Esme Diana Waldman arrived safely on Saturday at 12.38pm weighing 7lb 12oz. Birth finally happened in the operating theatre (nothing major, I should add) - fortunately, the surgeon asked for the radio (playing Magic FM) to be turned off as it was interfering with the equipment. That would have been no way to come into the world. All’s well.
I’ve written in the past about no longer having space in my life for loud scratchy stuff like the Futureheads.
I realise now that the same is true for extremely lovely quiet stuff, like the new M.Ward album Transistor Radio.
It’s an album so fragile that I’m scared to criticise it in case it breaks.
To really appreciate this, I think you’d have to lock yourself in a dark room and have complete quiet for an hour - focussing on nothing else. And, frankly, the chances of that happening at the moment are considerably less than zero.
You simply can’t play it with anyone else in the room, because you’d have to tell them to shut up. It’s so lovely, you won’t want to miss a bit - and it simply can’t compete with chit-chat.
And if you play it in the car, there’s a fair chance it’ll make you drift off elsewhere and send you veering across the road.
I loved his last album, despite the preposterous title, - in particular the cover of Bowie’s Let’s Dance which managed to turn a piece of glossy 80s nonsense into something really quite twisted and almost painful (yes, I know that doesn’t necessarily sound like an improvement - but you’ll just have to trust me).
I loved it - but I never really got round to listening to it. Well not enough anyway. I sense the same will happen to this.
As far as I can remember, there hasn’t been a ‘new Bob Dylan’ (NBD) for ages. Back in the old days, so I’m told, you could go out and get half a dozen NBDs for less than a fiver and still have enough change for a New Elvis. Then for years they disappeared. Like Raleigh Choppers.
Yes, there was Dan Bern (criteria: played guitar, Jewish - but if we’re honest, he sounds more like the new, watered-down Elvis Costello). But other than that…
I thought there might have been some sort of pact among music journalists to stop writing the ‘NBD’ phrase. Or they’d finally realised that it meant nothing at all. But, all of a sudden, it’s back - and they’re popping up two at a time.
Is Conor Oberst (aka Bright Eyes) the NBD or not? asks The New Yorker; Can he live up to ‘NBD’ hoopla? ask the Indionapolis Star.) Meanwhile Willy Mason is (’already being called NBD‘ according to the Guardian, and The Telegraph and various others.
I think I blinked and missed Willy Mason’s album, Where Humans Eat when it came out last year. It’s just arrived in the post after strict instructions to buy from an old friend - and very fine it is. More rootsy than Bright Eyes’ Wide Awake - and perhaps a teeny bit less interesting because of it.
But the truth is they’re both shockingly young (Mason has just turned 20!) and talented and don’t sound anything like David Gray. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with David Gray - but, well, you know what I mean.
That said, I’ve put the two albums together in a playlist on Random play and there’s bits where they’re spookily similar. Play the opening bits of ‘So Long’ by Willy Mason and ‘Another Travellin’ Song’ by Bright Eyes and you’ll see what I mean. Sort of.
Rufus Wainwright’s dad - the singer songwriter formerly known as Loudon Wainwright III - was an NBD in his time. He wrote this song, Talking New Bob Dylan, about it for his very fine 1992 album, History.
Yeah, I got a deal , and so did John Prine, Steve Forbert and Springsteen, all in a line.
They were lookin’ for you, signin’ up others,
We were "new Bob Dylans" — your dumb-ass kid brothers.
Well, we still get together every week at Bruce’s house —
Why, he’s got quite a spread, I tell ya — it’s a twelve-step program.Well, but we were just us and of course you were you,
"John Wesley Harding" sure sounded new.
And then "Nashville Skyline" was even newer, ‘Blood On the Tracks’, an’ the ringin’ got truer.
Let’s see — there was another one in there somewhere…oh, I got it, I got it — "Self Portrait" —
Well, it was an interesting effort.
So that’s enough NBD. What I want to know is: who’s going to be the new Billy Bragg?
Also in the post this week was Josh Rouse’s Nashville and (a little late) Ray Lamontagne’s Trouble.
I’m taking them together because they both have the same affect on me. At first listen - they’re really rather lovely, instantly likeable albums. The problem is I suspect they’re both just a little bit too easily likeable.
I was listening to Nashville at one point and thinking ‘ooh this is nice’ then I imagined myself getting into a friend’s car with it playing on and I know my reaction would be to scream: ‘What sort of floppy MOR nonsense are you listening to these days’?
Uncut and lots of others have completely loved the album. And it’s easy to understand why. But for the same reason that I can never really get into Steely Dan (and god knows I’ve tried), I doubt I’m ever really going to love it.
I’m a little late getting to LaMontagne. He’s a lot less floppy than Rouse. Sort of half David Gray, half Ted Hawkins, and by all accounts very wonderful live (although I wouldn’t go along expecting to dance). It’s all perfectly fine bluesy/ folky stuff and you cant’ help but quite like it - but I think I prefer the slightly more twisted antics of Willy Mason and Conor Oberst.
The big bonus though is that it’s reminded me of Ted Hawkins. I hadn’t thought about him for years until I heard Ray LaMontagne getting all gravelly.
Many moons ago, I listened to his really quite brilliant Songs From Venice Beach about a billion times. But it’s one of those albums I never bought on CD…and so I haven’t heard it in years. Fortunately - I’ve just found it on eMusic and downloaded it for a bit of nostalgia.
My source tells me, that when it comes to Beethoven Sonatas, the rule of thumb is ‘if it hasn’t got a name’ (ie Moonlinght/ Appassionata etc) then you shouldn’t bother. So try
Alfred Brendel: Beethoven Favourite Piano Sonatas
and you’ll be ok.
Apparently it’s 10 years since Wonderwall was released. Oh no. Not old at all.
Jon Savage’s compilation Meridian 1970 has arrived. It’s basically a load of lolloping folk rock stuff from 1970 - designed to show it wasn’t all that bad before punk came and saved us.
And, of course it wasn’t. Although you have to be in the right company to admit that. I’m a little annoyed that - as usual - Nick Drake is on there but John Martyn isn’t. Although Martyn didn’t really do anthing special in 1970. 1971 - now that was Bless The Weather which definitely deserves to be on any compilation of lolloping folky stuff planned in the future.
Still - it’s good to hear a bit of Loudon Wainwright III (Black Uncle Remus) along with The Doobie Brothers, The Move and Sir Douglas Quintet (yes, of course I’d heard of them). Some of the artists are pretty familiar - but the tracks are
all both obscure but listenable: which is all you really want from a compilation.
There’s also Rod Stewart doing “Man of Constant Sorrow” - which, you realise half way through is the song that George Clooney and the Soggy Bottom Boys sang in Oh Brother Where Art Thou. I think the Soggies actually did it better. Maybe a Rod Stewart/ George Clooney duet could be in the offing?
Also there is Leo Kottke - who I have to admit that I’d never heard of until a few months ago, when I was desperate to use up a load of credits on eMusic and downloaded his 6-and 12-string guitar album much to my delight.
Anyway, if you buy it - you really should go the whole hog and invest in some essential extras to get the full 1970 feeling. Oh and you want this type of Afghan coat - not this type.
From my usual source. This one is really, really good.
Nathan Milstein: Bach - Sonatas and Partitas
Just Nathan and his violin solo. The first track is now a prime contender for my token classical track on Desert Island Discs.
I’ve been listening to music quite a lot on my Palm Treo recently. With a 512MB card and a version of Pocket Tunes I can get away with one less gadget in my pockets - even though it means my phone battery is always running out.
Anyway - having a mere half gig of music in your pocket, and half a gig that you don’t change that much suddenly means I’m really listening to some things that I’d sort of got into earlier but had left them way behind.
Jet’s ‘Are You Going To Be My Girl?’ has now taken over from Embrace’s ‘All You Good, Good People’ as the song most likely to put a spring in my step and a strange smirk on my face. Yes, I know it’s not big and it’s certainly not clever, but I have a mental picture of one day maybe DJing again and starting by putting it on and sending the previously contained crowd into an uncontrollable rock and roll frenzy.
But the real star has been the reappearance ofClarkesville’s wonderfully poppy The Half Chapter on my musical horizon. Every time I’ve been walking along listening to music and go: “Oooh, I wonder who that’s by..?” it was from that album. I loved it when it came out (ok about six months after it came out), but it’s quite rare these days that something like that sticks. You really should own it. Preferably before their next album comes out.
Here’s some samples and they keep a moblog - if you like that sort of thing.
Having completely got over the novelty of having all the music I’ve ever owned in my pocket. I think I might soon be following this ‘less is more’ trend to its natural conclusion. It’s bye-bye iPod. Hello Walkman.
Sviatoslav Richter anyone?
Well, I asked a colleague who knows about classical things to recommend some stuff over Xmas. I asked for piano music, as I find it by far the easiest thing to listen to if you’re not really into classical music (there’s always far too much going on in symphonies for my liking).
What came back was a quite brilliant list of suggestions - none of which have appeared yet. However, this has. Mr Richter playing Haydn Sonatas. And most wonderful it is too.