I’ve been trawling round for decent music blogs since starting out on this. There’s various links in the right hand margin..but my one new addiction is largeheartedboy - A sort of linkmachinego for music. His daily downloads are always worth checking out - can’t say our musical tastes always collide…but it’s always worth checking in for the days when they do.
Another of my teenage heroes (I once wrote him a letter asking for his autograph - he never replied), Pete Townshend seems to be everywhere this month - but not always for the right reason.
All started when I bought the NME Originals on the Who: 20 years worth of interviews and reviews which remind you just how exciting and important the Who were at their peak. Then Uncut does Townshend’s first magazine interview since his arrest to mark the 35th anniversary of Tommy, which includes a brilliant covermount CD which as ever with uncut is worth the cover price of the magazine alone.
Next, The Who are back on tour first at the Forum; then the Albert Hall. (Not tempted in the slightest, and can’t find any reviews online yet of the Forum gig)
Anyway, last night I sit down to watch my evening dose of pap and there he is again: only this time it’s as part of ‘Police protecting children’ - a BBC documentary on Operation Ore and the crackdown on paedophiles.
It wasn’t just a brief clip: but full footage of his arrest, and his time with the police. Apparently he had tried to get the footage removed, but didn’t succeed.
The shocking thing was just how old (not surprising given he’s knocking 60) and shabby (again, not really surprising) he looked. Less like a rock star - even an ageing rock star: more like an obviously guilty extra in The Bill.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen that much real footage of anyone getting charged etc.
Nick Drake and Tim Buckley died young. They left behind them a few albums each hinting at what wonders they might have delivered had they lived.
John Martyn, who, in the late 60s and early 70s was their equal in every way (in my book), lived, struggled with alcoholism and, went on to produce some absolutely terrible albums through the 80s and 90s. Not only that but his live act slipped from the smooth seduction of his Solid Air/ One World period to plain soporific.
In recent years, Drake and Buckley have been pretty much deified, while John Martyn has been washed up on the banks of M-o-R mush. To add to that, he has recently had a leg amputated after a simple injury got badly infected.
I’ve been listening to him on and off since I was about 19. On the walkman while travelling. Post club meltdown. Sunday mornings. Long car journeys. Always Martyn in the background.
Anyway, it seems he’s finally getting some of the credit he deserves.
However, a reappraisal is due. First, Solid Air is being appreciated as one of the defining albums of the 70s (with One World not far behind it).
Second, I read on Big Muff (title of a Martyn song, in case you’re wondering), that BBC 4 are doing a documentary on him (based around his amputation) to be shown in May. (alongside Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Gil Scott Heron and John Mayall).
Now, I’m not really interested in his new album, out in April called On the Cobbles; or in going to see him live (although he’s already sold out the Queen Elizabeth Hall - and I feel I should support); but I do think it’s time everyone was rushing out to the shops (or to Amazon at least) to buy his back catalogue. He’s worth one 50 quid session all on his own.
This history of his work is excellent (and I never knew that Martyn played on perhaps the only reggae record I really love: Burning Spear’s Man in the Hills).
Anyway, here’s how to spend £50 on a John Martyn starter pack.
1. Solid Air Undescribably wonderful album. Enough to convert any sane man to hippydom.
2. London Conversation his first album, just him and a guitar, elegant and simple.
3. One World from 1977, probably his last great album: a lush masterpiece described by Melody Maker when it came out as “Mean, moogy and magnificent…is the most mesmerizing album I’ve heard all year. More complete, than Bowie’s,”
4. Old Grey Whistle Test Vol 3 on DVD with Martyn and Danny Thompson performing ‘Couldn’t Love You More’ from One World (among various others such as the Jam, if you’re feeling a little folk-rocked out by now)
5. Bless the Weather Another gentle masterpiece.
Would you ever think that a man who can be this funny would write songs this sweet/sad? [via Edith Frost].
(No, not that Steve Wright)
If you’ve just stumbled here…welcome. Hope you get the idea pretty quickly: I’ve decided to do a more focussed blog: music, movies, TV, books and magazines. All the stuff that lives between the two pillars of stuff I know about but don’t want to write about (home and work); and stuff I want to write about but don’t really know anything about (news/ politics). Will be sorting some of the bits (like the logo) out later this week. Until then….all (polite) suggestions welcome. This is where the title comes from.
My previous online life is being preserved here.
If you haven’t caught “The OC” yet, you really should.
The New York Times today profiles it’s writer/ creator, the 27 year old (cue major depression) Josh Schwartz and generally raves about it, calling it “a truly smart show… in the guise of something commercial and trashy and fun” and continues:
“The O.C.” has steered clear of both Aaron Spelling-style camp and the soggy earnestness that often characterizes teen drama. Instead, it traffics in fizzy banter and knowing humor — characters watch a teen soap called “The Valley”; the actors’ peculiarities are mocked…[it] is also notable for the way it integrates compelling adult characters into teen drama, bringing the two groups together in ways both realistic and — when the gods of melodrama require it — outrageous (one character hooks up with his ex-girlfriend’s mom).
Sunday nights, Sky One. Saturday night , Channel 4 (with repeats scattered around C4 and E4). Don’t miss.
A long, long time ago (c.1980) in a place far away (Liverpool), I bought a 12″ version of Patti Smith singing Privilege (Set Me Free) with 25th Floor and the poem Babel Field on the b-side (the Set Free EP according to the discography).
God I loved that record. In true teenage form I used to shut myself in my bedroom with it belting out the speakers. Even now, when I hear Privilege or 25th Floor memories of early teen angst come rushing back.
Yes, everyone loved Easter; and if you were trying to be cool, you said you preferred Horses; but my favourite album, for some reason, was, Wave (not very cool I know: thanks to Todd Rundgren’s production, it’s rather soft rock in bits).
Anyway, as I’m sure you’ll know, she’s got a new album coming out at the end of April: Trampin’. At the weekend, Observer Music Magazine named it the CD of the month; and it seems that over the coming weeks a lot of people of a certain age will be gushing about her genius.
It’ll be the first record I’ve bought of hers for years (other than replacing vinyl with CD), but I sort of know that even though it will be a great album, it simply can’t play as big a part in my life as that 12″ single all those years ago. One of the great tragedies of growing old, methinks.
In the end, I just wanted it all to be over. Not just because the last series wasn’t exactly wonderful (did anyone for a second believe the whole thing with the Russian?); but because all the fuss was driving me mad.
Blah, blah, empowering, blah, blah, single women and sex, blah, blah, fashion icon, blah blah. OK. We’ve got the message.
The final episode wasn’t so much of a rousing climax, as a series of slightly clumsy landings: with all the characters being carefully steered into their happy endings like so many creaking aeroplanes being guided into their hangers after too many long haul flights
Carrie gets Big (of course); Miranda becomes a selfless saint; Charlotte adopts a chinese orphan; and Samantha discovers love.
They could have learned a few lessons from the masters of melodrama over at Dawson’s Creek and set the final episode three years into the future: but that’s just quibbling.
Anyway, it’s over. Now when’s West Wing and the Sopranos coming back?
I came across a reference to this article from the NYTimes. It’s critic Neil Strauss’s look back on 10 years of reviewing, listing all the CDs that still sound good, after all these years. In other words: regardless of what he might have raved about at a particular time: these are the CD’s that he keeps playing, or that keep popping up on his iPod.
I was a) intrigued by the idea; and b)infuriated that no-one had had the decency to repeat the list. So here it is (you’ll have to buy the story from their archive to get his full commentary)
- ‘CESARIA EVORA,’ Cesaria Evora (Nonesuch, 1995)
(Can’t find this on Amazon, but here’s a Best of Cesaria Evora and that’s her on the right )
- ‘CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD,’ Lucinda Williams (Mercury, 1998):
- ‘MTV UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK,’ Nirvana (DGC, 1994):
- ‘GRACE,’ Jeff Buckley (Columbia, 1994)
- ‘AQUEMINI,’ OutKast (LaFace/Arista, 1998)
- ‘MOON SAFARI,’ Air (Source/Caroline, 1998)
- THE BENDS,’ Radiohead (Capitol, 1995)
- ‘TO BRING YOU MY LOVE,’ P. J. Harvey (Island, 1995)
- ‘HEARTBREAKER,’ Ryan Adams (Bloodshot, 2000)
- ‘DR. OCTAGON,’ Dr. Octagon (Bulk/Mo’ Wax, 1996)
With honourable mentions for: ‘’As Heard on Radio Soulwax, Part 1,'’ 2 Many D.J.’s (Waxed Soul, 2002); ‘’Unearthed,'’ Johnny Cash (Lost Highway/American, 2003) ; ‘’The Marshall Mathers LP,'’ Eminem (Web/Aftermath/Interscope, 2000) ; ‘’Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home,'’ James Talley (Cimarron, 1999) ; ‘’Reasonable Doubt,'’ Jay-Z (Roc-A-Fella, 1996) ; ‘’There’s Nothing Wrong With Love,'’ Built to Spill (Up, 1994) ; ‘’Time Out of Mind,'’ Bob Dylan (Columbia, 1997); ‘’Party Music,'’ the Coup (75 Ark, 2001) ; ‘’White Blood Cells,'’ White Stripes (Sympathy for the Record Industry, 2001) ; ‘’Dummy,'’ Portishead (Go! Discs/London Records, 1994) ; ‘’The Sophtware Slump,'’ Grandaddy (V2 Records, 2000) ;
‘’Danse Macabre,'’ the Faint (Saddle Creek, 2001)
Working this afternoon with iTunes chugging away in the background, and suddenly The Ashley Beadle re-mix of The Street’s ‘Weak Become Heroes’ comes on. Makes me stop with strange nostalgia of happy clubbing days gone by. Anyway, next thing, as if by spooky co-incidence I get an e-mail from The-Streets.co.uk saying that his new video is going to be up on the site at 4pm. Which it was (you might need to register). He describes it as ‘quite fast with a guitar in’ which doesn’t really help. Here’s the chorus.
‘I’m not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You’re fit - but my gosh don’t you know it’
Expect gangs of blokes to be chanting it this Summer.