The best singles of 1978

Everyone is posting their lists of the best LPs/albums/whatever and singles of 2008. I'm going to do something different. The other day http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/12/magazine-give-me-everything.html I said I had rated Magazine's "Give Me Everything" the best single of 1978 at the time. To my enormous surprise (I consistently rate a brain age in the mid-seventies on Nintendo Brain Training) I managed to dredge up the whole Top 10 from the corners of my addled mind and here it is.

1. Magazine - "Give Me Everything"
2. The Clash - "White Man In Hammersmith Palais"
3. Sham 69 - "If The Kids Are United"
4. The Clash - "Tommy Gun"
5. Ian Dury & the Blockheads - "What A Waste"
6. Gang Of Four - Damaged Goods EP
7. The Cure - "Killing An Arab"
8. Magazine - "Shot By Both Sides"
9. Rezillos - "Destination Venus"
10. Flying Lizards - "Summertime Blues".


I'm not saying that I would choose them now as the best singles of 1978 (the Flying Lizards single is an especially embarrassing choice) but it's interesting. Conspicuous by their absence are The Fall, whom I discovered the following year. Also Siouxsie & the Banshees - I thought "Hong Kong Garden" was rubbish, but their album "The Scream" was the best of the year.

Happy Xmas and New Year everyone!

Love – Forever Changes

In the summer of 1967 we planned to go to Llandudno on holiday, but my brother got rubella (which everyone called German measles back then), and instead we spent a week at Westward Ho!, which, though not as exciting as north Wales, I really enjoyed. In the same summer, Arthur Lee’s band Love recorded this wonderful, wonderful album.

I heard this for the first time last year, and loved it. I thought that on coming back to it I might be disappointed, but I’m not. It’s as wonderful as ever. So I played it a second and third time. I said I loved “Forever Changes” the first time. Actually, when I heard the opening track, “Alone Again Or”, I hated it – I remember thinking “This sounds like CAT BLOODY STEVENS” and I nearly didn’t listen to any more. I’m glad I did.

The songs which stand out for me are still “The Red Telephone” (harrowing and beautiful: I still haven’t got completely to the bottom of the lyrics, beyond that it is sort of about madness in a mad world) and “You Set The Scene”. But also “Andmoreagain”, which deserves a place on the pantheon of Great Neurotic Love Songs, (alongside the likes of Talking Heads’ “The Book I Read” and, of course, Syd Barrett’s “Terrapin”). As does the aforesaid “Alone Again Or”. And the audaciously cheesy arrangements, which somehow add another dimension to the music.

None of the tracks could be called weak: the least strong are the unconvincingly callous-sounding “Bummer In The Summer” (though it is growing on me), and “Maybe The People (etc)” (I do NOT pander on this blog to unnecessarily long song titles – come and haunt me if you don’t like it, Mr Lee), which is sorely in need of a middle eight.

But the songs that fascinate me the most were the ones that defy gravity. “The Good Humor Man (etc)” should have collapsed under the weight of its own tweeness even before it acquired the pizzicato strings, but somehow it doesn’t. And “The Old Man”, which should simply be too weird to work, but isn’t.

Magazine – “Give Me Everything”

I was interested to read the reports of Magazine’s reunion: it’s just a shame that John McGeoch didn’t live to be there. I really liked Magazine, although I never actually get around to buying any of their albums. The song I remember most is not “Shot By Both Sides”, but “Give Me Everything”, which I remember voting the best single of 1978. I thought I must have been mistaken thinking it was even better than (for example) The Clash’s “White Man In Hammersmith Palais”, so I listened to it on Last FM. No mistake – this is an absolutely awesome song.

Schönberg – Five Pieces for Orchestra, op 16

The first time I have heard this, it’s brilliant. Schoenberg isn’t atonal yet, but as with the Berg piano sonata you can discern the (to use the modish expression) direction of travel. Here the tonal uncertainty is used to express extreme and often violent emotions. Reminds me of bits of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

You lose the quiet bits travelling on the bus, though. Still well worthwhile. Highly recommended (unless you want something restful).

Oliver Postgate: nice man but his work is overrated, shock horror (children’s television)

Straying off the usual topics. I’m sorry to hear about the death of Oliver Postgate, especially because he always seemed such a nice person. I ought to be able to join the chorus of people saying how wonderful his and Peter Firmin’s programmes were, but to tell the truth I was never particularly keen on Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Pogle’s Wood or the Clangers (I was a bit too old by the time Bagpuss came out).

I think the feeling I got from all of these was that somehow there was a grown-up talking down to me in an ironic, quizzical way, and I didn’t like it. I much preferred Camberwick Green / Trumpton / Chigley. (I switched on the radio a few months ago and heard someone talking about the “genius of Cant”, and thought he was talking about the great Brian, until I realised that he was talking about Kant.).

Most of the discussion of Postgate’s merits assumes the conventional wisdom that all children television nowadays is “dumbed down”. That’s rubbish (IMHO). For example, the surreal, slightly unsettling beauty of “In the Night Garden” is miles better than anything Smallfilms ever produced. Agreeable and intelligent though their programmes may have been, they never invented, for example, any character as complexly weird as Makka-Pakka.

Tom Robinson Introducing (08.12.08 edition)

BBC 6 Radio podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/trintro/.

This is actually the first time I’ve listened to TRI since starting this blog and, looking back, the last time I heard it was back in May, when it featured the brilliant neo-progressive Future Kings of England (see http://www.myspace.com/thefuturekingsofengland).

This time there isn’t anything quite as special, although 7 Dollar Taxi and their muscular guitar-based Britpoppish rock are worth a mention. I thought their singer’s mockney accent sounded a bit dodgy, before we were informed that the band were (at least originally) from Switzerland. But if they are working on their second album do they actually belong on TRI? Also good were the guitar atmospherics of Two Skies (yet another band from Sheffield).

Worth mentioning for sheer awfulness was the grand guignol of Fireworks Night.

Charlie Parker – The Ultimate Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker’s “One Night At Birdland” was the first jazz record I ever bought (I’ve still only got 4*). I think I only played it once or twice because I thought the sound quality was so bad (yes, stupid, I know). I thought recently that I should listen again to Parker because I’ve neglected him badly. I thought I was going to have a big epiphany experience and love this but it has been a bit more complicated. I found I wasn’t really warming to the music as much as I could, or should, do. Part of the problem is the apparent effortlessness of the playing. It is easy to let it go completely over my head. It’s almost like someone talking naturally. Once I listen more carefully, mindfully, I find myself thinking what amazing playing this is. But I still haven’t felt connected to it, in the way I felt connected to Thelonious Monk the first time I heard him. But I am starting to “get” it – especially “After You’ve Gone”, “Oh Lady Be Good” and “I Got Rhythm”.

Maybe the reason why I’m not more wild about this is that I just don’t listen to enough jazz – plus having flu doesn’t help (the second time this winter and it isn’t even bloody Christmas yet). I’m also not sure if this is the perfect collection. It seems rather biased towards Parker’s work with bigger bands and strings, which I hadn’t heard before, and is interesting but somehow to me isn’t the “real” Bird.

* the other 3 being Monk’s “Genius of Modern Music Volume 1”, Miles Davis’s “Birth Of The Cool” and John Coltrane’s “Love Supreme”.

Haydn – Symphonies Nos 100 (Military) and 94 (Surprise)

After enjoying Haydn’s quartets a few weeks ago (http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/08/haydn-string-quartets.html) I wanted to go back to his symphonies. When I had listened to them before they had made very little positive impression. Maybe it was because of Haydn’s accustomed place on orchestral concert programmes as a hors d’oeuvre rather than a main course. (Then again, the same applies to chamber music.) This time (I promised myself) it would be different.

Only it wasn’t. I am still underwhelmed. The one positive thing I got was realising how beautiful Haydn’s woodwind scoring is. But the brass and percussion, when used full-on, is so heavy handed, as in the slow movement of No 100, or the (in)famous “surprise” in No 94. I thought about listening to this again, in case I changed my mind, but I just couldn’t be bothered.

I hope I come back to these Haydn symphonies (or perhaps others) in a few months’ time and eat my words.

The Fall – Imperial Wax Solvent

When I said a couple of weeks ago that The Fall were still going strong – http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/11/fall-50000-fall-fans-cant-be-wrong-part.html – I have to admit I had my fingers crossed behind my back. I listened to this with some trepidation, but not only is it true, I was astonished, gobsmacked, whatever at how good this is. With the possible exception of 1993’s “The Infotainment Scan”, it’s the most consistently good Fall album I’ve heard (though I have to admit that I’ve lost touch with them over the last decade or so) since “This Nation’s Saving Grace”, some 23 years ago.

It kicks off relatively quietly, with the subtly surreal “Alton Towers”, so the howl and guitar riff that introduce “Wolf Kidult Man” come as a shock. The benchmark for Fall classics in recent years is “Theme From Sparta FC”. This definitely passes the test. My heart sank at the thought of the next track, which is over 11 minutes long (must be the longest they have ever recorded). I assumed that it was going to be boring, unfocused and rambling, and would have been happy to bank my winnings. Totally wrong. “50 Year Old Man”, which is a celebration of Mark E Smith’s half century, is wonderful, taking off at tangents several times, including a slow bit with banjos. (Have there ever been banjos on a Fall record before? There have now...) MES shouts “Fade out! Fade out!” over the fade-out, but fading out seems to be the last thing on his mind.

The rest is brilliant. You wait for the duff stuff, but it doesn’t arrive. Even tracks like “I’ve Been Duped” (with Eleni Poulou/Smith singing – can you imagine the scene in the Smith household – “Darling, I’ve written a song especially for you to sing”?), and synth near-instrumental “Taurig” (sic), which shouldn’t work, do. Especially good is the ominous “Tommy Shooter”, whose lyrics – “See, the clouds are darkening with wings of chickens, they’re coming home to roost” manage to be simultaneously sinister and hilarious.

Skewed and life-enhancing. A great and totally unexpected piece of work.

Johnny Cash – Ring Of Fire: The Legend

I’ve never been into country music. I haven’t heard enough of it to form an active dislike: I’ve just never really gone near it, mainly because to an outsider – ie an English city dweller - a lot of it seems sentimental and conservative. But a couple of weeks ago I was in a record shop and I heard Johnny Cash’s “San Quentin”, recorded live at the prison, and I had to hear more.

This collection, released a few years ago around the time of the biopic “I Walk the Line”, crams the whole of Cash’s recording career, from the mid-Fifties to his death in 2003, into a single CD. It’s a heroic endeavour (at least four times as heroic as trying to fit 25 years of The Fall onto two disks) and as a basic introduction to Johnny Cash it succeeds enormously.

The hardest thing about listening to Cash’s music, at least the earlier material, is that it is deceptively easy. That is, it doesn’t seem difficult (which is why country music is – fairly or unfairly – bracketed with “easy listening” in the UK. So it’s easy to underestimate the depth of songs like “I Walk The Line”, which isn’t (as it first seems) just a about a bloke saying he is going to behave himself, but about the redemptive power of love.

The zenith of this collection is the amazing “San Quentin”. It has to be listened to rather than described, so I’m not going to try.

Some of the stuff that follows is a bit disappointing: the mawkish “Man In Black” verges on self-parody, and “The Highwayman” (with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson – Cash draws the short straw and gets the daft verse about the spaceman) is a mistake. After that I wasn’t expecting the dark late songs to be very good, but they were, especially the covers of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” and Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”.

If any country fans out there have got any suggestions for further listening I’ll be glad to consider them. Meanwhile, I’ll be buying or borrowing copies of the San Quentin and Folsom concert albums. Or stealing them...

Sibelius – Symphony No 3

First, apologies for the longwindedness of the posts on the Fall compilation. Now, Sibelius.

I’ve never really got on with the Third. It’s not that I actively disliked it – if I had, I might have made an effort to understand it – but more that I didn’t take it seriously. So I don’t think I’ve listened to it more than two or three times before. In fact I don’t think I had heard this version – part of the set I bought about 15 years ago – ever before.

Something odd happened this time because halfway through I caught myself not taking it seriously again, so I decided to listen to it a second time. Now I understand this piece much better and rate it a bit (though not much) more highly.

The busyness of the first movement makes a strong impression, especially if you are experiencing it as a dose of bright C major sunlight on a dark grey November morning in gloomy London. But whereas my impression of the opening movement of the Second is of economy and efficiency - see http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/09/sibelius-symphony-no-2.html – here, it is the opposite. There is a wealth of material in the exposition, but I’m a bit disappointed that Sibelius doesn’t do much more with it. Again, I thought on first listening that I had been wrong to bracket the second movement with other Sibelius slow movements which just seem to be there to be pretty. But the second time round I wasn’t so sure.

I love the third (and final) movement now, however, especially the way the chorale theme comes out of nowhere like a ship out of a mist, and sweeps on and on, delaying its resolution until the very end.

I like this work more than I did. But equally important, I respect it now

The Fall – 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong – Part 3 (the last - I promise!)

Disk 2 kicks off with two tracks from 1986’s “Bend Sinister”. Some people think that this was The Fall’s best album. I don’t (I think its predecessor, “This Nation’s Saving Grace”, was better), but “US 80s 90s” and the single “Mr Pharmacist” are classics.

After that, it goes off the boil. “Living Too Late” is dull dull dull, and I don’t think “Hey! Luciani” was that good either. I didn’t notice at the time because I was just glad that they were getting more attention (though that was double-edged: I remember the Luciani play/opera/thing being trashed by the critics). Even I couldn’t be fooled by the dreadful cover of “There’s A Ghost In My House” (1987), which by some quirk of fate became The Fall’s one and only top 30 hit (so far, anyway).

Oddly, things look up after “Ghost” with the follow up singles, the epic, clubby “Hit The North” and the razor-sharp cover of the Kinks’ “Victoria”, although neither of them had the same chart success.

We then leap two years into the post-Brix era, with “Telephone Thing” (the only song by The Fall I’ve ever heard on a pub jukebox), which is OK, but gets a bit monotonous. “High Tension Line” (1991) is a great song, however, and so is the apocalyptic “Free Range” (from “Code: Selfish”, 1992 – does it remind anyone of the theme from “Miami Vice”?).

Even better is the astonishing cover of Joe Gibbs’ reggae classic “Why Are People Grudgeful?” (1993) – see Gibbs’ obituary http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3598060.ece for the story behind this song.

On to “Middle Class Revolt” (1994), which I’ve never really liked, compared to the records before and after. Two tracks from this: the single “Behind The Counter”, which is far better than I remember it, and the best track “M5#1”. Perhaps this album is worth a revisit. Ditto “Cerebral Caustic” represented here by “Feeling Numb”: pretty good but not the best track.

Next up is “The Chisellers”, a bit strange even for The Fall, but good. “Powder Keg” is much more direct, one of the best tracks on this disk. Another album I want to have another listen to is “Levitate”, which I don’t remember as very good, but I liked “Masquerade”, included here.

I’d like to write a lot more about “Touch Sensitive”, now my favourite Fall song but (as usual) there isn’t time. Smith’s lyrics home in on the really important issues – “And you’re dying for a pee / So you go behind a tree”.

After the clarity and sharpness of “Touch Sensitive” the last three tracks are more fuzzy and distorted. I hated “Crop-Dust” when I heard it for the first time, but I now recognise its brutal genius. “Susan Vs Youth Club” is bouncy. “Green Eyed Loco Man” is OK but a bit weary sounding.

And that’s the end. Or not the end because MES is still going (fairly) strong.

A few words (or rather a lot of them actually) about the selection of tracks for the collection. There aren’t any session tracks, so we don’t get the Peel session versions of “New Puritan” or “Eat Y’self Fitter”, which is a shame because they would belong in any Best Of collection, but understandable. (We do get the effete version of the latter from “Perverted By Language”, which is probably worse than nothing.) The backbone of the collection is single A-sides, and in order to keep to 2 disks, they aren’t all included. Both of which, again, are understandable, and some of the omissions are understandable (who misses or even remembers “Look Know”?) but others are more unfortunate, eg “It’s The New Thing” (disliked by some, but only their second single), “Rollin’ Danny” and “Cab It Up”.

The absence of B-sides rules out classics like “Wings” and “City Hobgoblins”. And there are some essential album tracks which it would have been nice to have, like “The NWRA”, “Lay Of The Land” and “Bill Is Dead” (the latter The Fall’s only Festive Fifty Number One) and the chaotic live version of "No Xmas For John Quays".

But I’m not going to carp. This is brilliant.

The Fall – 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong – Part 2

Walkman is fit and working again. So on to 1981. “Prole Art Threat” was the clear standout track from the patchy “Slates”: two minutes of sheer brilliance. 1981 was also the year The Fall discovered synthesisers (maybe they had been listening to Depeche Mode), heard on the surprisingly listener-friendly “Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul”.

We get two tracks from 1982’s “Hex Enduction Hour” – “The Classical”, which I’ve always liked, despite its rebarbative lyrics (which as far as I remember no-one mentioned at the time), and “Hip Priest” (of “Silence of the Lambs” fame), which I used to hate but now think of as one of their best songs. Subtle and slow.

Two great singles follow from 1983, “The Man Whose Head Expanded” and “Kicker Conspiracy”, the drums on the latter actually feeling like you’re being kicked. How flair is punished, indeed. Less said about the “Perverted By Language” version of “Eat Y’self Fitter” the better, though. It only annoys me.

“CREEP” shows a lighter, poppier side emerging under Brix’s influence. Not one of their best. “No Bulbs” is sheer weird magic though. “Spoilt Victorian Child”, from “This Nation’s Saving Grace” is Brix era Fall at its best. Finally, “Cruiser’s Creek”, a song I’ve never been able to make up my mind on – I didn’t like it the last time I played this collection, but I think I’m coming down in favour of it now.

That’s the end of disk 1. Scribblings on disk 2 to follow.

The Fall – 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong (39 Golden Greats) – Part 1

50,000? There are that many of us?! This, the mother of all Fall compilations (though if this is the mother, I suppose the daddy is the Peel sessions omnibus), was a much-wanted-and-cherished Christmas present. It’s a remarkable work, covering the first 25 years of their existence (1978-2003). I’ve managed to hold off playing this for a remarkable 18 months, but reading about The Fall elsewhere made me want to return to it, like scratching an old spot, or an alkie returning to the meths.

Inevitably (as the excellent sleeve notes invite you to do) you wonder if your 39 tracks would be the same (see below) but it’s hugely successful in terms of conveying the essence of The Fall. Some Christians carry a spare Bible at all times to give to potential converts: Fall fans might consider doing the same with this.

The long march through the past starts with “Repetition” (I’m saving talk about the selection of tracks for later, but I can’t help observing in passing that “Bingo Master’s Breakout” would have been nice). It must have taken guts, making their first record, not knowing if it might be the last, to include a long, intentionally monotonous track constantly repeating the word “repetition”, but it’s a great song, and surprisingly subtle. “Industrial Estate” is the specimen from “Live At The Witch Trials” (minus, strangely, the bit at the end where the keyboards and guitar restart for a few seconds). Great song, a punk classic (this is as near orthodox punk as they got). “Rowche Rumble” marks a change in sound to something more rough-edged, discordant and distinctive, with a headlong out-of-controlness.

Some people hail the trio of singles from 1980 – “Fiery Jack” (everyone knows Fiery Jack is stuff that you rub on your legs, but did you know it was also the nickname of a railway tunnel in Sheffield?), “How I Wrote Elastic Man” (what incidentally is “Elastic Man”? The song itself talks about “Plastic Man”, which was the title of songs by the Kinks – is MES comparing himself with Ray Davies? – and also the Temptations, but there was also a song by the (Detroit) Spinners called “Rubber Band Man”) and “Totally Wired” (sorry I’m not going to digress again) as the summit of The Fall’s work. I disagree, though they are all good songs. They were doing better things on album. It’s interesting how the claustrophobic, clangy sound on “Rowche Rumble” and the “Dragnet” LP was thinned out to something more accessible. But even better things were to come, in the shape of the “Grotesque” album, from which “New Face In Hell” appears here. It’s great, but the greatest thing about it isn’t MES’s insane vocals and lyrics but the low-key way it starts.

Anyway, the Walkman’s packed up so I’m going to have to leave it here for the time being. I’ll carry on soon when I’ve got the problem sorted out.

Beethoven – the last two quartets

String Quartets Nos 15 in A minor (op 132) and 16 in F major (op 135)

When I first fell in love with Beethoven’s late quartets someone asked me what it was about them I loved. I thought about it and I couldn’t say. Coming back to these two pieces over ten years after last hearing them, I still can’t, really, beyond a few scattered, incoherent impressions.

A feeling of breaking the boundaries of existing forms, a sort of sovereignty over music. Immense density, gravity. Transcendent serenity sometimes, but then again sometimes almost earthy robustness. Somehow managing to be tragic and radiant at the same time (eg the first and last movements of Op 132). This brings me to the point of thinking that it is pointless to write about it, the music has to speak for itself. To paraphrase Wittgenstein’s aphorism, if you can’t say it, STFU and don’t try.

So I’m not going to say much more. Except (because I can’t stop myself), towering above it all, is the Song of Thanksgiving from Op 132. Movement but perfect stillness at the same time. It makes me feel human.

Slang Tang Episode 6

This is the first of Stuart Buchanan’s podcasts I’ve listened to. Buchanan is a Scottish-born DJ working in Australia, playing international alternative/electro/urban music. I got to know his work via his Fat Planet blog, although seems to have suspended new posts there to concentrate on Slang Tang.

As you would expect, this is a very mixed bag. I didn’t go very much for the Swedish electronic skweee (sic – where do young people get these names from?) tracks but it got much better later on. The cumbia tracks were especially good, from Chancha Via Circuito (Argentina) and the Cumbia Cosmonauts (Australia (!)) . Also interesting was Benga & Coki / Rubi Dan / Heatwave’s “It’s On Tonight”.

Download / further information from http://www.slangtang.com/.

Berg – Music for piano and clarinet

I’ve got to be brief here, but then again, so was Berg. The Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano (op 5, 1913) are small (all but one are under two minutes long) and gem-like, the perfect answer (along with the Violin Concerto and Schonberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces) to the charge that all atonal music is ugly.

Sorry, that sounds unduly confrontational. It’s just that whenever I try to say anything nice about any music which happens to be atonal I feel as if I am putting my head above the parapet.

Equally interesting is the single-movement Piano Sonata (op 1) which is tonal, but is so chromatic you can practically hear the tonality dissolving. I want to listen to this a lot more.

Oasis

I haven’t been listening to anything for the last few days because I’ve had flu and I’ve just (temporarily I hope) lost the taste for music. Yesterday, though, I happened to be in HMV and I heard a chunk of the new Oasis album. It may have been because I’m feeling post-viral, or it may have been because it was a miserable day, or both, but it sounded so dreary.

Ruth Theodore - Worm Food

You must listen to this. It's English folk music, but definitely not of the finger-in-one-ear variety.

Hampshire-based singer Ruth Theodore writes angry and trenchantly witty songs where the personal and the political are entangled like a bouquet of barbed wire. It's not just the songs, though, brilliant as they are - it's Theodore's extraordinary voice. Best tracks in this collection are "Grounded" and the raging "Rash" (it really defies description: think Joni Mitchell meets Crass).

More information at http://www.ruththeodore.com/.

Downloads from All About Jazz - Itmos / Hallo Gen / Sam Sadigursky

I wrote previously that I don’t prioritise jazz http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/07/jazz-library-bbc-radio-3-tim-berne.html, and then I didn’t listen to any for over 2 months, which proves the point. These are a few random downloads from All About Jazz. I didn’t enjoy two of them but the other more than made up. One out of three ain’t bad, I suppose.

“Silence” by piano/guitar duo Itmos is gentle, pretty and slightly sad, the sort of music you might play when your cat has died. Not my cup of tea.

Also NMCOT was “Slap” by Hallo Gen. Rainer Theobald’s band talks a good game – their MySpace site boasts an unfeasibly large array of influences including Stockhausen - but this sounds like standard issue fusion, and I don’t like fusion. (It’s comforting to find, at long last, a musical genre or sub-genre I really don’t like. Though you are welcome to try to convince me otherwise if you think fusion is the best thing since sliced bread.)

Much better is the beautifully subtle “Such Fruit”, from Sam Sadigursky’s second collection of poem settings (sung by Becca Stevens). There is an especially good moment when the rhythm shifts and the whole song seems to open out.

Download at http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/jazzdownloads.php.

Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Having listened to this again and realised how wonderful it is, I’ve been racking my brains to try to work out why I missed out on it when it was first released in 1980. I really liked “Geno”, which was of course this version of the band’s big hit, but I wasn’t really interested in seeking out any more. I suppose it was partly because Dexys were soul, or at least soul-influenced. Their relationship to soul was like UB40’s to reggae (you have to believe me, UB40 were quite credible back then). But I was (sort of) into reggae at the time and not into soul.

The other thing was that there was something tribal about Dexys and their fans. But the same applied to The Fall and I was a member of the Fall tribe. The unwritten rule with these allegiances – as I recall, it was similar with the Jam’s harcore followers – was that you could appreciate other tribes’ music in a detached way, but no more. So I didn’t really “get” Dexys. Until now. Because the one attitude you don’t want to listen to this album is cold detachment.

I could go on and on and on about the two songs which bookend this record alone, “Burn It Down” and “There There My Dear” (the latter SO doesn’t do what it says on the tin) - magnificent, angry, bitter but strangely consoling (it’s the brass, I think). I haven’t got time to go through the whole record in detail, or at all, which is a shame but there it is. But I’ve got to mention “The Teams That Meet In Caffs”, which is unsung both in the sense that I’ve never heard it mentioned before (so I’m doing it now) and in the sense of being instrumental (just over four minutes - how did they make Kevin Rowland shut up for that long?) It was hearing this on the radio in the car last year that first prompted me to seek this out.

There is only “but”. Listening to this makes me acutely aware that I know nothing about the soul music which inspires it. I really need to check it out. If there’s time...

Oh, finally, BTW, hats off to the Daily Mail for giving this away as a freebie (as part of its Eighties series). But a band named after an illegal drug (not to mention one or two rude lyrics)? This isn’t the Daily Mail I know.

Dvorak - Symphony No 9 (From the New World. Or the old Hovis advert)

There is a song by The Fall (“Just Step”, on Hex Enduction Hour) which begins “When what used to excite you does not”. That is exactly how I feel about this music. Like Sibelius’s First Symphony, it was one of the first classical records I bought. (the late Vernon Handley and the LPO, I think). Unlike the Sibelius, or Dvorak’s American Quartet, which I listened to and loved a few months ago, none of it gives me any sort of thrill, of discovering anything new. Maybe the well-remembered tunes make this too comfort zone, familiar and reassuring.

God's in his heaven, all's well with the world

The financial world may be in meltdown, and Richard Wright may have shuffled off his mortal coil to join Syd at the Great Gig in the Sky, but I bagged my free copy of Dexys Midnight Runners' "Searching For The Young Soul Rebels" with yesterday's Daily Bile.

El Hijo de la Cumbia – “El Ventana Esta Abierta”

Cumbia from Argentina, courtesy of the now sadly dormant Fat Planet. Crunchy, smoky and dubby (says my tasting notes). It’s interesting but rather amorphous, and at over 20 minutes perhaps a bit long. But then again perhaps the bus into work on a Monday morning isn’t the best time and place to listen to this sort of thing. Though listening to it in the evening it sounded much better. Definitely worth another listen.

Download at http://www.fatplanet.com.au/blog/?tag=cumbia.

Beethoven – Cello Sonata in D, op 102 no 2

I heard some of this sonata a couple of months ago http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/07/beethoven-cello-sonata-in-d-op-102-no-2.html and had to listen to it again.

When I heard it before I didn’t hear any of the first movement, and the first time I heard it yesterday I thought how unremarkable it was for late Beethoven. That’s entirely relative of course: it’s still unmistakably Beethoven and therefore highly remarkable in absolute terms. On second hearing it is clear how much is packed into something less than 7 minutes long (and that includes an exposition repeat). The second movement is also great, but it somehow doesn’t feel like a late work. It’s the last movement which amazes: with obvious exceptions like the Grosse Fuge this sort of contrapuntal music isn’t the sort of thing you associate with Beethoven.

The performance (via Classic Cat) is of course nowhere near as good as the Rostropovitch-Richter one but it’s free so I’m not complaining. I’m tagging this as “classical” although my MP3 player is telling me it’s blues.

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Bwyd Time

Wales isn’t the land of my fathers, but it’s the land of my in-laws and I spent a very pleasant weekend in Swansea last month. While I was there I picked up a local magazine, whose music correspondent is Richard James, formerly bassist with Nineties Carmarthen band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. He has just got funding for a thesis on the effect (presumably negative) of Methodism on Welsh folk music. This looks interesting.

Reading the article made me want to revisit GZM’s music so I gave “Bwyd Time” a spin. It was released in 1995 and I bought it – because I was intrigued by anything psychedelic - and played it obsessively for a while. But coming back to it a decade later – oh dear, am I turning into a Grumpy Old Man? - the overall feeling is how ANNOYING a lot of it is. Starting with the pseudo-pagan sleeve, with pictures of the band dressed as wizards. Or is it druids? And the stupid jingles at the start and the end. The fatal weakness was the fey, weedy, hello-clouds hello-sky whimsicality of some of their lyrics and music - “Miss Trudy”, “Oraphis Yn Delphie” and “Iechyd Da” are the worst offenders, while the musically crunchier “Paid Cheto Ar Pam” deserves to get off more lightly. But occasionally it works: the best track on the record is James’s haunting, Barrettesque “Eating Salt Is Easy”.

On side 2 (why is there a side 1 and a side 2, I wonder, when I doubt if this was released in vinyl or cassette format?) things get darker and sometimes more interesting. For example, the slow, menacing “Blood Chant” gets the musical full monty – violin, flute, fluty synths (presumably they couldn’t find a mellotron), organ a la Pink Floyd circa 1967 (Farfisa, I thought, but the sleeve says Hammond) and, of course, sitar – but it is too repetitive, to the point where hypnotic tips into boring. Better is the unhinged, superficially poppy but unsettling “Game Of Eyes”.

A bit disappointing overall, but not a complete waste of time.

See also:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/gorkyszygoticmynci/

Bach, baile, Boulette Russe etc

In between CDs I have been listening again to some of the downloads I’ve enjoyed recently. Here are some thoughts.

J S Bach – Violin Partita No 3 – music of grace, joy and no little sensuality.

La Boulette Russe – Pas Cher! –How can something so musically ramshackle and incompetent can be so enjoyable? Best track is “Les Mechants”. There is a version of “Leo” on YouTube, but it’s rubbish and not worth bothering with.

Carioca Funk Club – “Inside Flaming Hotz” – Life-affirming and totally barking (literally, in one place). This is what I listen to if I need cheering up.

Mutamassik – “Doun Doun” and “BCH GYP” from That Which Death Cannot Destroy – intriguing, but I’m finding it a bit elusive at the moment.

Sorry about the lack of links: Blogger won’t let me add them at the moment.

Sibelius – Symphony No 2

This used to be an old favourite of mine, and I think it still is, although my heart hasn’t been in it the last couple of days. You notice immediately how far Sibelius has come since the First Symphony (see http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html). The most impressive thing (for me) about the first movement is its efficiency – of doing a lot with relatively little basic material. The second movement is probably my favourite among Sibelius slow movements – you actually get the feeling that it is there to do some serious work, as opposed to providing a charming interlude.

The final movement doesn’t carry the same emotional charge with me as it used to, although the laaavly theme does raise the hairs on the back of my neck still. But now I find the going-round-in-circles-in-D-minor bits annoying. We KNOW it’s going to go back to D major. Especially the second time around.

The recording is Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia – as with the First Symphony the brass is amazing throughout.

Silence is golden

After a sustained bashing by Bad Brains, my ears have demanded a rest today...

Bad Brains – Banned In DC

I don’t know why, but I missed out on early American hardcore punk, except for the Dead Kennedys. I suppose I ought to be ashamed to admit it, but this is the first time I have heard Bad Brains (with the exception of one track). But although they are traditionally pigeon-holed as a hardcore punk band, Bad Brains have encompassed a whole range of musical styles, including reggae and heavy metal.

Most of the music on this compilation is really awesome (awesome as in terrifying, not as in “awesome, dude” – though I suppose the latter also applies even if I would express it differently), music you not so much listen to or, for that matter, write about, as submit to. But it isn’t stupid music – listen, for example, to the continuous, angst-creating changes of key in “Regulator” and “Reignition”. You can’t do that if you can only play three chords.

Some of the later songs in a more heavy metal style don’t stand out quite as much, but even with riffs which sound a bit formulaic there is still HR’s unique voice over it all. And while I appreciate the reggae songs (especially the monumental “I Love I Jah”), they aren’t really BB at their best.

As a whole, though, brilliant – best tracks are “I Against I”, “Reignition”, “Regulator”, the loping, rap-infused “With The Quickness” and “Big Takeover”. And “How Low Can A Punk Get”.

Haydn – String Quartets

... D major, op 64 no 5 (“Lark”); D minor, op 42; D major, op 76 no 5

When I first started listening to classical music, I didn’t bother with Haydn at all. Symphonies were everything, and Beethoven was king. The fact that Haydn was the most important influence on Beethoven’s symphonies didn’t matter. Why look at the first draft when you’ve got the final version?

I only started listening to Haydn much later when I started listening to chamber music. This live recording by the Lindsay Quartet was the first Haydn record I had: I fell in love with all three of these quartets, but especially the Lark. Listening to it again after all these years, it feels as if I still know it like the back of my hand, but all the same there are things I missed, or at least wasn’t quite as conscious of, before. For example, the syncopation in the first movement, and the dark(ish) trio in the third.

It is probably better to listen to these three quartets in the order in which they were written, because coming after op 64 no 5, the op 42 quartet seems almost ordinary, which shows how far Haydn had come in the 5 years between the two works. With op 64 no 5 there is this feeling of compression – one wonders how on earth Haydn packed all these ideas into a work 17 minutes long – which isn’t quite present in the earlier work.

The first movement of op 76 no 5 is amazing: who would have guessed from the slightly wistful sedateness of the first few bars that it would end so passionately? And the space and emotional depth of the slow movement.

Listening to these quartets makes me want to listen to more.

Sorry de snorry Betsy...

The only thing that got me through yesterday in one piece (apart from hearing Pink Floyd’s song “Cirrus Minor” on Heartbeat last night) was the Flatulent Pig Cartoon from Belgium. If you Google “Sorry de snorry Betsy”, it will take you, not only to the cartoon on YouTube, but also reams of debate (or the electronic equivalent) about what the words mean. And maybe this, in which case hello and welcome...

Prince – Planet Earth

I’ve never really been a Prince fan, but I liked “Purple Rain” and “Sign O’The Times”, even though it wasn’t my sort of music (my staple musical diet at the time was The Fall, Sonic Youth and That Petrol Emotion). I lost interest in Prince around the time he lost contact with reality and became The Artist Formerly etc, aka the funny squiggle thing.

I started to play this CD soon after we got it free with the Mail on Sunday last year, but the appalling opening title track was enough for me. I thought no-one would write bombastic nonsense like this after Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”, but I was wrong. Listening to it a second time, its impact is unblunted. Who would have thought that something so dire could be followed by something as good as “Guitar” (though musically it owes a certain debt to “I Will Follow” - when it comes to guitar riffs, nothing compares 2 U2)?

Nothing else on this record is so awful or so brilliant (though the closing track “Resolution”, silly as it is, is irresistable), with Prince in his default mode as The Greatest Mister Loverman In The World (like the schoolboy Romeo Jones in the TV series “Stupid”). But it’s hard to dislike songs as laugh-out-loud ludicrous as “The One U Wanna C” (where “concubine” – aren’t they those prickly animals? – rhymes with “waste my time”. And what does “get creamy” mean?). Or most preposterous of all, “Mr Goodnight”. You get tantalising glimpses of a more angst-ridden Prince in “Lion Of Judah”, before he magically transforms himself into an avenging Old Testament hero, but angst isn’t really his thing (but then again, nor is righteous anger).

I would never have bought this, but it was well worth the price of the Mail on Sunday. Which is a good thing, because the Mail on Sunday isn’t.

Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii

I’m back again after a couple of weeks on the west coast of France. But I hope you don’t mind if I don’t say where we went because it is crowded enough already. Last year I had to deter people who asked what xyz-sur-Mer was like with lies like “I missed the drive-by shooting because I was at the hospital being treated for bites from the sewer rat which came out of the toilet in our hotel room.” Then, when the same people asked why we were going back to xyz-sur-Mer this year, I had to persuade them that it was a ghastly clerical error on the part of the travel company, but we just had to make the most of it and take the rat repellent and bullet-proof vests.

I wasn’t expecting to listen to anything on holiday (except the Atlantic surf) but I caught “Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii” late one night on the arts channel, and it was very good. I was fanatically into Pink Floyd for a couple of years in the mid-Seventies, and retained an admiration for them since, and although I had seen bits and pieces of this film I had never seen it all. The versions of “Echoes” (a song/piece/thing I’ve always found a bit boring - I once heard a busker do a 20-minute version of it in Munich) and “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”, especially, have a freshness and energy which are far greater than the studio recorded versions but the thing which really made me sit up was the electrifying performance of “Saucerful Of Secrets”, especially the fast middle section. They may have become reliant on effects and gimmicks in their live performances later on but this has a rawness which is astonishing.

There are one or two bits which aren’t so good, especially the appalling “Seamus” (called “Mademoiselle Nobs”). It is also impossible now to watch any film involving a rock group (or, if you will, rockumentary) without thinking of Spinal Tap, and there were indeed some Spinal Tap-ish moments, like the shot of David Gilmour trying to sing in a very strong (presumably artificially generated) wind, or the scene at the beginning of the film showing the epic grandeur of the arena at Pompeii being transformed into another ugly rock venue, with the help of miles of cable and an articulated lorry.

But overall well worth while seeing.

Sibelius - Symphony No 1 (Pining for the fjords...)

Sibelius’s First Symphony was one of the first classical records I bought, some 30 years ago (a recording by Alexander Gibson and the SNO with a sheet of ice on the sleeve. I listened to it on Sunday evenings (before “That’s Life”, if memory serves). It was later overtaken in my affections by other Sibelius symphonies (especially Nos 2 and 5) but listening to this again I realise what a fine work it is, or most of it.

When I first listened to this, I couldn’t really understand the comparisons with Tchaikovsky and Borodin. I do now, but this still couldn’t be anyone but Sibelius. Back then I also made comparisons with Dvorak (the New World symphony was another early acquisition) which I thought must be an ignorant beginner’s error, but I don’t think I was totally wrong.

The first movement is especially good. This recording (Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia) is more fiery than I remember the Gibson. What brass! Sibelius was capable of more scrunchy dissonanances than his reputation suggests. I am still undecided about the second movement. I suspect that some Sibelius slow movements are just there to provide a tender interlude in between the real business. That is how this movement starts out, but it morphs into something more serious. The scherzo is really good. Little bits of the trio remind me of Bruckner: surely that can’t be right? But I had forgotten what a clunking disappointment the last movement was.

Anyway, we’re off to France for a couple of weeks, so the Walkpersons and TL2 will get a rest.

How and why

First, a confession. I don’t actually listen to very much music, in terms of quantity. About 15-20 minutes a day, when I’m on the bus or walking. That is a devastating admission for someone who claims to love music (and I do) but I don’t have any more time. I need to read the paper as well and I find that (usually) if I try to listen to music and read simultaneously, it’s a waste of time. (In passing, Inspector Morse is supposed to be seriously into music but he always seems to be listening to it and doing something else at the same time, such as doing the crossword or trying to catch criminals, which I find really odd.) But it’s OK, because what I do listen to I enjoy, or at least, if I don’t enjoy it I enjoy not enjoying it (if you see what I mean).

Last year I started writing down a few comments about the things I was listening to. Then I thought it might be a good idea to post them on my other site “It is not obvious” (see http://uk.geocities.com/terrapin6004/listen.htm). Recently I thought it would be good to move to a blog format. So here I am.

What sort of music? My main interests are classical music (favourite composer is Beethoven) and rock, especially punk/post-punk (favourite band The Fall). But I am trying to broaden my musical interests. Any suggestions would be welcomed. Even if it’s country and western.
If I don’t have much time to listen to music, I have even less time to write this (typically while I am eating my sandwiches at my desk), so please forgive the brevity and the odd tyop.

Beethoven – Cello Sonata in D, op 102 no 2

I was driving back from getting the car serviced yesterday (a stressful annual event, but relatively painless this year, unlike previous occasions - see http://uk.geocities.com/terrapin6004/mot_hell.htm) and I put on the radio. I found Radio 3, and heard this cello sonata for the first time (the recording by Rostropovitch and Richter), from midway through the second movement. Amazing. The funny thing was that I realised after just one bar that it was Beethoven.

Sometimes I hear something by Beethoven for the first time and I think “wow, I didn’t know Beethoven had ever written written anything like that”. When I think that it is always one of the late works. So it was with the contrapuntal last movement of this sonata.

Jazz Library (BBC Radio 3) – Tim Berne

I like jazz. I really do. Whenever I listen to any, I think how good it was, and how I’m going to listen to it much more often. And then it’s another 3 months before the next time. (I don’t count putting on The Jazz radio station as background music in the kitchen.*) I suppose the answer is that I like jazz but I don’t prioritise it. If I listened to it more, I would acquire more of an ear for it, not to mention a vocabulary for talking about it.

I really did enjoy this. It was a Radio 3 podcast set around an interview with the saxophonist Tim Berne (I am not putting in a link because I expect this programme has been superseded by a later edition of Jazz Library). The interview was very interesting, though I would have appreciated more music and perhaps less speech. The wilder and freer the music was the more I enjoyed it – less so, the fusion-type stuff, like the track from the “Miniatures” album. I would like to seek out more of Berne’s music. But will I get around to it?

And I’ve still got La Boulette Russe echoing in my head...

* After posting this I discovered that The Jazz, which I only listened to occasionally, has closed down. Sad, but not very sad.

La Boulette Russe – Pas cher! (Jamendo)

Pas cher, indeed, as this mini-album was a free download at http://www.jamendo.com/en/download/album/21316. I read about Jamendo in an article in the Guardian a few weeks ago, and chose this more or less at random. Downloading whole albums on Jamendo is easy, but you can’t (or at least I couldn’t figure out how to, which isn’t necessarily the same thing) download single tracks without playing them at the same time, so it was difficult to take a wider sample.

I suppose the right spirit in which to approach Jamendo is not to expect slick, first-class performances, because you are bound to be disappointed. It is more like wandering into a pub and listening to a band you haven’t heard before. Sometimes it will be brilliant, sometimes it will be diabolical, but nearly always it will be interesting.

And interesting La Boulette Russe certainly are. They describe themselves as “ska punk festif”, which is fairly accurate – sometimes a bit like early Specials, but punkier, with some Dexy’s Midnight Runners (not just the music but the tang of desperation behind it). I loved the raucousness. The lack of musical finesse (which no-one would really deny) doesn’t make any difference – in fact, I tried to imagine “California Dream” with a competently played trumpet and it just wouldn’t have been the same. There is only one song which isn’t quite as good – the last one, “Vivre en paix”, where they get more serious and Clash-like. But overall well worth listening to.

Paul Patterson – Luslawice Variations

My post yesterday damned the Patterson piece with faint praise. I listened to it again (and again) and it’s very, very good.

Tasmin Little (violin) – Bach/Ysaye/Patterson

The centrepiece of this excellent free dowload from Tasmin Little’s website http://www.tasminlittle.org.uk/free_cd/index.html (great music, though shame about the naff “Naked Violin” title) is Bach’s Violin Partita No 3. I’ve always avoided solo string music, on the basis that because there is only one line of melody it must be lacking in harmonic interest. How wrong I was. Double stopping gives enormous possibilities, but more than that, I can see that the split between melody and harmony is illusory, because melodies are derived from chords. The music itself is wonderful – stately and graceful, but somehow almost sensual.

Although I’m one of the people who thinks contemporary music should be hard to listen to I also enjoyed Paul Patterson’s Luslawice Variations, which seemed to me to have Shostakovitch influences. (For more info see http://www.paulpatterson.co.uk/luslawice.htm)

Ysaye’s Sonata No 3 in D minor however isn’t really my cup of tea. I don’t go for this sort of florid Romantic violin music, which is why I tend to steer clear of violin concertos between Beethoven and Berg.

But the Bach’s the thing.

Elastica – Elastica

This was one of the few records I bought on the strength of one track heard on the radio (“Allnighter”), and I was slightly disappointed. But listening to it again, a lot of it is really good, especially the faster songs like “Annie”, “Smile” and the aforementioned “Allnighter”. The critics talked about a new wave of British punk but were wrong – this was more Britpop with a punky twist (even if you discount the Frischmann-Albarn connection, “Car Song” could easily be a Blur song, a companion to “London Loves”). It’s still an enjoyable game spotting the punk influences – the Wire and Stranglers ones are notorious, but the most striking one for me was the perfect counterfeiting of Pete Shelley’s nasal guitar sound on “Allnighter.

Hello

I like music. And this blog is (mostly) about what I listen to.