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.
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Friday, 6 March 2015
Arriving Somewhere
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's The Day Before You Came as 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...
Tuesday, 4 November 2014
Detectorists
Detectorists, written by, starring and directed by Mackenzie Crook is rapidly turning out to be my favourite thing that's been on television this year. If you haven't seen it, it's a sitcom about a metal detecting club's two most enthusiastic members played by Crook and a truly excellent Toby Jones.I've read so many times that it's a 'gentle comedy'. To me a gentle comedy conjours up OAPs rolling down hillsides in tin baths. This isn't that kind of gentle comedy. It isn't a Not Going Out gagfest either, what it is is a beautifully-crafted comedy. The script has gorgeous lightness of touch, the characters speak how real people speak, from a discussion about what was on television the night before ("Fifteen to One's not the same without William G Stewart. I like Toksvig but she's always joking") to minor misunderstandings (a phone conversation we only see one side of "Do you like swedes?....No, the vegetable").
It also doesn't venture into the cliche that anyone who is an enthusiast of anything is a bit of a nerd. I always find that sort of thing kind of insulting. As though you can't be interested in any subject that doesn't involve sport or beer without being seen as some kind of social inadequate. Oh, and the original music's lovely too. All this and it shows off the English countryside at its best.
The series comes to an end on Thursday, this is giving me the same sort of feeling I get when I'm nearing the end of a book I've really enjoyed; you know it's going to end so you try and prolong it for as long as possible. It's a mark of the programme that I could quite happily sit and watch them all over again right now.
Detectorists: BBC4 Thursday night 10pm. Most episodes are still available on the BBC iPlayer. If you haven't seen it, try and catch up, it really is lovely.
Thursday, 16 January 2014
Shut yer face
Let me give you an of example of talkers at a gig.
Last October, my wife and I went to see Martyn Ware's side project British Electric Foundation at the Sheffield Academy. Those with only a passing knowledge of electronic music know that Ware, formerly of The Human League and currently of Heaven 17, is from Sheffield. So, as you can imagine, we thought it would be a typical homecoming show with an appreciative and rapt audience rooting for the returning son. Not a bit of it. Throughout the performance we were subjected to a constant din of people stood at the bar talking. And because there's the small matter of a concert going on at the other end of the room with, you know, AMPLIFIED sounds, these alcoholic berks had to speak LOUDLY. A lot of the songs in the set were of a quiet and contemplative nature, like Heaven 17's Glenn Gregory treating us to a mesmerising performance of The Associates' Party Fears Two and BEF's keyboard player Berenice Scott's excellent version of Blondie's Picture This (BEF specialise in cover versions) but on and on they nattered. It impaired our enjoyment of the concert massively, and it wasn't the fault of the band, they were fantastic. And that's just one instance, there's many more.
Also in October, as mentioned in my last post, we saw Steven Wilson. We saw Wilson twice last year and on both occasions there was an almost complete absence of talking. I think you can put this down to two things: 1) Wilson's audience are perhaps a little more respectful of the people onstage 2) both shows were seated, so you had to be in your seat, to fully enjoy the show. Now, I'm not saying all gigs should be all seater, that would be stupid but it certainly makes you think.
I often wonder why people have gone along if all they're going to do is talk. I'm guessing that they might have accompanied people who were more enthusiastic about the performance than their chums, and if so, who are they talking to because if you really wanted to see someone you'd tell your chum to shut the fuck up. Or perhaps it comes from this thing of having to be there - "Oh yeah, we saw Bruce Springsteen do an undercover show at The Borderline" purely to impress their mates.
Anyway, sometimes, audiences, silence really is golden.
Friday, 13 December 2013
Phew, 2013!
Albums of the Year:
- Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories. Just a superb LP. And it is an LP, something that demands to be listened to from start to finish. Imagine King Crimson with some ballads. No? Oh, okay, well it sounds good to me.
- Public Service Broadcasting - Inform Educate Entertain. This project take the dialogue from old films and PIFs and puts them to music. Sound's rubbish? Nah, check this out.
- Wolf People - Fain. This Bedfordshire quartet probably haven't heard any music recorded since 1970 or seen a film since Blood on Satan's Claw. Very, very English, er, psych-folk-prog.
- The Maccabees - Pelican. I know it was originally released at the fag end of 2011, but it's a song it took me over a year to decide I liked. And when I decided I liked it, I decided I really liked it. They're one of those bands whom I have no desire to hear anything else by, I'd only be disappointed that it wouldn't be as good as Pelican (I put Death Cab for Cutie in the same category - they'll never top I Will Possess Your Heart). They won't be able to top this.
- Steven Wilson at the Royal Albert Hall. My wife and I had already seen Steven at the Manchester Academy in March, but this gig in October was quite, quite terrific. The band he assembles are all just on it - special praise for Kajagoogoo bassist Nick Beggs and former Zappa drummer Chad Wackerman - while the songs and the way they're presented are just sublime. An added bonus for this gig was that my wife managed to get us some excellent seats right near the stage (see photo). So good were the seats that VIP guests were sitting in front of us.
- The Returned - Shows with subtitles, not usually my bag but the story here is all that matters. The Returned is about grief and missing people, something we've all experienced. I'm not going to complain about the ending like nearly everyone else, it could have stood as a stand alone series with that ending. Let's just hope they don't jump the shark in future series. Oh, and one of the lead actresses is rather lovely.
- Toast of London - Just a wilfully daft comedy about a tosspot actor with Matt Berry. I loved it and am glad to see it's coming back for a second series after abysmal ratings (there are some tasteless people out there).
- The Silent War - A late entry, this, part of BBC2's Cold War season. It's a documentary about the way submarines were used in the Cold War. A bit dry? You bet, but I love all this Mutually Assured Destruction stuff. And remember, DON'T DROP ANY SPANNERS.
- Count Arthur Strong - Another wilfully daft comedy. You either love or hate Count Arthur Strong and it seems more people hate him. For me, this was just a delight. The episode set during a recording of a radio play really was superb, one of the funniest things on television all year.
- Broadchurch - You've already read the superlatives. And it had a proper ending. I can't imagine what they'll do for series two though.
- What Remains - This psychological murder mystery proves we can do this stuff as well as any foreign broadcaster. And, spoiler alert, I'm not holding my breath for series two.
- Pfft, hardly been to the cinema. Here's what I've seen at the pictures: Rush, Alpha Papa. Yup.
- Sightseers - probably released in 2012, but I saw it this year 'on demand'. An erotic odyssey to well-loved tourist spots in the north of England in a caravan goes horribly wrong...
- Getting married! Yay! Believe the hype, it really is the happiest day of your life. I highly recommend it.
*Even though it's by a hoary old prog rocker who nobody likes
Friday, 29 November 2013
Now listen
Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Now That's What I Call Music compilation. I own a copy, look, there's my copy over to the left. Funny out of all the records I've owned in the past, that one has stuck with me. I didn't even particularly want it. I was just getting interested in music at the time - I was twelve going on thirteen - and what I actually wanted was a compilation issued as a tie-in with the BBC's Mike Read-fronted Saturday Superstore programme. The reason I wanted that LP was because it contained a track called Love is a Wonderful Colour by a band called The Icicle Works. My sister was an assistant in a record shop at the time and was tasked by my parents to purchase this Saturday Superstore release. As it turns out, they'd sold out of Saturday Superstore so she took it on herself to buy Now... instead. When I unwrapped the parcel on Christmas Day she explained what had happened and passed it off with a "That's miles better, anyway". As it happens, it was miles better. It was through this album that my love for Simple Minds first manifested itself, a love that's held firm, through thick, thin and Street Fighting Years, to this day. Their track Waterfront is included, which I'm guessing was Virgin's way of getting the band some publicity for their new album as the blurb on the sleeve just says "Released from their forthcoming LP and cassette", which was issued in February 1984.But what else is on there? Well, two tracks each buy Kajagoogoo (no. 1 hit Too Shy and the single Big Apple which made the Top 10 after they booted out Limahl. Limahl's first solo effort, Only For Love, is also on here) and UB40 (Red Red Wine, one of my most hated songs of all time and something called Please Don't Make Me Cry). There's Will Powers' Kissing With Confidence (rotten), Men at Work's Down Under (Oh dear), and Hey You the Rock Steady Crew by, er The Rock Steady Crew, to name but a few.
Leaving out Culture Club's Karma Chameleon - a massive no.1 in 1983 - is perhaps a bit of an oversight (although not in my book, I've always thought it's a terrible record), it was ditched in favour of, in my view, a far superior single, Victims. Whoever wrote the blurb on the sleeve was perhaps a bit optimistic though as it claims that Victims is "Almost certain to be no. 1 by the time you have this". It never reached no. 1, stalling at no.3.
What I'll never understand is why one of my favourite hits of 1983 was missed off: David Bowie's Let's Dance. It should have been a shoo-in, what with The Dame being signed to EMI at the time. Perhaps he refused its inclusion, but I don't know why he'd resist, what with him going for an all-out pop sound at the time.
I find it kind of comforting that they're still being released and still selling in healthy numbers on what we'd these days call 'physical format'. I've just bought my sister's eleven year-old Now 86 for Christmas. That's the same sister who took it upon herself to buy Now... instead of Saturday Superstore back in 1983.
I guess it's a good job I didn't get Mike Read's Saturday Superstore album, or Simple Minds might just be 'another Eighties group' to me today. I did have Mike Read's Pop Quiz board game though. It was crap.
The tracklist in full:
| 1 You Can't Hurry Love | Phil Collins |
| 2 Is There Something I Should Know | Duran Duran |
| 3 Red Red Wine | UB40 |
| 4 Only For Love | Limahl |
| 5 Temptation | Heaven 17 |
| 6 Give It Up | KC And The Sunshine Band |
| 7 Double Dutch | Malcolm McLaren |
| 8 Total Eclipse Of The Heart | Bonnie Tyler |
| 9 Karma Chameleon | Culture Club |
| 10 The Safety Dance | Men Without Hats |
| 11 Too Shy | Kajagoogoo |
| 12 Moonlight Shadow | Mike Oldfield |
| 13 Down Under | Men At Work |
| 14 (Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew (1983 Recording) | Rock Steady Crew |
| 15 Baby Jane | Rod Stewart |
| 16 Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) | Paul Young |
| 17 Candy Girl | New Edition |
| 18 Big Apple | Kajagoogoo |
| 19 Let's Stay Together | Tina Turner |
| 20 (Keep Feeling) Fascination | The Human League |
| 21 New Song | Howard Jones |
| 22 Please Don't Make Me Cry | UB40 |
| 23 Tonight, I Celebrate My Love | Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack |
| 24 They Don't Know | Tracey Ullman |
| 25 Kissing With Confidence | Will Powers |
| 26 That's All | Genesis |
| 27 The Lovecats | The Cure |
| 28 Waterfront | Simple Minds |
| 29 The Sun And The Rain | Madness |
| 30 Victims | Culture Club |
Friday, 13 September 2013
The first rule of Glossop Record Club is...
I read a magazine article a couple of years ago about a record club that met on Sunday afternoons once a month in a room above a pub in London. It existed solely for people to go along and listen to a whole vinyl LP. Just listen, perhaps have a bit of a chat about it and then go home again. I thought to myself at the time that I'd quite like to go to this club but decided that a) was a four hour round trip to London to listen to someone else's copy of Liege and Lief an entirely constructive use of my time and b) did I want to sit with a load of blokes in corduroy jackets stroking their beards? The idea of it kind of stuck with me though because I love listening to, and talking about music, and like book clubs (which I've never been a part of), thought it would give me a chance to experience something that I wouldn't normally choose to read or listen to.
So it was handy that last week I happened to see a retweet by the DJ Marc Riley about a record club being set up in the Derbyshire town of Glossop, with the first meeting being set for the 12th of September. I live in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire is right next door to my home county. So I thought - and with a lot of encouragement from my wife - I'd take a trip over just to see what it was like, as one likes to try new things. Anyway, turns out that my initial suspicion that Glossop was near Manchester was correct. Although in Derbyshire, it's way over to the north west of Derbyshire, and I live in the east of Nottinghamshire, just a spit away from Lincolnshire. It's 68 miles away. Now, the way this country is set up for travel, if you want to go or north to south, you're laughing. 68 miles on the A1 would take me less than hour. However, travelling east to west is not so easy. To get to Glossop from here, you must negotiate Sheffield, and then brave the notorious Snake Pass. Up until yesterday, I'd never driven on the Snake Pass before. It's well named as it twists and turns like a...like a...twisty turny thing. Oh yeah, it twists and turns like a snake.
So I set off straight from work, the journey took me about an hour and thirty five minutes. A quick look at Google Streetview a couple of nights before led me straight to the door of the venue where it was going to be held (after a crafty trip to the toilets in quite possibly the world's swishest branch of Wetherspoon's. Yes, it really was swish), namely the Glossop Labour Club. It was an evening of firsts for me as I'd never been in a Labour club before either. I was expecting union banners and portraits of Keir Hardie to be decorating the walls while there'd be very uncomfortable stools to sit on to constantly remind you of the struggles of the workers. But not a bit of it, there was a Tolpuddle Martyrs poster and some collieryana (is that a word?) but other than that there were watercolours on the walls of the surrounding Peak District, carpets, a tastefully appointed bar area and cushioned seats.
I walked in a bit unsure of myself but spied a friendly-looking couple sitting on a banquette. "Is this the record club?" I enquired. They both smiled and said yes. So, I got myself a drink (85p for a Coca Cola - club prices, very handy) nodded to the
guy running the show, Simon, and sat down.
So, at 8.30, the first LP of the evening was started - Roxy Music's For Your Pleasure. Which was chosen as the theme for the evening was 1973. And very good it is too, I was only previously familiar with Do the Strand (which I think is one of the few songs where the vocal and instruments start together. Weezer's Buddy Holly and Squeeze's Pulling Mussels... being the only other two I know of) and In Every Dream Home a Heartache, which is a heart-warming tale of a very wealthy but ultimately very lonely man who spends his evenings making love to an inflatable sex doll. Listening to it in those surroundings where you're just concentrating on the music is terrific. I mostly listen to music while I'm doing something else so it was great to just sit and listen. I play the drums so usually listen out for drums on records. It soon became obvious that while Roxy's drummer at the time, Paul Thompson, isn't the most technical and precise drummer, he's quite inventive but at the same time keeps it simple. There's a drum fill at around 2m 20s of the track Editions of You which is just an elongated single stroke roll, but boy, does it work. And what is it with art rockers using gruff Northerners like Thompson and Woody Woodmansey as drummers?
So, Music for Pleasure came to its Brian Eno curated end and we sat and had a bit of a chat about it. One of us had even seen Roxy Music on the tour to support the LP at Nottingham University in 1973. Fancy!
We then had a comedy record interlude, which featured a Bruce Forsyth track with the most unbelievably funky Hammond B3 solo. Didn't the organist do well? The organist do well, didn't he?
LP no.2 was a based on an internet poll. All the LPs in the poll were from 1973, a list which included one of my favourite albums of all time by Pink Floyd. Now I've heard that LP thousands of times, and as I wanted to go to this record club to learn about stuff I wouldn't normally listen to I decided to vote for David Bowie's Aladdin Sane. This Bowie chap gets a lot of hype and it struck me that I'd never heard a complete album of his, just greatest hits. Anyway, Bowie got beaten in the poll by Stevie Wonder's Innervisions. All good, as I wouldn't normally choose that. Again, a superb LP. It's amazing to think that this burst of creativity he had during the early 70s produced, on just one album, tracks like Higher Ground, Living for the City, Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing and He's Misstra Know-It-All, stuff you still hear regularly on the radio today.
Us, the non-paying public, were then allowed to showcase any records we'd brought along. But time was marching on, and at about 11.20, I decided that I couldn't put the return journey up Snake Pass off any longer and decided to scoot off.
So, would I go back? Yes. Would I submit an idea to the suggestions sheet? Yes, but my natural shyness and lack of actually owning the stuff I'd like to play on vinyl is holding me back. Was it full of men stroking their beards? Yes, but I'm a man who strokes his beard anyway.
Fortunately, my trip home was incident free. Although Radio 2 was on the radio but with Steve Lamacq and Janice Long, not Brian Mathew.
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