tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42831610814015833472024-03-14T13:31:01.589+13:00everythingsgonegreena place for random thoughts on music, pop culture, and life as we know it.Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.comBlogger777125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-43697903394091163542024-03-04T16:44:00.000+13:002024-03-04T16:44:18.804+13:00Gig Review: The National @ TSB Arena, Wellington, 25 February 2024<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m a longtime fan of The National, collecting
virtually everything the band has released over the past couple of decades.
More or less, give or take. So naturally, having missed all of the band’s
previous outings in Aotearoa, I picked up tickets for their first ever
Wellington show as early as last September. It felt like a long wait.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When The Beths were later added to the bill as the Wellington
support - Fazerdaze getting the prior night’s Auckland slot - it was merely a
bonus. But it also ensured I was at the venue suitably early to catch the
much-loved local power-poppers’ set. By my own unscientific estimation, in
terms of gigs, I’ve probably seen more of The Beths than I have of any other
live act across the past decade or so. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once again they didn’t disappoint, pumping out as
polished a half hour set - around ten songs - as I can recall from them, with a
mix of old and newer tracks offering the perfect taster for any Beths-newbies.
My own pick of the bunch being ‘Whatever’, the oldest track of all, an ageless
banger that seems to sound better each time I hear it. Perfect pop from a band
continually striving to achieve exactly that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQz3E2nfwmrXSZuGldYU8ubYl06lpqd4X2TinA3McSJ1A_i09UJzKpyVPjiyHR1eAap22VwUZ_DmSSpVxAokrZSnJpHAG5iyxDM9N2iNbLtSzpmh3Ygt4kZIaDi8bhr0UOggU1Vjldmjr-nmcCPkDe74M3BRKY8etufCOKjaEqkMS_AjVYMZXVO17xxIx/s305/thenat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="305" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQz3E2nfwmrXSZuGldYU8ubYl06lpqd4X2TinA3McSJ1A_i09UJzKpyVPjiyHR1eAap22VwUZ_DmSSpVxAokrZSnJpHAG5iyxDM9N2iNbLtSzpmh3Ygt4kZIaDi8bhr0UOggU1Vjldmjr-nmcCPkDe74M3BRKY8etufCOKjaEqkMS_AjVYMZXVO17xxIx/w295-h218/thenat.jpg" width="295" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> I’d heard really great things about The National’s
live shows. Some reports even suggesting that the band’s compelling live
performances far and away exceed any notional high bar created by its recorded
output. That’s a fairly big call, and it’s one that was perhaps the main catalyst
for my own *relative* level of disappointment upon exiting the near full venue
late on Sunday night.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what
disappointed me. And I’m not even sure disappointment is the right word. More
nonchalance, or indifference on my part.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It wasn’t as though the band was lacking any
professionalism or inspiration. It wasn’t a lack of effort on their part. The
set-list was decent - stacked with older classics blended with more recent
stuff. They played for more than two hours, and with frontman Matt Berninger to
the fore as the focal point, The National has an energetic and beguiling stage
presence rivalled by very few bands on the stadium circuit. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Indeed, there’s been worse concerts at that venue that
I’ve enjoyed far more, for whatever reason that was. The one I can’t put my
finger on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Those “older classics” included the likes of ‘Squalor
Victoria’, ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, ‘Conversation 16’, and the slow burning, now
20-year-old, ‘Cherry Tree’. All of them immaculately presented with enough live
grit in there to make each one a captivating enough experience. But there was also
a little splash of mud in the vocal mix, a lack of clarity even, and while
Berninger’s baritone croon works brilliantly on record, I felt his live,
clipped, almost shouty/spoken vocal delivery, was found a little wanting at
times. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That angsty line in ‘Conversation 16’ where he sings
“I was afraid, I’d eat your brains … cos I’m evil” loses some of its horror
impact when you remove a more ambiguous croon from its wider punch, and replace
it with a short sharp shouty jab.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The “newer stuff” included the recent break-up anthem
‘Eucalyptus’, which went down well as an early treat, ‘Tropic Morning News’,
and much later, ‘Alien’. Again, all great, but the band’s focus seemed to be
more around its 2010 to 2020 work, with obligatory lip service paid to the two most
recent 2023 album releases.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That meant ‘Demons’, ‘Don’t Swallow The Cap’, a superb
‘I Need My Girl’, ‘Day I Die’, ‘Rylan’, ‘Graceless’ et al. Plus others. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At one point, mid-song, Berninger left the stage and
made his way to near the bar at the back of the venue - without buying a round!
- continuing to “sing”, his stage tech forced to work a minor miracle to keep
man and microphone connected. All it would take is some clown in the crowd to
do his absolute worst … a thought I quickly and admirably managed to suppress as
Berninger passed within an arm’s reach of me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A five-song encore meant Wellington was treated to a
set-list of more than a couple of dozen carefully selected tracks, the band
doing more than enough to make up for lost time in the capital, and there’s no
doubt they offered good value for money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The crowd itself was an interesting mix. From the
young and the single, to middle-aged couples and everything in-between. An
outing for those of a mainstream persuasion perhaps, while it also remains
clear - on account of thoughtful clever lyricism mostly - that The National can
still court fringes of the indie scene its music has always remained on the very
periphery of. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s a fine line. Nobody wants to be thought of as an
American version of Coldplay, do they?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m pleased I went along. Sunday night and all. To
scratch that itch. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Are The National a better live proposition than they are
as a studio outfit? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’s a hard “no” from me. Not from this experience
anyway. They’re good, possibly great, but that discography is a little bit
special. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They’re certainly much more energetic on stage, no
question, but for clarity of sound, for sense of purpose and direction in the
production, for Berninger’s lush vocal delivery, I’m more than happy to content
myself with the band’s studio work. And just quietly, I probably won’t rush out
to buy tickets if they visit here again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No pics with this one. I took some, but none of them
were particularly great when viewed in the cold light of the following day, so
I’ll spare you that. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-43189469262320819612024-02-24T12:09:00.001+13:002024-02-24T12:11:55.488+13:00Album Review: Riot 111 - 1981! (1981/2023)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen on a
recent Leather Jacket Records compilation / retrospective …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Riot 111 were a band
created by politics, discord and violence. Their origins lay in the protests
and brutality of the anti-Springbok tour movement of 1981 which divided the country in
two. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The quartet left the meagre
sum of two singles, as well as an appearance on a compilation album of
Wellington bands. All of these records have been virtually impossible to find
over the past few years, and punters have had to stump up ludicrous sums to
opportunistic sellers to get their hands on that vinyl. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet, they left a
legacy as one of the very few politically dedicated bands that have come out of
New Zealand – Herbs are probably the only other I can think of but in a very
different style and method. Kiwi musicians notoriously avoid any whiff of
confrontation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Blogger’s note: I strongly
disagree with this. Herbs and Riot 111 were the mere tip of a rather large political
iceberg, and I may feel triggered enough to write a detailed response to Craig’s
assertion at some point) … <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thankfully, right
before Christmas a collection, simply titled 1981, was issued in a limited
run. It rounded up Riot 111’s entire recorded output, using newly-discovered
master tapes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was no end of
inspiration when they formed – the Springbok rugby tour occurred at a time when
South Africa was isolated in sporting circles due to the apartheid system. The
tour exposed the ugly, racist, redneck upper belly of New Zealand. On one side were
those who wanted the tour halted in solidarity with Nelson Mandela and the ANC;
on the other side those who naively believed that politics and sport never
should mix – or who just didn’t want to know. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQwF3Rr_sX61PybvNggqTRzZcfJCTBkgipxcwlK0Qr5PoKcW-P3E78OsiISW1hJNNbU9TgFtlLQyUWhSx1K_HIYKv5rH5hy8BA3HPLTZhEIropgp8CT02XrjNStW_i8HzlZ9wVdGNugE1iCg9WziNcTJpylQcVDvjtq3rJ_UJlQpnMQDSArdjByICjqTf/s468/Rio111.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="464" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQwF3Rr_sX61PybvNggqTRzZcfJCTBkgipxcwlK0Qr5PoKcW-P3E78OsiISW1hJNNbU9TgFtlLQyUWhSx1K_HIYKv5rH5hy8BA3HPLTZhEIropgp8CT02XrjNStW_i8HzlZ9wVdGNugE1iCg9WziNcTJpylQcVDvjtq3rJ_UJlQpnMQDSArdjByICjqTf/w282-h285/Rio111.jpg" width="282" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Two of the 16 games
were cancelled due to crowd interventions, another was flour-bombed by a plane
(but went ahead) and there were protests at all the others.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Into this heated
environment came Riot 111 to stir the pot a bit more. Were they even a musical
group? Not according to “singer” Void who declared: “We’re not a band, we’re a
terrorist organisation.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, he penned ‘1981’, released
as a single with an anarcho-punk collage cover that would have infuriated those
the band wanted to infuriate: Hitler kicked a rugby ball as Prime Minister
Robert Muldoon applauded and the All Blacks did an unchoreographed haka. This
also forms the cover of the album without any obvious tweaks, while the back of
that 7” - featuring police in riot gear - is replicated on the album’s rear.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The single is an (ahem)
riotous agit-punk blend of aggressive lyrics, ruthless guitar playing and tribal
drumming based around the famous ‘ka mate’ haka, and fused with the South
African freedom chant Amandla. It is incendiary and provocative in the context
of the winter of discontent that the sporting tour wrought on the country. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The 90-second B-side ‘Go
Riot’ is hilarious. There’s no actual music, just a Germanic, hectoring voice
ordering a cackling Muldoon to proceed with the contentious tour, and
afterwards, distract the population with a royal tour. It then cuts into some
mimicking of rugby-loving redneck boofheads. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1982 was an eventful
year for Riot 111. They began by supporting The Fall, and at an anti-nuclear
gig in Wellington they only managed to play one song as the “move move move” chant
on ‘Move To Riot’, which replicates that of the police at protests, literally
moved the crowd to riot with Void forced to dodge beer bottles launched at the
stage. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The text accompanying
the album tells of a stoush between the band and TVNZ which refused to air the
video for ‘Writing On The Wall’ from the second single and reproduces the
letter from the head of entertainment in full. In it, Tom Parkinson wrote that
he thought the song was poor, the musicianship below standard and “the clip is
very passe, poorly made and has little merit”. Not only that but he objected to
the inference of police violence. So much for freedom of speech. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Riot 111 comprised
vocalist John Void (later just Void), drummer Roger Riot (formerly Roger Allen,
a mild-mannered public servant from Wellington’s northern suburbs), guitarist
Nick Swan and Mark Crawford on bass. Allen describes Void as having an immense
stage presence in his plastic riot helmet, actual police baton and leather
trousers or kilt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Move To Riot’ is the
most musical of all the tracks and returns to the theme of police repression
with Void shouting through a tannoy imitating a police officer breaking up a
demonstration. “I am the law, I am order, you have no rights, scum!” Other “officers”
abuse and mock the protesters, ie “Did you fucking swear at me?”. As Void
speeds up the “move move move” order the atmosphere becomes ugly. Void as “chief
officer” says: “I have a gun in the car and I’d love to blow you away” and the
song ends in women screaming, glass smashing and people being bashed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some tracks don’t have
quite the same impact, eg, ‘Escape Or Prison’ is largely an over-played drone lasting
an excessive seven-and-a-half minutes. Perhaps with studio time and an
empathetic producer behind them Riot 111 could have unleashed a colossal debut
album that would have left an indelible mark on the New Zealand music scene. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While all eight tracks
released under the band’s name are included on 1981!, I feel an opportunity has
been lost. Surely, those master tapes also included alternative takes and demos
of songs that were played at gigs but not actually formally released? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By 1984 Riot 111 were
no more. Right-wing skinheads were gatecrashing the gigs and causing violence
driving many fans away. Void became an actor in Australia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Their existence was
brief and output meagre but they left a legacy that has never been matched in
this country. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-67753011337393311182024-02-18T16:54:00.002+13:002024-02-18T16:54:41.051+13:00Classic Album Review: The Associates - Sulk (1982) <p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig
Stephen on a Scottish indie masterclass …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
1981 The Associates were an eclectic taste, a semi-experimental group known only
to a select clique. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But
by 1982 the Scottish act had become commercial property, with top 10 hits,
magazine covers and appearances on Top of the Pops. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
reason for this incredible turnaround in fortunes was the album Sulk, which
remains to this reviewer’s ears the best Scottish album of all time (yes, even
better than the Bay City Rollers’ debut) if not one of the finest albums with
geographical limitations removed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It
was adventurous, brazen, brilliantly written and musically magnificent while
retaining the independent streak of the immense talents of Billy MacKenzie and
Alan Rankine. The duo <i>were</i> The Associates although at the time it was officially
a four-piece. Sulk was glamorous enough to pique the interest of the New
Romantics and DJs on Radio Happy, and dark and esoteric enough for those with
more eclectic tastes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It
included the poignant and emotionally charged ‘Party Fears Two’, which was good
enough for the British top 10 and the spur for the success that was Sulk. It
was written some years before its release and was apparently inspired by the
sight of a couple of obnoxious teenage girls at a party, hence the title. It could
explain the line: “The alcohol loves you while turning you blue.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtUf0lnKy3rxO8i10Y5InPFDZlMlQsPUY7X01Q4exvIadYs1qjEvLRbDFobdXllnF8AAMZaIp64ZKxO52wEpsJ11dbXWNe9dvY7DBv-dV7gKVmJJCdNTlgepZinhpX21XGh_ZmJ-5vURJyKCN05wdxDL7zSXAu25sFDedklkYOj5fqCPFx3ygI0xt5RgS9/s700/associates-sulk2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtUf0lnKy3rxO8i10Y5InPFDZlMlQsPUY7X01Q4exvIadYs1qjEvLRbDFobdXllnF8AAMZaIp64ZKxO52wEpsJ11dbXWNe9dvY7DBv-dV7gKVmJJCdNTlgepZinhpX21XGh_ZmJ-5vURJyKCN05wdxDL7zSXAu25sFDedklkYOj5fqCPFx3ygI0xt5RgS9/w270-h270/associates-sulk2.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> MacKenzie,
who hailed from Dundee, and Rankine, of Edinburgh, met in 1976, just as punk
was about to kick off. They formed two proto bands before landing at The
Associates. Their initial foray into the world was an under-produced and
unauthorised version of Bowie’s ‘Boys Keep Swinging’, which certainly got them
noticed. The Affectionate Punch (1980) and the semi-compilation Fourth Drawer
Down (1981) followed on independent labels. They were warmly welcomed in the
music press but just a little too esoteric for the general listener.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Through
a complex “big brother” hierarchical record label system, The Associates found
themselves a deal with Warner Brothers, and a large advance, some of which was
used to house MacKenzie’s beloved whippet dogs in their own hotel room and feed
them smoked salmon. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nevertheless,
they recorded in what has been described as a “drab, workmanlike space” in a
grey, industrial location. Still, they were able to utilise what they had and
this resulted in <span style="background: white; color: black; letter-spacing: -.2pt;">densely
layered keyboards, echo effects and expansive reverbs. Listen closely and
you’ll hear sheet metal shaking, canisters being rolled, and other studio
tricks. Over the years compilations have been released containing demo versions
of some of the songs that appeared on the album, and you can see what monied
production techniques and ambition can do to transform tracks from raw and
unpolished to soaring, epochal cacophonies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; letter-spacing: -0.2pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As well as MacKenzie and
Rankine, this line-up consisted of Michael Dempsey and John Murphy on bass and
drums respectively. Both had been with the band for around two years, but were
generally kept at the back of the bus as the duo hogged all the photo and
interview opportunities that came their way. Canadian Martha Ladly, of new wave
act Martha and the Muffins, was a prominent guest, supplying vocals and
keyboards and her photogenic appearance ensured she shared some of the
publicity. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
curious recording style extended to the track listing: ‘Party Fears Two’ and
the other hit single ‘Club Country’ were kept to the second side. Listeners
began their aural adventure with the three-minute instrumental ‘Arrogance Gave
Him Up’. It ends with an instrumental too, which would become the single ‘18
Carat Love Affair’. These two instrumentals seem somewhat peculiar as it’s
MacKenzie’s magnificent voice that is the money shot. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">MacKenzie
<span style="background: white; color: black;">possessed a vocal range that defied
description, ranging from deep to the soaring high-pitched tenor that was very
individualistic. It was beguiling, enthralling and beautiful. Later, MacKenzie
would develop his vocal talents, and bested Shirley Bassey when both sang ‘The
Rhythm Divine’ for Yello in separate versions. Songs such as ‘Bap De La Bap’ and
‘Skipping’ are created around MacKenzie, whose ambiguous and oblique lyrics
gave them a neo-gothic feel. Bravely, the band tackled ‘Gloomy Sunday’, a song
with Hungarian roots and considered to contain a hex over those who sang it.
That didn’t deter Billie Holiday, nor did it put off MacKenzie who gave it his
own unique sound. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Several tracks engage the listener before we
reach ‘Party Fears Two’, one of the most perfect songs ever, and ‘Club Country’
which seemingly condemns elitist structures if the chorus is to be read
correctly: “</span><span style="background: white; color: #444444; line-height: 107%;">Alive and kicking at the Country Club/ We're
always sickening at the Country Club/ A drive from nowhere leaves you in the
cold/ Refrigeration keeps you young I'm told.” </span><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They had their moment in the sun, and Sulk
should’ve led to regular appearances on television and stadium gigs. But it all
turned to custard rather quickly. Even before the year was out Rankine was
gone, frustrated beyond belief that MacKenzie wouldn’t tour the album. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rankine went out on his own, MacKenzie carried
The Associates flag with Perhaps released in 1985. While it has some
magnificent moments such as ‘Waiting For the Love Boat’ and ‘Those First
Impressions’, it lacks Rankine’s instrumental genius and is for all intents and
purposes a MacKenzie solo album. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sulk, meanwhile, has been reissued several times
over the years. As I write this I’m listening to the blue-coloured vinyl
version. In 2016 an additional seven tracks were added to the CD version which
included ‘18 Carat Love Affair’ and The Supremes’ ‘Love Hangover’ which
combined became a medium-level hit in the UK and elsewhere. Most recently there
was a special deluxe format with outtakes, Peel sessions, a live gig and even a
disk containing five different versions of ‘Party Fears Two’. As The Associates
rarely put a foot wrong, there is nothing here that is weak or profligate. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-39474333018603176102024-01-22T13:00:00.001+13:002024-01-22T14:33:45.476+13:00Gig Review: Nabihah Iqbal @ Meow, Wellington, 16 January 2024<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Tuesday nights at Meow are
always a bit of a mystery. Never more so than when that Tuesday night falls
slap bang in the middle of the summer holiday season. So with a good portion of
the capital’s gig-going population either out of town, or just as likely suffering
from some sort 0f post-Festive (or post-Festival-of-choice, even) hangover, it
was a pleasant surprise to see a fairly decent turnout for Nabihah Iqbal’s
Aotearoa-debut outing last week.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I estimate the crowd was
something close to a couple of hundred, which made the venue lively enough, at
about half-capacity. We were “warmed up” - stifling heat aside - by Wellington
duo, Japes, who may ordinarily be less a duo and more the solo project of one Mia
Kelly. It was all very low key, with Kelly and friend (Lochie Noble?) serving
up morsels of intimate dream-pop moments for about 20 fairly compelling minutes.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was less a pleasant
surprise, and more of a disappointment, for me anyway, was the fact that Iqbal
arrived on stage without a band. Just her and a guitarist-come-saxophonist. She
later apologised for that scenario, saying she couldn’t afford the expense that
comes with a full-band tour. Which is probably fair enough considering the pre-tour
logistical uncertainties she faced as a mostly under-the-radar artist in this
part of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqBqhrQWIgZyv62h9opmhKJhaiVauPQzeQCQ-H1As2SVLLx2cyzekzqnLCohJ_-9LSSNR1k5GW74f-l90OdaV9YBgzEtfPfovjL0zqiasiYk46LqRAX-G9xb1pPhDPds_6WrY1wAjs3Y6eDH20KzRpc73jO-H8V0V-qBE9wumWc8yon0BmtdWjtnkuBxMS/s1440/Iqbal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1089" data-original-width="1440" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqBqhrQWIgZyv62h9opmhKJhaiVauPQzeQCQ-H1As2SVLLx2cyzekzqnLCohJ_-9LSSNR1k5GW74f-l90OdaV9YBgzEtfPfovjL0zqiasiYk46LqRAX-G9xb1pPhDPds_6WrY1wAjs3Y6eDH20KzRpc73jO-H8V0V-qBE9wumWc8yon0BmtdWjtnkuBxMS/w400-h275/Iqbal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> But it meant that the
layers of shoegaze brilliance found on last year’s Dreamer album were a little compromised
by the use of background tracking, making it less rock n roll and more
lightweight karaoke. That’s not to say that those tracks didn’t work well
enough, because they did, it’s just the sense that they could all have been a
hell of a lot more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Dreamer album, which
provided Iqbal with something of a global breakthrough in 2023, was her main
point of reference throughout the one-hour-plus set, with versions of the title
track, ‘Sunflower’, ‘Gentle Heart’, ‘Lilac Twilight’, ‘Closer Lover’, and naturally,
the wonderful ‘This World Couldn’t See Us’, all taking pride of place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We also got ‘Zone 1 to
6000’ from her 2017 release Weighing Of The Heart, and a pretty great cover of
The Cure’s masterpiece ‘A Forest’ as the penultimate song before a one-song
encore.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Iqbal was very chatty,
offering what felt like stream-of-consciousness musings about her life and the
state of the world between songs. A fully qualified barrister, a literary nerd,
and an unrepentant social activist, the London-based Iqbal seems like a very sincere
and humble sort of individual, and at various points she expressed genuine
surprise to be on stage performing such personal songs to a group of complete strangers,
some 12,000 miles from home. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Such warmth and the sense
that everything was mostly unrehearsed - and executed as well as it could be - wasn’t
quite enough for me to get over my initial disappointment about there not being
a full band, but it did help, and as I left the venue I reminded myself that it
doesn’t always have to be about big production and rock n roll to be a good
night out. And sometimes, relatively low key Tuesday nights at Meow have their
place.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span>photo: <a href="https://www.nothingelseon.com/" target="_blank">nothingelseon</a></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><span><a href="https://www.nothingelseon.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;">Casting aside my own
live-performance “issues” expressed above, here’s the official clip for Iqbal’s
excellent ‘This World Couldn’t See Us’ from last year … </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BFRIaix41cU" width="320" youtube-src-id="BFRIaix41cU"></iframe></div><br /></span></div>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-73696515354395517762024-01-15T16:37:00.000+13:002024-01-15T16:37:54.827+13:00Album Review: Primal Scream - Reverberations (Travelling In Time) (2023)<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Craig Stephen on new / old Primal Scream …</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Primal Scream haven’t been overly enthusiastic about their early
years. The first band compilation Dirty Hits (2003) dismissed two entire albums
worth and several singles, instead beginning the band’s adventure five years
after their debut single.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Two further collections have partly rectified this misnomer with the
inclusion of some tracks dating from 1985-1987. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Nevertheless, those initial, naïve, formative years remain largely
untouched, so seeing the release of Reverberation (Travelling In Time) -
subtitled BBC Radio Sessions & Creation Singles 1985-1986 - is something of
a Secret Santa gem for those Primal fans who love all the various phases the
band has gone through. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">This was pre-electronica, indeed pre-rock’n’roll/Stones loving
Primals, with influences such as The Byrds and Love to the fore. They were
pivotal members of the twee scene – of which jangling guitars, anoraks and
floppy fringes were <i>de rigeur</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In May 1985 the Glasgow outfit burst onto the indie rock scene with
the single ‘All Fall Down’/‘It Happens’ with a cover cribbed from a Francoise
Hardy album. It didn’t sell and was ignored by the then influential weekly
newspapers such as NME, Sounds, Melody Maker and Record Mirror. The band line-up
then was Bobby Gillespie on vocals, fellow founding member Jim Beattie on
guitar, Robert Young on bass, Stewart May on rhythm guitar, Tam McGurk on drums
and Martin St John on tambourine. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivbxrYdRUsAKL7Dy2IVq9OGoPgK4tE_ArFGoJrBT3NnaqYgBc2tQYnYWs5FK4varLHyaltN6U5MBnQhVvuDeZtn45evfy0m0iq0pIgKBda8laNDtdf1qDZh7O1ZaXjjmJP_B5FJNLWN0Cp1mq3cgoddEtJ3BkFc7QYmSmbplkacBUGW9VOl-Gz8AqXG_wU/s750/PSReverb.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivbxrYdRUsAKL7Dy2IVq9OGoPgK4tE_ArFGoJrBT3NnaqYgBc2tQYnYWs5FK4varLHyaltN6U5MBnQhVvuDeZtn45evfy0m0iq0pIgKBda8laNDtdf1qDZh7O1ZaXjjmJP_B5FJNLWN0Cp1mq3cgoddEtJ3BkFc7QYmSmbplkacBUGW9VOl-Gz8AqXG_wU/w200-h200/PSReverb.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Paul Harte replaced May after the recording of that single and with
his outlook and love of trendy clothing gave the band a bit of oomph. As
Beattie explains in the album’s liner notes things were soon taking off during
that British summer: “Paul had a brilliant attitude; he was quite sartorial and
that really brought something to the group. We looked good with great songs and
great lyrics and by 1985 it felt like we were really becoming a band.”</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">At the end of the year they recorded their debut session for John
Peel, a must-do for any aspiring young band of the time. The band were, in
their own words, naïve and had a producer who once played in Moot the Hoople
and wasn’t for taking advice for any young upstarts. Yet, it worked. That
seminal session, played late at night on Radio One, included four tracks as per
tradition, namely ‘I Love You’, ‘Crystal Crescent’, ‘Subterranean’ and ‘Aftermath’.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">According to Gillespie the songs from this era had a “lovesick,
melancholic yearning to them”. In his 2021 bio, Tenement Kid, Gillespie describes
where he was at when penning now legendary songs such as ‘Gentle Tuesday’ and ‘All
Fall Down’: “They are written and sung by a young, depressed boy who views life
from a pained, detached, cynical position. The desperation of life and love
weighs heavily on the mind.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In early 1986 the new line-up recorded three tracks for a single which
was led by ‘Crystal Crescent’, but it was one of the two B-sides that took
precedence. ‘Velocity Girl’ was chosen as the opening track for the feted
soundtrack to the scene, C86. Its status is such that it would later provide
the name for an American band and was covered by the Manic Street Preachers. It
lasts a mere 1:22, barely enough to have three verses and a chorus that closes it
off. Gillespie’s plaintive voice is illuminating almost immediately as he trots
off now familiar lines: “<span style="background: white; color: #444444;">Here she
comes again/ With vodka in her veins/ Been playing with a spike/ She couldn't
get it right”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Its brevity was in keeping with the
time-consciousness of the band: the 16 tracks clock in at a grand total of 35
minutes. That’s the equivalent of one Fela Kuti EP. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">They were now truly gaining the
attention of London’s movers and shakers and recorded a second session for John
Peel and one for Janice Long both within a month of each other. Long, at that
time, preceded Peel on weeknights on Radio One with the equivalent level of enthusiasm
for new music as the veteran DJ. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">All eight session tracks are featured
on Reverberations with the Long session kicking off the album. These sessions
would introduce songs such as ‘Imperial’, ‘Leaves’ and ‘Tomorrow Ends Today’. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">A year on and the band’s debut album Sonic
Flower Groove was released. Critics liked it or hated it. One reviewer
described it as a real gem, another dubbed it “</span><span style="background: white; color: #202122; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">dandelion
fluff" and made up of leftover tracks. But as <a href="https://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2019/09/classic-album-review-primal-scream.html" target="_blank">this review on this site noted (here)</a>, it is an underrated classic which “</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I find easy to play
over and over, and discover new chimes or riffs to enjoy each time.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #202122; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Many of the session tracks appeared on Sonic
Flower Groove and benefit (or fail!) from having proper production techniques.
Some of the session tracks sound like they were done in a garage with equipment
bought in bargain shops. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">During the recording sessions for the
album McGurk was sacked, St John left, and after its release Beattie quit too
and formed Spirea X (the title of the other ‘Crystal Crescent’ B-side). Things
were far from hunky dory in the Primals camp. But with new faces came a
different attitude and sound. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The band evolved initially into a
rocky, Stones type act with the <a href="https://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2020/11/classic-album-review-primal-scream.html" target="_blank">eponymous second album (reviewed here)</a> that came out in 1989, and
then, of course, captured the essence of the summer of 1990 and the so-called
‘baggy’ scene and subsequent superstardom. They reinvent themselves at
virtually every turn and have never been afraid to change colours when it suited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It is that long-term success that has
largely cast a shadow over their initial work. But this formative period should
never be overlooked in the development stream of Primal Scream. Thankfully, we now
have a collection of beautiful and mesmerising songs that remind us of what
promise and ability they possessed in those heady days of the mid-80s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-38828995967019390092024-01-07T16:42:00.002+13:002024-03-14T13:29:25.157+13:00A Staunch Poptimist's Year-End Wrap<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As much as everythingsgonegreen loves to concern itself
almost exclusively with all things retro, we’re not completely immune to celebrating
the delights of today. It’s just that there’s so damn much of it, and sorting
the wheat from the chaff often feels way too laborious. When really, we could
just listen to the perennial tried and trusted of yester-year. As much as that lazy
and unambitious default option renders this blog largely irrelevant with any
cool kids, we do know our place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In some respects, it was a genuine lack of knowledge
about the here and now, or a lack of “currency”, which prompted me a few years
back to cease with writing year-end wraps or best-of-the-year lists for the blog.
I think the last one was in 2020, and there’s no real enthusiasm from me to
revisit 2023 either. So I asked someone else to do it. Someone with the benefit
of youth, an early-twenty-something self-described “staunch poptimist”, sometime
music blogger and friend of the blog, Sam Bell, who offers his 2023 wrap in the
form of a very welcome guest post … <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>1. Jessie Ware - ‘That! Feels Good!’ </b>(Dance-Pop,
Disco) <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The release of Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’ in March
2020 heralded the beginning of the nu-disco revival that has saturated this
decade with varying levels of success. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lows? Kylie
Minogue’s 2023 release ‘Tension’ and Tame Impala’s 2020 hangover cure ‘The Slow
Rush’ come to mind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Highs? The
emergence of Dua Lipa as a pop sensation, the re-emergence (amid
not-insignificant controversy) of Róisín Murphy as a bona fide hit-maker, and
of course the late blossoming of Jessie Ware.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGepxgHBXDEW0baRanPlizG7Gc-ibz9KBRc_GDX6bmpFuqBUhSvYj83-cZpiXQrsCArEk50rHraWNFs-RzHAwj6f2uvMTkV203j4TH5O_A1cvJw8yND9qgDSk0Mm8JJ4XYS5hJbA-kDmGkSHCK1skn6k9Tu1xK663V8U_ajvMHiOAjYYfnKD7G8kBTkC6/s599/JessieWare.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="597" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGepxgHBXDEW0baRanPlizG7Gc-ibz9KBRc_GDX6bmpFuqBUhSvYj83-cZpiXQrsCArEk50rHraWNFs-RzHAwj6f2uvMTkV203j4TH5O_A1cvJw8yND9qgDSk0Mm8JJ4XYS5hJbA-kDmGkSHCK1skn6k9Tu1xK663V8U_ajvMHiOAjYYfnKD7G8kBTkC6/w199-h200/JessieWare.jpg" width="199" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> When one thinks of tasteful use of saxophone in pop
music, the mind naturally wanders to the cliché heights of ‘Careless Whisper’
and ‘Baker Street’. My mind wanders to many of my favourite moments from ‘That!
Feels Good!’. Unlike the aforementioned hits, the saxophone in Ware’s music
never dominates, it is left in the background, bristling with passion and
excitement but never allowed to impose on Ware, whose rich vocal is always
front and centre.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ll push saxophone discourse to the side, as I don’t
want to give the impression that the music on ‘That! Feels Good!’ isn’t
imminent. It is. It / Ware demands attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ware, a mother to three children, is proof that lust
(for life) never quite evaporates if you’re not willing to let it. She is
imperative in the album’s opener and title track; she floats over the silky
‘Lightning’; she’s just the right mix of sultry and sweet on ‘These Lips’; and
you simply won’t hear a more sincere expression of joy this year than you will
on ‘Beautiful People’. ‘That! Feels Good!’ is a testament to grabbing life –
and love – by the horns and never letting go. It sits atop the highest peak of
the 2020s nu-disco revival, and it sits there alone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: ‘Free Yourself’; ‘Hello Love’; ‘Begin
Again’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>2. Danny Brown - ‘Quaranta’ </b>(Conscious Hip Hop,
Experimental Hip Hop) <b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US">A decade ago Danny Brown released ‘XXX’, marking his
30th birthday. It’s a brilliantly depraved album, the kind that you feel guilty
listening to, where the music is oh so good but the subject matter (that
familiar cocktail of sex, drugs and fame) is oh so not. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet it probably wasn’t until Brown released
‘Atrocity Exhibition’ in 2016 that he received the widespread acclaim (if only
from music publications; the general public did not react as Danny had intended
– <a href="https://hiphopdx.com/news/danny-brown-debt-70k-samples-atrocity-exhibition" target="_blank">see here</a>) that he has always deserved. Likewise, it probably wasn’t until
2016 that the music world at large started noticing, and being concerned by,
the subject matter of Brown’s music. Luckily, with age comes maturity, right? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguNj4nvQ897Nbo3aDhEaIaUnxb2vool2sPiXdhvRgGFTzkr5DNW7-RxCXhLY9yZag7wBPtEBgL2OXaBWTVuehZbdRwIyMZWTZI2IFcYPaUsUqPlzfjqk5rZu9ifi02ncToh89iqYocWmdlgWpq8YbJVIKYd5Nw71sG6GdxKLC2fS3euhraPlrkJ_21CFEi/s1200/danny.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguNj4nvQ897Nbo3aDhEaIaUnxb2vool2sPiXdhvRgGFTzkr5DNW7-RxCXhLY9yZag7wBPtEBgL2OXaBWTVuehZbdRwIyMZWTZI2IFcYPaUsUqPlzfjqk5rZu9ifi02ncToh89iqYocWmdlgWpq8YbJVIKYd5Nw71sG6GdxKLC2fS3euhraPlrkJ_21CFEi/w200-h200/danny.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> A bit over 10 years after ‘XXX’, Brown has released
‘Quaranta’, or “forty” in Italian. Suffice to say, he’s trying his best to not be
the Danny Brown of old. In terms of the hip hop landscape, he is old. There are
glimmers of the terrifically zany character that Brown has cultivated
throughout his career, however the best portions of ‘Quaranta’ are where Brown
is without embellishment, sticking to his lower register to deliver insightful
raps about the gentrification of hometown Detroit, heartbreak and, well, selling
drugs (in the past tense!).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">NB: Bruiser Wolf, almost impossibly, is the most
charismatic voice on a Danny Brown album. Worth a listen for his distinctive
cadence alone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: ‘Y.B.P (feat. Bruiser Wolf)’; ‘Celibate
(feat. MIKE)’; ‘Hanami’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>3. Sufjan Stevens - ‘Javelin’ </b>(Indie Folk,
Singer-Songwriter, Chamber Folk) <b> </b> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sufjan Stevens releasing one of the most heartbreaking
albums of the year and waltzing his way into my year-end Top 10 list. Where
have I heard that before?? (see: 2021, 2015, 2010, 2005, 2004 etc…)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sonically ‘Javelin’ is the entanglement of all of the
separate strands that Stevens has played with throughout his long career, often
a combination of the ethereal ambience of ‘Carrie and Lowell’, the electronica
of ‘Age of Adz’ and ‘All Delighted People’, and the chamber orchestration that
made ‘Illinois’ such a career-defining hit.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lyrically, Stevens has always been familiar with the
concept of the “gut punch”, as highlighted by the likes of ‘Casimir Polaski
Day’ (from ‘Illinois’), ‘Futile Devices’ (from ‘Age of Adz’) and ‘Mystery of
Love’ (from the soundtrack of ‘Call Me By Your Name’). Not since 2015’s ‘Carrie
and Lowell’ has Stevens decided to give his listeners an album-length
gut-punch, at least not until now.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi39F-QkRmC_IwuFUoob_It1Leqp3f9Z2S8qzbby5sEuT32-1N5Q6xsYB5AyfdafkiDRYTKAylUEwr0A05ZOWUW-33DFoqJ1dCmzG_t-kQUw1q04Py2jhUd9F-G3PXyJhJD-QkjTlnX2vvlw-9HYZYDnHiiNoM7nopMtBLd7DlR7OnM6urUgo1xxzkHQIXN/s1400/Javelin-Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1400" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi39F-QkRmC_IwuFUoob_It1Leqp3f9Z2S8qzbby5sEuT32-1N5Q6xsYB5AyfdafkiDRYTKAylUEwr0A05ZOWUW-33DFoqJ1dCmzG_t-kQUw1q04Py2jhUd9F-G3PXyJhJD-QkjTlnX2vvlw-9HYZYDnHiiNoM7nopMtBLd7DlR7OnM6urUgo1xxzkHQIXN/w200-h150/Javelin-Cover.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Stevens’ sexual affinity has long been among the music
industry’s worst-kept secret, a theme which throughout his career has only
played second-fiddle to his affinity with Christianity. While ‘Javelin’
essentially plays the part of Stevens’ coming-out party, the circumstances
surrounding its release (that being the death of his longtime partner, Evans
Richardson) do not denote cause for celebration.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Javelin’ is Stevens’ second album that is explicitly
about the death of a loved one; it is Stevens’ second album that is so wrapped
up in the nostalgia of life, and the warmth that life brings, that its listener
almost forgets about the subject matter until they are confronted with a line
like:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“So here we stand in the dark, my eyes traveling to
the place where you’d thrown yourself over the rocks”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is no need for an artist to re-invent the wheel
when the wheel is already brilliant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: ‘Will Anybody Ever Love Me’; ‘So You Are
Tired’; ‘Shit Talk’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>4. JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown - ‘Scaring the Hoes’</b>
(Experimental Hip Hop, Hardcore Hip Hop, Glitch Hop)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 2016 A Tribe Called Quest released their final
album, a gut-wrenching goodbye to Phife Dawg who had died 8 months prior but
had recorded his verse riddled with cancer. In many ways this was ATCQ’s most
innovative album, a jazz rap opus made bespoke for the 21st century kid. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDzfX7apiaacfrxe2xA5-AK1-j4lsghH413F23Po6jrmjzFqc26Xv9-yywWmnVgaHUGm4c3QBzuelf1QEUPCYnxXB3XHSzsDRYEi1BuD_nQwch4E59mQZ81cBSsm0bVF02QO9h_714ya81wii4dRekZRpKT3nKcnbgeLBj0_gX_TW-mJqk4ZFkNFS3Y37J/s1000/jpegmafia.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDzfX7apiaacfrxe2xA5-AK1-j4lsghH413F23Po6jrmjzFqc26Xv9-yywWmnVgaHUGm4c3QBzuelf1QEUPCYnxXB3XHSzsDRYEi1BuD_nQwch4E59mQZ81cBSsm0bVF02QO9h_714ya81wii4dRekZRpKT3nKcnbgeLBj0_gX_TW-mJqk4ZFkNFS3Y37J/w200-h200/jpegmafia.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> That album’s fourth track, ‘Solid Wall of Sound’,
builds up slowly, becoming gradually more claustrophobic for the listener until
the last 20 seconds, in which all of the layers of music pile on top of one
another and the listener is confronted with, well, a solid wall of sound. While
no one might have ever asked the question: “what would it sound like if that
last 20 seconds was stretched out to 36 minutes?”, JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown
have answered it: “Scaring the Hoes”.<o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Scaring the Hoes’ is not some revelation, but rather
the culmination of two of the senior voices in avant-garde hip hop honing their
craft and having a lot of fun in the meantime. Don’t be put off initially by
the brash lyricism or the song titles denoting the chronically-online nature of
both artists’ fanbases – behind every solid wall of sound is layer-upon-layer
of meticulously crafted music. This is a sampling odyssey not to be overlooked.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: ‘SCARING THE HOES’; ‘Burfict!’; ‘Kingdom
Hearts Key (feat. Redveil)’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>5. George Clanton - ‘Ooh Rap I Ya’</b> (Chillwave,
Neo-Psychedelia, Baggy)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Absolution by way of chillwave. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'Ooh Rap I Ya' is one of those albums that should,
ideally, be played so loud that the music feels almost tangible (not
recommended by the least cool 9 out of 10 audiologists). Even if you're not so
inclined to do irreparable damage to your ear drums, it is undeniable that in
any setting Clanton and his backing of reverb and synths just sound, well,
massive. Sorry, I meant MASSIVE. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-nWi37nkvd7_v5KdpallytZvV1lORssG8LWq07UBMXWZZRXlC6QlS-PoB_rV9HYfXKHl_hHcrmQZE1yE2YhGRV4NqWmx1kqerJ3Xm08p6-y80eK7B2on2i8gjFYE0TC_srZANt-4OQ0Kqjwnh_xJVzFK_HFOUUJsRupUf_cgXNn1xz2rfkpSqzfw3UMxt/s700/GeorgeClanton.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-nWi37nkvd7_v5KdpallytZvV1lORssG8LWq07UBMXWZZRXlC6QlS-PoB_rV9HYfXKHl_hHcrmQZE1yE2YhGRV4NqWmx1kqerJ3Xm08p6-y80eK7B2on2i8gjFYE0TC_srZANt-4OQ0Kqjwnh_xJVzFK_HFOUUJsRupUf_cgXNn1xz2rfkpSqzfw3UMxt/w200-h200/GeorgeClanton.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> In some ways, this reminds me of the Stone Roses debut
effort - not just due to the Baggy influence that is so inherent that you could
probably peel it off from the LP pressing and use it to roll a cigarette, but
also because of the fact that, whether you like it or not, this music will
ingrain itself into your brain and nestle in there until you're annoying your
flatmates by incessantly humming "AND I'VE BEEN YOUNG" while peeling
potatoes.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: 'Justify Your Life'; 'I
Been Young' (SOTY 2023); 'Vapor King / SubReal'. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>6. Squid - ‘O Monolith’</b> (Experimental Rock, Art Punk,
Krautrock)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘O Monolith’ is an enigma. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Squid’s debut album 'Bright Green Field' is a
bigger statement with higher peaks than what Squid have delivered in this
outing, I'd herald this work to be the bigger achievement. 'Bright Green Field’
was a whirlwind of opportunity, a bizarre entry into the British post-punk
canon that baffled and amazed listeners at every turn. It is by all accounts a
major-scale success story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">'O Monolith' is significantly less urgent than its
predecessor; don’t be fooled by the fervent opener ‘Swing (In a Dream)’. What
Squid has lost in energy and eccentricity, they gained in groove, lyricism, and
that maturity that tends to elude all but the best of young artists who’re
trying to show the world that they’re ready to make a mark.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlz_UEuJhuCY6MA1pYcFpnppEmr-MPLwb1A6iHuXbhnDOl2slFs4zKeZotiCb1lwA7eEe2SwkhhrRDr4HsJlwxTHPxv4IhN5s4m-CV8oFi95u-xM87s2puj9y6KniN9oUhLriWSFq9Qrkt6zWSK9Ytu5PTUCRMKZl9JItJNVFpZQhHzflG-5NAwIbuckY/s700/Squid.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlz_UEuJhuCY6MA1pYcFpnppEmr-MPLwb1A6iHuXbhnDOl2slFs4zKeZotiCb1lwA7eEe2SwkhhrRDr4HsJlwxTHPxv4IhN5s4m-CV8oFi95u-xM87s2puj9y6KniN9oUhLriWSFq9Qrkt6zWSK9Ytu5PTUCRMKZl9JItJNVFpZQhHzflG-5NAwIbuckY/w200-h200/Squid.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> That Squid successfully avoided a sophomore slump is a
good thing. That they were able to do so while continuing to innovate - keeping
anyone who attempts to figure out what their next move will be essentially in
the dark - is a great thing.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was once a vibrant mix of Talking Heads x Parquet
Courts has now become an assured mix of Radiohead x Can. Britain’s windmill
scene has brought us yet another 2020s gem, and for that we should all be
thankful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: ‘Swing (In a Dream)’; ‘The Blades’; ‘If
You Had Seen the Bull's Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>7. Carly Rae Jepsen - ‘The Loveliest Time’</b> (Dance-Pop,
Nu Disco)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My way-too-early kneejerk reaction was that this is
Carly Rae Jepsen’s best output since 'Emotion (Side B)'. Yes, this supposed
B-side album is better than the Dedicated era, and better than ‘The Loneliest
Time’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That kneejerk reaction has not been tempered by the
winds of time, but rather has been solidified by the kind of conviction that
only comes from playing intoxicating pop music incredibly loud.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawg4IiE2Ipa-kFLuQ_3B5RV8GttizC4Nyk4kjL7ajD1NJQ6EEY0BKYHle9OaXjhdgeenU3b7xcIILEd7dzmXj1-hxHSSClcQqdsKZTnz5yEXrs-Cp98lnkh6sdn_9wUUlulKyPVoRr_EZL4LOm5ZfsLBs_BXMpBgOw_Qz6mLn-xQnVWC8IGV_2kxny1VF/s600/Carly%20Rae%20Jepsen.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawg4IiE2Ipa-kFLuQ_3B5RV8GttizC4Nyk4kjL7ajD1NJQ6EEY0BKYHle9OaXjhdgeenU3b7xcIILEd7dzmXj1-hxHSSClcQqdsKZTnz5yEXrs-Cp98lnkh6sdn_9wUUlulKyPVoRr_EZL4LOm5ZfsLBs_BXMpBgOw_Qz6mLn-xQnVWC8IGV_2kxny1VF/w200-h200/Carly%20Rae%20Jepsen.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The run through the middle of the album, starting with
‘Shy Boy’ and culminating with ‘Put It To Rest’ is as strong a 7-track run as
CRJ has had in her career, and aside from the obvious miss that is 'Aeroplanes'
(which is just a bit too syrupy for me, an already staunch poptimist), this
album is as consistent as anything she has ever released.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is the kind of album that makes CRJ’s fans no fun
to be around at parties. Rather than dancing gleefully to ‘Call Me Maybe’, we
are doomed to lament what could have been if she received the exposure and
public acclaim that output like this deserves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Kollage’; ‘Psychedelic Switch’; ‘Put It To Rest’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>8. HMLTD - ‘The Worm’ </b>(Rock Opera, Progressive Rock)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An album made by theatre kids who have reached an apex
of fame, for theatre kids who aspire to do the same. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What can truly be said of a rock opera about a man who
suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, burdened with the belief that a giant
worm has taken over medieval England and wreaking havoc wherever it slithers?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA63-4fbWMOpMFGQuF4Dxre9uHi9NN0KgNNCoAqYVRZi7FabBLzXiGIZfWTg3X2_sCdZKxNZWb7Ki6hKe85dAyBl46aFK3-vd_NU2M2EOKgSXHuAIUq5xgGa8OWM0knK0Gl7pXX-kxDp9SbhyphenhyphentfLnzUF5XHLOL-81slM5djmqNz00TrwjtLAAojCjpGo-d/s970/HMLTD.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="970" height="85" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA63-4fbWMOpMFGQuF4Dxre9uHi9NN0KgNNCoAqYVRZi7FabBLzXiGIZfWTg3X2_sCdZKxNZWb7Ki6hKe85dAyBl46aFK3-vd_NU2M2EOKgSXHuAIUq5xgGa8OWM0knK0Gl7pXX-kxDp9SbhyphenhyphentfLnzUF5XHLOL-81slM5djmqNz00TrwjtLAAojCjpGo-d/w200-h85/HMLTD.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> If that’s not captivating enough to cause even the
least curious of people to give ‘The Worm’ even a cursory listen, then they
simply cannot be helped.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oh and did I mention that they do a pretty good job
covering Nina Simone?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: ‘The End is Now’; ‘Liverpool Street’;
‘Past Life (Sinnerman’s Song)’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>9. MIKE - ‘Burning Desire’ </b>(Abstract Hip Hop, East
Coast Hip Hop, Vaporwave)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">MIKE (with the help of DJ Blackpower, MIKE's producer
alias) has created his enduring masterpiece. MIKE's career has been a story of
a rapper and producer going from strength to strength, coming out from under
the shadow of the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Wiki, Navy Blue, Ka and others in
the world of low-fi, drumless hip hop to revel in his own vaporwave world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhlo_aDBXEAo9DzbUzL7iKtLtyba3NOnXMaIAroMlZ61lw7TOwCJpQ_MZsbrmadlkIZgdSf_vcOg_X8tQOJwCAQu2Efx1XRzN0yYXVSNYHVbmv9U-XsDOlS_yPgqvFkhVs958LZZurfOwJUdthXy2AKJDycKQDkCgUmqvh06VzSKgsBCs6VolpOWvNMeo/s1200/MIKE.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhlo_aDBXEAo9DzbUzL7iKtLtyba3NOnXMaIAroMlZ61lw7TOwCJpQ_MZsbrmadlkIZgdSf_vcOg_X8tQOJwCAQu2Efx1XRzN0yYXVSNYHVbmv9U-XsDOlS_yPgqvFkhVs958LZZurfOwJUdthXy2AKJDycKQDkCgUmqvh06VzSKgsBCs6VolpOWvNMeo/w200-h200/MIKE.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> 'Burning Desire' plays like a soundtrack, comprising
of vignettes melding into each other rather than defined, individualistic
songs. Does that matter? When the music sounds this good, not one iota.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More nuanced, musically, then anything MIKE has
released before. An utterly triumphant album.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: 'African Sex Freak Fantasy' (picture Kanye
West's 'Hell of a Life', but not unlistenable ten years on); 'plz don't cut my
wings (feat. Earl Sweatshirt)'; 'What U Say U Are'.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>10. Yussef Dayes - ‘Black Classical Music’</b> (Jazz
Fusion, Jazz-Funk)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The best of Dayes' studio albums - his 'Welcome to the
Hills' live album still sits upon the highest peaks of any jazz recording
created in the last 5-10 years. A near-perfect blend of funk, jazz, soul, and
contemporary R&B.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8aWT1epBS52jNhshgthNspLj70hWcJGdkBkGkpji-aZXn7dTepdBNSdpyPDW31G5QSigGh_EEVVd3qdGowUUzuIVNUhIKpxjpaso49iZVMYE6l1efVmXdoQGk38k-HTsRc-7Z4TogPI5mYrW4pspteK4hlC9Q6q7EDouwUXTItNwmfRW3TckhS0Yo8nvc/s700/YussefDayes.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8aWT1epBS52jNhshgthNspLj70hWcJGdkBkGkpji-aZXn7dTepdBNSdpyPDW31G5QSigGh_EEVVd3qdGowUUzuIVNUhIKpxjpaso49iZVMYE6l1efVmXdoQGk38k-HTsRc-7Z4TogPI5mYrW4pspteK4hlC9Q6q7EDouwUXTItNwmfRW3TckhS0Yo8nvc/w200-h200/YussefDayes.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> ‘Black Classical Music’ is incredibly tight. Dayes is
one of the best jazz drummers in the world right now and, alongside Makaya
McCraven, has positioned himself in such a way that I, in 2030, would be
surprised to learn he hadn't dominated the entirety of the upcoming 2020s.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key Tracks: 'Black Classical Music'; 'Rust (feat. Tom
Misch)'; 'Tioga Pass (featuring Rocco Palladino)'.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Honourable Mentions:</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Caroline Polachek – ‘Desire, I Want to Turn Into You’
(Art Pop, Electronic, Downtempo);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – ‘PetroDragonic
Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the
Beginning of Merciless Damnation’ (Progressive Metal, Thrash Metal);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">McKinley Dixon – ‘Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?’ (Jazz
Rap, Conscious Hip Hop, Neo-Soul);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Róisín Murphy – ‘Hit Parade’ (Art Pop, Deep House,
Chicago Soul);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ – ‘Destiny’ (House,
Plunderphonics, Nu Disco).</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Favourite Debut Releases (not otherwise listed):</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nourished by Time – ‘Erotic Probiotic 2’ (Alternative
R&B, Bedroom Pop);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asia Menor – ‘Enola Gay’ (Indie Rock, Post Punk, Math
Rock);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">London Brew – ‘Londo Brew’ (Jazz Fusion, Avant-Garde
Jazz);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Model/Actriz – ‘Dogsbody’ (Noise Rock, Dance Punk)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maruja – ‘Knocknarea (EP)’ (Post-Rock, Art Rock)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Posthumous Praise:</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jamie Branch – ‘Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die
((World War))’ (Avant-Garde Jazz; Chamber Jazz);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ryuichi Sakamoto – ‘12’ (Ambient, Modern Classical);<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">bl4ck m4rket c4rt - 'Today I Laid Down' (Slowcore,
Slacker Rock)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This last one is particularly harrowing, as the artist
was only 17 years old.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-39441418173325353342023-12-10T13:00:00.000+13:002023-12-10T13:00:31.988+13:00Classic Album Review: Kraftwerk - Soest Live (2020) <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen’s been on a Kraftwerk trip, discovering
a hugely significant but largely unlistenable gem from deep within the German
band’s archives. Soest Live was a long celebrated YouTube clip, but in 2020, 50
years after the fact, the rudimentary recording got the full vinyl treatment …<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Following Kraftwerk’s stunning gig in Wellington late
last month – <a href="https://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2023/11/gig-review-kraftwerk-tsb-arena.html" target="_blank">which you can read about here</a> – it seems apt to delve into a live
album recorded more than half a century ago. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s only relatively recently that the show has been
rediscovered showing the band at a primitive point in their existence. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A Kraftwerk show in 2023 is of four men performing
behind synthesizers with computer-generated images and videos being shown on
large screens behind them. Other than sole survivor Ralf Hutter the performers have
changed often over the decades. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In November 1970, however, it was a vastly different
Kraftwerk that performed at a cramped venue in the town of Soest in Germany’s
northern industrial heartland as part of the local Winter Festival. The band’s line-up
consisted of Hutter, Florian Schneider-Esleban (as he was then known), and Klaus
Dinger, who would later form Neu! Hutter played organ and tubon, Dinger the
drums and Schneider-Esleban flute, violin and vibraphone. Everything then was
radically different from what the band would evolve into within a few years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW5__HKzthI_HXupx2xqwYeEAU4NCYA0foMoLRovNk0SdpfLMkeyNX_-JFBKIvQm-uVKcfiLz_CU-rTmxjeCI55S8XQ-Bwk5H_8-T63Zy9SaV6tATLWyRDOHD2JC1rvqq3vnYFxG7NmmARzeeaQwxIdD9RZVuy2I_dm3lbvbIDDOlXaGBR_Qxu8UcRxKb-/s916/Kraftwerk1970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="916" data-original-width="894" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW5__HKzthI_HXupx2xqwYeEAU4NCYA0foMoLRovNk0SdpfLMkeyNX_-JFBKIvQm-uVKcfiLz_CU-rTmxjeCI55S8XQ-Bwk5H_8-T63Zy9SaV6tATLWyRDOHD2JC1rvqq3vnYFxG7NmmARzeeaQwxIdD9RZVuy2I_dm3lbvbIDDOlXaGBR_Qxu8UcRxKb-/w275-h282/Kraftwerk1970.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Kraftwerk had only formed that year and had released
their eponymous album a few months before this gig. All four tracks from that
album were played this evening, and no other tracks made it onto the setlist.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As it was part of a festival, the performance was
captured on camera and shown on regional TV station WDR-TV. It is worth
investigating on YouTube especially to see the somewhat unusual layout of the
venue (clip below). The band was crammed into a corner as the almost entirely student/youth
audience sat awkwardly or stood passively facing the stage. A large screen is
to the right of the band and in front of that two old-style (ie. massive)
standing cameras pan in on the audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The gig begins with ‘Vom Himmel Hoch’ which starts slowly
and seems to be an attempt to replicate the sound of VW car trying to start up
on a cold winter’s morning while a swarm of bees fight to get out. Eventually, the
car starts and after eight minutes faces in the crowd that were showing bemusement
and confusion suddenly become interested. Some even clap along to the rhythm of
the beat. Someone in the crowd pulls out a whistle and blows it incessantly. English
pop and Californian rock this is not. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After 16 minutes of this, they flow into ‘Ruckzuck’ which
sees Schneider-Esleban let loose with his flute a la hippie rock band Jethro
Tull. Dinger, who was positively restrained for much of the opening track, is
now in his element, doing his finest Keith Moon impression. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Stratovarius’ is rockier, a little like one of the
proto-metal bands that had surfaced a couple of years earlier. It is purely
experimental, lacking in any melody at all, basically an amalgam of
unsynchronised sounds. A few minutes in, it begins to truly get weird with
Florian playing his violin in a manner that would have given a music teacher a
cardiac arrest. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The final track, ‘Megahertz’, is most akin to what
Kraftwerk would become a few years later with Hutter’s organ-playing and
Florian’s violin combining to create that renowned esoteric and magical sound. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This performance is a period piece that provides
little insight into the band that would release albums such as Autobahn and Trans
Europe Express. But it certainly also parades the immense talents and creative
minds of Hutter and Schneider-Esleban. Once they became a quartet with Karl
Bartos and Wolfgang Flur, they became a notable exponent of electro-pop that
influenced multitudes of artists such as Bowie, Soft Cell and Depeche Mode. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Neither Kraftwerk nor Kraftwerk II (1972) have been
officially re-issued and, if truth be told, if they were they wouldn’t
captivate the current audience due to their raw and experimental nature. They
would be of curious value only. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nevertheless, Soest Live merits listening (and viewing)
to see the massive developments the band would make in a relatively short time.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YF1B4smQL7s" width="320" youtube-src-id="YF1B4smQL7s"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-87535906002054061732023-12-06T20:45:00.000+13:002023-12-07T16:54:45.685+13:00Album Review: Vorn - The Late Album (2023)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">After reading the Will Not Fade blog’s
far more timely review of this album I was quite taken by something the author
noted in the review’s final paragraph about “imposter syndrome”. And although I’m
not sure those words are the precise words I’d have used, I got the point, and I
could relate to the dilemma.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s that sense you get when you feel ill-equipped
to critique the work of someone you admire. That feeling of inadequacy, and the
notion that whatever I wrote, no matter how honest, how insightful, or even how
witty I thought I was being, Vorn Colgan - musician, wordsmith, funny-man - could
have articulated it so much better himself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s all there in his songs, and if
you’ve ever had a chance to read Colgan’s own (far too irregular) written word
musings on his Vornography website … well, it’s enough to make you want to permanently
retire your own keyboard out of sheer frustration. Vorn Colgan knows how to create
a little bit of magic out of words. And he seems to be able to do so without much
effort at all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Writing words is one thing. Turning
them into a bunch of decent tunes is quite something else. What are we up to
now? Album number eight? Album number nine? And still so little mainstream
traction. Colgan probably couldn’t care less. His songs, after all, “are his
children”. There to be shaped, nurtured, and loved, and like any parent, his
starting point is just as likely to be “who bloody well cares what anyone else
thinks? … I love these snotty-nosed little bastards”.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgURbT_ygnjYiumLxc4FOAMapaEKpUzOe1qasqPgBmSo_CCewPCxdRDRqhxNWppBQXRyd1a7QvskjT0-Oy2iiBdioY3EsuXjBLDlXbcLRRKfNTQ9Tq96sE0V92FDA1bT_Bdz09d4ctB4XnkYXZOKCpgMgzQdvofQIltQsubNaXH4C7docIXTz4gzOSWP_uL/s700/VTLA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgURbT_ygnjYiumLxc4FOAMapaEKpUzOe1qasqPgBmSo_CCewPCxdRDRqhxNWppBQXRyd1a7QvskjT0-Oy2iiBdioY3EsuXjBLDlXbcLRRKfNTQ9Tq96sE0V92FDA1bT_Bdz09d4ctB4XnkYXZOKCpgMgzQdvofQIltQsubNaXH4C7docIXTz4gzOSWP_uL/w236-h236/VTLA.jpg" width="236" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The Late Album, of course, had long
threatened to be a posthumous release, given Colgan’s recent brush with cancer.
A fairly advanced stage of cancer too, if I have my facts correct. Yet all
through that, I’ve seen him out and about. Conducting pub/music quizzes as the
MC, playing music with a number of different “side-projects”, and as a one-man
grinning machine - armed with a walking stick, no less - up on the dancefloor
at Atomic retro nights at San Fran (venue). Not just surviving, but raging
against death in ways I simply couldn’t imagine. There’s a lot more to admire
than mere words.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Words are mostly what it is all about
though. Words and music. There’s some pretty great words on The Late Album, all
underpinned by the unique musical talents of Thomas Liggett (violin) and Nick
Brown (drums, percussion) who also support Colgan - who does a lot of everything
else - on vocals at various points. As Vorn, the band, this is a tight,
well-honed trio, operating at something close to a peak. Although, to be fair,
every new Vorn, the band, release across the past two decades has felt like a
peak.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Death is, naturally enough, a prominent
theme – the album opens with a track called ‘Fanfare For An Album That Beat
Terminal Cancer’ and closes with ‘A Dying Man’s Curse Be Upon You’ … the opener
being exactly what it says on the tin, a brief “fanfare”, while the closer veers
into faux-country-prog-hybrid territory. Several listens in, I still can’t
really make out the exact lyrics, but suspect its title rather gives the game
away.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Between those two bookends we get various
musical forms and a mix of genre, with the most common thread being that wicked
sense of humour in the lyrics. I’d be lying profusely if I said that ‘Aging
Hipster Blues’ and ‘Drug Friends’ didn’t, for my own sins, touch something of a
raw nerve. I laughed and I cried a little, simultaneously.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then there’s ‘Somebody Wrote A Prog
Song About The Internet And It Is (Flame emoji)’ … where to even start with
that little 6-minute-plus beastie? Sort of epic, a little bit Beatle-esque, with
chunks of pretend Black Sabbath, just for laughs. There’s definitely something quite
psychedelic about it, whatever the hell it’s supposed to be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Suffice to say, without going through all
of the individual highlights or trying to dissect each track, the two advance
singles - odd timings and breakdowns notwithstanding - ‘No Arms, No Chocolate’
and the covertly catchy ‘A Safe Pair of Hands’ are perhaps the most pop-friendly
tracks on the album.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All up, 13 tracks, a lot of hooks, a
solid baroque feel - another Vorn staple - thanks largely to the presence of
Liggett’s violin and other unusual instrumentation (um, a “banjolin”?), and
more than the odd morsel of humour, it’s another worthy addition to Vorn’s
ever-expanding musical legacy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just a note on that album cover: once
you’ve seen it as The Latex Bum, it becomes impossible to unsee it. With thanks
to the person who pointed that out … (I think).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can pick up a copy of <a href="https://vornpowertool.bandcamp.com/album/the-late-album" target="_blank">Vorn’s The Late Album here</a> (Bandcamp)</span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-17346215983424024702023-11-30T20:11:00.000+13:002023-11-30T20:11:03.856+13:00Gig Review: Kraftwerk @ TSB Arena, Wellington, 29 November 2023<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">You know that feeling you get when
you’re under the weather, functioning at less than one hundred percent, but
have an expensive ticket to a bucket list gig? You force yourself out and
simply hope for the best, well aware that it’s a bucket list gig you’ll
(likely) never again get a chance to tick off?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That was my dilemma last Wednesday evening
as I headed for Wellington’s TSB Arena to sate a lifelong desire to see
Kraftwerk up close and personal. I need not have worried too much, any fatigue
factor was partially mitigated by it being an all-seated event, and naturally Kraftwerk’s
arrival on stage soon made me forget about any of those initial concerns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There they were, almost within
touching distance. Four glowing figures. Standing behind their four customary
lectern-like structures. No other band* equipment in sight. And none required. 50-plus-years’
worth of cutting edge electronic musical innovation standing right there. Well,
founding member Ralf Hutter was there, at least, with support from three band*
members with considerably less time on the clock. It was Kraftwerk nonetheless.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">*are Kraftwerk a band? Discuss, show
workings where applicable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the German technocrats worked
through the opening phase of their set it immediately became obvious we were
about to hear something close to a “greatest hits” show - opening with
‘Numbers’, ‘Computer World’, and ‘Home Computer’ hybrids - and I couldn’t shake
the notion that much of this stuff was practically inter-planetary back in the
late 1970s and early 1980s when it initially surfaced.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pre-Microsoft, pre-Windows ’95,
pre-Apple, magnificence. And quite visionary when you stop to consider how relatively
peripheral to our day-to-day world that kind of technology would remain for at
least another decade.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The lightshow effectively amounted to
projections on the super-sized screen behind the stage, which was more than
enough, with each graphic or image perfectly synchronized with what we were
hearing. ‘Spacelab’ courted us momentarily with screen shots of Aotearoa and
Wellington itself, garnering an additional cheer from many, yet oddly provoking
an involuntary bout of inner cringe from yours truly (why does it always have
to be about “us”, huh? – Cynical Ed).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And it may have just been me, but five
tracks into it, when ‘The Man Machine’ launched itself upon us, it felt like
the gig suddenly took on another gear. Was it just a not-so-subtle increase in
volume? … or had the pill I didn’t take somehow just kick in? It wasn’t just me,
there was an immediate buzz all around me, and I felt sure the entire arena had
instantaneously lifted itself couple of feet off the ground, at the very least.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then the mid-set run: a veritable
feast of everything that’s great about technology, and perhaps, 1970s Germany –
visually and aurally … ‘Autobahn’, ‘Computer Love’, ‘The Model’ and ‘Neon
Lights’, followed immediately by the weightiness of the always relevant but
hopefully no longer quite-so-relevant ‘Radioactivity’, which ended with quite a
crunch. Deliberately or otherwise (ie. slight technical glitch?), the
bass-driven crescendo felt like it fair blew a hole in the very foundations of
the venue itself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Tour de France’ took us on a journey,
a retro-trip in fact, back to when the world existed only in black and white, whilst
simultaneously, musically, steering us well into the distant future. The less
familiar ‘Vitamin’ followed, before what might have been the only programming
or sequencing hiccup of the night, right at the start of a still quite
sensational ‘Trans-Europe Express’; it seemed for a moment as though one of the
quartet had briefly fluffed his lines, Hutter glancing sideways at the
offender, but no real damage was done.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">From there it was distinctly end-game
stuff, and the slow build in tension to that earlier mid-set mini-peak was
given wider context by a rush of pure unadulterated electro to end the show –
after the relatively sedate, but still glorious, ‘The Robots’ had given us the
calm before the climactic storm: a ‘Boing Boom Tschak’ / ‘Techno Pop’ /
‘Musique Non-Stop’ hybrid beast of a thing ending a show that will live long in
the memory.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No encore, none called for, and none
required. Everyone in that crowd had had their fill. And more. It was a gig
well worth getting off my woe-is-me lethargic arse for, and one truly befitting
the bucket list tag I’d long since given it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just a final word for Ralf Hutter
himself: that man is 77, yet he stood there for a full two hours directing
proceedings, amid the heat, the noise, the visual bombardment, and the pressure
to perform; singing, vocoder-ing (is that a thing?), and fiddling with all
manner of synthetic gadgetry. But at the end, there he was, the last man
standing. Remarkable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gig photos courtesy of <a href="https://www.nothingelseon.com/" target="_blank">nothingelseon</a>. With thanks.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzB9ku-zJ49t5rMkuFMlRoin1vAsgfDRi8ZR9ap1aiIhEpG7ltZvvvtSEl5oDmAzXGC4apdOWXiuAnA_ZH_u12JYSAn0iVLtRusu_GRrN-7wO9YoKJ4wH2qcKwLRQOF3yBDTroWQMbFgG5zZMmOkpEdNYKdFoyuPkVydoSgUYyVse1vQOkchi47RVpZ4R/s1440/K1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzB9ku-zJ49t5rMkuFMlRoin1vAsgfDRi8ZR9ap1aiIhEpG7ltZvvvtSEl5oDmAzXGC4apdOWXiuAnA_ZH_u12JYSAn0iVLtRusu_GRrN-7wO9YoKJ4wH2qcKwLRQOF3yBDTroWQMbFgG5zZMmOkpEdNYKdFoyuPkVydoSgUYyVse1vQOkchi47RVpZ4R/s320/K1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-43395094736434784612023-11-27T20:30:00.001+13:002023-11-30T18:43:26.900+13:00San Francisco Nights<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8G2H-TLjf2JQ9OQfbRGa0CE75MfJpI5aPsfan6RMgaDf5gp68trZEyl9W4CG4NUfH5KoyLXyaljFd-bVbeWExTBQrUJOtkUR1AQo1VPEyrLqJt-Yq6x82R5kdrCgtnumizZ6Fr1TValLUa8s1Hku9njnfwZqHYW9T1sqCyUKu34sv-ow4II7wn486x1E8/s464/SFBH.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="464" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8G2H-TLjf2JQ9OQfbRGa0CE75MfJpI5aPsfan6RMgaDf5gp68trZEyl9W4CG4NUfH5KoyLXyaljFd-bVbeWExTBQrUJOtkUR1AQo1VPEyrLqJt-Yq6x82R5kdrCgtnumizZ6Fr1TValLUa8s1Hku9njnfwZqHYW9T1sqCyUKu34sv-ow4II7wn486x1E8/s320/SFBH.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Last week
saw my latest contribution to local pop culture history site
<a href="https://www.audioculture.co.nz/articles/san-francisco-nights" target="_blank">AudioCulture published online (see here)</a>. This one was a little bit different.
This time around it wasn’t a “scene” piece or a band profile, it was the
history of a venue – San Fran in Wellington. A venue that has, a few times
across the past couple of decades, been on the brink of terminal closure. But
it always manages to survive and bounce back. It wasn’t strictly about San Fran either,
because I wanted to offer a brief overview or history of the premises itself as the
building located at 171 Cuba Street nears its one hundredth birthday. Which
also meant there was a lot of focus on the popular nightclub known as Indigo, the
building’s occupant at the turn of the century. This article sat unloved and unfinished in a "drafts" folder for more than three years as I tried to get some buy-in from a couple of people I desperately wanted to talk to, but never quite did. In the end, the "publish and be damned" option seemed the only way it would ever get to see the light of day. Anyway, click the link provided
above and see what you think. </span></div>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-74479833120703908092023-11-20T13:23:00.001+13:002023-11-21T12:45:57.309+13:00Words Fail Me: A former fanzine writer recalls his days writing fanzines<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Craig Stephen on a love of fanzines …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Bored, in between college courses, and with a desire
to be noticed, this writer hammered at his keyboard to come up with a string of
entertaining fanzines in the heyday of the format.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These A5 wonders were once an important part of the
underground media. They were a source of information for music fanatics with
music coverage restricted to the weekly newspapers which often bypassed certain
bands or genres to the annoyance of many.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In Britain, the black and white paper frenzy began in
earnest during punk, with titles such as ‘Ripped and Torn’ and ‘Sniffin’ Glue’,
which have virtually entered the mainstream as reference points, and have been
compiled into glossy books. As punk was overtaken by post-punk, indie and a
myriad of sub-genres, fanzines blossomed, often particular to certain bands or
the trend of the month.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In New Zealand, the likes of ‘Empty Heads’, ‘Push’,
and ‘Anti-System’ appeared while the Dunedin-based ‘Garage’ fanzine is
generally regarded as the daddy of them all, and has recently been compiled in
a big fat book costing $59.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My own experience of writing/editing fanzines began
while studying at university and with the hopes of having something to add to
my rather thin CV. They were an outlet for my writing ambitions as well as my
angsty, generally left-wing opinions. And they were also a vehicle to gently
annoy people, people who needed to be annoyed. Of course, those people would
never have actually read my zines, but that wasn’t the point.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdUhHW6bBVv6p4393K6U1qGOTzH6F1griz6L1lBxxS10dfff8Zs_MTDNAG_wMb-LohKevNWRcNT3m6RPzNalnAhhDKM67rywVdkGgwPFA4gmI6qFabPWJIw_Nf9lOEMNczPSX2rGDurHvdjmFvol8taMHlc3XHqzha1XEK_8L_8DHwvHLx9pMK7iWwZbC/s3938/FanzinesWFM2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3938" data-original-width="2778" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdUhHW6bBVv6p4393K6U1qGOTzH6F1griz6L1lBxxS10dfff8Zs_MTDNAG_wMb-LohKevNWRcNT3m6RPzNalnAhhDKM67rywVdkGgwPFA4gmI6qFabPWJIw_Nf9lOEMNczPSX2rGDurHvdjmFvol8taMHlc3XHqzha1XEK_8L_8DHwvHLx9pMK7iWwZbC/s320/FanzinesWFM2.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> The first zine was dedicated to the House of Love, and
was called ‘Se Dest’ after one of their album tracks. It was a
straight-down-the-line band-focused fanzine, with the emphasis on fan. It was
short and to the point. While it was strictly a one-off for me, I am pleased to
say that ‘Se Dest’ continues as an online publication in the hands of one of
the first people to buy that initial edition.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Nevertheless, my mind was more interested on the
broader music scene so I did a zine dedicated to the Festive 50, the
end-of-year chart of the year’s standout tracks which were aired on the John
Peel show during the Christmas break.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It appealed to the list-making side of my brain, and
while it was a straight compilation of annual charts from 1976, it had a great
title ‘The Recreant Cad’, and a cover star in Kenny Dalglish in a Celtic strip.
He wasn’t a cad, just my favourite player growing up. Dave Gedge of the Wedding
Present was a buyer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But the real deal were a series of zines that expanded
my musical interest. The first of these, ‘Words Fail Me’, featured a cover
drawn in the shape of a whisky bottle and had the words “established in 1997”.
The back cover had a map of Angus with my home town Montrose snap bang in the
middle.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The emphasis was on not taking myself seriously and to
write about subjects that mattered to the still young self. “There is basically
no limit to what can be discussed,” I wrote in my introduction trying to entice
would-be contributors.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzH-nShHe7jEYh_Nqhh9L7SdQ44zVPezpBUupAESR1eTD2G64tgq1b91Q9YaIM3frbYsaSMRbvaQ9GGRUd7-6utpubNgLW2FAa93M4g5uAHXRadm-4O1ae5e44Gu71uRuAzXGvYCYB1oFHKRMMJwhAIOpvJf76tdshmRDhb-RJelPwve2EqvBBP1YNm701/s1653/FanzinesTRC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1653" data-original-width="1180" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzH-nShHe7jEYh_Nqhh9L7SdQ44zVPezpBUupAESR1eTD2G64tgq1b91Q9YaIM3frbYsaSMRbvaQ9GGRUd7-6utpubNgLW2FAa93M4g5uAHXRadm-4O1ae5e44Gu71uRuAzXGvYCYB1oFHKRMMJwhAIOpvJf76tdshmRDhb-RJelPwve2EqvBBP1YNm701/w210-h295/FanzinesTRC.jpeg" width="210" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> So, the first article was entitled “Burn the NME” and
was a critique of the best-selling music weekly of the time. Just to
consolidate my dislike of the owners, editors and writers of that esteemed
publication, there was an article called Morrissey versus the Music Press in
which I both defended and pilloried the artist, and accused the music press
(and that being mainly the NME) of having a vendetta against Mozza. Clearly, I
had some internal issues with the music media at the time. Far more
constructive was the obituary for Billy MacKenzie of The Associates, a cribbed
interview from another fanzine of punk revivalists ‘S*M*A*S*H’, and some record
reviews.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The enthusiasm was there, though it’s debatable about
the quality. There is certainly a refreshing sense of dry and dark humour
throughout, and some of it couldn’t possibly see the light of day in the
current climate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second edition of ‘Words Fail Me’ is something I
am far more prouder of. There are interviews I conducted myself – of Travis
before performing one night in Sheffield, of Topper over the phone, Dave Gedge,
and Euros from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, who wasn’t in the mood to talk after the
band’s soundcheck but gratefully did so anyway. I stuffed up the recording of
the Topper interview, and after writing up what I recalled of the chat almost
immediately, made some stuff up based on what I knew of the band.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There were live reviews of acts performing in
Sheffield and Hull, and a piece on French arthouse movie Battle of Algiers.
Mates contributed short stories and there was a feeling that this was what a
fanzine should look like. It was still stapled together, the font types and
sizes are all over the place, and it contained several cut and glue pictures,
but it was a move forward.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKbv-LwcgQ0X2Yr1IXwZQIjnHGkN6q_1ktRevCMUkm7fnHtX0cDD32uO1F0WrNgqlTxmJzuGwJn6u3S_arQbW9NPOISUFnZ_ijNpk1BWmLJdLkiAhBoSy7l0T0GIdikbj3NAXY_PbvHkd6whAFjIf7_7yC8mDZOtjlzVI3GS9I5e5bNZnz_eLSW1ddCrZQ/s4000/FanzinesWFM1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="2825" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKbv-LwcgQ0X2Yr1IXwZQIjnHGkN6q_1ktRevCMUkm7fnHtX0cDD32uO1F0WrNgqlTxmJzuGwJn6u3S_arQbW9NPOISUFnZ_ijNpk1BWmLJdLkiAhBoSy7l0T0GIdikbj3NAXY_PbvHkd6whAFjIf7_7yC8mDZOtjlzVI3GS9I5e5bNZnz_eLSW1ddCrZQ/s320/FanzinesWFM1.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> The third of these zines was issued when I had moved
to Croydon in south London. It was not a suburb renowned for producing great bands
nor contained any venues of note, but had several excellent record stores
including Beanos, which was apparently the biggest independent record store in
Europe at the time. The best thing about it were the trains heading to central
London or in the other direction to Brighton.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Unfortunately, I can’t locate my own copy of this so
I’m unable to offer judgement on it, but I recall it being a continuation of
issue 2. It contained one of my own short stories (which I never want to read
again!) and a piece on American gangsta novelist Iceberg Slim.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But at this point, the work involved for modest sales
was draining, and a career in journalism was taking precedence. Meanwhile,
fanzines were being taken over by the phenomenon that was the internet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In 2023, there isn’t much need for printed music zines
with so many avenues online. The DIY cottage industry still exists, and recent
Zinefests in Wellington have been dominated by those focused on identity or
other personal issues, or comics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Some music fanzines exist in the UK where the football
zine is surviving via veteran publications such as ‘Not The View’ (Celtic) and ‘City
Gent’ (Bradford).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You hear that? That was this writer giving himself a
firm pat on the back, not due to an out-of-control ego, but for having the
motivation and commitment to do something that took an awful lot more work than
the finished product would suggest. I put it down to a start in a career that
has taken me to New Zealand, into radio and several quality publications, as
well as being a published author.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Long live the fanzine. If you know what I mean. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-73520157255553687432023-11-13T11:49:00.000+13:002023-11-13T11:49:27.846+13:00Gig Review: Kevin Bridges @ MFC, Wellington, 7 November 2023<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Walking into the Michael Fowler Centre last Tuesday
night I worried that I might already know all of Kevin Bridges’ best material.
I’ve seen so many online clips of the prolific comedian’s live performances across
the past decade or so, I feared it could be a night of few genuine surprises.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But that outcome, of course, would be completely at
odds with one of stand-up’s many unwritten rules; a new tour - in this case,
Bridges’ ‘The Overdue Catch-Up’ tour - is almost always about unveiling brand
new work. New stories, new jokes, and a bunch of fresh takes. A new tour is the
comedy equivalent of a musician or band releasing a brand new album.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqfiR7DWDcITVolGSv0bCUBhnpLZEGEN-8EWnh-uJ5O0OosYC-BdzkCrvYPOOGCFTtA70hWF0LhfkE1OMnwphc8j0bVPKSO9iZLrJQnTlzFpP8I7j5r4wFJ-H2auc_Vz6P7TSIRP8mMxmPEf4S5G2LPkDnB1BQ2pyZi4y0ea-IGiGuntTWY7WHQeKsbPM/s1080/KB2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="810" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqfiR7DWDcITVolGSv0bCUBhnpLZEGEN-8EWnh-uJ5O0OosYC-BdzkCrvYPOOGCFTtA70hWF0LhfkE1OMnwphc8j0bVPKSO9iZLrJQnTlzFpP8I7j5r4wFJ-H2auc_Vz6P7TSIRP8mMxmPEf4S5G2LPkDnB1BQ2pyZi4y0ea-IGiGuntTWY7WHQeKsbPM/s320/KB2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> I missed the Glaswegian funny man the last time he performed
in Wellington in 2017, but his reputation clearly proceeds him in this part of
the world, because he all but sold out the MFC (the kitset-like wooden interior
of the venue is “like a giant Ikea” according to Bridges), with a large portion
of the capital’s (and beyond) ex-pat Scottish community firmly in tow.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In fact, Bridges must have wondered what all the fuss
was about when he arrived on stage, just after a chorus of boos rang out around
the venue – on account of some jobsworth “security steward” having asked a
group of patrons to remove the large Saltire they’d hung from the front row of
the theatre’s second tier.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It turns out “Owen fae Dunfermline” was responsible
for that little piece of mischievous patriotism, and the Saltire soon
reappeared, exactly where it shouldn’t. Bridges quickly spotted it and
immediately had a little fun with Owen during the first segment of his set.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bridges loves a bit of banter with his audience, and
for the most part that’s one of the best things about his comedy. The
connection, the humanity, the cheeky-chappy persona, and the sense that he’s
really just an ordinary guy getting paid to share his close observations about
everyday life. But it doesn’t always work out, and it could be that on this
particular night, Bridges overestimated the intelligence of those he was about
to banter with.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a feature of the night, and not necessarily in
a good way. Pass marks and bouquets for Owen, and a “57-year-old” man who
challenged Bridges’ assertion that teenagers drink less these days, but a firm
brickbat to the clearly drunk English woman who kept wanting to involve herself.
“You’re a cunt” she yelled, to the appreciation of exactly nobody, before
Bridges reminded her - and perhaps himself, through gritted teeth - that he was
“a cunt she was paying money to see”.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And a brickbat to the guy wearing “the Cowboys” tee
who refused to engage, and perhaps an only slightly less violent gong for
Bridges’ selected “local” translator in the front row, who tried to engage but
evidently had issues speaking the language coherently.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sometimes audience engagement works out just fine and
adds to the flavour of the gig, but on this occasion it only seemed to leave
Bridges scratching his head and regretting it. At one or two moments,
particularly near the end, Bridges had to essentially beg rogue wannabe
participants to quieten down just so he could get to the end of his story.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Other than those unforeseen hiccups, Bridges was in
pretty good form. He reminded us that so much has happened in the six years
since he was last in Wellington, with warzones in Europe and the Middle East,
with Covid, and the small matter of him getting married and becoming a father
during that period.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Covid and its fall-out is ripe subject matter at
present naturally, and Bridges returned to it a few times during the course of
a set which also had gags around bullying, cancel culture, insomnia, social
media, technology and the internet, yet one of the biggest cheers - but not so
much for yours truly - was reserved for a tale about hemorrhoids which crossed
over nicely with an amusing observation about Instagram gym junkies.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now in his mid-30s, although he seems to have been
around a lot longer, Bridges also indulged in morsels of obligatory
self-deprecation, having a laugh at the boy and young man he was, while also
having a wee crack at his older present day self.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He managed around 80 minutes and was good value for
most of it, all unwanted interruptions aside. All of his gags were new to me, and
I suspect many of these stories will only get better, and probably even added
to, as the tour continues.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The opener/support slot was Londoner Carl Donnelly.
Not Carl Connelly, as the promo flyers suggested. Imagine getting a career
break to perform 12,000 miles from home as the support for a popular headline star
and the lazy marketing people only go and get your name wrong?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donnelly did a relatable and mostly funny 20-minute
set covering off his Irish heritage, his physical decline into middle age, and turned
his (and his partner’s) struggles with IVF into </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">a series of quips about wanking.
He looks like one to keep an eye on.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-48869511231358157882023-10-30T13:44:00.002+13:002023-11-13T10:36:24.407+13:00Classic Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - Back Again in the DHSS (1987)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen’s route to Biscuits fandom wasn’t
through the seminal debut album, <a href="http://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2019/05/classic-album-review-half-man-half.html" target="_blank">Back in The DHSS (which Craig reviews here)</a>,
but through its bastard sequel which was released after the band had split up due
to “musical similarities” …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Back Again in the DHSS is a compilation of sorts … in
the sense that it contains mostly new songs and some previously released
singles tracks. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The unreleased tracks are all taken from three
sessions for the John Peel Radio One show recorded and aired between November
1985 and September 1986. Peel was a huge fan and gave the band an audience that
could never be attained through droll mainstream daytime radio. It was crucial
that these tracks were given a release as every one of them is a gem. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEllGqx5MAi5uVgogVIKBwMQZsIxzREdHuwHoKbu8wTlhzX6nu1GnlzG5ogpoOsvI5V-U9OdFW_OoEezvt8zksGw8P8NRCF9cH412GTDE897o0K9cyo89LQETV4cQcchNw_Hv4xjOc_eNOfzLe12nCRUVyWefS3jw83SnyrxadL9-WtUGnNR_O36mCQSCr/s600/R-1022355-1521844509-1388.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="600" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEllGqx5MAi5uVgogVIKBwMQZsIxzREdHuwHoKbu8wTlhzX6nu1GnlzG5ogpoOsvI5V-U9OdFW_OoEezvt8zksGw8P8NRCF9cH412GTDE897o0K9cyo89LQETV4cQcchNw_Hv4xjOc_eNOfzLe12nCRUVyWefS3jw83SnyrxadL9-WtUGnNR_O36mCQSCr/w235-h234/R-1022355-1521844509-1388.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Take ‘Rod Hull is Alive … Why?’ for example. A death
has occurred (of a “doyen of topiary”) and the grieving
relative/friend/acquaintance asks why someone else couldn’t have died instead …
such as Rod Hull, the man famous in the 1970s and 80s for a double act involving
a toy emu. It would require a long and tedious explanation of the strange
workings of the British comedy system to elucidate why he/they were so popular.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Singer Nigel Blackwell manages to also incorporate Jacques
Laffite, The Wrekin, Helen Keller and the birch in one song. Again, and as ever
with the Biscuits, Google is your friend here. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">From that same Peel Session recorded in the British
autumn of 1986 came ‘I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’, to which my naïve
friend asked at the time what was a teenage armchair honved, as if it was some
sort of new appliance or sexual position only tried by S&M “enthusiasts”.
The answer was rather mundane, as Honved were a Hungarian football team. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eastern European football was also acknowledged on ‘All
I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit’. This is a particular
favourite for its references to Scalextric and the issues setting it up: “<span style="background: white;">But it always took about 15 billion hours to set the
track up/ And even when you did/ The thing never seemed to work</span>”, and
table-top football game Subbuteo. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Surely, this is greatest song about sport toys ever.
Another reference to European football of the 1970s is a magnificent merger of
the longest song title ever, and the most ridiculous club name: “<span style="background: white;">Supercalifragilisticborussiamönchengladbach”. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Biscuits were never a singles band per se, but ‘Dickie
Davies Eyes’, released in 1986 and almost a chart hit, of all things, was an
exception, and is included as are its two B-sides – ‘The Bastard Son of Dean
Friedman’ and … ‘Dukla Prague’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The A-side is a play on Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis Eyes’,
and is a familiar trick of the band – ‘Reasons to be Miserable (part 10)’ is a
tweak on Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3)’, while ‘Arthur’s
Farm’ is a play on George Orwell’s Animal Farm novel. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As well as referencing football - strictly a no-no at
the time - ‘I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’ excels primarily for the segue
into a section ruminating on where the song should go: “<span style="background: white;">Is this the bit where we're supposed to make guitars collide, and / Is
this the bit where we release all that raw energy, and / Is this the bit where
we go crashing through those barriers / Like what they do in music mags?!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Elsewhere we have references to
Siamese cats, a kitchen appliance manufacturer, spa towns, a disbanded English
football trophy, double glazing adverts, Turkish Delight, Roger Dean posters, Arthur
Askey and dozens more. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Back Again in the DHSS, like all HMHB
albums, mimics those institutions almost sacred to the English: B-list
television stars and their gimmicky shows, small-town life, sport outside the
top leagues, life in cul-de-sacs, and working-class eccentricities. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And to think that these songs were
hidden away on Peel Sessions, played late at night, with only insomniacs and
students listening in. Releasing it in 1987 as I reached out to the Jesus and
Mary Chain and Echo & The Bunnymen was perfect timing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Most of this album was released two
years later with a host of live tracks as ACD. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-7485436753110302192023-10-23T17:44:00.002+13:002023-10-24T06:28:22.873+13:00Gig Review: Dennis Bovell @ Meow, Wellington, 21 October 2023<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I had no idea what to expect when I
rocked up to Meow on Saturday night for the Dennis Bovell gig. Would it be a simple
DJ set, or a performance set from the prolific UK dub producer? I was not
fussed either way, and as it happened, it turned out to be a little bit of
both.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The truth is, as an MBE-toting
70-year-old master of his craft, Bovell can do whatever the hell he wants. He
has nothing left to prove. The man’s a legend within dub and reggae circles,
and the vast majority of us present - the venue was around seventy percent full
- were there simply to share the same rarified air as Dennis Bovell. To be in
the same room. And to bask in the privilege of it.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8wvoeQoYuZ0uJCmOtf1JWNreABU5_Y_HVbKMw1emiKJT-Nxol6Er1UF1sNrYDzW92sFlPzxw2KnZaof0V-74AWUdTZ__L31NX6dOfyDqneSSanbYDeCEGcRf91GBzRQKfM33LnyTt-oy0yGkAgDPXwdG3TSmXiHVFRxDMaN-JPDpD6GNl9rSqxaQeS1W7/s4032/Bovell2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8wvoeQoYuZ0uJCmOtf1JWNreABU5_Y_HVbKMw1emiKJT-Nxol6Er1UF1sNrYDzW92sFlPzxw2KnZaof0V-74AWUdTZ__L31NX6dOfyDqneSSanbYDeCEGcRf91GBzRQKfM33LnyTt-oy0yGkAgDPXwdG3TSmXiHVFRxDMaN-JPDpD6GNl9rSqxaQeS1W7/s320/Bovell2.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">So we got Bovell the selecta, Bovell the
toaster, Bovell the performer, and morsels of Bovell the man, especially on
those almost stream-of-consciousness moments when - often mid-track - he decided
to share a short anecdote or memory with us. Which was more than occasional,
and this gig was easily one of the more artist-chat-friendly interactive sets I’ve
attended.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Musically it was mostly about Bovell
playing selected tracks he’s been associated with across his long and fruitful
career. Whether that involvement was as a vocalist, as a guitarist/musician, or
more commonly, as a producer. He’d play those tracks, toast over the top, freestyling
along, spontaneously singing the intro to one tune, or joining in on another
song mid-chorus or part way through. It appeared random and unplanned, carefree
and unproduced, which very much added to its charm.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a selector, Bovell has impeccable
taste. A taste honed by years of grassroots involvement with his genre of
choice. His set was a hybrid concoction of reggae, rocksteady, ska, soul, and
dub.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You know the drill: a selection of big
bottom-heavy bass-driven tunes that at times had the venue shaking at its structural
core. The best of which, for me, included tunes from Toots, Sly & Robbie,
Gregory Isaacs, and Dennis Brown. But there was plenty for everyone.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZssTBBwWg4Ubg5v3QCPgfi4eMRaFC_hXuvDwiYqNIgMfBzbacTh_7_nbYWUVe-8yc92kumYVcJ2O2SvgRwsRvsp10a_05q8Zqx8LwfxIpol8iHLsZVPBCW0bR52qJ-dxuXeBxtKzUZjqBnb3thwtKM278d6FP6cvvHkIUPdLvMcJdrTzIad4fmHpK-X_/s1220/Bovell1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1220" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZssTBBwWg4Ubg5v3QCPgfi4eMRaFC_hXuvDwiYqNIgMfBzbacTh_7_nbYWUVe-8yc92kumYVcJ2O2SvgRwsRvsp10a_05q8Zqx8LwfxIpol8iHLsZVPBCW0bR52qJ-dxuXeBxtKzUZjqBnb3thwtKM278d6FP6cvvHkIUPdLvMcJdrTzIad4fmHpK-X_/s320/Bovell1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was a cool story about how Bovell
had beefed up and reggae-fied a Sade track from the artist’s Soldier of Love
album, after Sade herself had requested it upon sending Bovell the vocal stems.
And there was some high praise for a kindred spirit of sorts, Linton
Kwesi-Johnson, when offering up an LKJ gem he’d collaborated on.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We even got the odd Matumbi track,
with Matumbi of course being the UK-based 1970s reggae act which gave Bovell his initial exposure.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The dub production and technical side
of Bovell’s wider skillset was far less obvious - mostly only identifiable with the odd tempo or pitch change, and there wasn’t much in the way of the extra
effects or wizardry Bovell would otherwise have at his fingertip disposal inside
a studio.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was later informed Bovell played for
“three hours” or more, but my own lethargy and relative sobriety meant I managed
only around two hours of the set, happy enough just to have experienced Bovell
up close and personal, even if only briefly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-67448069830674872972023-10-19T22:47:00.002+13:002023-10-20T13:05:34.898+13:00Classic Album Review: Guy Chadwick - Lazy, Soft & Slow (1998)<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen looks at House of Love frontman Guy
Chadwick’s all too easily overlooked solo debut … <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Is it today I’m going crazy, come and help me lose
my mind, who knows what we might find, maybe ourselves.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So begins Lazy Soft and Slow, and with it the start
of Guy Chadwick’s solo career, a project that promised so much but petered out
rather abruptly and would ultimately be a one-album adventure. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The story up to this point is this: the House of
Love fizzled out following the underwhelming Audience With the Mind in 1993,
and Guy attempted new projects in The Madonnas and then Eye Dream, neither of
which managed to take off. However, The Madonnas’ gigs had featured a number of
new songs, which would later find a new lease of life on the solo album,
notably ‘Crystal Love Song’ and ‘One of These Days’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The logical next move for Chadwick was to establish
himself as a solo artist. Could he become a Julian Cope who’s post Teardrop
Explodes career was startlingly successful for a decade-and-a-half, or would
the project go the way of Ian McCulloch’s?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_7gcUrF7f1VPrVqRaogV8VKqX34KUV-bgwFs5uXChiMhnpsmQ96Y_kOgJK3sFVptcR4wrcpa8PrNcBZQrA6Z3x0doq_Ci2t2WU4tnMlSN1NoRESdtwybJkHBsxGD4klgIEY3LiUJ7tDDXNOJwo1swkJeMHc0LgkNKtASM8qNCqKL0O4oNQT1jkScuUPz/s500/GC.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_7gcUrF7f1VPrVqRaogV8VKqX34KUV-bgwFs5uXChiMhnpsmQ96Y_kOgJK3sFVptcR4wrcpa8PrNcBZQrA6Z3x0doq_Ci2t2WU4tnMlSN1NoRESdtwybJkHBsxGD4klgIEY3LiUJ7tDDXNOJwo1swkJeMHc0LgkNKtASM8qNCqKL0O4oNQT1jkScuUPz/w221-h221/GC.jpg" width="221" /></span></a></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just getting to this stage had taken a considerable
effort with Keith Cullen of Setanta Records instrumental in prompting the evidently
reticent frontman to record an album. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, over four years after the band split, Chadwick
was ready and motivated to do his own thing. Country music and Leonard Cohen
were on the speakers in the house at the time and inevitably rubbed off during
the writing and recording sessions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Suitably, an acoustic guitar was used for the demo
sessions. The intention was to go back to a more mellow, softer sound - as the
title testifies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins was roped in as Chadwick’s
producer and mixer, with Giles Hall the engineer. Guthrie was the perfect choice:
Chadwick didn’t want to make a House of Love record, while Guthrie didn’t want
to make a Cocteau Twins record. Two birds, one stone, as it were. Guthrie would
also play bass on the new album.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first fruits of Lazy, Soft & Slow was the
single ‘This Strength’, released in November 1997, backed by ‘Wasted In Song’
and ‘Faraway’. The latter B-side also featured on the album, re-recorded and
slightly shorter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A few months passed, bypassing the traditional
compilation and big star albums for Christmas and the January fallow period. Then,
in February 1998, Lazy Soft & Slow was piled onto record store shelves. Since
this was a period when CD was king, there was no LP version. Sadly, that
remains the case. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is not an album that jumps out of the speakers on
first listen, or even the second. It’s for those moments when you don’t want
robust vocals, or amped-up guitars. It requires the kind of mood as you would be
in for a Nick Drake album. ‘Close Your Eyes’ and ‘One of These Days’ fit very
much into the aura of the album; languid and beautifully written songs with final
track ‘Close Your Eyes’ taking the listener into a hypnotic state.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are, however, some more athletic tracks,
notably ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold of Me’, which celebrates a strong relationship
as Chadwick paints a picture of that special someone. “I’m a passenger on a
ship of dreams, on a course of love, I think I’m going down.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There’s a surprise version of Iggy Pop’s ‘Fall In
Love With Me’ which first appeared on 1977’s Lust For Life. The original is
upbeat, captures the essence of 1970s decadent west Berlin, and has the magical
Bowie touch – he co-wrote it after all. Chadwick strips it back by a more than
two minutes (gasp!), and turns it into a campfire and toasted marshmallows type
of song. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With such ravishing words throughout Lazy, Soft
& Slow, Chadwick was reminding the world that he was one of the most
talented writers of the era. Of any era, in fact. The entire album displays his
knack for lyricism, and despite perhaps not having the dry humour of Morrissey,
Chadwick matches the moody, and sadly now conspiracy theorist extraordinaire
Mancunian, for captivating vernacularism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If I’m honest, Lazy, Soft & Slow is an album I
have jumped into less regularly than the House of Love albums. Partly due to it
needing a certain state of mind, but also because vinyl is now played more
commonly to my cat and child.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is something that needs to be rectified. Many
CD-only releases of the 1990s and noughties have been given the vinyl
treatment. So should LSS.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it’s an odd one and it may not be to everyone’s
taste, but with it being out of print since 1998, surely someone in the world
of music can give it another airing, complete with outtakes, B-sides and
what-have-yous. It deserves nothing less. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-17921376937335029122023-10-18T20:27:00.003+13:002023-10-19T15:52:54.780+13:00Boots and Bombs<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you’re a
regular everythingsgonegreen reader then the chances are you’ll be reading a lot
of Craig Stephen’s words and not so many of my own (as the actual “supposed”
blogger). I hope one day to reclaim the blog as my own but in the meantime,
Craig’s doing just fine. As I’ve said previously, Craig takes the page places I
wouldn’t dare to take it, simply because his knowledge of indie or alternative music
is varied and vast, whereas my own is somewhat more limited and mostly retro pop-based.
He’s the windswept and interesting one. I’m the lazy boring one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anyway,
Craig’s just finished writing a book about New Zealand football called Boots
and Bombs. It focuses on the New Zealand national team’s visit to war-torn
Vietnam in 1967, to play in a football tournament, during the height of the
Vietnam war (!), but it also offers a potted history of the code in New
Zealand. I did some proofing, fact-checking, and research for the book, and
offered Craig encouragement along the way – in addition to our mutual love of
music, we also share a passion for the beautiful game. And since the book’s
publication a little over a month ago, I’ve also been helping him out with some
promotional stuff in a sort of auxiliary publicist capacity. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As part of
that, I submitted a review of the book to a website called Friends of Football,
a site which can rightly claim to have the widest reach of any website that concerns
itself with football in this otherwise god-forsaken rugby union-obsessed land we
call Aotearoa. It certainly seems to have the most active local social media
presence. Since Craig has been doing almost all of the recent heavy-lifting for
everythingsgonegreen, I thought it only fair that I reproduce that book review
here:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfWZ_cqhRu5yZiVFOJz9aiemgz5psxoKimmSFXwOwteJb6JdqT7xsfQ_JHatcBTbGKoTssO6DJcYXKurzumh5lhfiD0WMGOCSr4H6gipidqbb6DBKvzHvKOuoxxPw_6nNjWAJWevcq9ECQIRj5tutDTBQJrfBDvzuRfePc79pli3xtw5ThNVDwkvS5tjlG/s890/BnB.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="890" data-original-width="546" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfWZ_cqhRu5yZiVFOJz9aiemgz5psxoKimmSFXwOwteJb6JdqT7xsfQ_JHatcBTbGKoTssO6DJcYXKurzumh5lhfiD0WMGOCSr4H6gipidqbb6DBKvzHvKOuoxxPw_6nNjWAJWevcq9ECQIRj5tutDTBQJrfBDvzuRfePc79pli3xtw5ThNVDwkvS5tjlG/s320/BnB.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><i><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Friends
of Football Book Review: Boots and Bombs ‘a bloody good yarn’</span></span></i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A
newly-published book explores the state of football in rugby-mad New Zealand in
the 1960s and 1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Boots
and Bombs: How New Zealand football grew up in the 1960s and 70s, by Craig
Stephen (2023, ISBN 978-0-473-67266-9).<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Reviewed
by Michael Hollywood<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1967…
the year of Sgt Pepper and the original summer of love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The year
of decimalisation and the introduction of our dollar. The year we mercifully
stopped dishing out free milk in New Zealand schools.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The year
our feted All Blacks became the first team to complete a grand slam-winning
tour of Britain since the great invincible side achieved the same feat way back
in 1924.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And it
was the year, somewhat incredibly, when a group of largely amateur footballers
from New Zealand were sent into the heart of war-torn Vietnam to represent
their country in a football tournament.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Life was
clearly very different in 1967.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You
could say it was another world, and it’s a world revisited in some detail in
Boots and Bombs, a new book by first-time author Craig Stephen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A book
that has that Vietnam trip at its core, and it’s quite some tale.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
notion of playing international football in war-ravaged Saigon while battles
raged all around the South Vietnamese capital is worthy of analysis in itself,
but that part is merely an otherwise scarcely-documented centerpiece for the
book, or one part of a much bigger story; the story of how New Zealand football
finally came of age.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1967 is
simply the focal point of that wider story, not just for the drama surrounding
the Vietnam excursion, but because it represents the year the national team
played its first full international fixtures in five long years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a
kick-start, if you will. It was also the year of other tours of interest to
these shores — by soon-to-be European champions Manchester United and the visit
of a Scottish FA selection.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Plus
there’s some coverage of that year’s trip to New Caledonia, which rather
curiously coincided with the Saigon tournament, and featured a second national
team made up of an entirely different squad.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You wait
years for a municipal transport bus, and then two arrive simultaneously.</span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Highlights
include the chapter on the disastrous and questionable 1964 World tour (no full
internationals played).<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Coverage
of the various British clubs who toured here during the period, especially
across the 1970s. Coverage and comment around the evolution of club football in
New Zealand. Critique and analysis of our three pre-1982 World Cup qualifying
campaigns, a forlorn process which commenced in 1969 with New Zealand’s first
attempt to qualify for the world game’s global showcase.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And, of
course, for an unrepentant anorak like myself, Stephen’s potted history of the
code here, across the early chapters, is invaluable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We tend
to view history through rose-tinted glasses, and it can often be difficult for
younger generations to really comprehend how different things used to be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Small
things like leading footballers being forced to work in their day jobs on the
day of a big game so as not to lose income.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Footballers
paying their own way, absorbing their own travel costs, and buying their own
kit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anecdotes
around coaching, and coaches — there’s a tidbit or two around the
eccentricities of national coaches like Juan Schwanner and Lou Brozic — that
illustrate both the extreme gulf, and at times, the fine line, between
amateurism and professionalism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We
already know all about 1982, and about 2010; those stories don’t need to be
told again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And no
book can possibly cover the same amount of ground or level of detail that
mainstream media and indeed, social media, offer to today’s All Whites.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So it’s
perhaps no surprise that Boots and Bombs wraps things up around 1982 or at the
very least the early 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Stephen’s
book is all about how we got there, not to Spain specifically, but the journey
to credibility itself through the 1960s, through the formation of the sport’s
first-ever National League, and right through the 1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It
provides a snapshot of history, and as ever, the really good oil is in the
grassroots, the local, and the peripheral.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Local
football luminaries such as Earle Thomas (who writes the foreword), Brian
Turner, Dave Taylor, Owen Nuttridge, John Legg, Ray Mears, Alan Sefton, Paul
Rennell, and coaching guru Barrie Truman all contribute extensively to Boots
and Bombs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Along
with many others — too many to mention in a single review. Offering reflection
and tales from those who were there is priceless, more so given their advancing
years and the inevitable decline in access we’ll have to their words of wisdom
in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bombs
and Bombs offers both context and perspective around all of those things. It is
a compelling resource for history obsessives, every bit as much as being a
bloody good yarn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Stephen
employs an easy, almost conversational writing style, and at just short of 250
pages, Boots and Bombs is a very digestible read.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There’s
a decent photo section with a few gems relevant to the stories, and the era
overall, and this book will appeal not only to local football fans but to
football fans of all tribal colour and creed, whatever their poison.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Recommended.</span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This review was originally published here: <o:p></o:p></span><a href="https://www.friendsoffootballnz.com/2023/10/15/book-review-boots-and-bombs-a-bloody-good-yarn/">Book review: Boots and Bombs 'a bloody good yarn' - Friends of Football (friendsoffootballnz.com)</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can read an excerpt from the book here: <o:p></o:p></span><a href="https://www.friendsoffootballnz.com/2023/10/15/special-feature-the-teenage-all-white-left-to-die-in-a-war-zone-hospital/">Special feature: The teenage All White left to die in a war-zone hospital - Friends of Football (friendsoffootballnz.com)</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can purchase the book here: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span><a href="https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/books/non-fiction/sport/soccer/listing/4364125842">Boots and Bombs: How New Zealand football grew up in the 1960s and 70s | Trade Me Marketplace</a></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-28955187290725233552023-10-16T12:20:00.032+13:002023-10-19T15:54:36.410+13:00Classic Album Review: Transglobal Underground - Psychic Karaoke (1996)<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig
Stephen revisits a lost classic …</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s
the mid-90s, and the British and international media are all over the
phenomenon that has been labelled Britpop. Oasis and Blur have battled for the
number one spot, Pulp are unlikely glam stars, and any band with a guitar and a
love of The Beatles are being played ad nauseum on mainstream radio.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What
chance has a band like Transglobal Underground got?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Playing
diverse sounds from South London to South Asia in a variety of languages, they
can’t be dubbed “retro opportunists”. That may have been too much of a
challenge for the music critics of the time.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
the midst of this Britpop banality, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Psychic
Karaoke</span> was released and was easily one of the albums of its year. It
shouted at the Britpop bands and their media lackeys: “this is the future”.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrG0lKjpmbk9XZZa5A7pHTbsYWcRrnSb9hOzRckj9sjMnHTdaSfNuqq5ZXQBJUqacxWWCQYDF8aa5fFarYoViOl5I0azwdt6JtCr3-daMFQZmhfdBsP7mbrp-4V8JJnGfVKH4DA2d6twN6iq3Vx9DjfGtReX6iPkakpShIg0JExQqOH6nP_f3_hM6hYuJ/s600/TGU.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrG0lKjpmbk9XZZa5A7pHTbsYWcRrnSb9hOzRckj9sjMnHTdaSfNuqq5ZXQBJUqacxWWCQYDF8aa5fFarYoViOl5I0azwdt6JtCr3-daMFQZmhfdBsP7mbrp-4V8JJnGfVKH4DA2d6twN6iq3Vx9DjfGtReX6iPkakpShIg0JExQqOH6nP_f3_hM6hYuJ/w215-h212/TGU.jpg" width="215" /></span></a></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I
picked up the album on sale in Auckland and played it a little in the City of
Sails before heading to Fiji. On a relatively remote island group it was on a
regular spin cycle as it served as the perfect soundtrack to a country full of
culture, friendly people, pristine beaches and palm trees. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Psychic Karaoke</span><span style="color: black;">, TGU’s fourth album, released
on Nation Records and entirely self-produced, evokes visions of the </span><span style="color: #191919; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Middle East and India with electronic
rhythms and atmospherics.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: #191919; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It
serves up cinematic textures and global grooves, mixing dance-friendly exotica,
that utilised tablas, dhols, ouds, and djembe as well as guitar, violin/viola
and cello. It features the magnificent voice of Egyptian-Belgian superstar
Natacha Atlas and British-Asian singer Nawazish Ali Khan.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: #191919; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hip-hop,
dub, electronica, pop, and art rock are all here - and more.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #191919; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"></span><span style="color: #191919; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">The
seven-minute ‘Chariot’ is the
entry point to Psychic Karaoke.
It’s a magnificent, meandering track featuring </span>Middle Eastern percussion, a
string section and breakbeats. It’s not until the three minute mark that Atlas
comes in, working in tandem with an English language pseudo rap. It sounds like
there’s far too much going on here, but it works and the instruments add an
extra exotic element.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: #191919; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Atlas
performs on half of the 12 tracks, a favourable number as she had released her
debut solo album Diaspora the year before and her solo projects have
significantly diminished her ability to record with TGU, and the various other
artists she has collaborated with.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One
of the tracks she doesn’t appear on is ‘Scully’ towards the end of the album. Instead,
TGU’s Neil Sparkes takes on vocal duties and has a style similar to Barry
Adamson, which is uncanny as part of one line is “Something wicked this way
comes”, which happens to be the title of a track from Adamson’s <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Oedipus Schmoedipus</span> album released
the year before. It may well be a homage to the Mancunian singer, but they are very
different songs.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Transglobal
Underground have released many albums since 1996, all exploring different
musical elements, cultures and genres. Some have worked and some haven’t but
respect is due to a band that works outside the box. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-87972201161313736602023-07-31T10:21:00.002+12:002023-08-10T13:26:57.979+12:00Album Review: The Chats - Get Fucked (2022) <p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen on fair
dinkum lucky country battlers, The Chats …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Three middle fingers
directed at the camera on the cover. A title with a naughty word. A back cover
with a schoolboy-esque penis picture. And the c-word dropped mid-song. Yes, The
Chats tick all the boxes of renegade bovver boys/bogan rebels with badly-strung
guitars and home-made haircuts.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yet, I’ve never quite
twigged since I discovered The Chats about four years ago as to whether this
Brizzy trio are middle class rogues pretending to be from the tougher end of
town to annoy their parents (while making money to invest in metals) or genuine
working-class ruffians ruffling a few feathers (while making money to invest in
beer n cigs). I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the
latter. They’re Australian, after all, a land where not giving a damn is the virtual
national ideology. And it’s hard to be a Tarquin or a Hugo and be serious with
a pudding bowl haircut or a love of souped-up boy racer motors.</span></p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Which brings us to the
opening track of second album Get Fucked, named after a car, ‘6L GTR’. It’s
brief and fast – pretty much like all Chats songs – and eschews a love of the
road. Just a shame about all those cars on the road too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Pulled in at Beefy’s/
Got a steak and cheese/ Hoonin' down the Bruce now/ As fast as I please/ Late
arvo congestion/ Every day’s the same/ So I pulled left around 'em/ And drove
up the bike lane.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1QQK4zI4fKE3-GEsM8_IjwHbmjbwkKb8NDuCrKniCmXpGGlLhquOpcjgBiLMNUlSzvDlCaQ8ttNSqlE1tE7TklyxBJP5dF-_fuKngTcSiYFuq6vOukCTH6Vwllr4x1chd8atmUSMybfJ78OBNESpLHhBqxfsFrxvcz5VjVvP6WlwL-Y1i2IUBXpdoL2ZJ/s567/chats%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="567" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1QQK4zI4fKE3-GEsM8_IjwHbmjbwkKb8NDuCrKniCmXpGGlLhquOpcjgBiLMNUlSzvDlCaQ8ttNSqlE1tE7TklyxBJP5dF-_fuKngTcSiYFuq6vOukCTH6Vwllr4x1chd8atmUSMybfJ78OBNESpLHhBqxfsFrxvcz5VjVvP6WlwL-Y1i2IUBXpdoL2ZJ/w267-h263/chats%20(2).jpg" width="267" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Ah, that wonderful
Chats sense of humour, which seemed lost when they lost a guitarist by the name
of Josh but brought in another Josh to replace him. It’s still there and in top
gear. There’s the tale of a jobsworth ‘Ticket Inspector’ on that eponymous
track, a man (presumably) who lives to catch out the larrikins trying to escape
his clutches and catch a ride for gratis. “Short fuse, I'm 'boutta lose it/ Got
a bit of power, ain't afraid to abuse it.” And you know he certainly will.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the debut album High
Risk Behaviour (2020) they revelled in being lager louts on such songs as ‘Drunk
and Disorderly’, and continue the trend on ‘I’ve Been Drunk in Every Pub In
Brisbane’. I imagine in a city of 2.4 million people that that would be a
considerable achievement. It sounds like a challenge worth taking up. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I've been legless
at the Breakfast/ After a few they told me to leave/ I've been banned
at the Grand Central Hotel/ And I've been pissed like you wouldn't
believe/ I love relaxin' at the Caxton/ But they never like the look of
me/ I've been off my face at the Stock Exchange/ They gave me a couple
beers for free.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘The Price of Smokes’
meanwhile turns to the art of the ciggie. There’s pretty much two refrains in
the entire song – one, the price of smokes is going up again, and secondly, the
conclusion that “Those bastards in parliament ought to be hung by their necks.”
Other than a lament to poor workplace safety on ‘Dead On Site’, it’s pretty
much the only outreach to modern toils and troubles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Clocking in at about
half an hour it’s not going to challenge the concentration-lagging youth among
us, but its 13 songs are sharp, pointed and frantic. You get your money’s
worth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an age of insipid
music in which middle class values are to the fore, it’s refreshing to have my
ears blasted about alcohol, grunty cars and fighting. You don’t have to empathise
with any of that to appreciate that The Chats play it their way: it’s part
punk, part old style rock and perhaps even a bit of pub rock too. It’s also
very much of a recent Australian trend, in line with similar contemporary bands
like Amyl and the Sniffers and Drunk Mums. In an age of mediocrity and
blandness in the music scene, that’s pretty much all you can ask for. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-58993033860805630242023-06-20T22:23:00.009+12:002023-06-21T16:29:59.316+12:00Blog Update and some Linky Love<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Contrary to outward appearances, this blog isn’t dead.
It has merely been on extended sabbatical. A bit like Monty Python’s legendary
parrot, I’ve been resting. Pining for the fjords. A sabbatical which began in
early 2022, interrupted only by the odd gig review and the irregular – but
thoroughly welcomed – contributions of my good friend Craig Stephen.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Thanks Craig. I appreciate your enthusiasm and those
album reviews. As on-point and insightful as those reviews have been, I’ve been
struggling with the idea of adding any of my own; in these days of
free-music-for-all and a surplus of streaming services, does anyone really need
to know my opinion on any specific album or artist when they can listen
elsewhere and preview it themselves? And besides, Craig takes the blog places I
wouldn’t have the nous to go … which can only be a good thing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In terms of adding any other sort of post, beyond
those gig reviews, I’ve also become quite lazy in my dotage, and truth be told,
I probably need something resembling a rocket to get my own arse into gear.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I’ve actually been a little in awe of Craig’s capacity
to keep finding words. As if having a day job in the media wasn’t enough, in
addition to contributing to everythingsgonegreen and multiple other
publications, he’s also found the time to write a book on New Zealand football
(near completion, publication pending) called ‘Boots and Bombs’. The book’s
central theme is the New Zealand national team’s hugely unlikely but scarcely
documented trip to Vietnam in 1967. To take part in a football tournament. In
the middle of a warzone. In Saigon, with the Vietnam war raging at something
close to its horrific peak. Quite a thing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I have had some involvement with that project – making
connections, doing research, and doing some editing. It feels like I’ve read
and re-read raw work-in-progress versions of the manuscript a dozen times. It
is, admittedly, fairly niche subject matter, but football is a shared passion of
ours, as is history, and it has (mostly) been a pleasure to help him out where
I could.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAGEt1LglncDGI-T_4eUbQzAljz3kfOOXJRU5OkjqSIR48KtIhffwXjGgwGXtKdsluSASgJkZzGKXEWCDXEk-LGs-MSvCrChE9G7P9X4jsGXLge4MgALHdNoJklzXG0X2EPew7DGvT0r3O3si3L0JP4FsZBuYev3-9mv3qTpWG6qbaoOIiytp8T3trlbO/s1600/Blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHAGEt1LglncDGI-T_4eUbQzAljz3kfOOXJRU5OkjqSIR48KtIhffwXjGgwGXtKdsluSASgJkZzGKXEWCDXEk-LGs-MSvCrChE9G7P9X4jsGXLge4MgALHdNoJklzXG0X2EPew7DGvT0r3O3si3L0JP4FsZBuYev3-9mv3qTpWG6qbaoOIiytp8T3trlbO/w320-h240/Blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><p class="MsoNoSpacing">Another reason for blog inactivity is that I simply
lost momentum after a decade of relatively prolific blogging (700-plus posts).
2022 was a challenging year in so many ways – not least because I spent a large
chunk of time in the middle of that year taking in the sights and sounds of
Europe – visiting places like Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, and
Rome. Plus, I caught the dreaded Covid thingy - whilst holed up in a sweltering
Amsterdam apartment amid record breaking mid-summer temperatures, sans the
chilled comforts of home. So yeah, blogging just became all too hard for a
while and even the idea of it seemed a little bit frivolous.</p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">2023 has conjured up a lot less drama so far, so there’s
probably less excuse for the lack of more recent posts. I can only refer you to
the “lazy arse” disclaimer offered earlier.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">That’s not to say I can offer any certainty about
where everythingsgonegreen goes from here. I may post more regularly, I may
not. The last thing I want is to feel obligated or for it to become anything
resembling a chore. We’ll see. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So anyway, that’s the update, and here’s the linky
love bit:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">With New Zealand music history site <a href="https://www.audioculture.co.nz/" target="_blank">AudioCulture</a> (aka
“the noisy library”) celebrating its tenth birthday during May, I found myself
the subject of some scarcely anticipated attention. It turns out that some nine
years after its initial publication, my history/scene article on Wellington
nightlife in the 1980s (<a href="https://www.audioculture.co.nz/articles/wellington-nightclubs-in-the-1980s" target="_blank">link here</a>) remained the most visited or read article across
that site’s ten-year lifespan. Out of some 2000-plus submissions. It proved so
popular, AudioCulture had its technical staff investigate to ensure all those
visits were legitimate. According to Russell Brown, referencing the article in
the New Zealand Listener magazine, checking “there wasn’t some bot in Russia
delivering all the hits”. In the end they determined “the traffic was real and
organic” … (thanks comrade Botolovski, my wire transfer is in the post. Or
something).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The article also received a mention on Radio New
Zealand no less, when Jesse Mulligan interviewed AudioCulture founder Simon
Grigg about the site’s ten-year history. If that was an unexpected surprise, I
was more than a little shocked when the local student radio station, Radio
Active, asked to interview me for ‘The Vault’ segment of their breakfast show.
That weekly segment of the show being dedicated to “the past”, where a life-weary
greybeard comes on to reflect or to preach to “the kids” about life during
wartime – or in my case, a life lived amid the seedy underbelly of Wellington’s
nightlife in the 1980s. I took them up on that offer (<a href="https://www.radioactive.fm/the-vault-with-michael-hollywood-17-05-2023/" target="_blank">link here</a>).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The “follow-up” article referred to in that interview
is <a href="https://www.audioculture.co.nz/articles/ten-1980s-wellington-nightclub-bangers" target="_blank">this one (link here)</a>, where I choose and then dissect ten Wellington club
bangers of the 1980s. Specifically New Zealand-produced tracks only, which, to
be fair, probably accounted for less than five percent of tunes played in clubs
during that era. That was a fun piece to write, and I make no apologies for its
heavy synthpop bias.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Right, so that’s pretty much all I have for now. I may
be back. I hope to be back. I may not be. Who ever really knows anything about
anything?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-67858774079448499252023-06-14T22:07:00.001+12:002023-06-16T10:16:32.086+12:00Album Review: The House of Love - A State of Grace (2022)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen waited such a long
time for the latest House of Love album to arrive he started to fear it never would …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It had been a long time since
House of Love released She Paints Words in Red (2013), but in that intervening
period gig-goers were teased with some new material that they rightly expected
to form a new studio album. It would have been the third LP featuring Terry
Bickers since he returned in the early 2000s following his acrimonious
departure in 1989. But in 2021 Bickers was off again. This time there wasn’t
the friction or enmity of the initial split, with a band statement blaming the
pandemic for Guy Chadwick’s decision as he prepared for rescheduled dates in
the United States. In a later interview the frontman suggested Bickers declined
his invitation as he was loyal to Matt Jury and Pete Evans who had been sacked
from the band because Chadwick didn’t want to work with them anymore. It seemed
that the new album was in jeopardy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13xSRty_z02Nvo7xQ-HpZkSif3oT9Qm9Kvl9i2Pqrlyuj1RshByvYPCTiaW4H8Ce2YAkDWzd61_OTw5vKa09NlVjvj5x1uu9ZOrGv-0vJfUyWhh-yi8BlQ_sceGr7ru6Zb-V4_Uq8wReEhYgfizKTWuBPESPEKnT_WANFXe-9mkFJt4VAB16YZqcVTw/s600/HOL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13xSRty_z02Nvo7xQ-HpZkSif3oT9Qm9Kvl9i2Pqrlyuj1RshByvYPCTiaW4H8Ce2YAkDWzd61_OTw5vKa09NlVjvj5x1uu9ZOrGv-0vJfUyWhh-yi8BlQ_sceGr7ru6Zb-V4_Uq8wReEhYgfizKTWuBPESPEKnT_WANFXe-9mkFJt4VAB16YZqcVTw/w200-h200/HOL.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> But, then, <span style="background: white; color: #202122;">Chadwick announced a new line-up with ex-Idlewild
man Keith Osborne on lead guitar, Harry Osborne on bass, and Hugo Degenhardt on
drums. Degenhardt had previously worked with, ahem, Rod Stewart and Robbie
Williams. These guns for hire would appear with Chadwick on the UK tour of
autumn 2022 and the US tour soon after.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
album with the new line-up is a radical departure from the comeback album Days
Run Away (2005) and its morose follow-up She Paints Words in Red. I’m actually
being quite diplomatic about the latter, it was a stinker, very pastoral, placid
and far removed from previous House of Love albums. Chadwick was keen to return
to the sound of the band in its earlier days. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">State
of Grace was recorded in Hastings on England’s south coast and among the guest
musicians are John Pilka, who was in Chadwick’s first significant band,
Kingdoms, in the mid-80s. The cover is somewhat grainy and industrial and it
looks suspiciously like a goth album with its font and monochrome style. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If
Chadwick’s intention was to return to the band’s past sound he has largely achieved
that, especially on the guitar-driven single ‘Clouds’ which is a call to
someone to “Get your head outta the clouds”, a refrain that is repeated ad
nauseum for the final minute and 40 seconds in majestical rock’n’roll style.
The accompanying video features a greying Chadwick walking around a seaside
town including along a pier and through a games arcade. There’s little in the
way of politics or diatribes on the way of the modern world on the dozen tracks
– that’s just not Chadwick’s style – and love and how it spins a web around our
hearts and minds are instead front of house. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Any
suggestion this might be a solo album is augmented by the resurrection of a
song from Chadwick’s brief turn as a solo artist in the late 1990s. ‘Laughter
and Honey’ was a beautiful, mainly acoustic B-side; as the renamed ‘Into the
Laughter’ it is a full minute shorter but has electric guitars and a full band.
That clearly is the intention: to turn a very much one-man effort into a team
endeavour. And it certainly benefits from four pairs of hands working in unison
with Keith Osborne’s guitar playing very much to the fore. Another highlight is
the album opener ‘Sweet Loser’ which begins with harmonica playing which is superseded
by a drone riff that builds into something quite stunning. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Melody
Rose’ is quite grungy. If there is a past reference in this song, it is to the
critically panned Audience With the Mind (1993), an album that probably should
have been re-recorded or released as an EP. Nevertheless, like that particular
work, I have come to love this in its own way. The bassline parties with the
drums in a manner I never thought possible. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It
is certainly a ubiquitous album, and there’s a couple of numbers in ‘Queen of
Song’ and ‘In My Mind’ that suggest Chadwick has been listening to authentic
Americana music. The former has touches of blues; the latter a tinge of country
music. Curiously, Chadwick’s languid vocals on ‘In My Mind’ remind me of Nigel
Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit. Without the deadpan humour. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202122; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">State
of Grace is a varied album that takes the listener on a trip across the
Atlantic. Yes, it certainly sounds like peak House of Love from 1987 to 1993
but there’s traces of more recent work at times. It has the sound of four
people gelling fairly quickly, but also of one man in charge and make no
mistake this is a Guy Chadwick-fuelled project. How this record would have eventuated
if Terry Bickers and his two mates were on board is impossible to determine. I
suspect it would have been different in good and bad ways. But we have an album
I think the House of Love can be proud of. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-77680851659444941582023-05-28T11:41:00.002+12:002023-05-28T11:41:35.703+12:00Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - The Voltarol Years (2022)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Craig
Stephen on the prolific Half Man Half Biscuit …</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Half
Man Half Biscuit never stop. Four decades on and the albums keep a-coming. Just
as I wonder if Nigel Blackwell has dredged the well of humour dry, the world
churns out more <i>merde</i> for him to get his teeth into. As it were. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
Biscuits have been around since 1985 when the world was first introduced to
their love of minutiae on the seminal <a href="https://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2019/05/classic-album-review-half-man-half.html" target="_blank">Back in the DHSS</a> album, a period piece of
observant, wry tracks that cast an eye over everything from unemployment to table
football to the galling awfulness of children’s TV presenters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Every
two to three years the Biscuits relaunch with a new album, and The Voltarol
Years is their 15<sup>th</sup> studio album (on top of numerous EPs and a few
compilations). The previous 14 masterpieces were all released on Probe Plus but
with that cult label’s closure through its owner’s retirement, they’ve released
this on R M Qualtrough, a name so anti-rock’n’roll I’ll assume it’s their own
set up. That change may explain the gap of four years since <a href="https://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2018/08/porky-post-album-review-half-man-half.html" target="_blank"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">No-one Cares
About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut</span></span></span>.
</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAcLyU6oPvJL236HStFU5LtW4_TRxdyhi-iJkiJgOezx_QjkSXrdtlvB0H_9Ygc5kkQ2wC4NFACGbZm2cfCxqq4TWAHUNiMCAewNWfxWbjFFer-kdOIQhNAGXZ-vWk4AbtL-taP_bySwrzGQk15umUVcCs8h5JUYHwPQ2Jx1GHaQ9_XGJ9BvPZQH9p0Q/s378/471663-the-voltarol-years.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAcLyU6oPvJL236HStFU5LtW4_TRxdyhi-iJkiJgOezx_QjkSXrdtlvB0H_9Ygc5kkQ2wC4NFACGbZm2cfCxqq4TWAHUNiMCAewNWfxWbjFFer-kdOIQhNAGXZ-vWk4AbtL-taP_bySwrzGQk15umUVcCs8h5JUYHwPQ2Jx1GHaQ9_XGJ9BvPZQH9p0Q/w317-h320/471663-the-voltarol-years.jpg" width="317" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The
Voltarol Years contains the usual cutting edge sarcasm and satire, railing against
the worst elements of society: football fans who aren’t really football fans,
middle class aioli-consuming moaning minnies, pedants, grumpy online chess
players, C-list celebrities and what have you. If there were ever a political
statement in a Biscuits track it would be about the bickering at parish council
meetings over poorly-devised pavements.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This
is all delivered in a manner that defies musical norms, none of which is more evident
than on ‘Grafting Haddock In The George’, where, mid song, Blackwell deviates
into a monologue about Martin, one of those people who want to be at the centre
of everything and who like the sound of their own voice. As he does so the band
pares back to a single bassline:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“He was at Knowsley Safari Park one day where he
saw a monkey with a banana in one hand and a tin-opener in the other, and he
shouted over: ‘Hey, you don’t need the tin-opener for that!’ To which the
monkey replied: ‘It’s for the custard, dickhead!’ …”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In
the 1980s and much of the 90s the Biscuits could drop in obscure references
knowing that fans would need to ask their mates what it meant or remain
befuddled. Now, all you need do is search Google. So what exactly is Urbex or
buskins of mottled cordovan? Who is Anthony Power </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">or Chicory Tip?</span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 244); color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">And where exactly
is Haverfordwest and why is it named so? Do I even care? That, perhaps, is the
entire point. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Rogation
Sunday’, meanwhile, reveals how a man finds a curious note from his other half
that brings a double-whammy of bad news: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I came downstairs and found your note / The
greater knapweed near the mugwort by the buckthorn tree is dying / P.S. Yes, I
have left you” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
preamble to all this merriment and mirth ‘I’m Getting Buried in the Morning’,
is the tale of a murderer about to meet his maker, and who wonders how he’ll be
remembered (not fondly obviously). Our anti-hero cheers that: “Yeah, I’m
getting frazzled in the morning/ So get me to the chair on time,” sung in the
manner of that ol’ cockney classic ‘Get Me To The Church On Time’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
music is a varied mash of standard rock and indie-pop, sometimes grating, often
enthralling, as on ‘Awkward Sean’, a personal favourite due to the breezy pace
it takes. The narrator wonders what has happened to his old pal and tries to
find out from others who knew him. Some say he died a long time ago, some say
he’s alive in a small town in Pembrokeshire, west Wales (hello Haverfordwest!).
We discover that Sean was a little bit different: while his mates liked the
flamboyant footballers such as Best, Pele and Cruyff he was an admirer of more
functional German players. In the pubs: “We would play pool/ He would arrange
beer mats into a tower.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #101010; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amongst the jollity and scornful mocking, The
Voltarol Years does contain some bleakness, as on ‘Big Man Upfront’ where
another ratbag hits his dog cos he’s “hard as nails” and crashes his car but
survives – “I cursed the airbag when I heard” bemoans our storyteller. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #101010; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Voltarol Years won’t be picked up by global
radio, trend on Spotify or be listed in the Top 75 Albums of the Year by Mojo
magazine. They don’t even try to go beyond their fanbase nowadays, and never
really did – after all they eschewed a TV appearance that could’ve boosted
their profile in the 80s to instead see local side Tranmere Rovers. But, in age
of increasing cultural tediousness and AI-generated music, bands such as Half Man
Half Biscuit are needed more than ever. “What side of the indie war were you on
Grandad? I was on the side of Tess of the Dormobiles, lad”. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-27822644945184287552023-01-31T20:41:00.002+13:002023-10-22T10:25:28.476+13:00Gig Review: Fontaines D.C. @ Shed 6, Wellington, 29 January 2023<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">During a weekend where extreme weather events saw the
cancellation of mid-summer gigs and events right across Aotearoa – most notably
in Auckland where Elton John was (twice) cancelled and the popular Laneway
Festival belatedly canned – it was of some relief that Sunday night’s
Wellington leg of the Fontaines D.C. Australasian tour went ahead without any
disruption.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qzMEf2hT1EOK_mlN8_BAbM1aOLUvWlaJ3JTymeTBOp1o5xYH5hRUzTWBlWBhD7Tux2ZtxOMozYSuqhjZJVoylXRgB5-wZWUTZfNRaDqqnQYd1pZjxx58yLVDVJR1hMztC_ylkaKjMrQiUPhZVhzB-d7FYipV5G1va_tS15fBW2UOksYPDbfvSuJyFQ/s526/FDC.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qzMEf2hT1EOK_mlN8_BAbM1aOLUvWlaJ3JTymeTBOp1o5xYH5hRUzTWBlWBhD7Tux2ZtxOMozYSuqhjZJVoylXRgB5-wZWUTZfNRaDqqnQYd1pZjxx58yLVDVJR1hMztC_ylkaKjMrQiUPhZVhzB-d7FYipV5G1va_tS15fBW2UOksYPDbfvSuJyFQ/w200-h200/FDC.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> It helped of course, that the Irish band’s gig was
scheduled at an indoor venue, Shed 6, on Wellington’s waterfront. Although to
be fair, the weather in the capital city – sporadic showers – was in no way as
catastrophic as the torrential rain Auckland and the far north was battered
with. Flooding was so severe, a Civil Defence State of Emergency remained in
place in Auckland across the entire weekend and beyond. Whisper it, but the word
is, there’s more to come.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Having been relieved of Monday Laneway duties, there
was a sense that the Fontaines were doubly keen to whip up a storm of their own
in the capital, and that’s exactly what they achieved. With a 90-minute
onslaught of pure state-of-the-art post-punk. The band reeling off a set which
covered most of the key tracks from each of their three album releases to date.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There was a brief but poignant blast of Television – in
tribute to the newly departed Tom Verlaine (R.I.P.) – just before the band
arrived on stage, sans regular guitarist Carlos O’Connell, who is on “expectant
dad” duties, replaced on this trip to the antipodes by The Altered Hours’
guitarist Cathal MacGabhann.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A terrific opening double whammy of ‘A Lucid Dream’
and ‘A Hero’s Death’, off the band’s 2020 album of the same name, set the scene
rather nicely, before a run through highlights like ‘Sha Sha Sha’, ‘I Don’t
Belong’, and ‘How Cold Love Is’, propelled us to something of a mid-set peak featuring
a raucous ‘Televised Mind’ and ‘Jackie Down the Line’.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQun72q1i-1eNgxXaGR_Wz-ayjAY3RnTYx0bYRCvsm2Y_MZGYe3DZUeGY3nawWXpp8bNTHpUAEvwZ3GITvCISYx0iBvdrucNDpwLiBHu2haWB1FNEd9uGBkSvl9jHSCTsMb6hsB6lEeaN5dR8n9ydlA5Eb3DF3zLlwGOTTiRGHI4QYt1_VRoKqImfqHA/s1440/Fontaines1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="1440" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQun72q1i-1eNgxXaGR_Wz-ayjAY3RnTYx0bYRCvsm2Y_MZGYe3DZUeGY3nawWXpp8bNTHpUAEvwZ3GITvCISYx0iBvdrucNDpwLiBHu2haWB1FNEd9uGBkSvl9jHSCTsMb6hsB6lEeaN5dR8n9ydlA5Eb3DF3zLlwGOTTiRGHI4QYt1_VRoKqImfqHA/s320/Fontaines1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Personal favourite ‘Roman Holiday’ offered another
mini peak ten minutes later, by which time I’d abandoned the heaving throng
closer to the stage for a sedate spot with more breathing room somewhere near
the back – the venue was at about ninety percent capacity, if not fully sold
out, and it was uncomfortably hot and sticky once the band were in full flight
and the crowd fully engaged.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A punked-up take on ‘Nabokov’ followed, before an
equally snotty version of ‘Too Real’ notionally closed the show … but you just
knew there was going to be an encore, nobody was leaving, and naturally
Fontaines D.C. were able to oblige with a couple of hitherto overlooked bangers
in the form of Dogrel favourite ‘Boys in the Better Land’, and ‘I Love You’, off
last year’s Skinty Fia album.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The band was tight throughout (makeshift guitarist and
all), driven by a take-no-prisoners rhythm section, and in the form of Grian
Chatten, the Fontaines have a front man who one hundred percent believes every
single word he throws at you in that unmistakable and rather compelling thick
Southern Irish brogue.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIa92QHTKRyqvvk74DKP334L_2zI7SicwgkkaXwbXyaNdNBmo4XEWgrwx8ZZVfikUjvK7mkVzTJLdIe019mZm7MdqiBSmTjrJ9dtLTi_febsFY7l6ZB6djnQ6W0O2lY9bwe-T5zZF3KJtj6Dk63DqPLXQTplv69MNL65gVQ2j4Z5VmAuKoP-CXq324UQ/s1440/Fontaines2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1078" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIa92QHTKRyqvvk74DKP334L_2zI7SicwgkkaXwbXyaNdNBmo4XEWgrwx8ZZVfikUjvK7mkVzTJLdIe019mZm7MdqiBSmTjrJ9dtLTi_febsFY7l6ZB6djnQ6W0O2lY9bwe-T5zZF3KJtj6Dk63DqPLXQTplv69MNL65gVQ2j4Z5VmAuKoP-CXq324UQ/s320/Fontaines2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Chatten kept interaction with the crowd at a minimal
level (ie. barely at all) and whilst there will have been many in the crowd who
prefer a band to connect with idle banter, I personally think there was enough
of a stage presence about the undeniably charismatic Chatten, who bounces
around not unlike a nervous child on the first day of pre-school, to still make
a firm connection. And really, why bother with obligatory conventional triggers
when the mostly unconventional music largely speaks for itself?</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The support was provided by local indie rockers Wiri
Donna, who played a short set of solid tunes from their recent EP plus the odd
new track. I’d like to see them again, if only for the hugely entertaining bass
player, who's in-the-moment facial expressions and (mock?) rock-star posing was
a joy to behold.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Photos: Thanks to <a href="https://www.nothingelseon.com/" target="_blank">@nothingelseon</a> for the pics.</span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-18261328981187673702022-12-22T17:35:00.004+13:002022-12-22T17:41:20.917+13:00Classic Album Revisited: The Clash - The People’s Hall (1982/2022)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Craig Stephen on the bonus album released when Combat Rock gained
its obligatory 40<sup>th</sup> anniversary deluxe spurs in 2022:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here at everythingsgonegreen we really need no excuse to
review a Clash album … even when we’ve done it before. So, yes, I have reviewed
<a href="http://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/classic-album-review-clash-combat-rock.html" target="_blank">Combat Rock</a>, the last great Clash album, and you can read that here. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the album’s re-release comes with an additional
collection, The People’s Hall, recorded around the same time, but has been kept
under wraps until now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">People’s Hall has been dubbed a cash-in and a luxury item for
collectors. I’d say otherwise. Having played this several times I’d say it is a
collection that stands on its own. Yes, it is a mixed bag and the snapshots of
chitter chatter from the crowd outside a gig (‘Outside Bonds’) could really
have been ditched, but that’s the exception to the rule. This is well worth
buying even if you have Combat Rock already.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here's the condensed backstory: in December 1980 The Clash
released the beguiling and beautiful triple album <a href="http://everythinggonegreen.blogspot.com/2019/02/classic-album-review-clash-sandinista.html" target="_blank">Sandinista!</a> and in May and
June of the following year played what would become a 17-show residency at New
York’s Bond’s Casino to promote it. Those shows have gone down in musical
history. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Before a tour of Asia, the band rehearsed and recorded at The
People’s Hall in London, from where 11 of the tracks were recorded (the
exception being ‘Outside Bonds’, obviously). It’s the bridging period between
Sandinista! and Combat Rock, and you can discern the development going on. Some
of the tracks were re-recorded for Combat Rock or ended up on B-sides; some
were taken no further. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘This Is Radio Clash’ was released as a single at the end of
1981. This version, which effectively opens People’s Hall, contains slightly
different lyrics. Apart from that it doesn’t differ greatly from the single
version. But the original version of ‘Know Your Rights’ veers greatly from the
Combat Rock take. While all the crucial elements are there Strummer sings the
lyrics straight, but on the finished version he sounds more mocking, and the
guitars are edgier. I’d say they tidied it up pretty neatly for the version
that the world knows now and gave it a new interpretation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj847YkSkWHMXicB-tXpbmeYTUCcVIeXclPVjx4x58z1ThfL9HxTdtcaUucrqZoWhiYBTZCrMLjqIce2-jV8yZcLbJ5ehHkSXdQPo5vJ5-oSj9jz2nLttoN4rJDhmL3g51xj676Pmwjlh2RHXjpTo9rMeh4qeQIep1KDTZFBTd9MvWvFsCF_QIHNKRZxw/s500/PeoplesHall.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj847YkSkWHMXicB-tXpbmeYTUCcVIeXclPVjx4x58z1ThfL9HxTdtcaUucrqZoWhiYBTZCrMLjqIce2-jV8yZcLbJ5ehHkSXdQPo5vJ5-oSj9jz2nLttoN4rJDhmL3g51xj676Pmwjlh2RHXjpTo9rMeh4qeQIep1KDTZFBTd9MvWvFsCF_QIHNKRZxw/w200-h200/PeoplesHall.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Among the highlights is an extended and looser version of ‘Sean
Flynn’ (Errol Flynn’s son who disappeared in south-east Asia while working as a
photojournalist). As I listen to this particular track I feel I am being
transported to the rail tracks and fields in rural Thailand where the photo
session for the Combat Rock cover was taken. It’s magnificent, it feels as if
The Doors are in Saigon having a jam session and letting it all out. </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘Futura 2000’ draws from sessions with New York’s graffiti
artist of the same name, revealing some raw and ready proto hip hop and
contains one straight bassline played endlessly to great effect. ‘Radio One’
allows reggae great Mikey Dread to do his own, inimitable thing, ‘Midnight To
Stevens’ is a tribute to bonkers producer Guy Stevens, and there’s tracks like ‘Long
Time Jerk’ and ‘First Night Back In London’ that were relegated to B-sides when
they deserved much better. Add in the instrumental ‘He Who Dares or Is Tired’
and you have something of a party punch. That was never served up to revellers.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the same time The Clash worked with The Beat’s resident
toaster Ranking Roger for versions of ‘Rock the Casbah’ and ‘Red Angel Dragnet’,
both of which were omitted from People’s Hall and issued as a stand-alone
single to fleece more money out of Clash fans. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">People’s Hall was a working project for a new album but Combat
Rock was the second life of a rolling project, with Mick Jones’ intention to
have the band’s fifth album stretch to over an hour and be called Rat Patrol
from Fort Bragg. The Clash were always drawn to different sounds and their love
of reggae is renowned but this album would have been expanded to soak in Jones’
love for New York funk and hip-hop, and dub. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The band and its
mercurial/autocratic manager Bernie Rhodes instantly dismissed it. Jones was
gutted and barely attended the remix sessions, which is understandable as he
would be witnessing another producer, Glyn Johns, slash and burn his cherished
work to create what we have now as Combat Rock. Rat Patrol has since been
bootlegged to hell and back but it still needs to be given a full and official
release. Why it hasn’t is a mystery given so much unreleased Clash material has
already been resurrected. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nevertheless, while you wait, indulge in this intriguing bonus
album which, despite what some critics might say, offers another side of The
Clash and takes the listener to another time and world, to the emerging hip-hop
scene, to post-war Vietnam, and to … well, wherever you want to be. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-56397630614163113232022-10-27T16:23:00.007+13:002022-10-27T16:30:01.079+13:00Gig Review: The Sisters of Mercy @ Hunter Lounge, Wellington, 26 October 2022<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">They say you should never meet your heroes. The idea
being that they seldom live up to expectation and it often only ever results in
disappointment. Sometimes, a variation on that old adage can be applied to
seeing your favourite bands perform live. More so, if you’re seeing the band
for the first time, some 35 years after their feted heyday.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Such was the case when The Sisters of Mercy played at
the Hunter Lounge in Wellington on Wednesday night. Maybe I just expected too
much. Perhaps it was because I was a little too sober. I’d read and heard
mostly positive reviews of the band’s Auckland set the night prior, and felt
confident that Sisters v.22 would match my own not unreasonable expectations.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_t7-5lvoMqpb4wLRJYCOpC4z8b8alFnYOMhA3ACY0cQOX9gS1XpWAKf7VsjGxXLFd10bjjXqRkqAlnddYI2cGeFWt3bIa9nCWHJYtSkS2tUFp8V7jfeXnzgkjuPJ-dOs4QDIpy30Qtv7UrjiLRy5xAJyZ-Yu7W4tmd7eDLkFSsnaR2NPWpBrVdummw/s1800/sisters2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_t7-5lvoMqpb4wLRJYCOpC4z8b8alFnYOMhA3ACY0cQOX9gS1XpWAKf7VsjGxXLFd10bjjXqRkqAlnddYI2cGeFWt3bIa9nCWHJYtSkS2tUFp8V7jfeXnzgkjuPJ-dOs4QDIpy30Qtv7UrjiLRy5xAJyZ-Yu7W4tmd7eDLkFSsnaR2NPWpBrVdummw/w264-h320/sisters2.jpg" width="264" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">All I wanted was the “hits”, some atmosphere, the
requisite quota of melodramatic darkness, and a decent light show. Not too much
to ask.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What we got was somewhat less than all of the above.
Sure, we got the biggest hits (hits, in context of the 1980s indie charts), but
we also got a lot of new-ish, unreleased material - around 50 percent of the
set list - which ultimately failed to stir the loins, and virtually all of the
hits felt a lot less than the sum of their original parts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When the set opened with ‘Don’t Drive on Ice’, a
relative newbie which wouldn’t have been out of place on the band’s faux-metal
Vision Thing album, it felt a little bit like hearing a very good karaoke
replica. The sound was thin, a little tinny even, and I felt certain the volume
inside the packed venue was somehow muted, if not a little muddy. Surely
they’ll amp things up and sort out the mix?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But no, nothing changed as we weaved our way through a
20-something strong set list. Newer tunes were dispersed at regular intervals,
easily the best of which was ‘But Genevieve’, alongside a run of better known
work which included a lightweight ‘Alice’, ‘Marian’, ‘More’, ‘Detonation
Boulevard’ and The Sisterhood epic, ‘Giving Ground’, which briefly had me
upping my inner goth to feet shuffling and head-nod mode. Nothing really
pulsated my chest or buckled my knees.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was pleased Vision Thing’s slower-paced sleeper gem
‘I Was Wrong’ was included, but by this time I was despairing a little too much
for main man Andrew Eldritch, his once majestically deep baritone now a mere
shadow, replaced in 2022 with a sort of unhappy-go-lucky growl.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwFAyBFrMqLIZXQRI-zpb0Grztl05JuRe94F90aSaQp20r9NgStbacdEvceTc-fVOCbkXqEhzzPZX8IHChDA4aIpnvHkCXZfiElVxKcIIZNvuYnOOnK0gCkc2xDvqzMIt-Vn8vw3JSP1qWswg38kXDFMnHmfmn7xl1-9Wnp8vDUdWtt4YZGaW1AaEEMA/s1800/sisters3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwFAyBFrMqLIZXQRI-zpb0Grztl05JuRe94F90aSaQp20r9NgStbacdEvceTc-fVOCbkXqEhzzPZX8IHChDA4aIpnvHkCXZfiElVxKcIIZNvuYnOOnK0gCkc2xDvqzMIt-Vn8vw3JSP1qWswg38kXDFMnHmfmn7xl1-9Wnp8vDUdWtt4YZGaW1AaEEMA/w256-h320/sisters3.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">When the time for an obligatory encore arrived, the
band did appear to up the ante a bit, perhaps in anticipation that their night’s
work was almost done, and versions of ‘Lucretia, My Reflection’, ‘Temple of
Love’, and ‘This Corrosion’ were as good as could be expected, given the rest
of the night.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I get that sometimes a band can become tour-worn and
jaded. I get that a band can fall prone to merely phoning-in a performance on
occasion. And I get that a band wants to introduce new work to an audience
ostensibly there to celebrate the stuff they already know.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the gig just lacked “soul”. There was no real
sense of authenticity. Both guitarists could well have been cutouts from a
Sisters tribute act, and Eldritch himself was fairly underwhelming as a
posturing frontman just going through the motions. Almost like he was trying to
resist the urge to take the piss out of himself and failing badly. And yes, I
appreciate that you can’t ever take this genre too seriously … and sometimes
you should never meet your heroes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: georgia;">PS. The support act was Brisbane duo Elko Fields, a
curious mix of the White Stripes and The Kills’ aesthetic, and they played
about half a dozen raucous songs to an enthusiastic reception.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Photos: @nothingelseon, thanks bro.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4283161081401583347.post-80314720892332449492022-10-16T09:12:00.008+13:002022-10-17T09:19:00.145+13:00Classic Album (and boxset) Review: The Redskins - Neither Washington Nor Moscow (1986/2022 reissue) <p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Redskins’ one and only album is a soul-punk
classic burning with passion, hope and socialism. It was nothing like any other
album of its time, but it’s message resonates in a difficult and troubled time
now as much as it did on its initial release.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As depressing as Thatcher’s Britain was in the high
unemployment and devastated industrial communities of the 1980s, there was an
alternative. In music it began with The Beat’s ‘Stand Down Margaret’ and
continued throughout the dirty decade from the likes of the Style Council, The
Smiths, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Billy Bragg. The Redskins were at the
forefront of the alternative to big hair, spandex trousers and me-first
attitudes. They were about solidarity, peace, and anti-racism. This
Yorkshire-born three-piece were opinionated, committed and musically brilliant
who, in terms of cutting edge polemic and absolute confidence in their beliefs,
have rarely if ever been bettered.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCCfDU_obintOvT8t54DTLNKdbUzTr1o74LwC66WpMTyUFqNIXRGOA6ks5LuuZ9UJ67zApnGcMhMqoeQ-DamcxGVunYv6nFPXNn1ruwwTRfgMUkVFf8IHyrCj7TtmQFa6_YOjtYq124UIS9p1XsnxdZh7USPDj9dF37Q2d7rHdHnchjulQdLdN0Zqsg/s600/Redskins1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="600" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVCCfDU_obintOvT8t54DTLNKdbUzTr1o74LwC66WpMTyUFqNIXRGOA6ks5LuuZ9UJ67zApnGcMhMqoeQ-DamcxGVunYv6nFPXNn1ruwwTRfgMUkVFf8IHyrCj7TtmQFa6_YOjtYq124UIS9p1XsnxdZh7USPDj9dF37Q2d7rHdHnchjulQdLdN0Zqsg/w200-h198/Redskins1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> The skinhead three-piece was fronted by Chris Dean, a
sometime NME scribe who was inspired by Joe Strummer, who was accompanied by
drummer Nick King, and bassist Martin Hewes. Changing their name from No
Swastikas to Redskins in 1982, they moved to London and released their debut
single in July of that year.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Their emergence was timed perfectly. In 1979 Margaret
Thatcher’s Conservative Party won a parliamentary majority and soon began the
dismantling of heavy industry, resulting in huge job losses and devastated
communities. Most of this occurred in the north, in places like Yorkshire where
The Redskins were formed. Fascism and far-right activity was lurking around and
the band hated that lot too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the early days, The Redskins were more punk than
soul. ‘Peasant Army’ contained an inflammatory, angry chorus and was a rousing
anthem of optimism. It was as good as, if not better than, the a-side, ‘Lev
Bronstein’, who was otherwise known as revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky.
Another single was released on CNT in 1983, ‘Lean On Me!’ / ‘Unionize!’ (they
loved punctuality), and again the b-side was as good as it’s supposed superior.
CNT was an independent label that released early singles for the likes of
Sisters of Mercy and The Mekons, and took its name from the confederation of
anarcho-syndicalist unions in Spain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘Lean On Me’, was a paean to working-class solidarity
(“together we’ve a world to win”), and was described by the NME as a “modern
soul classic”; Then came further singles ‘Keep On Keepin’ On!’, ‘Bring it Down!
(This Insane Thing)’ - a minor chart hit no less, and ‘Kick Over the Statues’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">‘Keep On Keepin’ On!’ was released at the height of
the miner’s strike, with the band at their most prolific, playing benefit gigs
around the country and beyond in support of the men and their families who were
baton charged, jailed, harassed and ostracised just for defending their jobs.
The a-side solemnly noted “Can’t remember such a bitter time/ The boss says
jump, the workers fall in line/ They whip us into line with the threat of the
dole.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A raft of singles had been issued over four years but
where was the album? That curious anomaly was finally rectified in 1986 when
Neither Washington Nor Moscow was issued on Decca. It was something of a
greatest hits collection with several of the singles included with just a
handful of new tracks.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymunVu0mr_5if1QVUtyoTHaeQzwB2Nfhg4I_eSRcr20_XKSTNBoabr-AmCtdCEffR_LCon7k_aHV789hZt9Ki2rFNt-mn6rF8xq1T91qpMngfyM1V14X9J8h7uWoOiP2T5uG85iNaPCoBmIAzR_SI3QF6Kre9rBu2A3hrlwdHEksT1PG8029YEab6Lg/s1000/Redskins2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="1000" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymunVu0mr_5if1QVUtyoTHaeQzwB2Nfhg4I_eSRcr20_XKSTNBoabr-AmCtdCEffR_LCon7k_aHV789hZt9Ki2rFNt-mn6rF8xq1T91qpMngfyM1V14X9J8h7uWoOiP2T5uG85iNaPCoBmIAzR_SI3QF6Kre9rBu2A3hrlwdHEksT1PG8029YEab6Lg/w320-h242/Redskins2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The album title came from the masthead of the
Socialist Worker newspaper, the organ of the SWP which the band were devoted
members of. Their support for this small Trotskyist party was unwavering: a
speech by Tony Cliff, its de facto leader, was used on one track. Neither
Washington Nor Moscow is pretty much the perfect record – 12 tracks, not a
single filler, it’s the sound of Detroit meeting Leeds. It rolled The Specials,
The Jam, The Impressions, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and The Supremes into one,
and it worked a treat. The anger was channelled magnificently and ‘Kick Over
the Statues’ has proved to be prophetic. “Kick over the statues/ And the
tyrants die/ Wave bye bye with a hammer/ To their heroes.”</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Similarily, the lyrics to ‘It Can Be Done’ could have
been written anytime in the past ten years or so: “Hunger of the 30s/ Hunger of
the 30s back again/ And the rich still rich/ And the poor still the same as
they ever were/ And it seems to me/ We're still not learning from our history.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Listening to the album in its entirety it seems the
answers are so simple … solidarity, unions, strikes, demonstrations, and not
backing down. Voting for Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party just wasn’t an option.
But, of course, the world isn’t as straightforward as that, and if it was we’d
probably be living in a very different society just now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And as bolshy as it is, it also seems Redskins are
just trying too hard. Too hard in telling us the world’s problems which we can
all figure out; too hard telling us go on the demo on Saturday, to buy the
Socialist Worker newspaper and to persuade all our friends to join us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A few months after the album was released the band
broke up, not through arguments about the musical direction they should take,
but the political stance they should or shouldn’t pursue. Dean’s desire was to
write love songs, which was highly ironic given his political outlook. Hewes
was less enthusiastic about the idea and believed there was still a battle to
fight with Thatcher still in power.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dean disappeared from the music scene completely and
apparently was living a near-hermit existence in Paris and then in York.
Releases during the following three decades were limited to a live album, a
re-release of the studio album, and a compilation of rarities on a hardcore
punk label based in Canada.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexMvP4nU0Ta8ZIKZ4qSD7wFYDADM0bJIkdJFxs6LMXaKL1wnhAjZlKYvRDIXgsTYnUhg3SULZveB8solpIffDMk-VClQZcpIhK48C7t5M_NmHnPQ6NtjI48yQ_Ksep3ySlORMm35Anyn0M_Wd4UdpGIAyPzCWpaL_jlpZIBfsbYljUVBW6qDuzRgH8w/s227/redskins3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="222" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexMvP4nU0Ta8ZIKZ4qSD7wFYDADM0bJIkdJFxs6LMXaKL1wnhAjZlKYvRDIXgsTYnUhg3SULZveB8solpIffDMk-VClQZcpIhK48C7t5M_NmHnPQ6NtjI48yQ_Ksep3ySlORMm35Anyn0M_Wd4UdpGIAyPzCWpaL_jlpZIBfsbYljUVBW6qDuzRgH8w/w196-h200/redskins3.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> Recently, a four-disk boxset of Neither Washington Nor
Moscow was issued by Cherry Red records. At last Redskins’ soul-funk n punk
classic was given the royal, expanded treatment. It pretty much contains
everything the band did – the album, b-sides, BBC session tracks, extended and
alternative versions, live gigs, rarities, demos and bootleg material including
some by the first incarnation of the band, No Swastikas. It had the bloody lot
and more, and if you wanted to hear the “break mix” of ‘Unionize!’ then you
could. The b-sides are all excellent, including ‘You Want It? They’ve Got It!’
which must have been a contender for inclusion on the studio album. All the
early singles are here too, and what a joy it is to hear again the likes of ‘Lev
Bronstein’ and ‘Unionize!’ …</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Their split was timely, perhaps. Given that Neither
Washington Nor Moscow contained only a few new tracks and was full of
previously-released singles, they may have been struggling for motivation by
1986. They wouldn’t have been spoilt for inspiration had they continued.
Thatcher continued her divide and rule tactics, and the Poll Tax, which meant
people on the dole paid the same on their council house as a millionaire on his
mansion, would have provided a jolt in the arm at the end of the 1980s.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Redskins left on a high, with a wonderful legacy of a
back catalogue full of spiky, punk-soul classics that made an impression on,
maybe a small amount of people, but people who generally took on their ideals,
of using art in politics and of not allowing the bastards you grind you down.
Keep on keeping on indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Mike Hollywoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14417154821687915913noreply@blogger.com0