Bright Ambassador Adoring

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.

And now you know why I'm Bright Ambassador.

IQ test

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.

Cat's foot iron claw pt.2

A couple of things I forgot from the earlier post:

Re decent Christmas telly, I forgot about BBC4s Crooked House. Three half hour ghost stories written by The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, all based in the same house down the ages. Shows that you can use your imagination without resorting to flares-wearing robots or Mackenzie Crook wearing a false nose made from an old Corn Flakes box.

And regarding Prog Rock Britannia, has anyone at BBC4 got the gumption to commision Heavy Metal Britannia? Go on BBC4, you proved you can do a good documentary about music that constantly gets derided over the weekend. It's long overdue.

Cat's foot iron claw

Hello, happy new year and all that bollocks. I suppose I'd better start easing my way back into this blogging thing.
I'm back working shifts at work for the next few months and I'm trying not to get back addicted to the internet. Over Christmas I went for five days without switching on the PC, which was quite a liberating experience. I only switched it on after five days to check email and download some music. Mind you, having said all that I'll probably end up posting three times a day, or something ridiculous.

Anyway, telly over Christmas was largely crap. I happened to see the Christmas Day Doctor Who. Oh dear, that's an hour of my life I won't get back. I'm tried with Doctor Who, I really have, but that'll probably be the last time I intentionally watch it. And those Wallace and Gromit Christmas idents on BBC1 started way too early and went on for way too long.
Some highlights:
The Peter Serafinowicz Show - I recall blogging about his 2007 series being slightly disappointing. The special over Christmas was a joy though, every sketch a winner. Especially the David Attenborough spoof that had a spider that made it's web from tinsel and had a bumble bee on its way to a Christmas party trapped in it. Oh, and a stoned Terry Wogan doing Points of View.
The Generation Game 1973 Christmas Special - very funny, but not just in a 'ooh look at the haircuts!' kind of way. Forsyth at the top of his game. And you can't argue with a show that features Frankie Howerd pulling his pants out of his arse crack and saying 'Let me get myself comfy', that horrid old witch Fanny Craddock and a fella who does the old tablecloth trick. Top prizes too - weighing scales for a lady, a drill for a man, an electric toothbrush for a winning finalist and a Trinitron portable telly it took two blokes to carry out (the screen was a bout 14" but the cabinet was a cumbersome mahogany affair).

And I have to say that I've enjoyed BBC4's short Prog Rock this last weekend. What a refreshing change it made to see a serious non-sneary or tongue-in-cheek documentary on the subject. I know it's not the easiest music in the world to love and I also know it sometimes took itself way too seriously, but it deserves recognition. Three minor quibbles with it: 1) I think they should have got Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp to be talking heads. Isn't it funny how Fripp allowed himself to be interviewed by GMTV when his missus was on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! but not when someone wants to ask him about music? 2) Too much about ELP. A dreadful band, even though Lake and Emerson's previous bands were shit hot. Old roadies' adage: "There are three things you don't need on tour - earache, toothache and Greg Lake" 3) All the previous Music Britannia docos have bought come right up to date. Watching that you'd be forgiven for thinking it ended in 1976 - wither Radiohead, Muse, Porcupine Tree, Pure Reason Revolution, Diagonal etc?

Genuinely scary: