Bad Lyrics

There's a line in Steve Miller's 'Take the Money and Run' which I happened to hear the other day:

They went down to El Paso
Where they got into a great big hassle

The passing of time has not weakened my view that this is one of the worst lyrics of all time. But it did get me trying to recall the full list of contenders.

Obviously grammatical errors would get my goat if I had one. How about:

Nobody does it

Half as good as you

Half as well, if you please. Carly Simon brought down by the curse of the Bond theme. As was Macca:

But if this ever changin' world
In which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die

'In which we live' or 'which we live in' would have done fine.

And despite he being one of my all-time favourite song-writers we pause to note Steve Winwood's line from 'Sometimes I feel so Uninspired':

There is no reason for not failing

The double negative  succeeds in saying exactly the opposite of that which I believe he intended.

Enough grammar. And we'll not bovva wiv spelling. Slade dun for that coz they sed so. Rock and roll don't obey the rules:

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine

It appears my love is a hound dog and only a hound dog, nothing but. And like hound dogs you cry all the time. What? But unlike hound dogs you are poor at rabbiting. You may be man's best friend but no friend of mine. It made sense when originally sung, by Big Mama Thornton about her useless man:

You can come around here 

But I ain't gonna feed you no more

We have a nonsense lyric that sounds perfect by repetition, a genre of pop that found its logical culmination in any number of Sean Ryder's streams of unconsciousness. From many examples I choose:

Oh, my father's father's father's father
By nature he was bendy
We are the chi chine tribe
And we are over friendly

It's so ridiculous it's wonderful.

Anyway, over to you. Worst lyrics of all time? Go.

Tubular Bells at 50

Tubular Bells, the first record released on Virgin Records own label, came out two days before I became eighteen. The music is on tour to celebrate its very significant birthday this year. Last night I saw the performance at Warwick Arts Centre, a fine venue on the university campus.

Virgin Records, Corporation Street, Birmingham was a very early branch of the chain. Hairy teenagers browsed racks of vinyl albums, occasionally being attracted by a sleeve and asking mates if anyone knew the music. There were four aircraft seats arranged back to back in the middle of the shop and thus four people could listen to music on headphones to sample it.

We once happened to find a set of headphones which had been deserted and enjoyed what was playing, so we enquired. It turned out to be Uriah Heap who were touring their latest album The Magician's Birthday. Coincidentally they were playing at Birmingham Town Hall that very night. We bought one copy of the record then went to the Town Hall and bought tickets. The gig was recorded and became part of a live album released later that year. I have a broken drumstick from the gig and me and my mates are part of the audience noise.

Walking back through the city centre with the distinctive black and white bag (and taking the same to school the following Monday) was a badge of honour. I love Shazam and Spotify but finding a copy of the unusual music you liked in those days had a much greater sense of hunting and killing.

Based on the audience last night I'd like to report that me and TCMT are in good nick for our age. For the most part bladders are weak, knees are knacked, hair is missing and weight has been added.

The gig, brilliantly written up from another venue on the tour by Peter Viney consisted of eight very talented musicians performing the album. Tubular Bells has indeed crossed over some line into the classical canon. As a largely instrumental work it can be performed and interpreted without the composer being present. I used to joke, to annoy classical snobs, that when they went to a performance they were going to see a Beethoven tribute band. I'll retire that now; its work is done. Anyway the unique difficulty of being a rock tribute act is that the vocal style of the lead singer is almost always distinctive in the best bands.

Part one of the show started with a segue of pieces of Oldfield's other works. Then two 'poppier' tunes for which he has writing credits. Moonlit Shadow, which we now associate with the Fast Show's Dave Angel and Family Man which I thought was a Hall and Oates song. Then a longer piece by keyboardist and musical director Robin Smith, which was delightful. Part two was Tubular Bells in full, the band demonstrating talent at more than one instrument and keyboard/samples filling in some gaps such as the introductions of the instruments to close what us oldies know as side 1.

I hadn't listened to the album in preparation and was amazed how I knew what was coming round every corner. Also, and this was unexpected, I found myself revisiting my life. This vinyl album, playing as I write, is now with me in its eighth home since I purchased it. It has raised kids, endured thirty seven years of ordained ministry and is now retired. It means something. A good night out.

Review of the Year 2021

Bit late for a review of the year but whilst there may be a tradition about these things there is not, to my mind, a rule that says January 20th is too late. Anyway I've been busy.

Annually, I find the same problem. Things I discovered in a particular year were often published before then. So, trying to keep it all vaguely contemporary, here are the arts and culture stuff I enjoyed most in 2021:

Television

Having someone culturally aware come and live with us was helpful and top of the incoming list was our discovery of Succession. If you've missed it then Brian Cox (actor not physicist) plays Logan Roy, a hugely successful businessman trying to stop his dysfunctional offspring from inheriting and ruining his empire. Very sweary. Three seasons available.

If major infrastructure programmes have a fringe benefit it is that they let loose the ubiquitous Alice Roberts to share details of archaeological discoveries under the road, pipeline, railway. Digging for Britain ensued and educated this household muchly. In the same vein, plaudits to BBC2's Stonehenge - The Lost Circle Revealed and the archaeology of back gardens disclosed in The Great British Dig.

Mobeen Azhar's Hometown - A Killing started as a podcast but became a BBC docu-series. Investigative journalism at its best.

I continue to be a sucker for food shows such as Great British Menu, Masterchef and Professional Masterchef. The celebrity versions of these shows can go hang, though. In fact I enjoyed most shows where people demonstrate brilliance at something I can't do, so stand up and take a bow Pottery Throwdown, Bake Off and Great British Sewing Bee.

Clarkson's Farm surprised me by being educational.

Ghosts continued to be lovely and very clever.

Gone Fishing was nice slow tele. Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have delivered public service broadcasting gold.

Music

Squid promised much with their first few singles. Their debut album Bright Green Field was only three stars from me but the blending of maths rock and shouty punk was a fine mash-up and continues to promise much.

Jangly guitar fans could get their fix with The War on Drugs - I Don't Live here Anymore. Album of the year.

For joyful story-telling pop my guilty pleasure was Demi Lovato's Dancing with the Devil ... The Art of Starting Over.

Honourable mentions for Floating Points collaboration with the LSO on Promises.

Twitter

Henry Sotheran Ltd is an antiquarian bookshop, which I will probably never frequent because of money and that but @Sotherans is a delight of a Twitter feed. Sample:

'...we've been around longer, on average, than most empires last. We sell old books and other stuff but mostly books, and definitely not opium anymore because it got banned. Wednesdays are not for talking.'

Films

The Trial of the Chicago Seven was a favourite. Bond a bit disappointing. Didn't see enough as cinemas felt unsafe.

Podcasts

Lost Hills told the story of an apparently random killing in more detail than the cops seemed to have gone into with Dana Goodyear finding out more and more connections and coincidences. From Pushkin.

Books

My wokeness was polished a little by How Not to be Wrong - The Art of Changing Your Mind by James O'Brien.

Good novels included Catriona Ward's Last House on Needless Street - a murder mystery that pulled all the rugs from under both your feet at various times. Very diverting and more than a little odd.

What happens once the easternmost house falls into the sea? Juliet Blaxland's follow-up is a bit more metaphysical, but also keeping alive the stories of those who will crumble next in The Easternmost Sky.

Alice Roberts' (her again) pre-history of Britain in seven burials is exactly that. Who should live in Britain? Who came first? Who are we? Read Ancestors and stop hating immigrants.

Food

Pintxo (tapas) and Appleton's (fine dining) in Fowey made a holiday in this country great. Pony Bistro in Bedminster delivered everything you'd expect a Josh Eggleton enterprise to do (including a Valentine's finish-at-home meal in a box). For tapas in Bristol try Gambas on Wapping Wharf.

Good pubs included Bedminster's North Street Standard, The Salamander in Bath, WB at Wapping Wharf, The Priory at Portbury and Coates House, Nailsea.

Art

We enjoyed wandering around Bedminster's street art festival Upfest and being under the Moon in Bristol Cathedral.

That's about it. I've saved you from the format 'Stuff I found this year that everyone else has known about for ever', which would have included an updated review of experimental German electronica from the early 70s which I'd miss-dissed. Belated apologies to Faust, Can and Amon Düül II. Although for some reason I always liked Tangerine Dream.

Desert Island Intros

I think we can all agree that we need a bit of distraction right now. So let's have a row about something completely unnecessary. A song's intro is a thing of beauty in its own right. It grabs you by whatever you don't like being grabbed by and says, listen. I've never attempted a top ten of these and this is my first go; the ones that sprang to mind. Some have stories; others not so much. Lots of my favourite tunes don't count because there isn't enough intro before the vocals start. One of my first live experiences was Alvin Lee yelling 'One of these days boy...' and then following it with a guitar chord of such monstrous power that Birmingham Town hall was nearly no more. No intro.

So, counting backwards, here we go:

10. Silver Liner. Ethan Johns 2015. The chords make you think he might be about to burst into a cover of Argent's Hold Your Head Up (no bad thing) but then something much moodier and trippier breaks out.

9. Sensual Thing. The 4 of Us. 1992. Bass, guitar and drums in 25 seconds of perfect control. You know that the vocalist could say anything and it would be fine. As it happens he wants to electrify his senses, stretch his nerves and save his soul, which is a fine plan.

8. Course of the Satellite. The Vryll Society. 2018. Distorted keys start to make sense as the rhythm kicks in. That's as it should be. 35 secs for old DJs to link from the weather.

7. Speak to me/Breathe. Easy Star All Stars. 2003. A cover version should not simply be an attempt to recreate the original with precision but should add something. No-one adds more than these guys with dub reggae versions of classics. 90 seconds of sound effect intro that manages to surprise you when the offbeat kicks in. I hope the Floyd would approve.

6. A Haunting. Roots Manuva. 2005. Rodney Smith takes a minor key melody and becomes rebel eye with fortitude (come see the dude exude). Spooky.

5. Riot Radio. The Dead 60s. 2005. I love ska. This is an infectious start. One of those occasions when the first track on the first album was never bettered.

4. Jane. Jefferson Starship.1979. Eight bars of swirly keys, (pre-riff in bar 8) then crashing guitar chords for eight more to vocals. Perfect intro.

3. Money for Nothing. Dire Straits. 1985. When you're this big you can get Sting to do backing vocals on your intro. Perfect example of how to build to a climax with drum work absolutely key to this. Everything stops dead before the song starts.

2. Stay with Me. Faces. 1971. This one has a story for me. It's summer 1972, the end of my 17th birthday, and the mainstage at the festival has over-run. I am too tired to stand any longer and go to bed. From my sleeping bag I hear the opening chords of Ron Wood's guitar chop into my slumber and I get back up and enjoy two hours of Rod Stewart and the Faces singalong pub-rock madness.

1. Woke up this morning. Alabama 3. 1997. D. Wayne Love's (RIP) monologue as he walks home following three days of drinking and reflects on his mortality. Listening to John Coltrane's Epitaph he realises that his taste has moved on and he has woken up. Two minutes of story-telling intro as the theme of the song develops slowly,

Let the mayhem begin.

What About the Lyrics?

I belong to a Facebook group for fans of Billy Franks and the Faith Brothers. Recently, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of Billy's death, someone posed the question as to which of Billy's fine lyrics might be our personal favourite. It's a tough question and I might answer in various ways depending on my mood, although I regularly come back to:

The true are free, the corrupt are lonely

That's my belief

(Whistling in the Dark)

Billy never quite takes you in the direction you expect. Seeing lonely as the opposite of free and corrupt as the flip-side of true is a fine piece of poetry. In Billy's hands 'Dressed to kill one cool spring morning' is not about a relationship but an anti-war song.

But to broaden this out a bit, I remind myself that I never engage with rock/pop initially via the lyrics. It always starts with feel. Bob Dylan may have won the Nobel Prize for literature but very few of his songs engaged me by feel alone. In the early weeks of lock-down I made a concerted effort to get to grips with Dylan. I found it possible to make a playlist of a dozen songs I enjoyed but most of his albums didn't invite me in far enough to want to investigate the lyrics.

What am I looking for when I get beyond 'feel'. If it feels good I listen to the instrumentation. Who is doing what? I am a keyboard player so I am usually attracted to those parts early. The lyrics come third, often because they are not clear on first listen and, these days of music-streaming, have to be investigated online rather than on-sleeve. For me a great lyricist is one who leaves me with some work to do. Songs that tell stories (particularly those from the English folk tradition) are great to hear once but I never usually want to hear them again. I know the story. Why re-read? Unless the tune is a banger.

It's why, controversially, Easter Parade, so many Billy fans' favourite, is not mine. I get it. The lyrics are good but the tune is pretty simple. I don't need to hear it very often. I often wondered if he had heard Eric Bogle's Gallipoli song 'The Band Sang Waltzing Matilda':

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay,
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn, and to pity.

Billy said:

I came home maimed

So was kept away

From the Easter Parade

Difford and Tilbrook were a fine song-writing partnership in Squeeze but it's my assumption I have heard Up the Junction enough times now, whereas Hourglass still delivers plenty to ponder:

Take it to the bridge throw it over board
See if it can swim back up to the shore
No-one's in the house all the lights are on
And the blinds are down

I'm sorry, what?

I have spent 35 years as a priest and mine songwriters for seams of sermon illustration. As I do so I have to take it on the chin from time to time.

10CC

Two thousand years and he ain't shown yet

We kept the seat warm and the table set

(The Second Sitting for the Last Supper)

Elton John (probably Bernie Taupin)

If there's a God in heaven what's he waiting for

If he don't hear the children then he must see the war

But it seems to me that he leads his lambs

To the slaughter-house not the promised land

(If there's a God in heaven (What's he waiting for))

And even the beloved Billy:

In an old place for the first time,

I heard the fed talk about hunger,

Telling tales of loaves and fishes,

I heard the wealthy read the Book of Common Prayer
(You Can't Go Home Again)

Ouch. A great Christian leader of the 1980s, Mark Ashton, complained that since the 1960s there had been no great protest song writers. I responded that there were but they didn't get so much publicity those days, especially as the establishment was what was being protested. But what did he think punk was? And when Tom Robinson wrote Power in the Darkness he wasn't pulling legs he was calling to arms. 'Stand up and fight for your rights.'

My favourite current lyricist is James Mercer of the Shins. What are we to make of:

Since then it's been a book you read in reverse so you understand less as the pages turn or a movie so crass and awkwardly cast that even I could be the star
(Pink Bullets)

The lyric sheets tend not to have any pointing. I listen to that again and again, it's one of my desert island eight, and it still delivers. The joy of pondering what on earth it means. Iron and Wine offer a similar experience.

The ability to put things metaphorically, to require of the listener some working engagement whilst being able to enjoy little punchlines along the way, is the skill of the songsmith wordsmith. Convoluting the truth enables it to have slow-fuse impact. Leave the shallow and the blunt for the pop-charts to handle without care. I like my lyrics vague.

The prophet understood a world where trees clapped their hands and mountains did the joyful thing (Isaiah 55:12). But the psalmist accepted that there were times when you just wanted to take the Babylonian babies and beat their heads against rocks (Psalm 137:8,9). Violent not vague.

John Peel's favourite lyric of all time was The Who's 'I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth' (Substitute). And that's funny. Pete Townswend hoped he'd die before he got old and he was 75 in May. Good thing he's chewed the words many times. They're kinda hard to swallow now. Meanwhile Billy dances with Peter Pan's shadow. I like that.

Billy Franks - an Appreciation

Whilst it seems disgracefully tardy to write an obituary four years after someone's death this will be as much about me as about the deceased. Also, which is a tough thing to admit about someone I admired so much, I didn't know Billy had died until last week.

Back to the beginning of the reason for writing this, then back to the beginning of the story.

On Easter Day, often a day when I get out of bed and step onto a conveyor belt of ministry delivery, I was in lock-down. The coronavirus COVID19 had caused the country to isolate its citizens and ban public meetings, including church services. I had put all necessary services online the previous day and I had nothing to do. From somewhere this quote arrived:

'What I would give
For what it could be
Touching or touched by
A far more tender glory'

As quotes do it resonated with me more than any words I could conjure myself. Taken from the Faith Brothers song 'That's just the way that it is with me' the lyrics reveal a person comfortable in their own presence:

'How in sweet solitude I listen to my soul singing...'

The song is on their 1987 second album 'A Human Sound'.

I put it on Facebook, adding Billy Frank's name. Later that morning, but still early, a clergy friend asked if she could use the quote in a sermon and might I attribute it, which I did.

So that whole process got me reminiscing a bit and I listened to some Faith Brothers music on my morning walk. What a joy it was. Returning home I realised that I had never utilised the full force of Google on the Faith Brothers. So I did. And discovered that Billy had been dead, since 2016. His death disappeared in a year that claimed so many big names. I also discovered his solo work, previously missed by me in Q reviews, newspaper reviews, radio airplays or simply gossip. And I also began to feel that Billy had sound-tracked my ministry from the sidelines. I have many little memories of the last thirty five years attached to Faith Brothers songs.

Right. Back to the beginning of the beginning, which is Nottingham, Rock City October 21st 1985 and, ordained a year, myself and a mate, curate in the next door parish, have a night off to see REM. Two supports are described on Wikipedia for that night but either Pleasure Device were completely forgettable or we arrived too late. But we did see the Faith Brothers.

I don't think I'm reading too much back into the story; I wouldn't have gone out and bought their first album if I wasn't impressed. So my memory is of a crisp sound, a very small drum kit making a remarkable noise, a tight band and, unusually in 1980s rock, a brass section of trumpet and sax. Also the songs. The songs. Short. Crafted. Some enigmatic aspects to the lyrics I could discern. Whether I discerned or not they started that tour with Eventide, the first track on their first album of the same name. It is a quiet, acoustic ballad on the album; a joyful and gloriously uptempo song live:

'History handed down like big brother's clothes
Madmen and giant's cast-offs
Stretched and frayed or tailor-made?'

There is a gig from BBC In Concert 1985 on Spotify which gives a flavour of what I would have experienced that night.

REM were great later, but that support band. I needed to know more. And the only way to have done that, I conclude, would have been to go to a big record shop and browse. So that I must have done.

At home I played that record a lot and also bought A Human Sound, their second album, which came out in 1987. It included a critique of traditional church:

'In an old place for the first time
I heard the fed talk about hunger
Telling tales of loaves and fishes
I heard the wealthy read the book of common prayer.'
(You Can't Go Home Again)

In a period where Conservative politics had no real opposition Billy didn't so much shout from the left as stick up for the voiceless whoever they were.

I inflicted both those two albums on a church youth group around that time and, when I found out that the band were supporting Julian Cope at Rock City, took one of them with me to see them. Remember when that was not thought to be a stupid thing to do? Anyway that young member is now the Archbishop's advisor on Evangelism so hey.

Back at Rock City the Faith Brothers gave me one of those rare occasions where the support blew away the headline. One of only two gigs where the support act has got an encore. The other, should you care, was when I saw Genesis supporting Caravan in 1972.

And now we have an intermission. No more albums but I played those two regularly. In the days when you had to record your albums onto tape to play them in the car I had A Human Sound on one side of a C90 and a metal band called FM on the other. Junior Tilley, borrowing the tape aged about 8, managed to press 'record' in the middle of the album when listening to it in his bedroom and never owned up until we all heard the evidence on a long car journey.

In the late 1980s I read Mark Ashton's' Christian Youth Work' a seminal book at the time. I wrote in the margin, next to a section where he had been lamenting the lack of protest songs (recalling the days of Bob Dylan and his own youth) and I noted that the Faith Brothers did so. There was no lack of protest songs; they simply didn't get played.

The albums survived a move to the north-east from Nottingham and came back to Leamington Spa, still played regularly enough, but on arrival in Nailsea the record deck broke and we didn't replace it until my darling family bought me a new one for a significant birthday. So I probably went six or seven years without. But of course, by 2012 there was Spotify and so the vinyl could be kept but spared. There's something about holding a vinyl sleeve in your hands though. It means something.

Somewhere in the midst of this a popular author I enjoy, Christopher Brookmyre dedicated a new novel to Billy Franks. Since Brookmyre is a bit lefty in his politics it had to be my hero. I love those moments when one of your heroes declares another of your heroes their hero too.

And so to last Easter Sunday, when I Googled and Spotified Billy Franks and found he had died. RIP someone I feel close to and would have loved to have been friends with. Your words will keep me thinking about you until the day I die too.

I listened to your songs again and anew and for a moment the tears gushed. You once said 'Love is a welcome pain'. Trying to translate I hear the tales of a Catholic boy:

'As I refuse to choose between solid and heavenly thrones .. why should I go to mass?'
(Mass)

(Was there more to that Faith Brothers name then I imagined?)

...an introvert, a wordsmith, possibly a sufferer of early bereavement, coming to terms with his own personality, perhaps resigning himself to a lack of recognition which many of us felt he deserved. And everyone very quiet about the cause of his sudden death.

On YouTube is a documentary film about Billy's friends trying to persuade famous artists to record a tribute to an unknown songwriter. The film cuts back, again and again, to Billy speaking between songs at an intimate pub gig. Towards the end he confesses that we are listening to a man whose dreams didn't work out. The film is called Tribute This. One of the Executive producers is Chris Brookmyre.

But my current treat is the discovery of several solo albums and an extra live show on Spotify. I haven't listened to them all yet. Truth be told I can't bear the thought of having finished Billy's back catalogue.

My tears are for a life taken early, a world trapped in lock-down and the vaguest hint of a feeling that my dreams didn't all work out either. I'm seeking an inner willingness to own that and be all right with it.

'The true are free, the corrupt are lonely
That's my belief
Left to scavenge for scraps of beauty in this junkyard'
(Whistling in the Dark)

Yeah. Me too. Thanks Billy Franks and the Faith Brothers. I'll keep you close. He wrote a book. I've ordered it.

Ten Influential Albums

I have just finished one of those Facebook challenges. This one involved posting pictures of the covers of ten albums, one a day, that have influenced my taste in music. It was a tough ask. One of the rules was not to explain, so they stand alone on Facebook, but I thought there night be some fun in showing my working. This particularly because some of my favourite albums ever are not there.

No space for my first love Ten Years After. No Genesis album. No punk. Talking Heads didn't make the cut. No jazz. Burial missing. No Zappa. Strewth, No Zappa. How that happen? Only a vague hint at the 1970s and a nod at electro-pop from the early 80s. Can't believe there's no Tears for Fears. Four of my favourite albums of all time aren't there. No Sunshine. No Butts Band. No Ace. No Dan Reed Network. I forgot John Martyn. No way. And all very local. I must disappoint you, world music.

And, truth be told, the list might have been very different on another day. Not sitting in depressed lock-down in a plague-world drifting gently into mental illness I might have been pressing different buttons on the juke-box.

I think my choices represent that we don't learn in a smooth curve but our lives have some eureka moments. The 1990s were highly influential for me, possibly because, after losing my way a bit, fine music began seeping under my sons' bedroom doors and I found myself asking 'What's that?' Thanks Ben for Zero 7, Roots Manuva and Iron and Wine. Thanks Jon for the many long car journeys to Aberystwyth and back where, strangely, taking it in turns to control the CD player, you introduced me to some great music from the 70s I had missed and I played you new stuff. And both of you for your own music. Umarga and Black Maple have me in proud Dad mode. They made me try a bit harder.

Also because from 1992-2002 I had a national job with many long hours on the road and John Peel, then Mark Radcliffe introduced me to a range of stuff I would never have heard otherwise. Step forward Dusted, Witness, Faithless, Lexis and the 22/20s.

More recent discoveries, good as Jaga Jazzist, Jazz Liberatorz, Bonobo, Fourtet, Foals, Ghostpoet, Undergrunnen and The Vryll Society are, might have to hang around a little longer before they can be deemed influential. Face it, there are few new genres; most good music is assembled from bits of other music these days. Noel Gallagher, I'm looking at you as the genius of flatpack pop. I'm waiting for the next bombshell. And, of course, (metaphor remix warning) eventually a bombshell will come along that fails to blow my mind.

So to my choices:

Traffic

The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys

1971

Set the scenes for my enjoyment of the extended instrumental section. Steve Winwood's piano style I have spent 50 years trying to emulate. Recently someone, who didn't know this, told me that I had succeeded. I have never been so happy.

Faith Brothers

Eventide

1985

Simple song-writing and enigmatically poignant lyrics with a bit of political protest chucked in. And brass. I like brass, done this well.

Talk Talk

Spirit of Eden

1988

This is why there is no jazz and no electro-pop in my choice. Because in one staggeringly inventive album Mark Hollis (RIP) and his gang sweep up all influences from the previous and next 20 years. And I prefer minors to majors. Always will.

Massive Attack

Blue Lines

1991

Heard Safe from Harm and knew this was different. This was not the usual Radio 1 beat. I now know I like trippy stuff. Maybe I should have done some drugs in my teens. Then again, this was worth waiting for.

Definition of Sound

Love and Life: A Journey with the Chameleons

1991

The album that made me realise that people talking instead of singing wasn't cheating. The moment the penny dropped.

Roni Size Reprasent

New Forms

1997

Up until that point, to re-imagine a joke from the Blues Brothers, my observation about my older son's DJ career was that he offered both sorts of music - drum and bass. Then I heard this and further pennies tumbled.

Alabama 3

Exile on Coldharbour Lane

1997

Can't for the life of me recall how I found this album. Woke up this Morning didn't become the theme tune to The Sopranos for a few more years. I didn't see them on Later with Jools Holland until La Peste (second album). But influential because I like electro, I like country and I like blues but I didn't know you could get all three in one packet. There's at least eight of them and they're not from Alabama. RIP D Wayne Loved your work.

Radiohead

OK Computer

1997

I had The Bends. The reviews captured me. It was the moments of Thom Yorke's soulful wailing that were best though. Street Spirit (Fade Out) is a remarkable piece of work. Then they did Jools and performed Paranoid Android. They linked prog rock to soul. Not my favourite track but influential in that this band, ever since, have moved on album by album in imagination, reach, competence and vision. The long-lived rock band that keeps learning together. So rare.

Hayes and Cahill

The Lonesome Touch

1997

Another Later moment. I loved that Jools got us to listen to things we might not otherwise hear. This woke me up to the distinctions and rules of jigs and reels. Now I like this sort of thing. Fifteen years after this they played Holy Trinity Church, Nailsea hosted by Nailsea Folk Club. I met them. Delightful guys.

Everything but the Girl

Temperamental

1999

Me and TCMT have little cross-over musical taste these days. I fear she tolerates my loves more than enjoys them. She has told me that if she is ever in the house when a Battles album is playing she will leave me. This band is a genuine shared love and taught us both that great songs can be remixed and reconceived many times to deliver more, not less, enjoyment.

I hope that helps. I have illustrated he ones that nearly made it.

Jake Black RIP

Who, you may ask? He's the guy who did most of the spoken word bits and not a few cosy harmonies on the wonderful output of the Alabama 3. If you haven't been keeping up there's usually about eight or nine of them and they're from Brixton. They blend cool country, acid-house, gospel, techno blues with quite a lot of scotch and a few things less legal (in my humble opinion from row 15).

Still not there. OK the band who did the Woke Up This Morning theme tune from The Sopranos. They always included it in their live set and boasted it kept them fed.

Jake Black performed as his alter-ego the Rev'd D Wayne Love, a Presleytarian minister of the church of St Elvis the Divine. They used many Christian influences in their songs. Indeed the opening track on their first album Exile of Coldharbour Lane was called Converted and include the singalong gospel couplet:

Let's go back to church, let's go back to church
Been so damn long since we sang the song, let's go back to church

My Name is Johnny Cash, a tribute to a great influence, suggested that the country singer was around at the time of Jesus:

I was there when they crucified the Lord
I said to Jesus 'Hello, I'm Johnny Cash'

Blasphemy. Well maybe yes and maybe no but I ain't gonna take offence.

The first time I saw them, in Oxford, they supported themselves with an unplugged set of paired down versions of their best tunes. Their live gigs were fabulous entertainment and still will be without the good Rev'd. I had a bit of a personal bet then that their lifestyle would stop short of sixty years of age in many cases. D Wayne was 59. In this video he is on backing vocals. Find many live examples on YouTube.

Full obituary from the Guardian is here.

A Little Nod To Paris Today

Learning today that the trad tune behind Now the Green Blade Rises is French it felt appropriate to offer a French, jazzy, bluesy cover. Done in one take; excuse rough and readiness and general lack of finesse.

Advent Thought 19

A few years ago we realised that normal people tended to play Christmas music in their houses at Christmas and we had never done that. So we set off down to the local music emporium and purchased some weird and wonderful bits of unpopular Christmas music. None of your Mariah Carey or Michael Bublé  but some less well known stuff. Completely on spec I bought this album and loved it, mainly because it included some jazz piano shapes I have been able to copy.

It was never part of our Christmas tradition as our boys grew up. It first hit the home at around the turn of the millennium. Yet it is still asked for when visitors come, even family.

But it is now compulsory listening around this time and we have just had a first run through with a couple of drinks post #Mumwatch. Very relaxing.

So, what do you do at Christmas that everyone else thinks is daft? And is it 

By the way you needn't buy it to check it out. Stream it on Spotify.

Advent Thought 13

This is an agroove by Kreafunk. Great names for a great piece of kit and fine firm. It is a bluetooth speaker and has given me an inordinate amount of pleasure. From its sleek design you might guess it is Scandinavian, Danish to be precise, although assembled in China.

I remember the days when, if I read a review of a piece of music that sounded interesting, I had to either listen out for it, find someone who owned it or buy it on spec.

Now I use Spotify on my phone and can sample reviewed music from the comfort of my own bed whilst avoiding cutting myself off from the world with headphones.

All mortal flesh may be currently charged with keeping silence but this merry gentleman is agrooving.

And this is one way the world is getting better. What has come along to help you enjoy life while you wait? Consider all the words in this piece that would have been meaningless 10, 100 and 1000 years ago.

Posts on ways life is getting worse are available but not the current point.

Wave Pictures at The Fleece

Ever since Junior told me I'd enjoy this lot I've been mugging up. Seemed like perfectly acceptable country/rock/blues for a Monday evening out, but I had low expectations.

Wow! I had to search for the exclamation mark on the keyboard I use it so rarely.

Learning new music live is a wonderful business. And so support act 1 - Vinegar get filed under 'interesting; look out for more' and support act 2 Snails can crawl slowly away.

Interesting observation from Junior. 'The bassist is too good for Snails (she was very good). If they had a rubbish bassist at least we'd applaud them all for having a go.'

And so to Wave Pictures. Los Lobos meet Dire Straits at a blues fest in honour of The Modern Lovers.

I want to applaud an excellent gig-by-numbers. This is how to do it:

Open with a big song. Either the best new one or a strong back catalogue number.

Introduce any other new songs in the first half of the set. This is also the place for audience banter. Sample banter:

Front-man: I wrote this next song during Blue Planet. I hate it but if I watch it with my girlfriend then she will watch The Big Bang Theory. I don't understand why everyone likes David Attenborough.

Audience: (Murmur of disapproval)

Front-man: See. Everyone likes David Attenborough. Do you all like him?

Audience: (Cheers)

Front-man: The best place for an animal is on the end of my fork.

Audience: (Louder murmur of disapproval)

Front-man: Thing is, that was a quote from Quentin Crisp. So you're really booing me for being well read.

At about the half way stage leave shorter gaps between songs, stack up the well-known crowd favourites, tell everyone when the last one is about to happen and do two encore songs without going off between them and then go home.

Brief nod of respect to the sound crew who made the vocal mix for Wave Pictures clear enough for us to be able to sing along to tunes we had never heard before, by the time of the second chorus.

Singer/guitarist David Tattersall is quite a virtuoso - he channelled Mark Knoepfler and David Gilmour but his style is also very much his own. Franic Rozycki played a couple of lead lines on bass with some aplomb and drummer Jonny Helm was joined by a guest (and permanently grinning) percussionist who added much.

There's a gig on YouTube but it doesn't beat seeing them. Oxford tonight if you hurry.

Ian Dury, Woke up this Morning and a Bit of Bad Language

I don't know why I woke up with Ian Dury on my mind yesterday. I was searching for a lyric, I think.

For those who are too young, Ian Dury and The Blockheads had some success in the late 1970s and early 1980s with some cracking singles such as Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick, Reasons to be Cheerful Part lll (that 'Part lll' in itself a tease that you had missed parts l and ll, which you hadn't) and Wot a Waste. His lyrics had a certain nursery rhyme quality, albeit rhymes you would not want your children to learn before their teenage years. His backing band included the extremely talented Chas Jankel on keys and guitar, and the best bass player I have ever heard live (and I heard Leo Lyons, Jaco Pastorius, Tony Levin and The Ox), Norman Watt-Roy.

Behind all this was an unavailable at first (in this country) tune called Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Dury's first album only began with that track if you bought a US pressing—which I did, of course, what do your take me for? It was a classic album for not playing to the fine and upstanding members of the Christian community we regularly entertained. Randomly, one of the tunes began with 'Bollocks, arseholes, f******* c**** and pricks.' We always turned it off before answering the door.

I hope you are OK with the words I chose not  to bleep. I was talking to someone the other day who was upset at the amount of times Bishop Michael Curry blasphemed in an interview about 'that' sermon. So I expect some will be disappointed. But  this is me so don't take it too hard.

I couldn't recall the lyric I was seeking but improvised a snatch of the type of poetry it might be, my tribute if you like:

I went on quite a bender

With a barmaid name of Brenda
She turned out pretty handy
With a pint of larger shandy

Which helped me pin down the tune - Billericay Dicky. And the actual lyric:

I bought a lot of brandy

When I was courting Sandy
Took eight to make her randy
And all I had was shandy

Down with this sort of thing? In the world and not of it? Never really found the time to be offended by swearing? You?

Thanks for your time.

Solutions

Every one of my Advent thoughts contained a quote from a song. Here are the solutions:

Intro: Fly Like an Eagle - Steve Miller Band

1. Three Steps to Heaven - Showaddywaddy and many others
2. Counting Out Time - Genesis
3. Two tracks by Soul Wax
4. What a Wonderful World - Sam Cooke
5. Brain damage/Any Colour You Like - Pink Floyd
6. Across the Universe - The Beatles
7. Death Walks Behind You - Atomic Rooster
8. The Magic Number - de la Soul
9. Time for Action - Secret Affair
10. Beauty and the Beast - Ariane Grande
11. Drummer Man - Tonight
12. We Three Kings - traditional carol
13. I Should be so Lucky - Kylie Minogue
14. If - Bread
15. You're Beautiful - James Blunt
16. Money - Pink Floyd
Money Makes the World Go Round - from Cabaret
Can't Buy me Love - The Beatles
17. REM - It's the End of the World as we Know It
(and a sneaky Ian Dury from Reasons to be Cheerful)
18. Stevie Wonder - Happy Birthday
19. Genesis - Supper's Ready
20. Ghostpoet - Sloth Trot
(and a sneaky Talking Heads plus Simon and Garfunkel in the social media link)
21. Wham - Last Christmas
22. Pink - Get the Party Started

Noises Off

Heard an interesting Crowd Science podcast about noise today. They explored the whole idea of  the word, which clearly has pejorative overtones. There are sounds, which are neutral. Then there is noise, which is unwanted.

I am interested because my attitude to sound has changed over the years. I am obviously deafer than I once was. Those familiar sounds, such as close family members talking, are easy to miss. I often fail to grasp the first few words of a sentence and have to ask for a repeat. It doesn't help that I have a life-partner who talks to herself pretty much constantly and so I tune that out then discover, from time to time, that it would have been wiser to have been listening.

Aged seventeen and eighteen I had music on almost constantly. I did history at A Level and a coursework essay could be endured with five sides of LP. About 100 minutes for 500 words.

But today I am far more likely to prefer silence whilst reading or writing. Music accompanies cooking or ironing. My parents were kind enough to endure piano practice, something I played forward with a son learning guitar. Chase the mistake anyone? I have music or spoken word on in the car when I drive but usually turn the radio off when trying to locate a new destination.

I grew up near the centre of a city. There was a background hum that never went away. The comforting, familiar sounds of home included Birmingham University Clock every quarter of an hour, and on the hour throughout the night.

On the Crowd Science programme they interviewed people in one of India's largest cities often dubbed the noisiest place on earth. Drivers in Chennai sound their horn as a matter of course for very minor reasons. A family who lived ten feet from a busy railway line explained that house-guests never sleep. 'But after four months you hardly notice it.'

In downtown New York everything has to become louder to drown the noise of cars. One expert said 'Make the cars quieter and everything follows.'

But it isn't as easy as that. Electric cars could be perfectly silent but pedestrians are used to having their ears as an early-warning system. Electric cars have to come equipped with some noise, to reassure drivers and warn the jay-walker.

You see we don't like silence as much as we think we do. We like sounds. Your bank's cash dispenser doesn't need to make a noise as your money rolls out, but we like it to. Equally deceptive is the software that makes a shutter sound on a digital camera. Totally unnecessary. But we are now self-programmed to respond. We like those clicks and whirrs. Most of you, if you have a printer in your house, will know when it is making the right noises pre-job.  It is a little dance of preparedness. I am doing what you expect me to do, it tells you.

When I first moved into my current home, a modern dwelling, I was weirded out by all its noises. But the clicks of those expansion joints as the sun comes round is a good thing. At half past two on a spring afternoon our conservatory wakes up. It is a cracking sound telling me everything is working as it should be.

We all get used to the sound of our home's heating system. Not noise.

I rejoiced at the arrival of quiet carriages on trains. Pretty soon I realised that I was more maddened by rule-breakers in those than the noise in the others.

I had an interesting discussion over the weekend  about sound quality on vinyl music. Is the presence of surface noise or left-over studio sounds an imperfection or part of the reality of construction? And do you tend to listen for the imperfections or to the tune? A member of my family is a musician whose main instrument is computer. No extra noises there. The music is good but it is a monocultural landscape without hedge or ditch. All sound and no noise. It was interesting the way someone such as Burial introduced industrial and surface noise sounds to his music to make dubstep. Improved by imperfection.

How do you take your noise? One bump or two?

Eurovision

In case there are those who do not follow my live tweets/FB on Eurovision here is the feed from last night. Thanks to those who joined in.

Happy to be offering the usual service of watching #Eurovision2017 so you don't have to. Expect sincerity without diplomacy.




'Expect repetitive flashing images'; music not dissimilar #Eurovision2017




Did everyone get the 'wear black or white' memo? Who was meant to tell Spain? #Eurovision2017




Comedy timing hard in a second language - don't think timing is all our three hosts need though #Eurovision2017




Let's start out with depress mode #Israel feels alive? a liar? a lot? #Eurovision2017




'No one has ever won from position number 2.' Song and dress mainly see-through plus wind, smoke and fiddler #Poland #Eurovision2017




Predicted text prefers walrus to #Belarus hey hey hi i i o o #Eurovision2017




Running on air you can push me down but I'll just get up again. How that work? #Austria #Eurovision2017




#Armenia #Eurovision2017 Already forgotten it. Will probably win.




And welcome the key change please. Big voices. #Netherlands #Eurovision2017




Dresses which got bigger. There's a novelty. Mamma mamma don't bistro now #Moldova #Eurovision2017




Lone dancer, lone fiddler, flames, rap in native tongue and Gareth Bale's missing topknot #Hungary #Eurovision2017




I'm sure those backdrop images were on my doctor's wall yesterday. One or two words in Italian. Dreadful. #Italy #Eurovision2017



Never ever wear a frock in a waterfall. You won't have to sing 'You know where I am' #Denmark #Eurovision2017




Please return my jacket to 1986 and the song to My Fair Lady #Portugal #Eurovision2017




A ladder, a chalkboard and a song about a skeleton. Man with animal head at top of ladder. What could go wrong? #Azerbaijan #Eurovision2017




A man of many parts. None of them small. #Croatia #Eurovision2017




Who knew eyebrow paint was a thing? Everyone has it. But only #Australia have clown shoes and a love that don't come cheap #Eurovision2017




That's the worst response to 'Guys, give yourselves a cheer' I have ever heard #Eurovision2017




The Eurobynumbers department decrees an annual 'throw everything at it' tune. #Greece #Eurovision2017




Never heard it before and got the drum-join bang on. Clap your hands and do it for your lover. #Spain #Eurovision2017




When changing key always agree the key to change to #Eurovision2017




#Norway #Eurovision2017 When it's all or nuffin, put your nerves in the coffin. Cool.




Here's the Brexit test. OK but Midge Ure did it better #UK #Eurovision2017




Let me be your gravity. Science lesson needed. Song not without merit. #Cyprus #Eurovision2017




Rap and yodel. No. Come back. Come back. #Romania #Eurovision2017




The four favourite Euro chords - rhythm Every Breath You Take by The Police. Stands a chance. #Germany #Eurovision2017




Band piercing a plenty. Song less so. Heavy man. #Ukraine #Eurovision2017




Quite under-stated. Nice. Bit like a theme tune to scandinoir #Belgium #Eurovision2017




Is it OK to say frickin? #Eurovision2017




Frickin slick or is it freakin? Tune Beverley Hills Flop #Sweden #Eurovision2017




Quite an accomplished performance for 17. Stands a chance. #Bulgaria #Eurovision2017




Changed direction faster than a Compass in a magnet factory. Legs should win some votes. #France #Eurovision2017




Well done Ukraine for hammering through 26 songs in two hours #Eurovision2017




We're still loved by Iceland then. Trying to hold off the cod war #Eurovision2017




I think a new tension-cranking device has been introduced #Eurovision2017

To finish, I was delighted to spot that Bulgaria stood a chance. They came second. Had no idea that Portugal would walk it. Enjoyed the new voting system so you genuinely don't know who will be winning until right near the end.

Music from the 1990s

I recently accepted a Facebook challenge to post a link to one 1990s tune everyday for seven days. Here are all seven:

Mike Peatman has challenged me to find 7 tracks from the 90s to share with y'all. He thinks I will find it easier than him. He's possibly right. Cracking decade of inspirational music. Maybe some of my old Chester-le-Street yoof will have an interesting take on this. How about it Paul Stockdale? My first thought was that early 90s means Madchester so here are Happy Mondays taking a 70s John Kongos tune and giving it a club vibe:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5HhwecdCQw

Day 2. In the 1990s I first began to realise that rap and hip-hop were worth attention. Shout out to Definition of Sound but this track combined fresh samples, funky riffage and a protest song.

Need to tag someone else every day. Got a view Andrew Smith? Take the challenge.

https://vimeo.com/105067123

Day 3. I Heard this on Radio 1 when it came out and realised at least three of my favourite types of music now existed in one genre. Heard it performed live in Bristol this month at a 25th anniversary gig.

Simon Marshall is showing interest. Tag.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKtTmZnVhhI

Day 4. In 1997 far more than three people from Brixton invented themselves as The Alabama 3 and brought out their first album Exile on Coldharbour Lane. Fusing acid-house, country and blues with a bit of D Wayne Love's spoken word they jumped to fame when this tune, which we hear them doing live in 2013, became The Sopranos' theme.

Naughty word warning in intro. 

They are a great live band. Truly great. Steve Couch loves them too. Fancy being tagged?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B63_6z2v1Xk

Day 5. Radiohead have been an enduring nineties band, innovating and re-inventing album after album. The single Creep off their first album gained popularity but second album The Bends was just a great rock collection. Until this, the final track, which presaged the soulful and reflective gorgeousness that was to be scattered throughout their next twenty years. 

Any Radiohead fan want to accept the tag today?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LCJblaUkkfc

Day 6. No matter which decade of my music awareness you choose, my love for guitar, bass, drums and vocals jangly pop has never wavered.

I toyed with REM  and the under-rated Airhead but opted for this which was one of the first tunes Ben Tilley (fancy a go?) put me on to. Still one-hit wonders, the mighty Toad the Wet Sprocket. Bear with the ads:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_c5ln9wP0TA

This is the seventh and final day of my challenge to choose seven 90s songs in seven days. I may not have chosen my favourite seven tunes but I believe I have charted my musical education over the ten years. No Oasis/Blur for me. I always burrowed down a bit deeper than most looking for my gold. I love saying to people, 'You must hear this...'

Simon Marshall has already mentioned the idea of music which kept him company on long drives home from CPAS training evenings. In the late 90s I probably played Faithless' Sunday 8pm more than most albums.

But in the week it was John Peel 10-midnight and he introduced me to stuff I would never otherwise have heard. Shout out to Witness and Appliance (but jangly guitar already covered). Los Lobos had a great sound. Lexis (drum and bass ish) came out in 2000.

So here's an unexpected closer. Hayes and Cahill were on Later with Jools in the mid 90s and I began to hear their laments, jigs and reels in a way I had missed with other artists. Recently they performed in Nailsea and I met them. Delightful guys. There's some up-tempo stuff on The Lonesome Touch (1997) too but carry my coffin in to this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nl8808yy01M

Carry it out to any of the others from this week.

This has been quite a male task. Any women want a go?

Revolution; 1966-1970

At the Victoria and Albert Museum at the moment, running until 26th February 2017, is an excellent exhibition about the years 1966-1970.

It aims to answer this question:

'How have the finished and unfinished revolutions of the late 1960s changed the way we live today and think about the future?'

It is hard to decide when the sixties (as referenced by writers) actually started. They usually mean the period that started in earnest once the Beatles hit the charts and drifted on into the next decade. So about 1962-1971 is 'Sixties' culture.

I spent that period being 7-16 so it is the time I grew up. But my first festival experience wasn't until 1972.

But the years 66-70 saw one of the most important periods in history for cultural change. Our understanding of race, gender, travel (to space), fashion and many other things began a process of change which continues to this day.

Visitors to this exhibition, wearing headsets to replace the hotel lobby background music with rock and roll, wander through the late John Peel's collection of vinyl sleeves. Clever technology aligns what we hear to on-screen voices as we approach a TV and so we hear archive footage of social commentators from the period. We go to the Moon, experience student riots and sit in on the Woodstock experience (The Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Jimmy Hendrix).

We gaze on the costumes from the cover of Sergeant Pepper and get to read Paul McCartney's handwritten resignation letter from 1970.

It costs £16.50 full price with a number of discounts. Those who were aware of all the sixties are now pensioners. Although I do recall someone saying that if you could remember the sixties you weren't there. Man. You need a timed ticket and it will take a couple of hours to enjoy properly.

Illustrations are a couple of our vinyl sleeves - Traffic's Mr Fantasy from 1968 and Free's Fire and Water from 1969.

Eurovision 2016

'I like to live tweet comments on Eurovision. The Twitter feed makes it all worthwhile. Here are all the comments together:

In preparation for #Eurovision  I am listening to the surprising and awesome beauty of A Moon Shaped Pool.

If you want to join in my fun then I will be using #Eurovison

Easier to say, 'One or two moments may not contain flashing images.' #Eurovison

Belgium. Another one bites the disco. Several important pop clichés. Acceptable. #Eurovison

Czech Republic starts with 'I've made mistakes with the monsters in my head'. Self-fulfilling prophecy?  #Eurovison

Netherlands - 'I'm going nowhere and I'm going fast' an equally apposite opening. Piano playing different notes to the pianist.  #Eurovison

Azerbaijan - amazing lighting but 'Gonna take a Miracle'. Male dancers request pictures of their outfits are deleted at midnight. #Eurovison

Hungary - when you hit something that hard you really expect a noise. No key changes yet but welcome to whistling. #Eurovison

Italy - first non-English song? Oh no. She changed half-way through. Tuning issues. #Eurovison

Israel - We are all made of stars? Breathy. Not Moby though #Eurovison

Bulgaria - criminal trousers, bit of an Irish whistle, not as catchy as we were led to expect. In fact unhumable #Eurovison

France - I thought the French were down on English. Sorry doesn't rhyme with glory. Bit catchy. #Eurovison

Oops. @judemunday tells me that was Sweden not France but he was called Frans. You drop your guard for a moment... #Eurovison

Germany - she's wearing ALL the clothes #Eurovison

Sure this is France now. Woo oo oo oo oo always goes down well in the arena. Half in English too. Got a chance but that last note #Eurovison

Poland How does a country get to the point where it thinks this best represents them? Key-change, frock-coat and hell of a hairdo #Eurovison

Australia - strong voice but song sucked. Doubt if #Eurovison will be at 4.00 a.m. next year.

Cyprus, trying anything to lose the Greek vote. A bit of rock in the jolly Foreigner sort of way.  #Eurovison

Serbia - this is such complete, pure Eurodross I expect it will win. Big ballad with a key change. #Eurovison

Lithuania - I blame Gary Barlow. Got a chance. #Eurovison

Croatia - #Eurovison audiences can be dangerous but wearing an ammo-pouch is a bit OTT. Oh wait. Someone undressed her a bit.

Russia - coming to a hotel pool during your holiday every day this summer. Clever visuals. Key change. Winner so far. #Eurovison

Spain - not for me but loads of energy and lots of stabbed keys as expected in Eurodisco #Eurovison

Latvia - nice to have a different synth sound, this one as per 1980s Japan; rest a bit predictable #Eurovison

How do you end up with a diagonal vpl? #Eurovison

Ukraine - this is really good. Dubstep beat. Anxious vocal. No chance. #Eurovison

I love Malta but they put a lot of pressure on the relationship. #Eurovison

Georgia - what Oasis would have sounded like without the Gallaghers #Eurovison

Austria -   Before singing SAW stuff like this you must be in a soap for five years. It's the rules. #Eurovison

UK - really nice tune. Take That feel. One of the best chord sequences of the night. #Eurovison

Armenia - lots of female solo singers this year? Big lungs and a fiddle. #Eurovison

So I like Belgium, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine and UK #Eurovison

It takes 26 #Eurovison tunes to make you realise Justin Timberlake has talent. Respect.

This spoof is the best thing since my own #Eurovison song in 2006:

La la la got force fed in

And my sweet song became a din

Should win.

Before this next tweet can I just say what a brilliant job you've done and what a great show it's been #Eurovison

Just to remind you I said:

Ukraine - this is really good. Dubstep beat. Anxious vocal. No chance. #Eurovison

Crazy, crazy competition.

We meet next year in Ukraine.

Gig Openings

I was fortunate enough to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers touring their first album in Birmingham in the 1970s. Hyped up for an evening of exciting rockage we wondered which of their great up tempo tracks they would open with. Maybe American Girl or Anything That's Rock n Roll.

He chose Lunar.

Now this is a great song. Listen to it here. 

But as a show opener it was remarkable. It is filled with expectation and in the trembling vocal contains the idea that something big and loud is about to break out. It leads you to the rest of the album (which the band then played). But the song is all angst. It felt like the tune played over the PA as the lights dimmed rather than the first of the gig. Only after it had finished were the crowd addressed. Quite brilliant.

Thinking about it for no reason the other day I got to pondering the best openings to gigs I could recall. And they are all quite a while ago. Maybe beginning a gig isn't quite what it used to be. Too much ambling on, 'Hello Bristol' (or wherever) and then playing. So how about:

Genesis at Reading in 1973 began with Watcher of the Skies. A huge brooding organ-filled sound. Peter Gabriel, only his head visible, eyes painted with luminous make-up, was encased in a sort of box. As the song progressed it was raised hydraulically into the festival night sky until he sang the final verse twenty feet above the stage. It was outrageous theatre only slightly dampened by the failure of the hydraulic mechanism and it taking about ten minutes to get him down again. I used to get terrible stomach cramps in those days, a mysterious late teenage thing that disappeared as mysteriously as it came. I had one that night but I can only recall the opening of the gig not the pain I was in. I like that.

The following year I saw Jethro Tull at Birmingham Odeon. The lights dimmed and a single spotlight picked out a black and white clad guitarist riffing on a black and white guitar. He was soon joined by a similarly clad bass player (what happened to stage costumes?). This guitar and bass dance around the stage continued for a while until the rest of the band joined in and we were off. Can't remember the tune, or much of the rest of the gig, except the pictures still in my head forty two years later.

In 1987 I saw The Mission at Rock City. Midway through the first tune I realised I had experienced the perfect iconic rock moment. To a mighty drum beat three, wind-machine-assisted, long haired guitarists were standing with one foot on a monitor surveying the crowd. They each had a fag hanging out of their mouth as they played Beyond the Pale.

I would add one further gig which I have only seen on DVD. Deconstructing the gig idea totally David Byrne (who else?) chose the Stop making Sense tour. He walks onto a bare stage with a huge ghetto-blaster and says 'I've got a tune I want to play you.' He presses 'play' and the drum track to Psycho Killer is heard. This is Talking Heads' best known song and usually their encore. He plays it solo, on acoustic guitar. Over the next two hours the band turns up section by section, a back-drop is added and by the end (the beginning?) there is an orchestra, visuals and everything you need for a great opening.

Your turn.