Our Week In Music 27/07/2009

This weeks playlist comes courtesy of myself again due to my colleague’s continuing absence from mainland UK, no doubt his ears would wither at the thought of some of the tracks making the list buy hey, my show my rules; so without further ado here’s my Week In Music

Roxy Music – In Every Dream Home a Heartache

Bryan Ferry, what to say that hasn’t already been said, huge eyebrows, bad Dylan covers album, but unequivocal genius, immortalised in ridiculous manner on the Mighty Boosh. He’s had a pretty interesting career these past few years and this is by far more favourite track he’s ever been involved with, moody with an epic change of tone halfway through it’s undoubtedly one of the greatest Roxy Music tracks ever written, and a perfect way to start of this week’s festivities.

Freemasons ft Sophie Ellis Bextor – Heartbreak (Make Me A Dancer)

The inclusion of this song has almost nothing to do with my continuing crush on Bextor, none at all, nope, who’re you to accuse me of such sexism? Seriously though, that plays a pretty big role, but equally i’ve not liked a mainstream dance song so much in ages, the phrase ‘killer chorus’ comes to mind. If you listen closely you might be able to hear my writing partner screaming all the way from his holiday destination.

Regina Spektor – Blue Lips

The lead single from her new album Far and included not only because of my continuing crush upon her, but also because of her quite obvious genius and ability to continuosly send shivers down my spine. It has me everytime the guitar cascades in for the first full-band verse, shiver i tell you, shivers.

The Walkmen – In The New Year

Potentially my favourite NYC band of all time (high praise i know). I found it hard to pick a track by these, mainly because Spotify only has two albums and one of those is an album of covers, fortunately it also has this, the best track from their newest album You & Me. If i could do anything with half as much passion as vocalist Hamilton Leithauser (coincidentally one of my favourite names of all time) i’d be a very happy man indeed.

Mark Lanegan – Methaphetamine Blues

The coolest motherfucker to ever walk the planet, a voice like incoming thunder and an attitude unparalleled in all of the rock universe. I’m not going to attempt to give you a reason to listen to this track, i’m gonna give you a quote from an interview that should make you want to listen to anything that the guy has to say:

‘Interviewer – Did you do Yoga whilst on tour [with QOTSA]?

Lanegan – Three quarters of the band did. Three fifths. A couple of us did not. I did not do yoga. Me and Oliveri did not do yoga, we smoked cigarettes.’

Just go listen.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand

I was going to put an Arctic Monkeys track in this spot until i realised you couldn’t get their stunning version of this track on Spotify, so settled for the original. It’s Nick Cave folks what more do you need to know? It’s music for dirty bars, dusty town squares, trips to graveyards, evocative of sex, death and everything else you just love to hear in a track; six minutes of brilliance doesn’t even begin to describe how i feel about this track.

And you thought i’d fucked the playlist up with Freemasons, come on, have a little bit more faith than that.

Ray Charles – What’d I Say [Part I & II]

Continuing our decent into the murky depths of blues we have potentially the greatest piano player of all time, Clint Eastwood likes him, so by rights so should you.

Son House – Empire State Express

I will struggle to do justice to just how important Son House was to the contuining existance of blues music, Jack White certainly understood something in it. Allen Ginsberg once said about Bob Dylan that when he performed he became like ‘column of air’ at one with his words and his audience, more than just a performer a link to a different time. Everytime i hear that quote my thoughts immediately go to Son House and his grating, jarring style of guitar playing; truly an icon and somebody we’ll not see the likes of again and a fitting way to end this weeks playlist.

This weeks playlist can be found here

For Those of you not well versed in the ways of Spotify then click here to get started for free, this is a regular feature you won’t want to miss.

Expect a lot more to come from me this week,

Soft Skeleton

Fake Plastic Books #2

 

Hold tight because I’m cracking my knuckles in the face of the literary world. I’m still not entirely sure why it took me twenty-one years to read anything by Norman Mailer, it is much like why it took me twenty years to listen to The Smiths, only without the  irrational burning resentment which had to be overcome. Unsurprisingly, as with The Smiths, Norman Mailer’s ‘An American Dream’ was an absolute delight to dive into.

A pioneering writer of the New Journalism genre, Mailer had as eventful a life as his protagonist: Stephen Rojack. Mailer weaves a story of love and destruction with aplomb, and with some of the most flowing prose I’ve ever encountered. Rojack, a jack of all trades, is a man who seemingly fits none. A recluse in the confines of a bottle and the warmth of a bed, he stumbles through tumultuous episodes involving his nuerotic, overbearing wife; Deborah, a cabaret-club singer with mysterious connections; Cherry, and a cop with a nose for justice and a wry smile characteristic of the company he’s keeping; Roberts.

This then, is a story which dwells in the passions of the dark corners of our hearts, and the darker desires of our minds. It feels like watching a man on a high-wire: you’re well aware of the dangers that are all around him, but at the same time, you are similarly exhilarated by the challenge and the scale of what is being discovered and the boundaries that’re being pushed.

 If you’re lazy or illiterate there is a film version of ‘An American Dream’, boasting Janet Leigh and, peculiarly, George Takei in the cast. Having said that, if you’re illiterate and have made it this far, I would strongly urge you to read the book. I haven’t seen the version which hit cinemas in 1966, however, I have read things which lead me to believe it is watchable, at best, but not necessarily enjoyable. 

Filled with intricate metaphor and illuminating dialogue, Norman Mailer’s ‘An American Dream’ is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in recent months, and one which I strongly recommend be added to your heavy, sagging bookshelves.

Seconds Out!

Celebrity Deathmatch had the right idea. The plasticine was as disappointing as the acting on show these days, and, like all wrestling, you could always tell who was going to win, and when – but they were definitely on the right tracks. Consider what follows then, as an unscripted battle of the egos, an unscrupulous contest of no-holds barred attrition between two of the music world’s most iconic figures. U2′s Bono, and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. Consider this my homage and my rendition of events were I an MTV writer back when its shows were good. 

In my ivory tower of power, I have the ability to say that Bono is in the Blue Corner wearing pink shorts with purple tassels. Lars, recalling his halcyon days is already sweating profusely, wearing lycra pants and sporting a redneck beard not seen outside of Arkansas and Alabama. So with the scene set, the crowd jumping and Lars already looking for somebody to insult, let them bump gloves and get down to it.

Round One.

Lars cracks a vicious right-hand into Bono’s ribs:- don’t try to paint me as a bad guy, but Robert Mugabe is more of a humanitarian than the clover-touting, goatee-sporting front-man. The present generation of celebrities are heralded as living saints, cast amongst the poor and downtrodden to improve conditions for those without a voice. Give me a break! Nauseating A-listers like Chris Martin & Gwyneth Paltrow head various campaigns for global equality, aiming to give clean water to people who only really want more bullets for their AK-47s. You better believe Bono belongs to this group. A group so asinine as to ask you to donate money to these causes, without themselves contributing vast sums from their accumulated wealth. At least Mugabe has a legitimate excuse: Zimbabwe has no money to give to its needy, its thirsty and its starving. Bono is reeling against the ropes from Ulrich’s Danish Fury, but he is saved by the bell.

Round Two.

With Trisha, the buxom sign-wielding blonde, safely re-positioned between her bodyguards Dennis and Paul, Bono flies from his corner carrying The Edge’s wisdom (and his beanie-hat stuffing his shorts) and lands a clean left jab onto Lars’ chin:- despite my love for all things mellow, one of my Top 5 albums of all time, is the superb-sounding, prog-metal ‘…And Justice For All.’ However; Lars Ulrich is more spoiled than Richie Rich for Christ’s sake. The midget-drumming, constipated-looking, sweating-sensation will likely be forever linked with Napster and the apparent greed which drove that entire fiasco. I’m on the other side of the fence for this one. I don’t want my metal-pioneers to feed African children, nor deliver vaccines to children in some deprived corner of jungle in South-East Asia. Having said that, I would like fan appreciation to rank higher in the esteem of an artist, than the lining of his pocket. Especially when that pocket is already slick with green. (Or whatever colour your paper-money comes in.) However, Bono has a limited reach and his scale-breaking two ton weigh-in is mostly obsolete, given the reported weight of his brain alone is 1.99 tons, the flurry is brief and ineffective. With the round over, both men retreat to their corners. It’s all even folks; time for Trish to strut her stuff.  

Round Three.

Bono makes another quick start as he begins to channel the power of his purple tassels. He dives in with a left-hook to Lars’ ribcage, following it up with a right jab to the temple:- it’s a reinforcing double-blow for the Dane as he is dropped to his knees for the first time. Guitar Hero: Metallica. Need I say more. With a clear profit in-sight, Metallica powered through plans to appear in the highly successful game franchise, taking their music to new and established fans while racking up the promotional appearances and tallying the income on those funky addition machines you see from time to time. This flies in the face of the Napster debacle, something which would have exponentially increased their support, but which unfortunately, netted them no money whatsoever. Lars is looking blue. Perhaps he needs the powder. The bell tolls for both men and they retreat to their stools on tired-looking legs. 

Round Four. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, that might be goodnight! Lars sneaks forward to the groggy looking Bono, clearly in need of a pint of Guinness, and clocks him with a wound-up haymaker, landing it right on the sweetspot of the Irish man’s chin, his face crumples and his body follows crashing to the mat:- in my defence, I’ve listened to Joshua Tree once. Looking back on it, it was one time too many, I didn’t particularly savour any aspect of it and it was, at best, background music. Questionable charity morals aside, the man and his band are as adventurous as the Manic Street Preachers, as monotonous as a batch of Buddhist monks mid-prayer and as easy to ignore as Swine Flu. The undeniable problem with U2 is that every single song they have sounds exactly the same. Of course, this can be said about a great many bands, but the major difference is, that the vast majority of those bands don’t come with the tagline of being one of the world’s best ever. Lars is flexing his nostrils in preparation for his celebratory nosedive into his stash as the referee, Scottish and antsy, counts to ten in an increasingly excitable tone, but there’s no getting up from that devastating blow. Bono is a broken man in the centre of the ring, clad in pink and purple and lost in the dizzying pattern of stars rotating just above his skull.

Trish has retired for the evening, the referee has clocked off too, but that was one heck of a fight which didn’t accomplish a great deal, but you never know. The creator of ‘The Hills’ might be reading and maybe, just maybe, we’ll see two Hill-ites fight it out amidst the garbage of Downtown L.A. 

I have been Horace Blackspur, and you have been brilliant.

Defining Genius

Genius is a word bandied around regularly in the mainstream music media, a world where hyperbole is rife and a tendancy to elevate expectations of artists the norm, a world where many think it is entirely fair to give out awards titled ‘Godlike Genius’ to pretty average fare like Ian Brown. With the indignity of that award still knawing away at me after all these years it makes sense to delve into why certain musicians are considered genius and others remain merely great musicians, to my mind there are a number of causes:

1) – Untimely death/insanity

It is strange that the key moment in becoming a genius is the end of the artist’s time on this earthly plane yet it’s so often the case and almost always serves to increase interest in the material preceding it. Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Buddy Holly, Syd Barrett bona fide genius and only 10 albums between them, all on the cusp of even greater things to come. Having this idea of unrealised potential is often a double edged sword as it paves the way for numerous crappy posthumous collections of toilets flushing, spoons rattling and microphones squealing that the artists themselves never ever meant to be recorded, let alone released with a gaggle of ‘celebrities’ holding the track together (this means YOU Notorious BIG/Tupac, enough already!). Equally a well timed break up can oddly do wonders for the way your music is perceived and a lesson it would serve some bands well to remember (and this means YOU Carl Barat, nobody wants to see the Libertines in an arena, so don’t even think about it)

2) – Career Sales

By no means the most important factor, but it certainly contributes to the words ‘icon’ and ‘legend’ being attached, and where you find these terms the phrase ‘genius’ is usually as sure to follow as i am to hate any new Oasis material. The majority of bands in the upper echleons of sales will i’m sure have been referred to by many as ‘genius’ and who am i to argue with album sales? I could, and more than likely at some point will (take heed Celine Dion, i’ll be back) but for now lets leave it there.

3) – Right Place, Right Time

This phrase could easily apply to Gary Lineker’s goal poaching ability but fortunately we’re talking about music not crisp-eating celebrities. Anyway timing, as we know, is everything. Sex, parachuting, alcohol consumption, you name it, you screw the timing up and boy is somebody going to be pissed off at you. The same is easily applied to music, ask Elvis, Bob Dylan, The Doors, or Michael Jackson if the timing of their careers helped to propel them to genius status and i’d be willing to bet they’d be saying yes (well, except the dead ones, i’d be surprised if they said anything much at all). The ablity to detach yourself from that around you and make something truly unique, something that reaches out beyond schools of thought populated by the masses, that is true genius;

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Quite.

Soft Skeleton

Confessions Of An Aspiring Music Journo

‘Almost Famous’ was a revelation to me. The hazy afterglow of nostalgia instilled in me the ambition to follow a path that Cameron Crowe followed early in his life. Having said that, watching ‘Goodfellas’ made me hanker for the Mob-life, just as watching ‘Blow’ made me want to grow a ponytail and smuggle some marijuana from here to the Costa Del Sol. However, the prison life of George Jung, and the anonymous after-life of Henry Hill’s post-Mob existence don’t particularly appeal to me: so being a Music Journalist has poked its nose ahead to make it to the top of my list of dream jobs.

Having been in the game for little over a week, I must admit I’m a little disappointed not to have dropped acid, not to have collected 500,000 hits to this site and not to have received a juicy advance and a camper-van to go on a road-trip to meet some band or other. It’s entirely possible that I’ve read too much Hunter S. Thompson, seen too many films, and listened to far too many era-defining records, it’s entirely likely that this combination has broken my expect-o-meter, but to be honest, I seem to be doing just fine with it busted up and broken.

We here at PAY have some treats lined up for you, which followers of our Twitter feed will be all too aware of: it is these treats which have helped me realise the dream already. I may not have my misty-voiced maiden lingering by my typewriter in a cloud of noxious smoke, and I may still be in the mindset that cigarette smoke is noxious, but I feel I’ve entered a fraternity of writers who enjoy memberships to the club of having one of, if not the greatest job in the world. 

However; I want to be a Music Journo like the Sex Pistols wanted to be a successful band. I, just like them, (and Frank Sinatra for that matter) want to do things my way. For those of you who’ve been counting the paragraphs since I last mentioned…Spotify…you can put away the abacuses, because here it comes. The hyperbolic exaggeration of the vast majority of Music Hacks eats at me like a worm inside an apple. It gnaws slowly until the goodness is all rotted away. The advert for Kasabian’s latest release, which gets more than enough air-time on Spotify, labels the band: ‘heretics of rock’. It makes you wonder: do these copywriters sit with a book of phrases which have never been uttered in an advertisement…and then aim to include them all? It infuriates me – I don’t know about you. 

Horace’s guide to doing things, his way: 

• Champion the underdog: The John Peel school of journalism.
• Retain a comedic edge to things: The Radcliffe & Maconie/all comedians, ever school.
• Incorporate language that is, frankly, the bomb: The Hunter S. Thompson school.
• Criticise people once in a while. The Anti-Zane Lowe school. 

Too many publications have writers who’re out to sound like one another. Too many readers don’t know the difference between ‘good writing’ and ‘writing what sells’ – and it is this, that, for as long as this outlet continues, which I will challenge. 

I’m still away from home, so it’s entirely likely that the advance cheque is lying in wait, occupying a warm spot on the doormat beneath the letterbox in my hallway. I’m a bit averse to sleeping in camper vans, so even if there is an offer of one, I’ll try and hold out for the Waldorf or the Ritz, though I don’t fancy my chances. As for the half-million hits, I’m going to have to put my faith in Kevin Costner, who, if he got paid royalties for mentions on this blog, would be a rich man indeed.  

As things turned out, this has been more of a Constitution than a Confessional, but it’s all good. We had a laugh along the way. I feel dreadful leaving you hanging with Fields of Dreams, but, it’s really rather apt. And that is one thing I never thought I would ever say.

I have been Horace Blackspur, and you have been brilliant.