us they have decided to take the production out again. It will be touring the UK next year. I've just bought tickets to see it at the O2 Arena (the old Millennium Dome) on June 20th. Tickets are ludicrously expensive (around £50) but I strongly suspect it'll be worth it.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Yesterday I mentioned that I had recently read Rip It Up And Start Again by Simon Reynolds. It was a really interesting read, but (at least in part) not for the reasons I expected.

It was interesting because it was full of bands that I had never listened to and had always meant to. This was particularly true in the early chapters when it was talking about people like The Pop Group, The Slits and The Raincoats. I remember being vaguely aware of these bands at the time, but I don't remember listening to them and it's been costing me a bit of money filling in some of these gaps in my music collection. I've been enjoying this very much.

All of which leads to another question. Who was I listening to during this period? I haven't yet resorted to getting the vinyl collection out from the back of the cupboard to check, but I've started to piece together some memories.

I was definitely starting to listen to Bowie in the late 70s. I have a complete run of Bowie singles from about the time of "Heroes" to sometime in the mid-80s. I also know that I listened to more heavy metal than I'm comfortable admitting. The end of my interest in heavy metal is neatly marked by a copy of Gillan's Future Shock album which I bought in 1981 and played about twice. There was also a lot of Hawkwind being listened to at the time, along with bands that no-one has ever heard of now like Barclay James Harvest. There were, however, some indications of wider interests. I bought Tubeway Army's Replicas when it was first released and saw Gary Numan on his first solo tour (supported, if I recall correctly, by OMD).

In 1981, I moved to London to start university and I put away childish things. I've already mentioned my conversion from heavy metal (except Hawkwind, of course) but it was replaced in my record collection by all sorts of interesting music. I seem to remember spending all of 1982 listening to Dexys Midnight Runners's Too-Rye-Ay and ABC's The Lexicon of Love - both of which are mentioned in the book.

And from then on, my tastes coincide with Reynold's book far more closely. There's Talking Heads, The Cure, The Human League and Depeche Mode - all bands that I still listen to today.

So, all in all, Reynold's book triggered a big nostalgia trip for me, even though a lot of it wasn't directly mentioned in the book. It has cost (and continues to cost) me a bit of money as I buy music that I missed out on or replace stuff that I only have on vinyl. And one day soon I am going to have to get all the vinyl out and see what other musical treasures I have forgotten about.

Bugger. I've just seen some photos of KT Tunstall playing in my local pub last night.

It's all very well living so close to such a cool music venue, but I really need to find a good way to keep in touch with what's going on there. Their web site really doesn't seem to be kept particularly up to date. But I think a lot of their best gigs are deliberately low-key and unadvertised. Maybe I need to buy a few beers for their events organiser.

Update: It seems I would have known more if I had been listening to Capital Radio. Not even the chance to see KT Tunstall live is worth that torture.

On Saturday I went to see the Sex Pistols at the Brixton Academy. Don't really have a lot to say about the Pistols themselves (they've become a pretty tight band over the last thirty years I enjoyed them a lot) but there were a couple of things that interested me.

Firstly the support acts. We arrived just as the Cribs were finishing, so I can't really comment on them. But the other support act was Goldie. I confess that it was me who said "let's get there in time to see Goldie, he might be interesting". And I'm happy to admit that it was a huge mistake.

As soon as the Cribs finished, the PA started playing some terrible drum and bass music (Is that a tautology? Is there any other kind of drum and bass music?) Initially we assumed that this was a bad choice of background music whilst Goldie was setting up, but after twenty minutes or so (of what sounded to our untutored ears to be the same record) we realised that there was a DJ deck on the left of the stage and this was actually Goldie's set that we were listening to. This torture went on for about an hour. At one point there was some slight relief when he played Public Image's "Public Image", but immediately afterwards he went back to (the same?) drum and bass. We obviously weren't alone in our opinions on the entertainment. Towards the end of his set there were two or three gaps between tracks. And those gaps were filled with the loudest boos that I've ever heard an act get. The Sex Pistols fans were not enjoying Goldie one bit. But he ignored our obvious dissatisfaction and continued to the end of his set.

Whoever decided that Goldie was a good choice of support needs their head examined. I've seen some crap gigs in my time, but this was by far the worst.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about was the way that Sex Pistols fans have grown up. One of the friends that I went with is the same age as me and we were joking about how we've become the blokes who stand at the back at gigs and wondering whether the venue would be full of blokes who wanted to stand at the back.

It looks like the Sex Pistols fan base these days is largely drawn from the same gene pool as the people that Lloyd met at the faux Black Sabbath gig he was at on the same night. They were all "fat, bald and a mite grumpy". But here's the difference between the old metal fans and the old punks. The old metal fans all wanted to sit down and enjoy the gig. The old punks still thought it was 1977 and they wanted to pogo the night away. We were standing about three quarters of the way to the back of the hall. Far enough, we hoped, to avoid any moshing that might happen. But as the Pistols came on and played their first song - "Pretty Vacant" - the crowd around us erupted in a way that I haven't seen for thirty years. People were throwing themselves (and their friends) around in a manner that sixteen-stone men shouldn't really be thrown around. We let as many as possible of them push past us and positioned ourselves about ten feet nearer the back wall.

Of course after three minutes of these intense exercise, age, weight and fear of a heart attack caught up with these people. Most of them spent the rest of the gig standing still, pointing at the roof and singing along at the tops of their voices.

Do you remember Prussian Blue? They are a pair of blonde twins, Lynx and Lamb Gaede, who appeared, aged about ten, in a Louis Theroux programme about the US white supremacist movement. They wore t-shirts with a smiley-face Hitler logo and sang sweet songs about how much nicer life would be if it wasn't for all the non-white people who were in the country. It was all pretty disgusting.

Well, last night they were the subject of a new Channel 4 documentary called Nazi Pop Twins. In it, director James Quinn follows the twins (now aged 14) over the course of a year.

And things aren't quite the same as they used to be. It seems that as the twins have got older they have started to think for themselves. They are starting to realise that the ideology that their mother has had them promoting isn't as correct as they have previously been led to believe. And they are starting to kick back against her control of their career.

So, I found this documentary very hopeful. Parents will often try to poison their children's minds with their own beliefs, but it's great when the children kick back against that.

Lynx and Lamb have a difficult few years ahead of them. But I hope that they manage to extricate themselves from from their mothers dangerous influences. And I hope that people outside of the white supremacist movement give them a chance to put their dubious past behind them.

It looks like 7digital have won the race to be the first web site to sell EMI's non-DRM MP3 audio files.

Or, at least, they're the first one I've heard of that claim to work in any browser on any operating system. I shall be testing this theory tonight and, if it works, then I predict a lot of my disposable income heading their way over the next few months.

Update: Well that all seemed to work fine. Currently listening to Orbital Live At Glastonbury 1994-2004. I've also downloaded Icky Thump. All in completely DRM-free MP3.

I'm really surprised that no-one got the first question. Wikipedia had all the information that you needed.

Question 1 (the easy one): What connects Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack", Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" and Emerson, Lake and Palmers "Brain Salad Surgery"?

Notice that I didn't say that I was talking about songs or albums. In each of these cases there is both a song and an album with the given title. But the song doesn't appear on the album of the same name.

"Sheer Heart Attack" appears on the Queen album News of the World, "Houses of the Holy" appears on the Led Zeppelin album Physical Graffiti, and "Brain Salad Surgery" appears on the ELP album Works Volume 2.

Question 2 (a bit harder): Midge Ure has played in bands whose names begin with every letter of the alphabet from R to V. What were they?

As the two Kevins managed to work out between them, the bands are Rich Kids, Slik, Thin Lizzy, Ultravox and Visage. Thin Lizzy is the one that people rarely get.

...that the media was full of articles that started "It Was Twenty Years Ago Today".

Because a conversation on IRC just reminded me of one of them, here are my two favourite pop quiz questions. Feel free to answer in the comments. People who were taking an interest in music in the 70s and 80s may have an advantage.

Question 1 (the easy one): What connects Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack", Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" and Emerson, Lake and Palmers "Brain Salad Surgery"?

Question 2 (a bit harder): Midge Ure has played in bands whose names begin with every letter of the alphabet from R to V. What were they?

Answers... er... when I get round to it.

Update: Answers here

Probably only of interest to me, but I've put together a page which lists all of the Cooking Vinyl compilation albums.

As I've written before, Cooking Vinyl were the label who really introduced me to world music, and their compilation albums are a great overview of their catalogue.

If you've got any information to add, then please let me know.