This week's supermarket car park retrospective review.
Narrator's voice: "To the Bone didn't get to no.1 on the week of release. The no.1 album that week was some estate of Elvis Presley cash-in to mark 40 years of his death which was heavily promoted in supermarkets. Back when supermarkets sold CDs"
Forgot to mention in the video that when we saw the tour to promote this LP at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, Robert Fripp and Toyah bloody Willcox were in the foyer having a drink during the interval. They’re only slightly taller than The Borrowers.
It's with a tinge of sadness that I read that the next issue of Q magazine is to be the final edition. Q is a magazine that I started reading when I was 17 and had a disposable income in my pocket. Smash Hits, as excellent as it was, I'd outgrown, the 'inkies' like NME and Melody Maker always seemed to take thmeselves far too seriously while Kerrang! just seemed rather childish (and there's a whole other post in how hard rock and heavy metal in the media is dished up to the fans). So Q came along at just the right time as my interest in music was growing massively with its mix of what we now call 'legacy acts' and pushing the hot new darlings. There was also a sense of humour at work, which I wouldn't expect any less with former Smash Hits editor Mark Ellen at the helm.
So yeah, I'd found my mag. Each month I'd devour the mag from cover-to-cover, learning about the aforementioned legacy acts like The Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd while looking to see what was new and exciting with the expansive Q Review which covered everything from albums to films to books. I'm not entirely sure but did they invent the star rating system? At the very least they popularised it. A one star review was always much more fun to read than a five star (complete with red stars to emphasise how great this thing was) because you knew the reviewer had put the boot in. This was 30 odd years before the admirable 'be kind' movement. It was the 80s and despite Live Aid, people weren't particularly kind.
Ah yes, Live Aid. Would Q have existed without the events of July 13th 1985? Probably but not in the form it went on to take - Live Aid validated the appreciation of artists whose best work was released perhaps ten to twenty years earlier. So it's no great surprise that McCartney appeared on the cover of issue 1 and the likes of the revitalised Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and Mick and Keef were regular cover stars in the first decade of its publishing life.
Then, bouyed by the success of Q, the publishers decided to launch Mojo. I think this diluted the brand somewhat. The legacy acts that had their place in Q were now on the cover of Mojo, so Q's shift was then on to the newer artists. To me that wasn't what Q was about. It was supposed to be 'the modern guide to music and more'. So as much as I wanted to read about Radiohead or PJ Harvey I also wanted to read about Fairport Convention or The Isley Brothers. I resented that I was being ased to buy two magazines. So I didn't.
I stuck doggedly with Q until 1997 when my circumstances changed - I had my first mortgage and percieved luxuries like glossy magazines were put on the backburner - I remember the last issue I bought as a matter of course clearly: the issue where the Oasis album Be Here Now was given a five star review. Now I know that artists are much more receptive to giving a magazine more access if that mag is seen as being on board with the product but five stars for Be Here Now? Really? Britpop was already going down the dumper and this lumpen, rambling, overlong, cocaine-fuelled muscal travesty was surely no serious music journalists idea of a five star album, was it? That was where the mag lost some cred with me.
So I did buy the odd issue when I could afford it or if there was something I really wanted to read in it. In fact for quite a while I hardly bought any music magazines regularly. Then the team that brought us Q originally then brought us The Word (or just Word as it was back then, not the definite article). Now this was the very magazine for me: legacy acts? Yes! Newer acts? Yes! Decent review section? Yes! Funny? Yes!
And then, sadly, The Word left us. But that had rekindled my love of music magazines. So I now subscribe to Prog and regularly (not every issue but regularly enough) buy Mojo (I finally succumbed,), Uncut, Classic Rock and Record Collector. Cherish these things and buy them because it's no good lamenting them when they're on the way out. Buy the physical copies. Don't be like the person I heard on a podcast a few months ago say that he no longer bought music magazines "because someone invented the internet". In all spheres physical product is king, streaming services whether that be Spotify, Netflix or Apple can and will pull things down and not bother paying the creatives their worth. Nobody discovered The Incredible String Band because they clicked a link on Pitchfork.
The photo up there is of the first Q I bought. So I was a regular for nearly a decade. Not bad going.
There's a good documentary to be made about Rockfield Studios to be made. Sadly, the one shown in BBC4 on Saturday night wasn't it. Dave Edmunds, the guy who made the studios name, was only shown in a brief clip and as much as I'm not fussed about Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody was talked about only in passing. However, we did get treated to Liam Gallagher effin' and jeffin' for ages and Chris Martin droning on about the gestation of Yellow. Which was nice*...
I was listening to a podcast the other week that claimed Robert Fripp had 'won' rock music: he's very highly respected, lives in a nice house and is clearly still able to make a substantial living from his work. Sadly for him, he has the misfortune to be married to Toyah Willcox so no, Bob hasn't 'won' rock music. I'll tell you who has, another Robert and a contributor to the Rockfield film, Robert Plant. He's filthy rich, can pick and choose what he does, people are still interested in his output, can sell tickets, can and does tell Jimmy Page to do one, retains a highly approachable everyman image which sees him sitting in the stands with all the other punters at football and, crucially, he ISN'T married to Toyah Willcox.
So why not give this a watch instead of the Rockfield film?
On Saturday night we watched This Is Spinal Tap, a film which clips along and lasts barely 75 minutes. We then watched Letter to Brezhnev which lasts just over 90 minutes. I've also been listening to a podcast about the third greatest film of the 1980s, An American Werewolf in London, which has a running time of 97 minutes. No film needs to last more than 105 minutes at the very most. Reservoir Dogs lasts 99 minutes which is the perfect length. Tarantino's latest film lasts for over 160 minutes. Why? Films are too long these days. If you need your film to last more than an hour and three quarters then turn into a TV series. And don't get me even started on The Irishman. Difference there is that at least you can watch that at home if you're one of these people with Netflix, so you can at least get up and have a walk around. Rocket Man, the Elton John biopic could have done with some serious editing, knocking at least 20 minutes off it. I was well square-arsed when we came out of the pictures. I'm currently reading Elton's autobiography, as well as being a right rollicking read, we've already met Bernie Taupin by page 50, he's slayed the American glitterati by page 70 and the entire book is out of your way in less than 350 pages. Brevity in all things is what I now demand. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to. Films lasting far too long is what puts me off going to the pictures these days. I'm nearly 50, life is short, I have other things to do.
I like what this band do. They do prog, but hardly any of their songs last more than three and a half minutes. Which is nice. For prog. h
...to attend Flying Vinyl no.5.
Our next Flying Vinyl session on November 24th will feature, just after the time of its 50th birthday, the final LP The Beatles recorded, Abbey Road. Produced at a time when personal and business relationships within the band were coming under strain, musically they were never stronger and more collaborative (all four band members feature on lead vocals and writing credits) which resulted in one of their very finest albums. We'd love it if you could join us and celebrate a significant anniversary of a milestone LP.
Well now, I received some very welcome news today - one of my favourite bands of the last fifteen years are getting back together after having been on a break since 2011. Pure Reason Revolution were my band from about 2005 onwards. This band were pivotal in getting me back into music after other concerns (mortgages, decorating, DIY, idiotic in-laws, my dad's death and life in general) had led me away from it in any meaningful sense in the previous decade. At the time I was with a long term partner, she was the kind of person who would ask "Haven't you got enough records now?". She was a teacher who had an arty disposition so I would never have dreamt of saying to her "Haven't you got enough pens now?"
Go back fourteen years, I was bored working the late shift one night. This was the time when Mark Radcliffe had a late night show on Radio 2 that ran from 10pm to midnight. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love Radcliffe as a broadcaster and I think his shows are always worth listening to. This night he just happened to say "I'm going to play a record now by a band called Pure Reason Revolution. This record has got echoes of Pink Floyd all over it. In fact they studied at what used to be called Regent Street Polytechnic which is where the members of Floyd met each other. I'm going to play an edited version of their new single, which lasts for over nine minutes, which is why I'm editing it. It's called The Bright Ambassadors of Morning". He was right about being influenced by Pink Floyd, the title even riffs off a line in Floyd's Echoes. I vividly remember how Radcliffe introduced the record because in the early days of catch-up radio, I revisited that part of the show over and over again during the following week just so I could hear this music which I felt had been written specifically for me. It pushed all of my buttons. I just loved everything about it: the different sections, the harmonies, the drums, the huge riff, even the length of it. This record changed my life. I just had to have this record as soon as possible. I knew that no record shop around here was going to stock such a niche thing so I tentatively made my first purchase from Amazon (sorry, I knew not what I was doing). A few days later a CD single of The Bright Ambassadors of Morning fell onto the doormat. I couldn't believe I now actually owned this piece of music and wouldn't have to listen to it over the internet (how times have changed, eh?). This record became my obsession, I needed to know everything about this band and find whatever else they had out there. This being 2005, MySpace was all the rage, so I set up a profile and found PRR. Turns out that PRR consisted of some friends from Reading (some of whom had been to the old Regent Street Poly) and one of them had been a member of a band made up of schoolgirls called Period Pains who got a bit of press coverage in 1997 when John Peel made their anti-Spice-Girls single his record of the week. And guess what, through MySpace, I found that other people out there liked this band too. Who knew? That was my first foray onto any kind of social media.
So what now? I had to have whatever else this band had out on release. So the CD of their one-off single for Alan Magee's post-Creation label Poptones, which was called Apprentice of the Universe arrived. And what do you know, that track and all the 'b-sides' were great too. This band were hitting the spot for me. A few months later, when they were getting ready to release their debut album The Dark Third, they were out on the road supporting Manchester prog-metallers Oceansize, so I just thought, sod it, I'm going to see this band (she didn't want to come, of course). So I did. On my own. My first time at Nottingham's Rock City in what felt like donkey's years. And they were great. And I got to the front. And I bought everything else they did after that (two more albums) and saw them twice more. One of those times was on their farewell tour, sadly. But I didn't need to ask permission to go because by that time I'd split with the teacher and was living on my own in a flat and had met the woman who was to become my wife who means everything to me and who shares my passion for music and performance. Which kind of felt like a natural end for the band from my point of view - they'd shown me another way, I followed it, was all the better for it and made a massive change. The power of music had pulled me back in. I had left a relationship that was going nowhere because if you love music as much as this, why would you be with someone who asks if you have enough records? Or be with someone who has absolutely zero interest in the things you're interested in? Besides, I was fed-up of being on my own all the time, at home (both her job and her hobby trumped everything) and at gigs.
Anyway, The Bright Ambassadors of Morning, then. I know it's not everyone's cup o' tea but surely if you love music then you know how it feels to totally connect with something (at the risk of sounding wanky). Here's the video for it, which was on the "Enhanced CD" (remember them?) single. There's a scene in Gregory's Girl where Gregory's sister orders this fluorescent green milkshake thing in Wimpy and she explains that the best bit is just before it hits your tongue, in short, the anticipation. Waiting for that moment. That moment for me hits at about 8m 30s in this video. You're just waiting for it - the headbanging section. The anticipation is better than the moment. You know its coming and that feeling is better than anything else. And that's music for me.
And here they are performing it on the German TV show Rockpalast:
So that's it, they're back together. I can't wait to hear what they have in store.
Tracks of My Years Part 3: Nancy Sinatra - The Boots Are Made For Walking
The last time I did one of these was in 2015 so I suppose I'd better get back on track with it. If you don't remember (and why would you?), these are songs which I remember really leaping out of the radio at me when I was a kid and somehow shaped my musical taste. And in a lot of instances they frightened me. This is definitely one that frightened me.
The sad death of the Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine this week helped remind us of the amount of excellent work he did. One of those songs he played on, These Boots Are Made For Walking is a record that both fascinated and scared the living daylights out of me as a child. For some context, among records like The Runaway Train, The Laughing Policeman, The Laughing Gnome (and all manner of other records with the word 'lauguing' in the title) and Nellie the Elephant which would get played week in, week out on Radio 1's Junior Choice in the 70s and early 80s, Nancy Sinatra's most well known song would also always get an airing. I think the record both enchanted and frightened me for a variety of reasons. First, there's that slightly off-kilter descending double bass part that leads into the verse. Secondly, this person wants to walk all over you in their boots. Why would she want to do that? Of course at the time I was too young to realise that she wanted to metaphorically walk all over you in her boots (although I'm led to believe that people literally like to be walked on in boots). Thirdly, she talked about matches. Now, I was always taught that matches were never to be touched*, so what's she going to do with those matches? Isn't it all rather dangerous to be playing with matches? She'll burn herself. Put. The. Matches. Down (as before, it was metaphorical matches she was playing with. Again, that bit was lost on me). Fourthly (is that a word), she actually talks to the boots. "Are you ready boots? Start walkin'" Are these magic boots? Wow.
*A message that was lost on my sister who once tried to set fire to our wooden garage. Think she might be something of a pyromaniac as she would often light matches and watch them burn down to nothing. And she taught me that trick of flicking your index finger in and out of a lit candle. There were a lot of power cuts in the late 70s.
There's been a lot of talk about The Prodigy this week, for all the wrong reasons. I recall when they first hit and got songs like Charley and Outta Space in the hit parade they were seen as a bit of a joke act (but not a full-on joke like Altern 8). However, they made Music For the Jilted Generation which got nominated for the Mercury Prize and released this as its lead single. I doubt Keith Flint had very little to do with its inception or production but I'll never forget hearing this coming out the PA at Rock City. It made your whole body vibrate.
I'd already been discovering that Marshalls set to 11, a huge kit and a biker boot resting on a monitor didn't necessarily have to equate to HEA-VEE. Getting into stuff like Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Godflesh along with more traditional bands at the 'alt' end of the rock scene like Helmet, Nottingham's own Fudge Tunnel and Corrosion of Conformity was already turning my head to another form of headbanging.
Hearing No Good (Start the Dance) that night, in its natural setting, a club, meant that I suddenly 'got' rave culture. It still sounds fantastic. And, alarmingly, it's now a quarter of a century old. Oh dear.
I'm sure our memories must play tricks on us at this time of year. I say that because songs that have always seemed to be embedded in our consciousness as stone-cold Christmas classics, when you delve deeper, and from my own memory, weren't such massive songs during the festive period at all. And I can pinpoint when all this started happening: the run up to Christmas 1985 when Virgin/EMI released The Christmas Album (or The Christmas Tape, as it was in our house) all done under the Now! banner.
I mean, there were some bone fide yuletide tracks on there that did transcend the years and always seemed to chart on re-release. I'm talking about Slade, Wizzard, Bing Crosby etc but some of the others? Hmm, not so much.
Queen - Thank God It's Christmas. Reached no.21 in 1984. This was of course before they re-wrote their own history and played a make-or-break gig at Wembley Stadium on July 13th 1985.
Elton John -Step Into Christmas. Reached no.24 in 1973. A song I had never heard before that fateful Christmas in 1985. Now it's all over the place. I guess it keeps Elton in 'fruit and flowers' these days.
Kate Bush - December Will Be Magic Again. Wheezed its way to no.29 in 1980. A song written for her 1979 BBC Christmas Special. This was before she went down the dumper for a bit and made an album that sounded like King Crimson with a Fairlight.
Chris De Burgh - A Spaceman Came Travelling. Didn't chart on original release in 1975. I had heard this single before but only because we had a teacher at school who'd been a bit of a Head back in the day and used to start his year assemblies with a bit of rock music (on one occasion treating a load of bemused 1980s kids to Black Sabbath).
Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick. Didn't chart on original release. Something doesn't sit quite right with me when a band associated with California sun and the outdoor life sing about reindeer.
All those songs now seem as much a part of Christmas as mince pies, drinking too much and having to be nice to people. And the tracklisting of today's Now Christmas album just grows and grows. The edition in this house had grown to three CDs as at some point with a lot of artists realising how much the publishing on a Christmas track can be worth. Indeed, the most valuable song for non-Beatles royalties in Paul McCartney's catalogue is that ultimate in will-this-do? filler, Wonderful Christmastime. And what's on in the background while I'm writing this? Freeview Channel 88, the Now That's What I Call Christmas channel showing Pete Waterman's Christmas 1972-Now. The songs keep coming: East 17, Bo Selecta, Peter Kay, Steps, Jon By Jovi, Mariah Carey, Mickey Bubbles...
A few months ago I was asked by the people who run the Charity Shop Classics show on a Manchester community radio station called All FM if I'd like to be a guest presenter for their show. Charity Shop Classics is a show I've been listening to for quite a while now and it's fair to say that I love the concept of the show and the music we hear which is presented by good people. So I took it as a great honour that I was asked to contribute with my USP being that every track played, bar one, was purchased from my local Oxfam Books & Music store in my hometown of Newark. It took a few months to get together, what with one thing and another but the results were on air yesterday. My links at times leave a bit to be desired but I enjoyed doing it, which is kind of the point. You can hear the results in the link here: https://www.mixcloud.com/CharityShopClassics/charity-shop-classics-show-202-listeners-choice/
I was listening to our incredibly local local radio station when Ed Sheeran's Castle on the Hill was played. I listened to it and I thought to myself, do you know what? That's not a bad song. Yes, the lyrics are a bit on the Summer of '69 side but I like the way the record thumps along and it's about having a good time with your friends. What's wrong with that?
You see I've never understood the bile levelled at Sheeran. If you don't like his music then fair enough, I get that, but what is it that drives people to be incredibly rude about him? You can't say he hasn't paid his dues, he talks of train fares to get to gigs that were more expensive than the fee he was being paid. Indeed, a very good friend of mine would regularly go and see him in the pubs and clubs of the toilet circuit years ago and was incredibly affronted when he couldn't get tickets to his show at Nottingham Arena last year ("This is the first time we've ever missed him in Nottingham" he moaned).
Is it because he's clearly middle class? Funny how people don't mind that when it comes to Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page but hate it when Chris Martin or Sheeran are unashamedly middle class.
Is it because he's enormously successful? Granted, he's more likely to win the Queen's Prize for Export over the Brian Eno Award for Innovation but who cares? If he makes music that people like, and they clearly do, then is that so bad? If you listen to the right radio stations then it's quite easy to avoid his music and nobody's forcing you to buy or stream it.
Is it because he's ginger? And not only ginger but not exactly the most handsome of men? This anti-ginger, anti-unhandsome business seems to be particularly peculiar to the UK. I like to call it The Mick Hucknall Syndrome.
And you can't say he hasn't got a massive pair of balls; step out onstage at Wembley Stadium with no backing band with just an acoustic guitar and looping station for support? I hope he had his brown pants on.
I think I can put my finger on what it is: snobbery. People hate it that he's successful. Why should it be like that? And if you like something then you should feel no shame in admitting it and enjoying it. As this excellent fellow says, in his East Midlands' accent, "If you like it, stand up for it"
I'm not saying I love everything he's done. In my book for every Castle on the Hill there's an A Team. For every Shape of You there's a Lego House. For every Sing there's a Galway Girl.
Anyway, here's a very good friend of mine adding to Castle on the Hill exactly what it needs: a great big dollop of drums because Ed doesn't need the cash of somebody else adding to the 300m plus views the original's had on You Tube.
Ah, 2018 then. How are you? Oh right, excellent. Anyway, enough about you, as it's a new year and a chance to set out some new life goals, I thought I'd go back to blogging. The micro-blogging of Twitter doesn't interest me at the moment so I thought I'd have a go at this again. See how it goes, and all that. Just a quick one to ease me in:
There is absolutely nothing I don't love about this photograph.
It's Rush outside the Holiday Inn in Birmingham in 1978. A very West Midlands' decade, were the 70s, think about it: ELO, Black Sabbath, Wizzard, Trevor Francis at Birmingham City, Spaghetti Junction, Jasper Carrott, Tiswas ATVLand Birmingham B1 2JP, John Swallow, Red Robbo, the Bull Ring, Crossroads etc. The Brutalism architecture in Brum is one of its great strengths, I find. What a pity theses days that the city seems intent on erasing every last piece of it. I mean, look at the concrete in that Holiday Inn. Also look at the Renault 16. They were everywhere then. I really hope that's the car which will transport the Canadian rockers to the Birmingham Odeon. A very Renault decade was the 70s. And look at Rush, a very Rush decade was the 70s, with their epic twenty minute songs, moustaches and Geddy Lee's boots...
I've been listening to the 40 minute cover version of Echoes on Crippled Black Phoenix's new EP. I think the CBP EP - which has a running time of an hour, so hardly an EP - has done more to restore my faith in the music of Pink Floyd than the miserbalism of The Final Cut, the Floyd-by-numbers of A Momentary Lapse of Reason and the borefest of The Endless River ever will. As I'm on a mid-period Floyd tip at the minute, I've been watching Pink Floyd in Pompeii. It's such a shame that this is the only proper visual live record of the Pink Floyd lineup of Waters, Gilmour, Wright and Mason. When you think about all the gigs they did in support of Dark Side of the Moon, Animals and The Wall and it's a wonder none of it was captured properly on film. I know that it is something that irks members of the band. Mind you, they had such difficulty around the cinema release of ...in Pompeii that they were probably put off. And who would have foreseen Imax or hi-def Blu-Ray with a 5.1 surround sound mix in the mid-70s? Watching Pink Floyd in Pompeii also served to remind me how good Nick Mason was before he became the world's most bone idle drummer.
Any road, my I point you in the direction of Crippled Black Phoenix's version of Echoes? It has a total running time of about double the original and takes in some interview audio with the band (which I think is from the documentary footage of ...in Pompeii. The bit where Mason asks for apple pie with no crust being a highlight. "They've only got round apple pies left, Nick". Anyway, who wants apple pie with no crust? Bloody freak), a dollop of The Tornados' Telstar and finishing up with a version of Childhood's End from Floyd's most underrated LP, Obscured by Clouds. It really is a very good thing from a band who've had their ups and downs recently but who have come storming back with this.
Any fans of record shops will know that this year's Record Store Day is just around the corner. Now I quite like the idea of RSD, unfortunately, like Emerson Lake and Palmer or the Sony Discman, the theory is much better than the reality.
I've only 'done' RSD once, two years ago. Unless you're wont to get out of bed at stupid o'clock in the morning on a Saturday then I really wouldn't bother going. I can guarantee that by the time you get there, whatever you've gone for will be gone. When I went to a participating RSD shop back in 2013 the only thing I went for had been sold out for ages. The handy thing was, that when I was standing in line, I had two studenty types behind me who couldn't wait to get in there and buy, ugh,'vinyls'. I got there at around midday and certainly didn't expect to queue to get in when I arrived. So what happens then? Well, you just buy something. Anything so that you don't feel that you've had a wasted journey. I came home with, amongst other things, a Frankie Goes to Hollywood picture single. It's a nice thing to have but it's hardly essential.
Last year I saw the author of Last Shop Standing, Graham Jones, give a talk on record shops. This came a few weeks after RSD 2014. When he took questions from the floor he was asked what could make RSD better. He came up with a number of ideas to improve the RSD experience for everyone. He suggested that the organisers were considering limiting official RSD releases to new music only. Or introducing a loyalty card scheme so that regular independent record shop customers could get first dibs on RSD by getting four stamps on their card over the previous year. None of these ideas have been implemented. So this year there are well over 500 official RSD releases. I've had a look at the list and there's absolutely nothing I'm desperate for. So yet again we will see people queueing outside Piccadilly Records in Manchester before it's even closed the day before. And for what? A few 7" singles that you didn't really want because the David Bowie picture disc you went in for sold out at 8:30, while you were still parking the car. I realise that RSD is important for independent record shops in their constant struggle to survive against downloads, online stores and supermarkets but against the backdrop of me supporting independent music stores throughout the rest of the year and tales of an unscrupulous retailer reserving stock for favoured customers means that on April 18th I'll stay snuggled in bed for as long as I please.
Tracks of My Years Pt.2
Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers
This song will always remind me of boiled egg and soldiers for breakfast. I don't know why but my mother went on some kind of mission for me and my sister to go to school on an egg. God knows what my farts smelt like, they're bad enough when I don't have any eggs. Anyway, because Dave Lee Travis used to seemingly play this every day on the Radio 1 breakfast show at the that time we were having boiled eggs, the two will forever go hand-in-hand.
Again this another song that I can remember from my childhood that used to scare the wits out of me. David Rhodes' repetitive slide up the fretboard in there is one reason - completely unsettling. The vocal wasn't normal either. This man sounded like he was the modern day version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's childcatcher; watching children playing from afar while clearly formulating something in his mind. Hans plays with Lotte which gradually descends into Adolf and Enrico building and playing with a bonfire. My mum tried to keep me away from people who set bonfires (probably because my fellow egg-munching, pyromanical sister once tried to set fire to the garage, but that's another story), they were deemed to be naughty and no good would end up coming of them (she was right about one of them, as it turned out).
Sticking with the lyrics, I always thought that the opening lines to the song were "She, so popular" Who is she, and why is she so popular? I didn't know. And who is She? Lotte? Suki? Britt? Jane? Well, Jane did play with Willi, so it could be her (ho ho!). Turns out, of course that the opening line is "Jeux sans frontieres". Now I have a confession to make here, it wasn't until about ten years ago, when I bought Peter Gabriel 3 and looked at the lyric sheet that I found out what the lyrics actually were. Of course then it all makes sense! Jeux sans Frontieres was the French name for the television inter-city shitfest It's a Knockout! I'm not happy to report that it was only when I reached my mid-thirties that the lyrics all made perfect sense. You know, watching people play 'silly games' like the contestants in It's a Knockout*. And that all adds up to the song being an allegory on the foolish games politicians and leaders play with people's lives. Dur! Thick, aren't I?
I do remember, however, being struck how clever it was that the line "Whistling tunes..." was accompanied by actual whistling. I'm clearly quite easy to impress, especially as the next big hit to feature whistling was that bloody Wind of Change.
Anyway, it's a good job I never saw the accompanying video and single sleeve at the time as that would have had me hiding under the dining room table. Gabriel looks like a man possessed in the video, then there's that weird spinning three-headed doll thing and footage of a nuclear explosion. Christ. While Gabriel's melting head on the cover of the 7" would have had me having to have it placed upside down at all times. But having said that, his face does like like that of Blake Edmonds, a character in the Tiger comic at the time in a strip called Death Wish** which I lapped up every week. Little did I know at the time that less than a decade earlier this guy used to prance around with a flower on his head singing about farms, firemen, hogweeds and Green Shield stamps.
I think I may be giving the impression that I spent my whole childhood in a state of perpetual fear here. Don't worry, the next song I have lined up for this is what John Shuttleworth would call 'a fun track'.
All getting a bit prog, this blog, isn't it? Don't worry, I'm sure there'll be something on the TV to moan about soon enough.
*My parents knew someone who competed in IAKO when it came to Newark. He was dressed as a giant dog and had to find a bone in a haystack. We didn't go to the recording of it as Dad was too cheap to buy tickets. instead we went down the day before the recording, and gawped at Stuart Hall watching the set up and talking to the production team. Well, who knew...? **Death Wish! In a kids' comic! Didn't think anything of a suicidal racing driver at the time of course. Clearly inspired by Niki Lauda, I guess.
I've seen some odd sights in the quarter of a century that I've been going to concerts. When you've been to as many heavy metal, thrash and grunge gigs as I have you kind of take oddball fans and behaviour as something that isn't exactly out of place.
However, at the Steven Wilson concert that myself and Mrs Ambassador attended on Saturday night in Manchester, I was witness to one of the oddest fans I think I've ever seen. Progressive (or 'conceptual', as Wilson would have it) rock is normally home to the more genteel breed of rock fan. The sort of person who would quietly nod along to the music and emit polite applause, or maybe a cheer if they're feeling particularly exuberant, at the end of each son (unless you're at a Rush gig)
Anyway, a little scene-setting is required. I spotted this man walk in after we had taken our seats when he came and sat down two rows in front. I noticed him in particular because I thought to myself that he looked the archetypal middle-aged prog fan. He was wearing an IQ tour t-shirt, which was no doubt carefully selected to show off his prog credentials. Not a particularly well known act, IQ, so he was showing he liked 'deep cuts' and everyone knows it's a big no-no to go in a shirt of the artist you're seeing that night, unless it's a really old one so that you can show everyone else that you've been into this outfit for bloody ages. He looked like Mr Average, not very tall, and was wearing the ultimate in comfort: a fleece jacket (you might as well have a sign over your head saying "I've given up, me" if you're going to go out on a Saturday night dressed in a material made from old pop bottles). I think he was the kind of guy who made an effort to get down to London when he was student to see Marillion when they were virtually residents at the Marquee Club. And I bet he still jokes that he only just dried out a fortnight ago after the Genesis/Peter Gabriel reunion show at Milton Keynes Bowl in 1982 (it rained, famously. Well, famously amongst proggers). Oh, and he arrived alone. Now I spend a chunk of my spare time fighting music snobbery, so I hate to pigeonhole people but he really did look like what the kind of people who listen to BBC 6 Music think a fan of progressive rock might look like, i.e. quiet, unassuming, a bit of a nerd, CAMRA member. I'm not like that, of course, I'm far too cool.
So imagine, my surprise when during Wilson's first address to the crowd he said that he knew we were all seated but if we could make the band feel like we were actually at a rock 'n' roll show then that would be fine. At this point, matey jumps up out of his seat, rips the IQ t-shirt from his body, twirls it around his bonce and starts roaring. Yes, roaring! Mrs Ambassador and I exchanged a glance.
Again, during the song Index (about a serial killer who collects the body parts of his victims. Yes, I know.) our friend decides to really throw himself into the song, pointing, headbanging. He was really feeling that song. Worryingly.
But he saved the best to last, during the instrumental section of the song Harmony Korine, he was repeatedly punching himself in the side of the head. Incredibly quickly.
I hope I don't sound like I'm being sarcastic about this guy. I just found it a strange way to carry on at a prog gig. True to form, most of the other audience members nodded along in time with the music. And as the audience was about 80% male, the balding heads gave an extra dimension to the lights as they added a handy reflective surface for the light to bounce off. Well, they were nodding after they'd put their real ales down.
I've been thinking of doing this for ages now: songs that first made me sit up and listen to what was coming out of the radio. Obviously I can remember the hits that everyone else was listening to, as well as more kiddy-friendly fare like the dozen records Junior Choice trotted out every week, but these are the ones that really stuck with me and had some bearing on the music that I would come to love later in life. I think I'll split it over different posts rather that do it all in one. Besides, I need to get my hand back in to blog posts as I've had two, yes, count 'em, TWO!, people over the past couple of weeks tell me I don't post enough.
So, Part 1 in a Ken Bruce Tracks of My Years style series is:
Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall Pt.2
The last number one single of the 1970s and first of the 1980s then. I don't seem to recall that there was all that much of a fuss about the Christmas number one when I was growing up. If there was then this surely must have ranked alongside Rage Against the Machine's protest no.1 from a few years ago, and Mr Blobby, as one that the bookies probably didn't see coming.
I think what first struck me about this song was, like everyone else, the "We don't need no education" refrain. I was eight, going on nine at the time and while I wasn't much of a fan of school, probably viewed it as a necessary evil. So who were these people who were telling me that they didn't need no education? At the time I thought they were some of those punk rockers I'd heard about. People said these punk rockers were troublemakers. How wrong I was in Pink Floyd's case. But there was something about that vocal performance and those horrible-sounding kids that made me think that these people were to be avoided at all costs.
Then there was the video. The band didn't appear in it themselves, of course. That mixture of panning camera shots of a pre-regeneration London, animation, those ruffian kids again and the teacher led me to be even more fearful of this band of punk rockers. Who were these people? Why didn't they want us to see them? Were they so disfigured by years of being evil that their faces were a diabolical mess of vein and pus with bulging eyes? I didn't know. I don't think I wanted to know.
And those kids, they sounded hard, didn't they? What with their 'fort cont-roal' and everything. And according to the video they lived in council flats. No good ever came of anyone who lived in council flats. Not if a kids' show at the time, The Latchkey Kids, was to be believed.*
Coming back to that teacher, that bloody teacher**. This band were so evil they thought it was okay for their song to be depicted by this horrible teacher pushing these poor schoolkids into a mincer while his eye turns into a magnifying glass. A mincer! Kids in a mincer! That could be me! No, no, no, Pink Floyd, with your weird name, please spare me the mincer.
Anyway, this song, despite it being evil incarnate, stuck with me. And I didn't even know what 'dark sarcasm' was. It might be that I like being scared out of my wits, I always have and probably always will***. Of course now I know that the producer, Bob Ezrin, knew exactly what he was doing by giving it the standard disco beat with Nile Rodgers' style rhythm guitar guaranteed it tons of airplay. Good job he did because a near bankrupt Floyd were desperate for the cash that a hit single could knock on to sales of a double album.
Now fast forward to the mid-1980s. Settling down to watch Saturday teatime telly and on comes Mike Read's Pop Quiz. One of the team captains is this guy called Dave Gilmour (before the law was changed in 1988 and everybody had to address him as 'David'). Well this Dave guy was incredibly well-spoken, nicely turned out, was witty and quite handsome. Can you imagine my surprise when it turns out that this Dave bloke was a member of Pink Floyd? What had happened to his punk mohican? Where were the safety pins? Why wasn't he snarling? Of course, that was before I knew about the band, who ended up as one of favourites. But that, my friends, is a story for another day.
*Now I know that the kids in the video aren't the kids in the song. The kids in the video are stage school kids, as evidenced by the girl in the 'Number 32' top who walks like a trained dancer. My wife is convinced that one of the kids is Terry Sue Patt who played Benny Green in Grange Hill. I'm not so sure.
**Who, I think, bears an uncanny resemblance to BBC arts editor Will Gompertz.
***Some music still frightens me. Check out Black Mass from Delia Derbyshire's band White Noise. While Black Sabbath's eponymous track is the sound of suffering and is immensely disquieting, even to a 44 year-old.
They say that you should never meet your heroes because you'll only be disappointed, don't they? It's a maxim I've tried to live by, not that I'm exactly inundated with invitations to meet, among others, the members of Rush, John Robertson, Dr Janina Ramirez or Eric 'Winkle' Brown, you must understand. I'm not the kind of person who pushes myself forward in social situations anyway, so I wouldn't normally approach people whom I admire, nor would I usually enter competitions to meet them, and neither would I apply to go on meet 'n' greets at events. So why then, about a month or so ago, did I decide that I'd quite like to go and meet the singer/songwriter, and former leader of Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, when the proprietor of the marvellous 101 Collectors Records in Farnham announced that Wilson would be doing an instore in his shop in March? Well, I can't answer that. I'd not had too much of a good time over January, I'd had a bout of the 'flu, which meant my birthday was pretty rubbish. The 'flu then buggered off and left me with hearing problems. So life's not exactly been a riot. Something inside just said "Bugger it, I want some records signed, I've got some leave from work to use up and I'd like to do something fun"
So last Monday, off I set for the 170 mile journey down the M1, around the M25 and across the M3 to the small Surrey town. I nipped into the shop first to buy a vinyl copy of the LP from Andy, the friendly chap who runs the store. Then to check into my hotel for the night. Hmmm, checking into a hotel on your own when you're clearly not there on business leads to all sorts of odd looks from the check-in staff. It's almost as though they think you're up to no good. What they don't realise is that they could give me odd looks all they like but I knew that there was hardly any hot water available in the room.
The allotted hour came when I was to meet the great man, so I went back into town where I was due to meet a longtime internet friend and her husband who live nearby, and who also happen to be fans of Wilson. I met with my friends outside where we joined the queue to get in. I'd have to admit I was a little nervous. I mean, what do you say? You can't pretend that you're old friends who are just exchanging pleasantries. Neither can you be a gushing pillock.
We finally get into the shop and wait our turn to go to the signing table. There was a guy there with loads of stuff to sign, he had really early, and rare, Porcupine Tree LPs amongst other stuff from Wilson's varied career. I felt like an amateur fan after gawping at all that lot. Anyway, my turn came. I stood straight in front of him like an idiot, just as he shouted if he could have another drink. I thought he was talking to me. Oh dear. Recovering quickly I handed over my LP sleeves and asked if he would do dedications. "Yes, but not for anything silly" he replied. That was okay, I only asked for names. So he asked for the names. When I told him my name he repeated it back to me. I remember thinking "Yes! That's my name, why don't you know it? I know yours! I've known your name for over a decade!". Of course he doesn't know my name, why would he? It's because I guess that I consider him to be a friend. Oh well. While he was signing the Cover Version album I mentioned that I thought his version of Abba'sThe Day Before You Cameas rather magnificent. "Thank you" he said "It's quite an easy song to get wrong" I then mentioned that I had once heard that the song was being told from the perspective of a murder victim and that I thought that was why it would have appealed to his macabre side. "Really? I've never heard that" he said, quite surprised. By this time I wanted to make sure that my friends would get a photo of me with the great man. Photos were taken. As he turned to go and I was saying thanks, he noticed my badge. "Mmmm, Mr Benn" he said gesturing to the badge. And that was it. It probably lasted less than two minutes, but it was worth it. I told him something he didn't know and he liked my badge. And I was quite chuffed that I'm taller than him.
Now I've had time to sit and think, I've thought of some better questions to ask him. One of which is "What's Nick Beggs really like?" (the Kajagoogoo four stringer is the bassist in Wilson's band). Oh well, I'll save that until next time.
I finally met one of my heroes.
And if you're interested, his new LP, Hand.Cannot.Erase. is terrific. Terrific if you like concept albums about someone retreating from society, that is. No, wait, come back...
