Thursday, 28 August 2008
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”.
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”.
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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.
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.
Monday, 18 August 2008
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...
Friday, 15 August 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
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.
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.
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