The single song download has killed the CD single. The only reason that I used to buy singles was for the B-sides. Bands would usually chuck their left over’s from the recording sessions on a B-side but sometimes some interesting stuff would be on it too. Like a reworked or stripped down version of a song, or an interesting remix. Such as the B-side to I Think I’m In Love by Spiritualized that has a remix by the Chemical Brothers. They give it their full treatment to great affect. As if they took the song stripped it back to the vocals and then pressed a button that says Block Rockin’ Beats.
What with it almost being Halloween I would just like to say that I’ve never seen a ghost. I’ve felt some kind of presence and been scared and then seen faces in the curtain and unknown noises. But I have an explanation for that, I was young and thought there might be a ghost in the room so my senses were heightened. There weren’t any faces in the curtain, it was my mind playing tricks on me.
Not all people come to this conclusion. There are some who claim to see ghosts regularly. The kind of people who don’t know the meaning of the word coincidence and claim to ‘be a bit psychic’.
Then there are others that are reasonably well adjusted people but have claimed to have seen a ghost. I know some of these people kind and when they explain the story they never say that it could have been a ghost, but that it defiantly was. And they get annoyed when I show scepticism. “Why would I l lie?” they say. I tell them that its not that they’re lying but that it could’ve been some other explanation. Or that maybe it’s the caretaker like in Scooby Do.
Why is it that only really old houses are supposed to be haunted? Why are there never any modern ghosts?
Because one thing that remains constant in the stories that I’ve herd is that the ghost is always dressed like it’s from the eighteenth century. Why does no-one claim to see ghosts from different periods in history?
Billions of people have died before then and billions after so why no ghosts from the 70s with long hair, dressed in flares with a big collared shirt and a tank top?
I don’t listen to a great deal of English bands. The reason being that there’s not many good ones. If you listen to XFM all day and are therefore into landfill indie then you’ll no doubt think otherwise. But I’m not. There’s plenty of good music coming north of the border but I’ve not heard anything much good of late on the other side. That is until I heard the debut album from a band on Bella Union called Lanterns on the Lake who hail from England’s most northern county Northumberland. Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is folk music that often soars to an epic landscape. Certainly the best album from an English band that I’ve heard this year.
In the area where I live there used to be an Elvis Presley themed restaurant. It was like a much more tackier Hard Rock Café where you can eat hamburger’s and fries while a Las Vegas period Elvis impersonator croons away in the corner. The place was thriving in the late 80s and early 90s but has long shut down as that sort of place is as dated as stone washed jeans and white linen suits with the sleeves rolled up.
Almost all Elvis impersonators do the fat jumpsuit period. Its easier than doing the lean sharp suited acoustic guitar swinging 50s Elvis. In that period he was untouchable as a performer and had the songs to match. Like his first big hit Heartbreak Hotel. Everything about the song is spot on. Elvis’ vocal range and phrasing, the double bass and brushed drums. Plus coming in at 1:22 is one of the finest guitar breaks in rock n’ roll, and it only last ten seconds. Then there’s the lyrics that are based on the suicide of a man who jumped out of a hotel window, with that and the songs haunting echo it’s kind of a Goth prototype.
Download Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel by clicking on this link.
I’ve mentioned the work of Greg Pappas who goes under the name ZXYZXY before. Everything he puts out is very diverse, whether it be post-rock, ambient or one song that’s a forty five minute drone. I’ve spent some time with the latest release Subclass of the Dead (available to buy here) and each listen I get more drawn in to its multi-layered world. And clocking in at ninety minutes it’s a big world to get drawn to and lost in. The guitars take a back seat on this outing. Instead there’s more electronic, chillwave and some outright weird stuff that phases in and out of tune. Every listen I find something new and its on the way to being my favourite output from ZXYZXY yet.
True to form it took me a while to come around to the benefits of the social network phenomenon that is Twitter. I joined Myspace just as everyone was jumping ship and joining Facebook. I eventually followed them onto Facebook which I was happy to do as Myspace was and advertising board from which you would receive constant spam from. No I don’t want to see your band play tonight as I live on the other side of the world to Wellington New Zealand.
Then Twitter came along and celebrity’s were doing this thing called tweeting, which consisted of minute by minute updates about being stuck in a lift or something. So naturally I held back for a while.
Then I joined up and realised that its great to get up to date news and opinions about stuff I’m into. That and I don’t get status updates from someone that I hardly new at school about what their kid is doing.
So I’m a convert but I’ve had to have a massive cull of people who spam too much or have tweet tourettes.
So now I don’t follow any comedians. You would think they would be good to follow but it seems like they don’t have anything to do all day apart from tweet every ten minutes and self publicise. Following Ricky Gervais was the tipping point.
It should be140 characters, not 640 characters split over ten tweets.
I’m keeping on with my blues trip at the moment, so here’s a classic from Howlin’ Wolf, the man with one of the best (if not the best then definitely the grittiest) voices ever put to record. Smokestack Lighting doesn’t follow the usual blues chord structure. What it does instead is locks into a riff and stays put. It’s a song that’s been interoperated in ways before and after Howlin’ Wolf did it. But surely none better.
A recent purchase from the downstairs section in hmv is a two CD collection of blues man Elmore James. To my recollection I hadn’t heard any of his work before, but its old blues music from Mississippi so of course I had a pretty good idea. Its not going to be happy hardcore is it. And at six quid its worth a go. Well its been on heavy rotation for the last couple of weeks. It starts off with the overdriven acoustic slide of Dust My Broom (with a riff that makes a regular appearance throughout) but some songs slip into jazz and swing with the piano or saxophone leading the way. It was six quid more than well spent. And I can’t get that riff out of my head.
Whenever I go to visit my parents out in Essex I always have to go and have a rummage through my boxes of CDs and cassette tapes that are stored in the garage.
I always come across something that I’ve not heard in years and give it a play or take it back home to put onto my hard-drive.
On my most recent visit one of the lucky albums to be chosen was Soul Asylum’s early nineties big seller Grave Dancers Union. Back then I really loved this album and must have been played over a hundred times.
So after giving it a listen for the first time in about seventeen years does stand up to being as good as I remembered it? Well no. Its okay in places but mainly it just sounds like second rate early nineties rock.
I knew it would be as good as I remembered it after the first verse which contains one of the worst metaphors that I’ve ever heard.
‘Grandfather watches the grandfather clock, and the phone hasn't rang for so long.
And the time flies by like a vulture in the sky, suddenly he breaks into song.’
Time flies by like a vulture in the sky? Makes no sense at all. Its not clever its just thinking of words to fit around rhyming by and sky. Never in my life have I heard anyone say something like: ‘Yeah I had a really good time last night. The time just flew by. Yeah it flew by like a vulture in the sky.’
Sure a song doesn’t always need to have good lyrics or lyrics that make sense. But when its as bad as this then the chorus - which is still pretty good - still can’t quite redeem it.
For a while now Mark Lanegan has become Mr voice for hire. Queens of the Stone Age, The Twilight Singers, Soulsavers, Unkle, Isobel Campbell and various others have required his services. It seems like the only creative output that he’s done of late is with Greg Dulli under the name The Gutter Twins. Need a rich baritone growl of a voive? Then give Mark a call. All of this work is fine but he hasn’t released a solo album since Bubblegum in 2004. Which for me is the finest piece of work that Lanegan has ever put his name to. Including The Screaming Trees. Its so sparse and yet so dirty with deep throbbing bass lines that compliment Lanegan’s voice so well. So come on, make another solo album will ya.
Download Mark Lanegan Band - Wedding Dress from this link.
The days of multi platinum albums are albums almost gone, but what is extinct and has been for some time is the big selling live album. I have a few live albums but I seldom give them a listen as the studio versions of the songs are always superior. Songs that took weeks or in the studio to get right are put onto an album that is often badly recorded.
The exception is Mogwai. Who‘s live recordings are on par with the studio versions. Like on Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003 which contains a mammoth eighteen minute version of Like Herod and a superior version of New Paths To Helicon Pt I. And the version of Mogwai Fear Satan on the recent live album Special Moves is just stunning. As good as the live recordings are, seeing Mogwai play live is something else.
Download Mogwai- Mogwai Fear Satan (live) from this link.
