tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-151023312024-03-06T21:19:04.223-08:00Blues MissionaryStuff about music I like and do not like -- highly individual and often iconoclastic opinions. All of it razor sharp, with prejudice and without bullshit. I call 'em as I see 'em -- or hear 'em.Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.comBlogger272125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-38490840846015473352023-08-19T09:03:00.000-07:002023-08-19T09:03:45.061-07:00Neil Young dreams of chrome<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Chrome Dreams</span></i></b><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (2023) </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Neil Young<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Neil Young deemed the tracks on <i>Chrome Dreams</i> unfit for release in the mid-’70s when they were recorded for an album of this name, but any Neil Young fan knows them all anyway, as they are available on various other albums, albeit presumably re-recorded to Young’s standards.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Young has an extensive program of archival releases of previously unreleased studio tracks and live shows recorded throughout his career and I suppose it’s manna from heaven for the Young completists who want to hear every recorded track ever, with false starts, outtakes, alternative mixes, whatever.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Bob Dylan has a similar expansive programme of bringing archival material to market.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I suppose there is something to be said for gaining new insight into an artist’s creative thoughts and processes and to hear stuff that just wasn’t deemed fit for release, or wouldn’t fit on a record, way back in the past. Sometimes, an unheard gem pops up and you marvel at the quality of output that would designate this track to the vault because it was deemed surplus to requirements.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This version of “Sedan Delivery,” the weakest tune on <i>Rust Never Sleeps</i>, is more deliberate and in keeping with the mid-‘70s Young sound, and it’s interesting to hear a different take on the song but I could’ve lived without it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On the other hand, “Powderfinger” is one of my favourites off<i> Rust Never Sleeps</i> (along with “Thrasher”) and this introspective, acoustic, almost demo, version of a central rocker off <i>Rust</i>, is lovely but not as tough as “Thrasher” and not essential other than as an example of a song sketch that came to life with an electric band.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The other acoustic based tracks are also no more than pleasant listening. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My thoughts on Neil Young’s releases over the last couple of decades is that he’s just running on reputation and recording and releasing music because he has a need to write and record and his record company allows him to do so, and not because there is any truly creative spark left in him. He should be putting out music once every three or four years, not annually.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Chrome Dreams</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> is redundant and is superfluous to requirements. The tracks aren’t radically or interestingly different to the hitherto “official” versions and it’s one of those albus one listens to once out of curiosity and then shelves for ever. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">If Neil Young is making any money from this kind of releases, it’s just a cash grab. The product has been in vault for years and you don’t need to incur much material expenses, other than the pressing of records or compact discs, to get the product out to the market place. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-57737485397893453082023-07-08T06:19:00.005-07:002023-07-08T06:19:41.709-07:00Taj Farrant<p><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I’d seen various short videos on Taj Farrant, at the time a 9-year-old guitar prodigy from Australia over the last few years. He was a small, dreadlocked, blonde boy with a big, flat-brimmed black hat and some serious guitars and equipment, showing off his astonishing guitar skills. I thought his father was the person behind the camera and was intent on making his son a social media sensation, which seems to be the contemporary route to fame and riches.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Oddly, though, it wasn’t very interesting once one got beyond the initial fascination with the facility with which this kind played guitar.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">On the one hand he must have a freakish talent and on the other hand he must practice a lot.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Now I’ve come across a video on YouTube of the older Taj Farrant, and his drum playing sister Jazel, on stage at Th. e Meteor Guitar Gallery, Bentonville, Arizona where he did a three-night stand in March 2023. Taj is backed by a second guitarist, bassist and drummer and plays two sets of covers of mostly guitar songs by the likes of Gary Moore (the blues Moore), Stevie Ray Vaughan (Farrant is obviously quite partial to these two), Jeff Healey and Jimi Hendrix, but Farrant also does some of his own songs and touts his CD with, presumably, more original songs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Farrant is excitable, chatty and unselfconsciously engaging and he sure can play the guitar well. From this set one doesn’t know whether he writes his own songs or whether his talent is purely and simply the ability to render note perfect copies of the well-known songs he performs, i.e., he is no more than a human jukebox.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There is a market for this kind of thing. There are numerous tribute bands plying their trade all over the world and bands who can regurgitate popular hits, whether oldies but goodies or contemporary hits, can always get a gig. I don’t get it. Most cover bands or artists either do mediocre versions of the classics or they do such note perfect versions that it’s scary. Either way, it’s redundant for me. I’d rather listen to a band, any band, playing their own stuff. If I feel like a bit of, for example, ZZ Top, I’ll spin their records and not seek out a band of bearded individuals who not only try their best to look like Billy, Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard but do their best imitations of the speech and playing of those individuals. Ersatz can never beat the real thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Farrant plays a Fender Strat, a Gibson Les Paul and a Gibson Flying V for the band numbers and also an acoustic guitar for a couple of tunes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The first set ends with a blues rock version or Hendrix’s “Red House,” which irks me, because I prefer the more sensitive, proper blues version of the tune as performed by Hendrix and because Farrant’s version is just so generic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The second set opens with Farrant toting an acoustic guitar and playing Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” (at least a different take on the tune) and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” where the acoustic take is quite effective though he just doesn’t have Ronnie van Zant’s voice to carry off the song with conviction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">From here Farrant switched to an electric guitar and performs his own composition, “Crossroads” (not Robert Johnson’s tune), a reflection on the myth of selling your soul to the Devil in exchange for success.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When the band set resumes, Jazel is on drums for one song, and it’s back to the guitar song covers with a Jeff Healy tune, yet a detour to his own rocker, “Hit the Ground,” which is fun but not a work of genius.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The second guitarist gets his own feature turn, singing and playing solos, on “Pride and Joy” and he and Farrant do some guitar duelling for good measure. I can’t tell whether either of them is any better than the other.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The first set opener was a jazzy Stevie Ray Vaughan instrumental and, fittingly, the second set closer is a rocking Gary Moore instrumental on which Farrant audaciously plays his guitar behind his back, the first and only bit of showmanship of the night.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There’s no doubting that Taj Farrant plays a guitar exceedingly well and if it’s your pleasure to attend a gig where the band performs beloved blues rock guitar tunes just about as good as the original artists, nut in your home town, than he’s your guy. Presumably, he now plays mostly cover versions to draw in the crowd, slipping in just enough original numbers to showcase his songwriting without alienating a crowd who came for the cover versions, but in due course, as he tours more and becomes better known, the originals will outnumber the cover versions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Farrant can probably have a good, financially rewarding career playing Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan songs, for which there will always be an audience, but the real test will be when he focuses on his own material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Joe Bonamassa was also a child guitar prodigy and has since become a major force in the blues rock field with his own songs. His muscular, verging on rock, take on guitar blues doesn’t appeal to me, partly because he seems to be more technically fixated than on deep blues emotion. Perhaps it’s because it seems that guitar technique just come easily to him, though I’m sure he practices hard to make it seem easy. Taj Farrant is probably as talented and works as hard and will, all things being equal, go as far in his musical career, and I hope he can do it with this own music.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-63712544056809934202023-04-11T05:49:00.005-07:002023-04-11T05:49:44.676-07:00I still don't like Genesis<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Genesis’s lifespan is divided into two parts: firstly, the high prog years with Peter Gabriel on vocals; and, secondly, the period where the prog part declines and the commercial AOR success with Phil Collins on vocals. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I was exposed to some of that first period by listening to a Saturday late night music show on the English Service of the SABC, which focused on prog rock and similar styles, and heard much more of the music from the second period because Radio 5 played the pop hits to death. They also heavily favoured Collins’ solo hits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The music of the Gabriel years made no impression on me, mostly because it was too genteel, noodly and “intellectual” for me at an age where my preferred acts were Slade, T Rex, Suzi Quatro, Deep Purple and David Bowie. I actively disliked the releases of the Collins period because the music still didn’t appeal to me and because I actively loath Phil Collins’ voice and style of singing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> As a rule, I don’t care for prog rock and jazz fusion (both big genre in the ‘70s) at all and the only somewhat prog band I favour, if indeed they fall in that category, is Pink Floyd because the music is more standard rock, with intriguing lyrics, than the stuff of, say, Yes or Genesis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve recently listened to the Genesis albums of the Gabriel era in sequence and this experience has reinforced my assessment of the music and of my attitude towards it. It might be the top echelon of composed rock music intricately arranged and with thoughtful, thought provoking, poetic lyrics, but it’s still music I’ll never listen to again because there is no visceral excitement or enjoyment to be had, other than the simple intellectual appreciation of the effort. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve also realised that Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins’ voices are rather similar, though the irritation factor on Collins is higher than that of Gabriel.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One of UK punk’s tenets was that it came to destroy “dinosaur rock” with endless guitar solos and drum solos, and if early Genesis is powered by keyboards and not so much my guitar, I would imagine that it was as much a dinosaur as anyone of their peer group. Punk didn’t succeed in killing prog rock, though it became considerably less fashionable than it had been in the early to mid-‘70s, mostly because the hardcore prog fans were fanatically loyal and no doubt sneered at punk rock for the technical shortcomings of the punk musicians. It seems, to this day, that there are many people, probably those who got into prog rock when they were in their teens, who still dote on and champion prog rock, and not only the classic bands but also more contemporary practitioners. My own tastes run to more basic, simple rock and I don’t think I will ever like prog rock. I suppose one’s musical tastes are formed by the bands or acts you like when you are a teenager and in my case that’s true, not so much for the bands but the style of music and I don’t care for music I must appreciate intellectually rather than with my gut. Genesis doesn’t make the kind of music that brings a stupid grin to my face and makes me want no get up and dance awkwardly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-63421428219863957292023-02-19T01:55:00.000-08:002023-02-19T01:55:00.967-08:00The MC5 motors on<p><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There is quite a bit of material on the MC5 on YouTube, from documentaries to clips of live performances and some full shows.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My favourite MC5 clips are two songs at Tartar Field in 1970, where they perform “Rambling Rose” and “Kick Out the Jams” and a longer set recorded for the German rock music show Beat Club in 1972, presumably during their European tour of that year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Tartar Field show features a blistering rendition of “Rambling Rose” during which guitarist Wayne Kramer, whose song this is, puts on a real show for what seems to be a small audience, but Rob Tyner en Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith also are no slouches at throwing rock ‘n roll shapes. The two songs give us a brief glimpse of what the powerful, incendiary force the MC5 must’ve been on stage in their heyday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Beat Club performance is filmed in brilliant, high-definition colour against a blue screen probably because of the Beat Club producers’ penchant for psychedelic backgrounds to these kinds of shows. Rob Tyner wears a bright, spangly jacket and Wayne Kramer sports a slightly oversized green spangly jacket. This must be their homage to glam rock.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The band does a short “festival” set of their best-known tracks, mostly from <i>Kick Out the Jams</i>, in less high energy fashion than the Tartar Field clip, but still with a lot of power and one is always impressed with how they play. It’s a pity that the band seems to have rarely performed anything off <i>High Time</i>, the final studio album, and therefore repeated the same set lists drawn from the first two records.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Currently, Wayne Kramer is the only founding member of the MC5 who still performs, seeing as how Tyner, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith and Michael Davis have died, and drummer Denis Thompson doesn’t seem to be as active, and Kramer has led various incarnations of the MC5, under that name, or as MC50 or We Are All MC5, with various different musicians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Nowadays, Kramer is a bald, middle class looking guy in stark contrast to the rock ‘n rebel looks of the first coming of the MC5 though his socio-political views remain pretty much the same. He’s had a solo career but presumably never became more popular than the MC5, not commercially successful at the time but increasingly influential amongst musicians and the hip, and now, in line with so many acts from the ‘60’s and ‘70s who’ve realised how much money there was still to be made from playing to their old fanbase, now as old the band members, and the occasional younger, new convert, Kramer can cash in on the huge name the MC5 has in rock history. The pity is that he can draw on only three albums’ worth of music, and perhaps some unreleased tunes, which makes for good times if you’re a fan and want to hear the classic tunes from those classic albums but seems a bit sad to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The band performing as We Are All MC5 are obviously proficient and can rock as hard as anybody, but none of them are in their early twenties anymore, with none of the brio, arrogance and simple energy the MC5 would’ve had back in the late ‘60s or very early ‘70s and for most part they do sound like an MC5 tribute band, with a contemporary rock sound, rather than the real thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The cliché is that so many now famous bands claim that they never thought it could happen, never imagined that they could have a career lasting beyond about 5 years and, like Mick Jagger, didn’t think they would be, or would want to be, in the rock and roll game at the age of 30 or beyond. However, many, many bands have had very long careers, with varying degrees of success and generally a reduction in popular profile and record sales to boot, but are still able to tour, if they want, and to play to audiences all over the world and make a decent living, provided the live set contains all hits and the crowd pleasers. These bands have become brands and own the commercially viable Intellectual Property of their songs, and why shouldn’t they exploit these opportunities? So what, if Wayne Kramer must play and sing “Rambling Rose” every night and repeat “Kick Out the Jams,” “Motor City is Burning,” “The American Ruse,” “Looking At You” and “Tonight” at every gig. The paying audiences want to hear those tunes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As I’ve said, the Tartar Field clip is the best MC5 I’ve seen, with the Beat Club show second, but other than that, I’d rather just listen to the records than watch and listen to the more contemporary shows that can’t replicate the freshness and sharpness of those albums.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-82533058531109787672023-02-07T03:45:00.003-08:002023-02-07T03:45:21.750-08:00Frumpy<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Frumpy came to my attention during a period when I watched a series of YouTube videos featuring or showcasing German rock of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the so-called Krautrock years. Unlike the experimental Can, the ethereal Tangerine Dream, the anarchic Amon Düül II, the brutal jazz-rock of Birth Control, the metronomic electronics of Kraftwerk or the experimentalism of Neu! and Faust, Frumpy seemed to be a pretty enjoyable, straightforward blues rock band with progressive urges, from the video examples, and I paid them no more attention.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Recently, also on YouTube, I came across a Rockpalast (the German WDR television service’s premier live rock show) presentation of a documentary about Frumpy’s lead singer, Inga Rumpf, called My Life is a Boogie. Not only did I learn that she had quite a career before Frumpy but also well beyond it, but I also learnt that she has a solid grounding in blues and gospel, hence her vocal style. Frumpy was also a band that obviously aimed at an audience well beyond Germany, with Rumpf singing in English.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Frumpy was relatively short-lived in its first incarnation, was more popular in Germany than anywhere else and released three studio albums and a live album. There are also two compilation albums of that first period. The band reunited, with only Rumpy, Kravetz and Bohn, in 1990 and released two studio albums, with a crowd of additional musicians, and a live album with a smaller core band.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Of course, the earlier albums are very much of their time and probably somewhat dated but they are quite good, and with some tunes being quite excellent, and Rumpf elevates any song she touches. Frumpy may not have had much international success because it was simply selling American style rock to the English language community, which had plenty of similar bands already, but I believe that Frumpy is a cut above most of their contemporaries and should’ve had more success and Inga Rumpf should’ve been an international star.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">All Will Be Changed </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(1970)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tracks: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Life Without Pain (3:50)<br />2. Rosalie, Part 1 (6:00)<br />3. Otium (4:22)<br />4. Rosalie, Part 2 (4:14)<br />5. Indian Rope Man (3:19)<br />6. Morning (3:24)<br />7. Floating, Part 1 (7:39)<br />8. Baroque (7:36)<br />9. Floating, Part 2 (1:25)<br /><br />Bonus tracks on reissues:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">10. Roadriding (4:02)<br />11. Time Makes Wise (2:49)</span><span style="font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The debut album is performed by an instrumental trio of keyboards (mostly electronic organ) (Jean-Jacques Kravetz), bass ) (Karl-Heinz Schott) and drums (Carsten Bohn), with Inga Rump as lead vocalist. I guess you’d call it heavy, progressive blues rock with some tunes, such as early hit “Indian Rope Man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Rosalie, Pt 1 - Otium - Rosalie Pt 2” and “Floating, Pt1 -Baroque - Floating, Pt, 2” are two sets of suites with extended instrumental passages, mostly organ, and even a drum solo in the second one. These are obviously the progressive heart of the record which would otherwise be a more orthodox blues rock outing. The three instrumentalists all have a chance to shine and one doesn’t miss the absence of guitars; Schott is a very agile, versatile and rhythmically solid yet melodic bassist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Opening track “Life Without Pain” is a rousing, gospel rock track that one can see as a concert highlight, en penultimate track, “Roadriding” features heavy guitar by an uncredited guitarist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Roadriding” and “Time Makes Wise” are bonus tracks on CD releases.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Frumpy 2 </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(1971)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tracks: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm 0cm 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Good Winds (10:02)<br />2. How The Gipsy Was Born (10:05)<br />3. Take Care Of Illusion (7:30)<br />4. Duty (12:09)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Rainer Baumann comes into the line-up as guitarist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The album has four tracks (presumably two a side of a conventional single LP), of which three clock in at 10 minutes or longer and the shortest track is seven and a half minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“How the Gypsy Was Born,” “Take Care of Illusion” and “Duty” seem to have become concert staples.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The immediate impression is that the production smooths out some of the edges of the debut, is slightly muddier and reduces the volume and the power. I suppose this is what one calls becoming more sophisticated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Good Winds” is more elegiac, psychedelic groove opener than the bravura of “Life Without Pain” from the debut and sets the tone for the extended pieces that follow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“How the Gypsy Was Born” sounds like an instant classic, with Rumpf’s fragile, brittle, soulful yet powerful vocals front and centre, plenty of hooks and excellent lyrics. Two Baumann solos are overdubbed to create a twin lead guitar effect. Kravetz is still the dominant, star soloist, though.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Take Care of Illusion” and “Duty” pale a bit by comparison but both are excellent examples of psychedelic, experimental Frumpy, with the latter tune an examination of a possibly characteristic event (parents turning in their deserting son) of Nazi Germany during World War II.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">By the Way </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(1972)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tracks: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Goin' To The Country (3:40)<br />2. By The Way (8:51)<br />3. Singing Songs (7:02)<br />4. I'm Afraid Big Moon (6:25)<br />5. Release (8:50)<br />6. Keep On Going (5:25)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Erwin Kania plays additional keyboards on the record.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Goin’ to the Country” is a lively blues stomper with slide guitar and rollicking piano and it’s as good an up-tempo opener as “Life Without Pain” is on <i>All Will Be Changed</i>, and by far the shortest track of the 6 on the record. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Both the title track and “Release” are almost 9 minutes long, and three other tracks are respectively longer than 5, 6 and 7 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The title track is a jazzy-prog, grand philosophical rumination and most connected to the style of the debut album, while “Singing Songs” is about the equally philosophical reflections of a musician on stage, musing about the relationship between performer and audience, and the first of the rousing four final tracks that emphasise the blues and soul roots of the song writing and Rumpf’s vocal style, and are the engaging kind of songs that hooks one in to the band. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There were many progressive hard rock bands, and many German rock bands, of the early to mid-‘70s who ploughed the same instrumental and conceptual furrow as Frumpy, but none of them had the ultimate weapon of Inga Rumpf as vocalist. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Frumpy Live</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1973)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tracks<b>:</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1. Keep On Going (12:06)<br />2. Singing Songs (8:54)<br />3. Backwater Blues (4:56)<br />4. Duty (17:35)<br />5. To My Mother (11:34)<br />6. Release (22:00)<br />7. Take Care Of Illusion (8:54)<br />8. Duty (7:33)<br />9. Floating (12:14)<br /><br />"Duty" and "Floating" are bonus tracks on later versions of the album, having been previously released in 1970. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Live </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">is a great, rip-roaring mid-‘70s memento of Frumpy’s signature style of psychedelic blues-rock, with plenty tracks to stretch out on and jam, with accomplished musicians on top of their game and fully capable of improvising at length yet still keeping it interesting and compelling. I suppose it’s a snapshot of the typical underground, progressive rock band of the time. Rumpf’s soulful, blues inflected vocals are always worth the price of admission on any Frumpy release and she’s in her element here, communicating and connecting with her audience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For some inexplicable reason, “How the Gypsy was Born,” Frumpy’s most identifiable hit, isn’t featured. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">xxx<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I don’t know what the three ‘90s albums sound like but my guess is that they would be considerably different to the ‘70s band, if only for the mass of contributing musicians, and with considerably less charm. After Frumpy first broke up, Rumpf went on to front Atlantis, a typical mid- to late ‘70s AOR that sought, unsuccessfully, to find a break in the USA but this band was truly selling ice to Eskimos and the product, however technically proficient the musicianship, has nothing like the power and charm of full-throttle Frumpy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-25535338067887109632023-01-31T05:48:00.001-08:002023-01-31T05:48:07.857-08:00Inga Rumpf: An appreciation<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I first came to know of Inga Rumpf as lead singer for Frumpy, one of the early ‘70s German rock bands loosely lumped together with the broad group of Krautrock bands, though never included in the core “experimental” bands such as Can, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Popol Vuh, and others of that ilk. Frumpy was a blues rock band with a strong female vocalist, one of the few woman in the Deutsch rock of the era.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The news, to me, was that Inga Rumpf had a completely different earlier career, from a very young age, before Frumpy, though some of it would’ve been, so to speak, the training period for the band. In her earlier career she sang folk and Black gospel songs, either as solo act or as part of a group, the City Preachers, and even, briefly, was groomed to be a <i>schlager</i> (anodyne German pop) singer but this potentially commercially profitable direction was not to her taste or inclination, which was to go on weird, interesting and challenging tangents and not necessarily to follow the path expected of her, or young women singers in Germany at the time. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Rumpf has a wonderful, powerful and expressive voice, perfect for expressing the emotion in blues and soul songs. One wonders, if she were an American, if she’d have followed a Janis Joplin-like curve of success or whether her career would have been more similar to that of Lydia Pense, the lead singer of Cold Blood, a band that followed the Kozmic Blues Band approach to horn driven soul rock, and Pense’s voice, if one weren’t paying attention, was a ringer for Joplin. Cold Blood was well-known enough to be one of the bands that played the final shows at the Filmore East before it closed, but never achieved mainstream success. The thing is, Pense still has a career, some 50 years after Joplin died. Inga Rumpf has also had a long and varied career, in Germany and internationally, without becoming a superstar yet has survived intact and with a back catalogue of intriguing, highly entertaining records.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Rumpf went from Frumpy to Atlantis, a heavier aggregation that toured the USA, and supported some big names, but weren’t prepared to put in the hard work of conquering a vast country and probably didn’t have proper record company support either. By die late ‘70s Rumpf, with a curly contemporary perm replacing the long straight hair of the hippie years, attempted a solo pop rock career and in the ‘80s she cut her hair modishly short, wore the highly identifiable fashion of the times and followed and electronic pop and rock direction, and switched from writing and singing in English to writing and singing in German, all of it clearly aimed at maximum commercial success, before returning to the (English) blues and gospel music with which she started her career for the balance of her life. in a way it is a typical career path of so many of her contemporaries on the British and US rock scene where artists and bands who came to prominence in the ‘60s struggled to adapt to the times when they hit their thirties and forties. By and large the ‘80s were not a good decade for the music of these older artists who changed their original sound according to contemporary production styles and dressed in contemporary fashion, very little of which matched the stylishness of mid-‘60s fashion, never mind the rock star satin and tat of the glam ‘70s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Rumpf went through the same cycle and then returned to her roots where she was most comfortable and appealing to her audience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">If Rumpf had been born in the USA or had been prepared to move there to push her career forward, she might well have been a household name there, something like Bonnie Raitt (Rumpf sings, play bottleneck slide guitar and writes her own songs) for, after all, one of the highlights of her career is that Tina Turner recorded one of Rumpf’s songs and released it as a B-side of a successful single. As it is, Rumpf may be well-known in her homeland but is no more than a footnote to rock cognoscenti elsewhere, if they were interested in German rock music, and one would imagine has a comfortable life performing when she wants to and intermittently releasing records, secure in her place in the world and without a need to be a superstar. She sounds authentic when she speaks and when she sings. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On Apple Music, Frumpy is represented solely by a compilation album but there are quite a few solo, so to speak, Rumpf albums, such as collections of her early blues and gospel recordings, with the City Preachers amongst others, and more recent music. For some peculiarly amusing reason Atlantis’ eponymous debut album from 1973 is combined with the albums of what looks like a typical schlager combo.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Frumpy’s style is typical of the heavy, organ dominated German bands of the Krautrock era, with Rumpf’s strong bluesy vocals front and centre. Atlantis is more progressive, more jazzy and less heavy and somehow less tuneful than Frumpy. The electronic organ sound of Frumpy is replaced by synthesisers and an anodyne AOR sound. Rumpf’s unique voice is the only common denominator and seems wasted in Atlantis where none of the songs stand out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As often the case, YouTube is the forum for the rest of the Frumpy albums, including the excellent <i>Frumpy Live </i>from 1972, showcasing a groove-based blues rock band, with long jams and Rumpf’s powerful, slightly hoarse, soulful vocals. A Frumpy concert must have been an experience and I’m surprised that this band didn’t try to make it in the USA, rather than the more banal Atlantis. Frumpy would’ve have done well supporting, for example, the Allman Brothers Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Surprisingly, the signature song, “How the Gypsy was Born” isn’t featured on this live set. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Someone in the Rockpalast documentary explains the failure of Frumpy and/or Atlantis to make it in the USA, in addition to the lack of enthusiasm for spending years on the touring circuit there, that it would be like exporting ice to the Eskimos for a German band hoping to make it in the USA by playing American style rock. I can’t see why Frumpy would not have made it, if they were prepared to put in the work. Their music was not esoteric Krautrock but had enough blues, soul and groove, not to mention extended organ and guitar solos, to appeal to the American heartland, and if the Southern rock bands could do it, Frumpy could do it too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I don’t know, but I hope Inga Rumpf has made at least a comfortable living from her musical career, in all its variations, and is kind of famous in Germany, if not all over the world. She writes good songs and has a marvellous voice, and deserves huge success and acclaim but perhaps, ultimately, she was more interested and found satisfaction in following her own, idiosyncratic path rather than pander to crass commercial interests.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Rock writers fawn over the Krautrock royalty of Can, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu! and the few other bands generally referred to in that context, but Inga Rumpf deserves as much attention and as many kudos.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-86875047929116363302023-01-31T01:26:00.001-08:002023-01-31T01:26:31.167-08:00In Memoriam: Tom Verlaine<p> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">IN MEMORIAM: TOM VERLAINE</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">13 December 1949 to 28 January 2023<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There was an article by, I think, Lisa Robinson, in the August 1975 issue of Hit Parader magazine, the first rock publication I ever bought, and the first publication if bought regularly, with the NME following after that, about the then newly revived and vibrant New York scene, which mentioned, among other bands, Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones, Television and The Heartbreakers. There was also an article by Charles Shaar Murray about the UK music scene, mostly about Led Zeppelin, but that also was the first mention in print I read of Dr Feelgood.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For me and my musical education, that was a seminal issue of Hit Parader.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As I recall, the mention of Television in the piece was really about Richard Hell having left the band and forming The Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders (ex- New York Dolls) and though I got the impression that Tom Verlaine and Hell were two prime movers of the scene and that Television was quite important as breaking the ground for the scene, there was no more information than that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NME gave the debut album, <i>Marquee Moon</i> (1977), an effusively enthusiastic review, rating it as a masterpiece, and was considerably less in awe of the follow up <i>Adventure</i> (1978), and this has been the conventional view since, although some critics have reassessed <i>Adventure</i> and now rate it highly too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Marquee Moon</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> has one of the most iconic, highly recognisable album covers ever.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I only bought a CD copy of <i>Marquee Moon</i> in the late ‘90s, and was quite impressed with it, but I did buy Verlaine’s solo debut, <i>Tom Verlaine</i>, (after a very positive review in NME) in 1979 and was hugely enthralled by it. It has the same tough, angular sound as Television’s music yet is also quite melodic and funny and weird in places. Around this time, I also bought Richard Lloyd’s even more pop-influenced and tuneful debut solo album, but where it is the kind of sweet confection that paled after a while, and about which I no longer feel as keen as I did then, Verlaine’s album is as strong and enjoyable as ever even after a lengthy period of not having heard it all. I would say I like it even better than <i>Marquee Moon</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Adventure</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> is more reflective, less exuberant and smoother in sound than the debut album, but there is still plenty strong, sharp, innovative guitar interplay and, if it’s not as impressive at first exposure as <i>Marquee Moon</i>, it’s mostly down to brilliant surprise of the debut; the band certainly didn’t set out to make <i>Marquee Moon II. Adventure</i> rewards repeated listening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The second solo album, <i>Dreamtime</i> (1980) is more angular, tougher and in a way less approachable than <i>Tom Verlaine</i>, as if he were reaching for a more extreme, less appealing, way of expressing himself, but it’s identifiably the work of the same visionary who wrote the songs on <i>Marquee Moon</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Verlaine, Hell and Television are credited with opening up the late ‘70s New York scene and spearheading the wave of new acts, though not being quite punk themselves, that influenced and inspired the UK punk movement of 1976 and 1977. Where the UK bands were of a piece, the important New York bands (Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, Ramones, The Heartbreakers) were very diverse in aims, approach and sound. On the face of it, Television was the most daring and least commercial of them all, and broke up, for the first time, after only two records, though there was a comeback in the early ‘90s, but nonetheless have had a reach and influence far beyond 1978, and the twin factors of the clever interplay of the two guitarists and Verlaine’s song writing have an enduring progressive otherworldliness that have not dated. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Television wasn’t just another punk band and Verlaine wasn’t just another post punk singer-songwriter. There was enough quirky intelligence and off-kilter weirdness to sustain his reputation as innovator yet his ambitions were clearly artistic and not particularly commercial. Talking Heads, and their offshoots, and Blondie, for example, both were far more successful than Verlaine ever was but his reputation remains untarnished and his influence reverberates still.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-91736197961725878262023-01-19T03:46:00.000-08:002023-01-19T03:46:02.228-08:00Two contrasting versions of Dr Feelgood in concert<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Last night I watched two contrasting videos of Dr Feelgood in concert. The one show was at the Southend Kursaal venue, with the original quartet including Wilko Johnson, and the other show was at an unnamed venue in Berlin in 1980 for the WDR television station’s Rockpalast series, and features Gypie Mayo, the guitarist who replaced Wilko Johnson when the latter left the band in 1977.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The immediate impression is that the first show is powerful and showcases a band at the peak of its powers, and the lighting is intimate and almost “arty,” and that the second show is of a band, coasting on previous reputation, that has already become a pedestrian, journeyman like shell of its original incarnation. The Berlin show is well lit, where the Kursaal show seems a tad dim at times, but this only exposes the professional, yet soulless performance even more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The sound of the Kursaal show is also more organic and, dare one say, in unifying mono and positively roars out of the PA system, where the Berlin show has much better, cleaner and somehow more sterile sound quality and one can clearly differentiate between John B Sparks’ powerful bass lines and Mayo’s scratchy, trebly and funky guitar playing, and the conclusion is that the rhythm section of Sparks and The Big Figure is what drives the band at that point. At the 1975 show, Wilko’s choppy guitar style is an integral element of the sound and the combination of the three instruments empowers the music to a visceral high, audible even on the video, whereas the Berlin show is not nearly as engaging or exciting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Obviously, the earlier gig features that Feelgoods classics of the time, with the original songs written by Wilko Johnson, of the first two albums. At the later gig, the band can draw on material from four albums without Johnson (<i>Be Seeing You</i> to <i>A Case of the Shakes)</i> and perform only two songs from the Johnson period, “Back in the Night” (which he wrote), a Lee Brilleaux slide guitar showcase, and “Riot in Cellblock Number 9,” a riotous showstopper. Johnson’s songs, some of the best modern R & B tunes around, are far superior to the later material, worthy as those songs might be, mostly because of his wittier style of writing and the relentless choppy riffing accompanying them. Between Brilleaux and Mayo, and the others too, perhaps, they could write serviceable songs and lyrics that are okay, but tunes are lacking and somehow it seems as if Brilleaux’s vocal abilities deteriorated as he got older and he relied on barking out the lyrics more than singing them. The live setting exposes the limitations of songs that seemed better than this in their studio versions, and the band, which pretty much plays the songs as written can’t elevate the tunes on stage. Gypie Mayo may be a good guitarist but there is nothing about his playing that makes him stand out for thousands of other guitarists in the same genre. With Wilko Johnson, the band not only had excellent songs but also a unique, highly recognisable sound one could identify after the first few notes. Once Wilko left, Dr Feelgood never sounded anything other than ordinary.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Berlin show is by a band of competent, professional musicians who know their craft and their style inside out but lack the spark of genius and intrigue that Wilko Johnson provided. Because they’re a name band, and had a hit with “Milk & Alcohol,” Dr Feelgood could fill large halls like the one in Berlin in 1980 when they were just on the cusp of losing whatever glamour they’d ever had and finally reverting to just another jumped up pub rock band. The Wilko Johnson era provided the reputation and set the band up for life and they never equalled or improved on that period.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’d much rather have been at the Kursaal than at the Berlin gig.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-89194297134419476902023-01-16T09:05:00.000-08:002023-01-16T09:05:02.019-08:00Deutsche Rock<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Krautrock is a generic term used to bundle together and characterise mostly experimental, avant garde German rock bands from the late ‘60s to late ‘70s, that employed a fusion of classical music, jazz, electronica and rock, trying to create a rock sub-genre that owed as little as possible to the blues and the accepted norms of rock from the USA or the UK. The Krautrock bands wanted to utilise ad display a German sensibility.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I first took note of Krautrack from the NME (in the period 1977 to 1981) whose writers emphasised the big names such as Can, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, Faust, Kraftwerk, Neu! and Amon Düül II, that is, the avant garde or highly political bands.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">From this list, it seemed to me at the time that were only a few German rock bands, which is what made these bands unique and interesting beyond merely the music they produced.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I did take note of the Köln band BAP, who sang in the Kölnisch dialect, and later some of the bands of the Neue Deutsche Welle, like Nena, who were obviously a reaction to the punk and Ne2 Wave bands from the UK in the late ‘70s but who were hardly Krautrock. The latter appeared to be quite at odds with mainstream rock, a small coterie of experimentalists who fought against the system.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Of course, at the time, I had no exposure to these ‘70s German bands, as they weren’t played on South African rock radio much. In an early episode of a German police procedural television series, called Tatort, dubbed into Afrikaans and translated as Misdaad for the South African audience, there was a long stretch of dark, night-time and suspenseful imagery set to the soundtrack of a gloomy, doomy trancelike piece of rock music, like nothing else I’d ever heard on radio or television and my imagination persuaded me that this was Krautrock. I must admit I’ve not really done a lot of research into trying to find or identify this piece of music and it might not have been German at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So, though I knew of Can, Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh, I had no idea what any of it sounded like. The closest I came was to a double LP called <i>Disaster</i> by Amon Düül, which consisted of acoustic guitar and percussion jams, with the odd vocal interjection. It was very disappointing, as there seemed to be nothing avant garde or intriguing about it. It sounded like a bunch of people in a room, messing about and making a home recording.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">At about the same time, a sales guy at Sygma Records in Stellenbosch tried to interest me in an album by some German jazz rock quartet (saxophone, organ or guitar, bass and drums) on a record with one lengthy track on each side. I listened to a couple of minutes of the first track and decided against buying this record. The music wasn’t entirely what I was into at the time and, though I lived long rock jams, it seemed to be less than value for money to buy a record with only two numbers on it. I’ve no idea anymore who the band was, and though I’ve always thought of them as German, I might be mistaken about that too. it was a long time ago and I didn’t pay particular attention then.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My general ignorance about Krautrock changed a couple of years ago when, on YouTube, of course, I came across two compilation videos called Deutschrock – Nacht 1 and Deutschrock – Nacht 1, a series of complete programmes of a West German television show from the late ‘60s to mid-‘70s called Beat Club, that featured well-known British and American rock acts of the day as well as home grown bands, and a very good, German documentary about Krautrock. There are other Krautrock documentaries, mostly produced by UK or American based entities, but they concentrate on the “big” names and still endeavour to present a picture of a small, brave, adventurous group of musicians striking a blow for original German rock, which is a skewed, incomplete picture of the German music scene.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">What I learnt from these YouTube videos is that the German rock was quite extensive. There were many bands who obviously targeted an international audience by singing in English, and who played the typical hard rock or psychedelic styles of the period, and as many who sang in German and, as I’ve mentioned, fused jazz and classical influences and who therefore sound more exotic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Just off the top of my head, these other names come up: Birth Control, Guru Guru, Kraan, Frumpy, Jane, Eloy, Xhol Caravan. It seems that many of them favoured a heavy organ sound (not synthesisers), with energetic drumming, agile bass lines, mostly rhythm guitar and, either or both, saxophone and flute and liked extended pieces heavy on atmosphere and groove but not necessarily tune, though a band like Frumpy, fronted by Inga Rumpf, clearly had a commercial agenda informed by a combination of Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There are also the metal bands like Scorpions, Aksept and others who clearly aim for, and represent, the international, commercial ambitions of any serious musician, and I suppose none of them, patterned after the prominent British and American metal acts, would ever have been included in any definition of Krautrock even if they originated in Germany. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">German rock music of the “Krautrock era” is obviously more diverse than Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can or Popol Vuh, even if the electronic experimentalists are accorded the most critical attention and praise. As in any musical scene, the artists are a mixture of ambitious, commercially driven acts and the ones who do exactly what they want, out of the mainstream and with no real thought of financial success, at least not until they, too, are eventually absorbed into the mainstream as times and tastes change.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">If Krautrock encompasses by definition only those well-known and critically acclaimed bands like Tangerine Dream or Can, it seems to me that it is simply a music writer’s lazy way of dealing with a subject that is far more complex. One can argue that the British or American rock writers, who monopolise the literary criticism of popular music, were perhaps confined to only those acts from Germany who had international releases or seemed to be more esoteric, intellectual and revolutionary than the mainstream German rock scene, and ignored the rest, and decreed that these outsider bands, even if Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh were acceptable enough to score movie soundtracks, were the only German bands worth considering and/or liking. Anyone who wants to make a relatively short documentary on Krautrock must perforce focus on fewer musicians and for this reason alone, the emphasis will always be on the same small group of bands, to the detriment of exploring what was a much larger scene with far more diverse music. Most historians simply follow and reiterate previous history writing and this is how rock critics work too. There are certain conventional wisdoms and accepted, widely held “truths” that are continuously reinforced by repetition, as if no contemporary rock critic is prepared to apply their own faculties and critical examination of the work in front of them, to determine whether the assessments and opinions of their forebears has merit. Hence, Krautrock being limited to a few usual suspects.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Deutsche rock is varied and wide ranging, and often so truly Germanically strange that it does sound like an invention with only a vague nod to the common rock roots we’ve grown up with, and is fascinating for that very reason, whether you’re into electronic soundscapes or free from jazz noisiness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-69007002966806426002023-01-12T05:33:00.003-08:002023-01-12T05:33:49.249-08:00Bleached: Nirvana again<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">BLEACHED: NIRVANA AGAIN<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I bought <i>Bleach</i> (1989) a couple of months before <i>Nevermind</i> (1991) was released. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was already on the radio I really liked it and, having read about Nirvana long before they became famous, and in particular about <i>Bleach</i>, I thought I’d start there because I was a fan of late ‘70s punk and my perception that Nirvana followed in those footsteps.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My recollection of my first impression of <i>Bleach</i> was that it was a blast of harsh, unpleasant noise, obviously noting like “Teen Spirit” but also nothing like the kind of punk rock I was used to. At the time I knew nothing about American hardcore punk, at least I’d never heard any of the important records, and wasn’t used to punk that wasn’t melodic, even if subtly so. Nirvana hurt my ears and I hardly played <i>Bleach</i> more than a few times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I bought <i>Nevermind</i> as soon as it was available at Ragtime Records in Cape Town and was mildly disappointed. “Teen Spirit” was and is the standout track for me and the so-called punk rock of the rest of the album seemed one dimensional, unimaginative and mediocre. I couldn’t fathom why rock writers raved about the record, and I still don’t, and also not why it sold in its millions, other than off the lead single’s pop impact.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Truth be told, I’ve probably not listened to <i>Nevermind</i> any more than I’ve listened to <i>Bleach</i> and it’s not a record I listen to much now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In Utero</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1994) is, to my mind, superior to <i>Nevermind</i>, because it has better songs and is far tougher in musical approach. This is where Nirvana peaked.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve now listened to <i>Bleach</i> again, because it came up as a recommendation on Apple Music and was surprised to find that it’s not the harsh noise I’ve always thought it was. The production is not as good as that of <i>In Utero</i> (the lack of money, I guess) and there is a difference in quality of the song writing too, but there is a seamless transition from the one album to the other, with <i>Nevermind</i> being the aberration, no doubt because of the slick, radio friendly production that was intended to maximise its commercial potential. With <i>Bleach</i>, Nirvana did not concern itself with commercial potential and with <i>In Utero</i>, the band was in a position to make the record it wanted to make and to return to its “roots,” I suppose.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Whatever, nevermind, I think <i>Bleach</i> is a bloody good little record, very much what I’d expect from a punk revivalist or proto-grunge pioneer, with pop nous and high energy, and I’ll return it to my collection.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-90323687831499599212023-01-12T04:17:00.004-08:002023-01-12T04:17:49.870-08:00In Memoriam: Jeff Beck<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">IN MEMORIAM: JEFF BECK</span></b></p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">24 June 1944 to 10 January 2023<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Jeff Beck is probably the one highly rated guitarist who came to prominence in the ‘60s that I’ve never gotten into, in his various incarnations. My introduction to him was “Hi Ho Silver Lining,” which I thought of as a nice enough, lightweight psychedelic pop song but no more. I knew he’d replaced Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds and by the late ‘70s I knew he’d turned to jazz rock with <i>Blow by Blow</i> (1975) and <i>Wired</i> (1976) and this completely turned me off him because at that time in my teens, and thereafter, I had as much a dislike for jazz fusion styles as I had for prog rock.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My first real exposure to Beck’s early guitar style was on a compilation of tracks by The Yardbirds, some featuring Clapton and some featuring Beck. I thought the latter tunes were terrible, self-conscious White blues or proto psychedelic rock with little nous. Beck’s guitar playing was the only redeeming factor but it was hardly mind-blowing and, frankly, I preferred Clapton.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It was many years before I heard the <i>Roger the Engineer</i> album in full and could appreciate that iteration of the band more as well as what Beck brought to the mix.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mostly, though, Beck was a musician I read about a lot, and realised how highly he was regarded in the music business amongst fellow musicians but also amongst rock writers. None of the album reviews, though, suggested to me that I’d want to buy any of his albums, as my impression was that he stuck to jazz rock and AOR styles that had never appealed to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">By the time I finally got to listen to <i>Truth</i> (1968), <i>Beck-ola</i> (1969), <i>Rough and Ready</i> (1971) and <i>Jeff Beck Group</i> (1972), I already knew Cream and the early Led Zeppelin albums well, and Beck’s records paled in comparison. The blues rock wasn’t tough enough for me and Rod Stewart just didn’t hack it as either blues or rock vocalist, and the Jeff Beck Group’s attempts at funkiness and soul sounded forced and anaemic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And that was that. Now, after hearing about his death, I’m listening to the stuff I never bothered with back in the day, and I’m still not convinced. The records might have made more of an impression on me when they were current releases and I was far younger but on whole my musical tastes haven’t changed materially and I probably wouldn’t have spent much time on Beck then either.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Beck, Bogert & Appice</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1973) isn’t bad but it isn’t more than merely pleasant either. For all the talent here, the music isn’t intriguing and the overall feel of the album is no different to so much indifferent hard rock of this era. Even more than prog rock, this style of proficient, indolent rock was the music punk was intended to destroy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Blow by Blow</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> and <i>Wired</i> pretty much sound like I suspected they would: top session musicians, technically very capable, playing at the top of their games, producing a product that is intellectually admirable but has no visceral impact and no emotional appeal, and is fit just for back ground play or as soundtrack music. If I don’t even appreciate much now, so many years older, it would’ve done nothing for me when I was a kid. If I must listen to this style of rock, I’d much rather listen to Frank Zappa.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On <i>Crazy Legs</i> (1993) Beck collaborated with The Big Town Playboys on a rockabilly album where he emulates one of his earliest guitar influences, Cliff Gallup. It’s good fun, if you like rockabilly, which I do, and Beck is in fine form.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Other than these records, I didn’t really want to delve into every Jeff Beck release but I think it’s safe to say I’ll have to resign myself to accept that general critical opinion of Jeff Beck as a master musician yet not find a place for him in my music collection. What he’s done is just not to my taste, regardless of the quality of the product. Another good man is gone; one more of the musicians from the ‘60s that I at least knew of, if not admired much, and that gives one pause. A generation is slowly dying out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-2988153735854037972022-12-02T07:44:00.002-08:002022-12-02T07:44:14.406-08:00Wilko Johnson gone solo<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Just as Dr Feelgood wasn’t the same, and certainly didn’t sound the same, without Wilko’s idiosyncratic guitar style, Wilko’s solo releases generally suffer from the lack of a good vocalist. He too often has a shrill yelping style of singing, which is all right for three or four songs on an album, separated by songs with a better vocalist but listen to 12 or 14 of them consecutively becomes a teeth gritting challenge to say the least.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko was out of the blocks as solo artist quickly enough, though not as quickly as Dr Feelgood who released an album with new guitarist John Mayo within months after Wilko’s departure, with teh Solid Senders album in 1978. I expect that the band name suggested that it was indeed intended to be a band and not just a solo project but it didn’t last.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Solid Senders featured keyboards, a decent vocalist and songwriters other than Wilko Johnson, and the album is pretty good. The rhythm section swings solidly, like the Feelgoods, and the addition of keyboards and another vocalist to gives us a varied set of originals and covers that Is highly enjoyable and is a more satisfactory follow up to <i>Sneakin Suspicion</i> than <i>Be Seeing You</i> is and in a way shows a direction Dr Feelgood could’ve explored if sense had prevailed and they’d stuck together. The production is excellent too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In 1981, the follow up was <i>Ice on the Motorway</i>, this time just a Wilko Johnson album with mostly bass and drums backing, and some keyboards, and it’s a great disappointment. The production is basic to say the least, and is almost no better than demo quality, with a disturbingly tinny guitar sound. The tempos are also much too frenetic and Wilko’s thin, reedy voice is hardly the instrument to carry an entire album. He was good for a couple of songs per album, with Dr Feelgood and with the Solid Senders, but over the stretch it rakes some tolerance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko covers “Can You Please Crawl Through Your Bathroom Window,” “Long Tall Texan” and “I Put a Spell on You.” He doesn’t bring much of interest to the party for the first two songs and the latter is a live version where he at last emotes the craziness the song demands.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There is perhaps a reason why <i>Ice on the Motorway</i> is not available on Apple Music, and it might be the demo-level quality of the album. I listened to it for the first time on YouTube Music, in the week after Wilko’s death, and was mildly disappointed. I suppose it’s a must have for Wilko completists but it’s tough to listen to all at once.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Barbed Wire Blues</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1995) is quite similar to Ice on the Motorway, with better production and with a more considered pace, yet also with Wilko voice that starts to grate about half way through the record. One longs for another voice to mitigate the tedium of the continuous bleat. The songs don’t seem to be classics but they’re okay and Wilko’s riffs are as compelling as ever. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">With <i>Going Back Home</i> (2014), Wilko teamed up with Roger Daltrey to provide the gruff vocals while Wilko provides the trade mark riffs, and the performances provide a fair resemblance to Dr Feelgood, with 11 songs covering Wilko’s career, both with Dr Feelgood and as solo artist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Amongst other tunes, they perform “Ice on the Motorway” and “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Bathroom Window”. The production values on <i>Going Back Home</i> is far, far better than that of <i>Ice on the Motorway</i>, and Johnson’s guitar sound is not tinny but tough and powerful, as with peak Feelgoods, and Wilko’s playing is not with the frenetic nervousness evident on the earlier record, and one can hear what these songs should’ve sounded like in 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My only quibble with teh album is that Wilko doesn’t sing at all, not even on songs, like “Sneakin’ Suspicion” or “Everybody’s Carrying a Gun” that I associate with him. As I’ve said, the Johnson voice and vocal style over the length of an album takes some tolerance but it’s quite nice if he sings two or three of his own tunes to provide a contrast to the main vocalist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I quite like the album though Daltrey, as good as he is, is not a match for Brilleaux on the songs associated with Dr Feelgood, because the song selection is excellent and the band does them justice with the mixture of toughness and looseness that characterises R & B done well. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Okay, I began listening to the earlier albums after I refreshed my memory with <i>Solid Senders</i> and <i>Going Back Home</i>, first I<i>ce on the Motorway</i> on YouTube and then <i>Barbed Wire Blues</i> on Apple music, which doesn’t carry the entire Wilko Johnson solo catalogue, and halfway through <i>Barbed Wire Blues</i>, I realised that I couldn’t bear to listen to more solo Wilko. His voice ruins the experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So, I abandoned this project. Wilko released a bunch of records over his lifetime, and there might be more stuff in vaults that will now see the light of day, but just as Dr Feelgood never improved on their first four albums, Wilko never did either. He ought’ve recruited a good vocalist, not quite a Lee Brilleaux imitator but at least someone who could share vocal duties to mitigate the Wilko yelp.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko Johnson has bequeathed us his highly characteristic, quickly identifiable guitar style and some masterful songs in the idiom of modern R & B and blues, and the latter should live on, both as performed by him with Dr Feelgood and on his own, and perhaps as covered by new generations of young guns who rediscover the blues and its UK offshoots.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-86321961768876900842022-11-29T04:11:00.003-08:002022-11-29T04:11:36.646-08:00Which Dr Feelgood albums should you own?<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The albums of Dr Feelgood can be grouped into three periods:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Down by the Jetty</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1975) to <i>Sneakin’ Suspicion</i> (1977);<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Be Seeing You</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1877) to <i>On the Job</i> (1981);<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">the rest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Classic Period<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The first four albums of the most important and the only Feelgoods albums you need to own. This version of the band is the original and classic version with Wilco Johnson, Lee Brilleaux, John B Sparkes and The Big Figure (John Martin.) and this group of records features the first two brilliant studio albums, a live album and a flawed studio album, Wilko Johnson's last contribution. <i>Sneakin’ Suspicion</i> is a controversial record because of circumstances of Johnson’s departure allegedly due to disagreements over songs for the record. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The band had always recorded cover versions, partly because Walker Johnson did not write enough songs to fill 12 tracks and partly because the band probably wanted to record the songs they did. Apparently, by the time of the recording of <i>Sneakin’ Suspicion</i> there was already a rift in the band, specifically between Johnson and Brilleaux, with the other two as neutral as possible, and when any disagreements occurred they were amplified by the animosity between the two principal members, neither of whom wanted to give way regarding songs they wanted to record even if the other person was not as keen, and neither were adult enough to be able to resolve the issues sensibly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">According to the Oil City Confidential documentary, Johnson wanted to include his composition, “Paradise” on the record and Brilleaux, and perhaps the others, did not think it was suitable for the band. In turn, they were pressing for the inclusion of Lew Lewis’ song “Lucky 7,” which Johnson didn't like. Apparently, the compromise was, if you want your song, we insist on our choice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Johnson played on the album, but it seems that “Lucky 7” was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I suppose that would be the easy hook on which to hang the breakup, and that there were many and more diverse factors involved.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sneakin’ Suspicion</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> is only half of a good record<span style="color: #202122;">. Johnson's songs are the only worthwhile tracks and are far superior to the cover versions the band recorded, most of</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #202122; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> which</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #202122; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> sound</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> like filler the band plays with no enthusiasm or interest at all. Perhaps, nobody was keen on recording that album that should’ve been pushed back for a bit until Wilko had enough songs for it but commercial pressures from the record company, that the band capitalise on the massive success of the <i>Stupidity</i> live album by releasing new product asap.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It’s a classic case of many bad decisions made for stupid reasons whereas everyone should’ve stepped back for a breather, had a rest and reassessed and then moved forward. As it is, Dr Feelgood has left us two and a half good studio albums and an exciting live album.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The holding pattern period.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Dr Feelgood</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">recruited a new guitarist, John ‘Gypie’ Mayo, and carried on, relying on the momentum and name recognition created in the classic period. The band name had become a brand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mayo and Brilleaux took up the song writing responsibilities, though the band still relied on cover version too, and Dr Feelgood recorded three decent studio albums, <i>Be Seeing You, Private Practice</i> (1978) and <i>A Case of the Shakes</i> (1980), and had commercial success, and a terrible studio album, <i>Let It Roll </i>(1979), and two superfluous live albums, no doubt hoping to repeat the success of Stupidity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Be Seeing You</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> was released to establish the new version of the band, introduce the new guy and to give the band material to play live that wasn’t completely from the Johnson years, and is not bad but not a home run either. The original songs are pedestrian and for the first time one notices that Brilleaux is mostly just a shouter and not so much a singer. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Private Practice</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> had a hit single, “Milk & Alcohol,” and the most ambitious music the band had ever recorded, with improved lyrics and a more standard hard rock approach to the R & B roots and Mayo’s inclination to overdub as many guitar parts as possible. The production values are high and Brilleaux does actually sing properly on some songs. At the time, I preferred <i>Be Seeing You</i>, and found <i>Private Practice </i>hard to digest but lately I’m more appreciative and. compared to the later records, its ambition is laudable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">With <i>A Case of the Shakes</i> the band ventured into New Wave territory for its clothes, album cover design and approach to R & B and for me this is the last worthwhile Feelgoods’ studio album to own and probably the best of the three of the Mayo period. The guitar style is less convoluted and more direct than on its studio predecessor and the lyrics are splendid and witty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Let It Roll</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> is lame. It’s another record that feels, and sounds, as if the band had no interest in going into the studio and just did the album as a contractual obligation. The band plays competently but Brilleaux’s vocals are terrible, and the choice of songs is dubious.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The two live albums are just concert souvenirs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The declining period.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mayo left the band and eventually Sparks and Big Figure did too, and Dr Feelgood became Brilleaux with backing musicians, though some of them signed on for a long time, and the principal guitarist, Steve Walwyn, served for far longer than Johnson and Mayo combined, and nowadays there’s a version of the band that has nothing to do with the earlier versions except for the name. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Brilleaux fronted the band until his death in 1992 and recorded a bunch of records with it, all of which one can only describe as workmanlike, pedestrian and non-essential, unless you are a Feelgoods Ultra. In the classic period, Dr Feelgood had a distinctive sound and a songwriter of brilliance. In this late period, the band was indistinguishable, save for Brilleaux’s voice, from so many others in the same field. The musicians were experienced and competent and the songs were worthy, but there was no positive progression anymore and nothing compelling.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">CONCLUSION<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Get the first four records and stop there. If you’re curious about what happened next, add </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Be Seeing You, Private Practice</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> and <i>A Case of the Shakes</i> and stop there. Don’t waste your money or time on any other Feelgoods records.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-87895995445015503302022-11-25T06:21:00.002-08:002022-11-25T06:21:52.015-08:00Some thoughts on Wilko Johnson<p style="text-align: center;"> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">RIP WILKO JOHNSON</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">12 July 1947 – 21 November 2022<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One Sunday night in 1975, the DJ who presented a juke box jury type programme on Radio 5, South Africa’s national music station, introduced “Back in the Night” by Dr Feelgood, a band I’d never hear of before and it was the same for the members of the jury, called to judge a slate of mostly current pop records that sounded nothing like “Back in the Night.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I was hooked at the very moment the tinny, angular shuffle rhythm of Wilko’s rhythm guitar part and Lee Brilleaux’s basic, insistent slide guitar riff emerged from the old tub driven radio I was listening to. I can’t claim that the sound roared from the radio, because the single speaker couldn’t roar if its life depended on it and the song itself, as tough as the rhythm was, hardly had the full bodied Les Paul roar of the kind of hard rock I was accustomed to then. “Back in the Night” not only sounded nothing like the other tunes the juke box jury were called on to judge, it also sounded like nothing else on Radio and like nothing I’d ever heard before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I must admit that my record collection was pretty sparse at the time, comprising of probably only <i>The Beatles 1962 – 1966</i>, and Neil Diamond’s <i>Gold </i>and <i>Taproot Manuscript</i> albums, and that my overall exposure to rock music was pretty basic: from the radio, from a couple of records I borrowed from the Municipal Library and from some records my mates had, but it was hardly eclectic and mostly standard commercial rock, much of what is now known as Classic Rock. I hadn’t yet begun learning anything about the blues much less listening to it or buying blues albums.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I was mostly ignorant of the broad details of rock’s history and completely ignorant of the wide variety of music out there. The term and concept of “pub rock” was thoroughly alien to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Dr Feelgood came as a shock to the system. Within a few days after first hearing “Back in the Night” I found the parent album, <i>Malpractice </i>(1975), the second Feelgoods’ album and immediately bought it and almost wore out the grooves over the next few years. In 1976 I bought the live album <i>Stupidity</i> (1976), in 1977 the debut album, <i>Down by the Jetty</i> (1975) and then, released in the same year, the final Feelgoods album on which Wilko contributed songs, sung and played, <i>Sneakin’ Suspicion</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Because I was fan of the band, I continued buying the albums with John Mayo up to <i>A Case of the Shakes</i>(1981) and then gave up. Without Wilko, Dr Feelgood had reverted to being a journeymen pub band, albeit with a bigger name and being able to play in larger venue. Mayo was a good guitarist and the band wrote songs that were okay enough but the spark of genius and eccentric quirkiness that Wilko contributed was irrevocably gone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko brought this choppy, highly individualistic guitar style and intelligent song writing style to the band. Somehow, though, he never seemed to have enough material to provide, say, 12 songs per album and the band always inserted some covers. On Down by the Jetty, the two final tracks, “Oyeh!” and “Bonie Moronie/Tequila” are utter filler, especially the latter live track, and to this day I’m baffled why this performance was chosen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On <i>Malpractice</i>, even the covers are powerful and substantial and completely fit the template. That is not the case on <i>Sneaking Suspicion </i>where the Johnson songs are the only worthwhile ones and not one cover version is essential, never the controversial “Lucky Seven.” It also doesn’t help that Brilleaux seems to have lost the ability to sing and settled on the gruff bark he employed henceforth as his default style. the band would have been far better served by waiting until Wilko had more songs together, such as the tunes on <i>Sneaking Suspicion</i> and the songs released on <i>Solid Senders</i> (1978.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Neither Dr Feelgood nor Johnson as solo artist, conquered the world, for that the music was too niche and not necessarily radio friendly contemporary pop hits, but one will always wonder whether Dr Feelgood would’ve left a better legacy behind if Wilko had been with the band for a far longer stretch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko carried on, first with the short-lived Solid Senders group, where he was, seemingly, one amongst equals, and then a purely solo career backed by a drummer and bassist, continued working and writing, recording and releasing new material. On much of the material one misses a proper vocalist. Wilko is earnest and can carry a tune but his voice is tad thin and weedy for the genre.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I must confess that I’ve not followed Wilko’s solo career. Firstly, because I wasn’t aware of it to any great degree and the records, or CDs were not readily available in South African records stores (though I did buy <i>Solid Senders</i>) and now that I’ve listened to his post-Feelgoods output, I can’t honestly say I’m sorry. If the post-Wilko Feelgoods albums do not live up to much, neither does Wilko’s later records. They sound too lightweight.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Brilleaux died a long time ago, and now only the original Feelgoods rhythm section is alive, conserving the memories of those halcyon ‘70s heydays when Dr Feelgood emerged from the pubs, conquered the UK and were called the precursors of punk rock. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko’s angular, choppy guitar style is echoed in a great deal of post punk rhythm guitar and I suppose this would be his greatest contribution, musically. The punks and post punks were not into the blues; they just liked the fast paced, simple style of Dr Feelgood and, allegedly, the short-ish hair and more prosaic clothing. Dr Feelgood didn’t sound, look or dress like the dinosaur rock groups the punks wanted to eliminate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For me, Wilko was a force in music, and will forever have a spot in the pantheon for his role, for a couple of years, from roughly 1973 to 1978 and then faded away into a low-key career path. His earlies work with Dr Feelgood will probably always be cited as highly influential and eternally powerful, but I can’t see that his subsequent career, when he was kind of coasting on the earlier reputation much like Dr Feelgood, will ever receive the attention or adulation of the breakthrough years. Most eulogies feature some story of the first time the writer saw or heard the band and it’s always, much like mine, about those years in the pubs or just as the band began moving out of the circuit, when Dr Feelgood was genuinely exciting because they were so different, so daring and so special. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wilko simply kept on doing what he did best for the rest of his life, and no doubt successfully so but he ceased being an innovator or an artist whose lates work one had to hear.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Having said that, he will always be revered. For me, he and Eric Clapton (while with Cream) were my top two guitarists of my teenage years and Dr Feelgood and Cream were the top two bands of that period of my life. From 1977 my record collection expanded exponentially and quickly encompassed more rock bands, more blues artists, and reggae and funk, and I learnt much more about rock history and the important musicians to date, but however much I might have come to like Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley or Parliafunkadelicment Thang, Cream and Dr Feelgood remained at the centre and was the music I kept returning to, to this day. <i>Malpractice</i> and <i>Disraeli Gears</i> are definitely on my Desert Island Disc list. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I will always be thankful that Wilko Johnson, Lee Brilleaux, John Sparks, and John Martin got together to form a band and that between Wilko’s unique guitar style and engaging lyrics, Lee’s ominous onstage presence and tough voice and the supple and swinging rhythm section, they produced something that was indeed a whole far greater than the sum of the parts, and I’m thankful that Wilko’s genius for R & B was the motor that drove the band to the heights it achieved.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-51317544375212635052022-11-25T06:14:00.003-08:002022-11-25T06:14:32.136-08:00Damn right, this is a pointless new Dr Feelgood record..<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">DR FEELGOOD <i>DAMN RIGHT!</i></span></b><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(2022)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Ironically, I’m writing this only two days after Wilko Johnson’s death, at 75, on 21 November 2022.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I was hooked on Dr Feelgood from the first eerie slide guitar notes of “Back in The Night,” wore out my copy of <i>Malpractice </i>(1975), bought every album up to <i>A Case of the Shakes</i> (1981) and then abandoned the band altogether because the music just got so damn ordinary, first when Wilko Johnson left, and when John Mayo also departed the original unique spark that had piqued my interest was finally gone. One by one, the remaining founding members but Lee Brilleaux left and when he died the band carried on regardless because, as I understand it, manager Chris Fenwick owned the rights to the band name and could exploit it as he saw fit.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This has led, eventually to this new release by Dr Feelgood, no more than a brand now, with not only none of the founding members but also without any continuity in replacement membership at all. God knows why they need to release an album of new, original material unless it’s a simple marketing tool and more merch to sell at gigs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I recently listened to all those late period Feelgoods albums, with Brilleaux, and the overriding impression, regardless of how proficient the musicians are and of how much energy they try to bring to the songs, is that Dr Feelgood became a mediocre band, a far cry from the intelligent, quirky genius of Wilko Johnson’s songs. Lee Brilleaux’s voice and ability to sing also seemed to deteriorate as the years passed and he was reduced to just barking out the lyrics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The original Dr Feelgood transcended the pub rock circuit where they made their name and bestrode the UK R & B scene like a colossus. Eventually, though, the band, in its later versions, simply returned to being a pub band, albeit one with a name and reputation that was cemented in those Wilko Johnson years and had legs, thankfully for Brilleaux and whoever played with him, and Fenwick. If Dr Feelgood had started with Mayo, or whoever replaced him, they would hardly have built the rep and name recognition the band still has, never mind producing any music worth mentioning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">That brings us to this new release.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The immediate issue on first impression is the glaring absence of the familiar Brilleaux growl that is a huge disconnect with the “authentic” version of Dr Feelgood. The singer enunciates clearly but his voice is too high, too thin and too nice for the braggadocio and menace that good R & B and blues requires.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It’s like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger’s vocals. And, come to think of it, it’s also like the Stones without Keith Richards, as the guitarist, however proficient he might be, brings little to the party. He riffs continuously throughout the songs yet without that rhythmic urgency, drive and funk that Wilko Johnson had.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The second impression, based on the careful, clean production and the equally careful, almost prissy playing, is that there is not much power here and no presence of the sweaty, gutbucket R & B on which the band based its sound and itself played. Perhaps this iteration of Dr Feelgood is hot stuff on stage but in the studio they take too much care to be professional and proficient and lose the visceral excitement this kind of music is supposed to provide.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My main criticism is that the vocalist doesn’t have the right kind of voice for this music and there is no interesting quirk or dangerous weirdness in his delivery. The musicians are obviously versed in this music and know their craft, have taken pains to write some decent songs, without engaging hooks or riffs to make them memorable, and do their best to bring us a quality product, albeit journeyman quality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The best one can say about the record is that it pretty much fits in with late period Brilleaux-led Dr Feelgood, minus the latter’s distinctive vocals, but it’s a far cry from the sound and feel of the version of the band I still love without reservation. Not one song on this record stands out. You can appreciate each one individually but as a collection the one fades into the other and are soon forgotten.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I really don’t know why anyone wants to keep this brand going in this way. It’s understandable that the current band wants to release its own music but it’s hardly an instant classic debut for the ages. If your fix is decent, ordinary, competently performed pub rock, especially in a pub when you’re a couple of pints ahead of the game, this record would be a lovely souvenir. If you want something more exciting, something that’ll get its hooks into you and never let go, this is not it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The name and concept of “Dr Feelgood” has a hefty legacy and tis album does not do it justice and will never carry on the legacy. It’s to <i>Down by the Jetty, Malpractice, Stupidity</i> and <i>Sneakin’ Suspicion</i> what <i>Cut the Crap</i>is to <i>The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope London Calling, Sandinista!</i> and <i>Combat Rock.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I.e. it’s a “no” from me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-51218781480053672692022-11-23T02:12:00.001-08:002022-11-23T02:12:21.585-08:00Shuffling, I'm Shuffling<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">SHUFFLING, I’M SHUFFLING</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">From the start of my record collection, I was an album kind of guy and hardly ever bought singles, partly because of a value for money approach that an album of, say, 12 tracks and clocking in at about 40 minutes was a far better deal than a single with only two tracks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The first and only single I bought as contemporary release, was Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” and I only bought it because I loved the song and couldn’t wait until Christmas when I was going to get it as a present.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A couple of years later I bought some cheap singles from Sygma Records that had an entire table with old, unsold singles at bargain prices and I bought one single each by Deep Purple, Foghat and Wet Willie and two singles by Suzi Quatro. And that was it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When I played a record, I listened to the album from start to finish, and from 1981 taped all my records onto C90 cassette tapes so that I could listen to an album as a continuous whole, with no need to turn over a record on a turntable, and so I came accustomed to sequences of songs, the one following the other in a familiar, unchanging pattern and that eternal sequence became a kind of comfort zone of familiarity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Many years later, when I got an iPod and then various iPhones on which I could load music, the “shuffle” function radically changed how I listened to and appreciated even albums I almost knew by heart. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When you shuffle, say, 1000 songs off a collection of albums you not only get the benefit of, in my case, the best radio station on earth with an extremely eclectic mix of hard rock, blues, funk, soul, reggae, African music and pop but the best benefit, I found, is that began re-considering and re-appreciating songs played out of the context of a familiar sequence on a loved album. The individual songs are heard in stark contrast to the preceding, often musically unrelated, and following tracks, and this generally means that I’m more alert to it than I would be if it were played in a familiar sequence where it blends in with the rest of the album and there is no special attention on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The effect is greatest and more rewarding with either leaser known songs off otherwise loved albums or albums that haven’t struck the same chord as the loved records, where I suddenly listen to this previously underappreciated song with fresh ears and more focus. Tracks that had seemed pleasant but otherwise not distinguished often reveal intricacies in sound, arrangement, melody or lyrics that previously not been as apparent in the context of an album listened to in sequence. Even songs I’d thought of as mediocre now have new glamour, so to speak, and seem more worthwhile than in the context of the parent record.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-2014232238033515552022-11-16T04:24:00.001-08:002022-11-16T04:24:15.429-08:00AC/DC's high voltage dirty deeds revisited<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">AC/DC’s HIGH VOLTAGE DIRTY DEEDS REVISITED</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve never been an AC/DC fan and have owned only two albums, <i>High Voltage</i> (1975) and <i>Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap</i> (1976), their first and second releases, conveniently sold as a “two-fer” pack and, to be honest, I bought them only because they were dirt cheap. It was somewhere between 1977 and 1981 and I knew of AC/DC from the odd radio play but was never particularly motivated to buy any of their contemporary releases and even these two albums, fond of them as I am, couldn’t make a difference.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve just relistened to the two records for the first time in probably thirty years and was pleasantly surprised to find how well they stood up and how much I enjoyed hearing them again. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">At this time the band was obviously still deeply in thrall to blues based hard rock of the earlier generation of heavy bands and Bon Scott was still the lead singer. His sly, suggestive tone informs songs of high school smutty innuendo like “The Jack,” “Can I Sit Next to You Girl” and “Little Lover” on <i>High Voltage</i>, and “Love at First Feel,” “Big Balls” and “Squealer” on <i>Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap</i>. The lyrics are so typical of hard rock, written by young men with excess testosterone and a somewhat immature and misogynist view of women, but Scott almost plays it for laughs, cartoonish even and this deflects some of the unacceptable nature.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I think AC/DC loss a huge asset when he died. Brian Johnson is an excellent hard rock vocalist but he hardly has the sly subtlety Scott brought to the party and that mitigated the clichéd hard rock ethos. The band continued trading in sexual innuendo but where Scott sounded almost witty, Johnson sounds clumsily, awkwardly earnest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On the other hand, the songs about being in a hard rock band, such as “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Want to Rock and Roll),” Rock ‘n Roll Singer,” “High Voltage,” “Rocker,” “There’s Gonna Be Some Rocking Tonight” and “Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Around to be a Millionaire, ” not to mention “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” are quite good, sometimes self-deprecating and with Scott still sounding as if he’s letting us in on a joke, and there is little bombast, just old fashioned, no thrills, hugely entertaining, hard rock. Malcolm Young is a monster on rhythm guitar, Angus Young’s blues-based leads soar and the rhythm section thrives on the solid, blues-based riffs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">AC/DC went on to bigger and better things after these two albums, including the next couple of records with Scott, and have become a hard rock institution and an international treasure, I guess, but I don’t think they were as much fun anymore. There are different pressures on a band when they realise the can have a career in their chose field and however skilled and proficient they become, the early unselfconscious innocence, so to speak, can never be regained.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-72883489066942513012022-11-15T05:49:00.001-08:002022-11-21T01:05:17.052-08:00The Extreme Metal Jape<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EXTREME METAL JAPE</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve recently watched a documentary on the origins of Norwegian black metal, which focused mainly on Mayhem, with comments from former and current band members and other musicians in the genre who were part of the movement back then or are in it now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This led me to exploring other similar documentaries on YouTube, about other black metal bands, the grind core movement, death metal, thrash metal, and others. All of this was to refresh my memory, so to speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some years ago videos of bands at Wacken Open Air Festival, Hellfest, and other such events, appeared on my YouTube feed, for no apparent reason, as well as some documentaries on extreme metal and its variations, and from this stuff I took away that I really like Tsjuder but that, on the whole, most of the music sound so much the same that, for the uninitiated, there isn’t much difference between black metal, death metal, grind core, Viking metal, or any of those subgenres that aren’t anything as melodic and anthemic as symphonic metal, and not even as tuneful, with recognisable choruses such as the thrash metal survivors Metallica, net to mention old school, classic metal and hard rock.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Most of extreme metal just sounds like fast, pounding drums and speedy, downtuned chord riffing with hoarse, screamed or grunted vocals and for the life of me, if I listened to the stuff blindfolded, I wouldn’t tell the difference between one band or genre and the other.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Having said that, I would dearly love to be part of the crowd at Hellfest, with the vast, roaring, blast of sound enveloping and overwhelming me in the midst of a crowd of metal fans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I understand that metal musicians are highly technically skilled and pride themselves on this, working incredibly hard and long to hone their skills and that the apparent wall of noise camouflages intricate playing that goes well beyond simple three chord punk rock. That is the serious part of the deal, but a lot of the rest, the outer trappings, seems to be ridiculous, a complex, involved joke only the initiates appreciate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There is the dress code of black, with lots of leather, studs and spikes, the very long hair, the absurd face paint, the very specific style of guitar with angular shapes and always black and the really stupid Satanic trappings and lyrics or the pseudo-medieval costumes of the Viking metallers. I don’t know whether any of them believe in Satanism as a religious alternative to Christianity (usually) or whether it’s all a pose, but either way, it can only be a bunch of teenage youths who can come up with world view as a way to shock the middle classes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On the guitars: it’s so weird to see these bands all play similar looking guitars (and it must be at least an unwritten law in the metal community that it’s not acceptable, or is at least an exception to the rule, that the guitars must have this specific, highly recognisable look) that I’ve wondered whether, say, at Hellfest, all the bands simply share the same three or four guitars and basses, with the musicians coming off stage handing their axes to the musicians coming onstage. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">If it wasn’t for the relentless brutal riffing of, for example Tsjuder, their visual impact on stage and the lyrical preoccupations of the songs would easily come across as a parody, a grand spoof. Yet the musicians and the audience take the spectacle extremely seriously. There are a lot of bands and, I suppose, a large, underground audience out there, though it might not as underground as all that, considering the numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I grew up with classic, blues based hard rock and metal of the ‘70s and, because of punk and new wave, ignored the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the hair metal bands and thrash metal bands of the ‘80s. I heard odd tracks by Metallica on the radio and saw the Slayer, Megadeath and Anthrax records in my local record store, but bot into Metallica only because of “Enter Sandman” and the <i>Metallica</i> (1990) album, but hardly listened to their thrash contemporaries. The Cult and Guns ‘N Roses were my top reck bands of the ‘80s. The first Motley Crüe record I bought was a compilation of hits. I heard random tracks from Poison, Ratt, Headpins, Cinderella and others on a metal radio show, but was never intrigued enough to buy any of the music then, and now I don’t think I’d want to.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So, I came to the really extreme metal genres quite late in my life and I must say, apart from the sense that everything sounds so similar as to be materially indistinguishable, I enjoy listening to a variety of bands, provided that it’s loud. I don’t care much about the lyrics, for the most part unintelligible, as I could care less whether they celebrate Satan (in whom I don’t believe), Viking warriors or just a basic dystopian, mythic future. All I want is loud, fast, or at least loud if it must plod at a deliberate pace.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-27093920550971117622022-09-30T04:49:00.002-07:002022-09-30T04:49:30.172-07:00Kiss, kiss but no bang, bang<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">KISS, KISS BUT NO BANG, BANG</span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">During the ‘70s Kiss was mostly just a name and an image of four guys in make up masks to me. “Rock and Roll All Nite,” perhaps “Beth,” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” (Kiss going disco) were on the radio every now and then but South African rock radio, such as it was, hardly saturated the airwaves with Kiss. Ace Frehley’s solo project “Ne York Groove” had a decent amount of exposure and was a favourite of mine at the time. I saw some of the album covers, and read that <i>Alive</i> was regarded by some as one of the greatest live albums of all time (to that date, anyway) and read the quote, from Hit Parader magazine, that Kiss would be the best thing since sliced bread if they could only write number one hit songs. There was the fanatical Kiss Army who dressed up and wore make up to represent their favourite band members. The Kiss sage show was almost over the top theatrical, with the musicians teetering around in high heeled boots, lots of pyrotechnics, including Gene Simmons breathing fire and sticking out a huge, prosthetic tongue and high energy rock and roll. The story was that they dressed up from the start, when they were playing high school gyms and small club and simply carried on doing it on bigger and bigger stages. Kiss were superstars in Japan before they broke big in the USA. They did unmask themselves for a bit, in the ‘80s, perhaps to regain attention on a fading band, but resumed the masks shortly afterwards. The drummer left the band and was replaced by another character. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For all this, and mostly because of what I saw as ridiculous costumes and because I didn’t really know the music and wasn’t that keen on finding out, I eschewed Kiss, even as I began investigating the ‘70s hard rock of Cheap Trick, Aerosmith and Blue Oyster Cult.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Somehow, in the mid-‘80s I found a copy of the debut album, <i>Kiss</i> (1974) in a bargain bin somewhere. When I listened to the record, I was pleasantly surprised and yet also a tad deflated because I’d expected so much more from this legendary band, but, I guess, it was the debut and better would come. The music was pretty much tough edged rock and roll, not particularly hard rock and not metal, with a little melody, big choruses and typical male centred hard rock lyrics about mythical bad girl stereotypes of the time. Several songs off this debut are Kiss classics and the album is very listenable indeed and holds up well today, along with the aforementioned bands from the period, in that kinda dumb hard rock genre.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The first impression of <i>Hotter Than Hell</i> (1974) is that it’s less tough than the debut, with a much more sophisticated, smoothed out sound, and a resultant loss of edge, a much more deliberate pace, without an increase in heaviness, and a general air of an over cautious approach, probably to make the record radio friendly . Only “Let Me Go, Rock and Roll” breaks a sweat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I reckon, if I’d actually been a Kiss fan at the time, a casual one, and had bought <i>Hotter Than Hell</i> because I liked the debut album, I would’ve thought I’d wasted money buying the follow up and would’ve lost interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I think Kiss must’ve had the same thought and <i>Dressed to Kill </i>(1975) is out of the blocks fast and loud, albeit with the same kind of nudge, nudge, wink, wink teenage boy’s idea of a great rock lyric, where women are nothing but bad, as in hot, or just bad as in scheming, deceitful and troublesome. After the fast start, though, the style and pace of the music reverts to verging on sludge and there is very little of material interest on the album until the closing track “Rock and Roll All Nite.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Kiss and their management realised that the production values on their studio albums didn’t reflect the band’s live sound and believed that this defect, for a band that thrived on a loud, spectacular live performance, did them no favours and the next release was <i>Alive</i> (1975), intended to give the fans a taste of the high energy onstage performances of fan favourite tunes, and to establish once and for all that the studio albums to date were not truly what the band was about. The lives cuts do not sound that much better than the studio versions and the joke was that most of the music was recorded in the studio afterwards, which means that you don’t actually hear what the band sounds like live at all. Presumably, the spectacle of the stage show was really what impressed the fans and not so much the music.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Destroyer</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> (1976) kicks off with the anthem and ode to a hard rock burg, “Detroit Rock City” and with the following songs it’s apparent that their ambitions to produce even more radio friendly hard rock have gone up a notch. The rough edges have been fully smoothed out. “Great Expectations” is a ridiculous, anthemic sleazy ballad dedicated to the band’s female followers; “Shout It Out Loud” is more sing-along party noise; and “Beth” is the sensitive, piano driven, power ballad dedicated to the good woman at home. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">CODA<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My optimistic target was to listen to more Kiss albums than these few, at least until the end of the ‘70s output but it was getting to be harder work than I’d anticipated mostly because the band just doesn’t rock hard enough and the songs aren’t particularly good or engaging. The slower riff heavy tunes don’t stomp, they just plod, and the faster tunes are just so frivolously lightweight, and most of the lyrical ideas sound like parodies, except that they’re probably not.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Kiss have had more releases after the end of the ‘70s than they ever had in that decade, but I don’t think there’s compelling reason to listen to all of them, unless one wants to a serious, in-depth retrospective analysis, or are a die-hard fan. The ‘70s catalogue, when the band was young, ambitious, full of vim and vigour, probably represents their best in terms of ideas even if, over time, they became technically better musicians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Kiss has had a long and successful career, yet another member of the classic rock careerist cadres of musicians who’ve managed to maintain a career in hard rock and have proved that rock is not a young person’s game after all. If you’re the Rolling Stones, you can keep on rocking until your late seventies and there is still so much interest in, and money to made for, ‘70s rockers that they can keep going for as long as they like, or can. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-65277015683973011882022-08-11T02:33:00.004-07:002022-08-11T02:33:31.712-07:00The Clash revisited one more time, with feeling<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve recently watched Donovan Letts’ documentary on The Clash, <i>Westway to the World</i>, for the umpteenth time, and afterwards, <i>Viva Joe Strummer</i>, which concentrates on the latter but retreads the material parts of the band history.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I was 17 when punk rock became a thing in the UK, and from mid-1977, when I was at university, I bought the New Musical Express every week, although it was a couple of months behind when it arrived in Stellenbosch, and avidly devoured its coverage of punk rock, and then New Wave and the genres and sub-genres that followed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">South African radio didn’t play punk rock and the records weren’t available in Stellenbosch and, therefore, if I knew a lot about The Clash, their views and of how rock critics evaluated their music, I never heard any of the band’s music until I bought <i>London Calling</i> in 1979. The music on this vinyl double album was quite removed from punk rock and I heard an exhilarating mix of rockabilly, reggae, ska, jazz and pop, along with punk elements. The NME had praised the album highly and, impressionable as I was then, barely 20, I would’ve have loved it regardless but the music was good, the variety was intriguing and the sound impressive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">After repeated listening, I developed favourites or, rather, there were tracks I started caring for less, such as “Lost in the Supermarket,” “Koka Kola,” “Lover’s Rock” and “I’m Not Down.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On the other hand, the first 5 tracks, from “London Calling” to “Rudie Can’t Fail,” represent one of the best opening sides of any rock album. “Guns of Brixton” is arguably the one track off the album that is the stone classic for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I never brought any other Clash albums until <i>The Story of The Clash, Vol 1</i> in 1993, which brought me up to speed with the best of the debut album, <i>Give ‘em Enough Rope, Sandinista!</i> and <i>Combat Rock</i>. I’d listened to the latter on a Sanyo personal tape player on a night time car journey from Pretoria to Cape Town and hadn’t been impressed, partly because I was mostly in a sleepy, comatose state, I guess, but after listening to the album again, on digital streaming, almost 40 years later, my first impression remained valid.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I finally bought <i>The Clash</i> (probably the version released in the US) in the early year of the 21<sup>st</sup> century and then the live album <i>From Here to Eternity</i>. I’ve also listened to <i>Give ‘em Enough Rope</i> and <i>Sandinista</i>! on digital streaming.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I wasn’t around in London, or the UK, when the punk movement flared up. never saw of those bands live and was never part of the general enthusiasm and fanatical appreciation and love for bands like the Clash, so all I have are the various albums and, for me, the first three studio albums are the only albums worth owning. The eclectic music that followed from their musical ambition, technical abilities and interest in exploring contemporary sounds and influences, leaves me cold. I suppose one must applaud their progressive approach and the understanding that musicians can’t afford to stagnate and endlessly repeat old glories if they want to be true to an artistic vision and to build a legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The thing is that The Clash developed into a direction I didn’t, and still don’t, appreciate. For me it’s a truism that the music young musicians make in the first five to ten years of their careers, will always be the most exciting, interesting and entertaining. As they age, mature as persons and also as songwriters and become more technically adept, the initial vigour and creativity slowly dissipates and, if a musician becomes a better technical songwriter, they often forego intuitive brilliance and rely on mechanical methods to create. Joe strummer seems inordinately proud of the process, and in the abundance of songs, of recording <i>Sandinista</i>! but concedes that it might have been better if it had been judiciously pruned. Okay, so the musicians had many ideas and decided to make tracks of all of them and release them too, but this record confirms my contention that mature proficiency in songwriting is no guarantee of quality, other than in process and musicianship. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The first three Clash albums are the only ones worth owning or listening to more than once but they aren’t 100% killer, even <i>London Calling</i>, which is supposedly one of the greatest rock albums ever. I like the variety of the musical genres and styles but you can definitely divide the songs between the good and the mediocre and there are more of the latter than needs be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Briefly, the Clash were hailed as the greatest rock band in the world, and the only gang in town, and so on, and the documentaries highlight those aspects that did indeed raise the band above and beyond the contemporary competition, and of course the myth making is glorious. There are only two music scenes I’ve ever wished I could’ve been part of: San Francisco between roughly 1965 and 1967, and punk rock London in 1976 and 1977. Regarding the latter period, The Sex Pistols started it all and The Clash ruled it all and there was plenty of mutton dressed as lamb but it seems to have been very exhilarating.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“(Only) White Man in Hammersmith Palais” is my favourite Clash song, and it’s telling, I suppose, that it’s not a roaring punk rocker but a more thoughtful reggae number, that epitomises to me what The Clash really meant as musical and cultural force. Nowadays it might be castigated as cultural appropriation but it’s a <i>tour de force</i>nonetheless from a garage band with pretensions, then ambitions and finally skills and a presence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-22158718930368098462022-03-26T05:35:00.002-07:002022-03-26T05:35:57.727-07:00Shared Address is a home for the blues<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">SHARED ADDRESS <i>ANNIE </i>(2020)</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Curious how these things work. I attend a Gerald Clark gig and afterwards research Apple Music to see how much of his music is there and then come across a connection with Shared Address who toured with him a couple of years ago and on whose album he’s a featured vocalist on the track “Maybe I’m a Fool.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Shared Address biography tells me they’re a Bloemfontein based duo of Joudie on guitar, mandolin, harmonica and stompbox. and Maureen on vocals and<br />percussion, whose music blends folk, blues, country and jazz ad who are inspired by the likes of Muddy Waters, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, BB King, Shovels and Rope, Jimi Hendrix, Jack White, Larkin Poe, amongst others. A little bit old, a little bit new.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">What we have here is a very entertaining, rootsy yet contemporary, stomping take on blues, with nods to soul and gospel, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Maureen’s voice is reminiscent of Shelby Lynne, originally a country artist whose music mutated into another version of some of the same blues, country and rock influences Shared Address reference, and she has those same powerful pipes to energise the fast songs or to infuse emotional depth to the slow tunes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“Maybe I’m a Fool,” a duet between Clark and Maureen is one of slow songs in a set of otherwise upbeat blues stompers and Clark, as usual, demonstrates why he is one of South Africa’s best soul blues singers, a slightly melancholic foil to Maureen’s more strident approach which works exceptionally well on the rocking blues.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">“The Busker” Is the other slow one, a melodic soul/gospel anthem, with (I’m guessing) Joudie putting in his two cent’s worth on vocals too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For the rest, the album is just upbeat, often raucous, juke joint fun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-85207772600134464022022-03-02T06:54:00.001-08:002022-03-02T06:54:31.495-08:00Shelter from Patlansky<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Dan Patlansky</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Shelter of Bones</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">(2022)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.1200008392334px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">A new Patlansky album drops every few years and the question is: why? He is a technically gifted guitarist and knows how to write a riff and arrange a chord progression and must believe that he ought to keep on writing songs and releasing records for the sake of his career, but apart from fully leaving straight ahead blues behind and shifting to a tough blues rock sound, there hasn’t been much innovation in his music over the past decade. Worse, the songs on the various albums are kind of interchangeable and none of them are memorable. All too often the opening riff is the best, most catching part of the track and then it’s just more of the same, with his gruff, sincere vocal style and proficient fretwork that prove that technical ability alone cannot evoke a visceral, emotional response in the listener.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.1200008392334px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Here we have more muscular riffing and gruff vocals, blues based solos and some ghostly Stevie Ray Vaughan echoes in Patlansky’s patented technically slick style of bombastic blues rock. You’ve got to admire his industry and skill but by now the style has become so entrenched, that the contents of each album come and go without much impact because he’s not a quirky enough songwriter and doesn’t have much gift for vocal melody. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Having said that, the slow, soul ballads “Lost” and “Sweet Memories” are the best tracks on the record. The title track is philosophically introspective, oddly reminiscent of the Arno Carstens style and obviously intended to be a major statement to conclude the album and quite affecting, though also a tad lyrically clichéd. For the rest, the arrangements and riffs are respectively intricate and powerful but there are no memorable hooks and very little sticks in the mind once one is done listening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Patlansky obviously works hard at his career and may be commended for that but surely won’t be remembered for writing and recording a body of iconic, classic tunes. He’s not a genius musician, has no intriguing musical quirks and relies too much on how well he plays the guitar. Some people are dazzled by lengthy, intricate solos with an avalanche of notes and licks but when the songs they’re supposed to serve aren’t strong enough, the virtuosity eventually grates rather than gratifies.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Patlansky loyalists would like this album and neophytes might as well buy this release, instead of earlier releases, to bring them up to speed on the Patlansky sound, and then never need buy any other. <i>Shelter of Bones</i> is not particularly enjoyable, and is unnecessary and disposable. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-86715257989578898512021-12-15T06:03:00.005-08:002021-12-15T06:03:57.393-08:00J J Cale <p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When I think back on it, the Stellenbosch Municipal Library was the source of a good deal of my musical education in the early to mid-Seventies, with albums like <i>Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band</i>, Joni Mitchell’s <i>Ladies of the Canyon</i> and <i>Blue</i>, Neil Young’s <i>Harvest.</i> Crosby, Stills and Nash’s eponymous debut, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s first greatest hits collection, Jethro Tull’s<i> MU</i> (greatest hits), Cat Stevens’ <i>Tea for the Tillerman</i>, and other such early Seventies singer songwriter records, plus a lot of early jazz and some blues.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">J J Cale’s third album, <i>Okie </i>(1974)<i>,</i> was one of these records I borrowed from the library, and it was an enlightenment to me regarding an artist I knew very little about at the time. I might’ve heard Eric Clapton’s hit version of “After Midnight” by then, but I’m not sure how much, if anything, I knew about JJ Cale, who was by no means a mainstream pop artist that would’ve received much, if any, airplay on South African radio stations. I do think, however, that I vaguely recognised the name as a significant musical artist for some reason and obviously whoever bought records for the library must’ve believed that Cale had sufficient artistic merit for inclusion in the library’s collection. They didn’t stock simple pop music.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Okie</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> baffled me slightly because a lot of it was just to saccharine and simplistic to me with lyrics that often sound as if Cale made them up simply to fit his admittedly catchy tunes. I didn’t know whether it was rock, country, country rock, or what. There was little of the toughness that I like and prefer in my rock, especially Americana, and too much that sounded like AOR and the type of music that was so inoffensive and smooth it should’ve been on heavy rotation in South Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">At the time my favourite tracks were “Cajun Moon,” “Rock and Roll Records” and “Anyway the Wind Blows.” Listening to the record for the first time since 1974, the last is by far the best track and “Cajun Moon” still has the best hook. Now, too, I can appreciate the supple rhythm section and subtle yet insistent grooves of Cale’s music though I’d still say that a collection of his best tunes is the album to own, and not so much all of the individual studio records.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">At some point in the ‘80s I bought <i>Troubadour</i> (1876), the album with perhaps Cale’s best-known tune, especially in Eric Clapton’s version, “Cocaine.” By this time, I knew much more about Cale’s music than I did in 1974, partly because I’d read about him a lot, in UK based rock weeklies, and partly because he was act Chris Prior favoured on his week night rock show on Radio 5, and I knew Lynyrd Skynyrd’s version of “Call Me the Breeze” from their <i>One From the Road</i> live album. I think I might also have heard the rather astonishing studio take of “Call Me the Breeze” from Cale’s debut album, <i>Naturally</i> (1972.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The latter version starts off with the immediately engaging metronomic stomp of a primitive drum machine over which Cale mumbles something, before the swinging riff kicks in. This must’ve been revolutionary for this kind of laidback country blues style music in 1972 and even today it’s a visceral thrill every time I hear it. Sadly, “Crazy Mama” is the only other track on that record those benefits from and is enhanced by a drum machine too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Troubadour</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> is much lighter and more jazzy than Okie and has the same merits of excellent, catchy tunes and swinging ensemble playing but it seems even more saccharine and most of it could fit in well with the lounge music craze of the late ‘90s. It works as background music and is particularly engaging other than as pleasant diversion. “Cocaine” stands out by a country mile because it has the toughest riff (or my ears, derived from “Sunshine of Your Love”) and the most memorable hook. No wonder Clapton made a huge hit of it. Other than that, <i>Troubadour</i> is a minor record, in the general vein of the Cale style where too much of his songs sound like filler.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The documentary To Tulsa and Back, made when Cake was around 65, illuminates him and his career a little bit and the most significant take away is that he made the career he wanted without compromising too much or pandering too much to the large corporations that run the music business. He was fortunate that he wrote enough good songs that other artists wanted to record and had hits with, so that the pressure to follow a standard music career was alleviated or removed entirely, allowing him to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. Apparently, he regularly turned down major money gigs because he didn’t feel like doing them or because they made no sense to him, Presumably, his simple lifestyle only requited the amount of money he made, following his own way, and he saw no reason to earn more simply because he could.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I own a double CD with what the compilers call his 20 best songs and if most of them are indeed quite good, I would argue that perhaps a single CD with only ten tracks are all you need, though they wouldn’t be representative of his entire output, which is quite varied in style and mood even if the same laidback approach is applied to them all. If you want a complete picture of the guy’s music, buy all the studio albums. If you just want a very good set of songs, make your own compilation from those albums. I prefer the tougher, more rocking tunes, like “Call Me the Breeze” or “Anyway the Wind Blows (and partly also because I prefer the ‘70s production values) to the more ruminative, sweeter songs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-59411716097771126092021-12-12T07:25:00.006-08:002021-12-12T07:25:41.272-08:00Celebrating 30 years of Achtung Baby<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">U2</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">ACHTUNG BABY</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">(1991)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For me, 1991 was the year of <i>Achtung Baby</i>, <i>Use Your Illusion I and II</i> and <i>Nevermind</i>, and almost in that order of significance too. This was also the year of Metallica but whereas I bought those first four albums on release, I wasn’t into Metallica at the time an bought the eponymous album only three of four years later. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I bought <i>Nevermind</i>, and <i>Bleach</i> just before, because of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the enormous hype around the band and how they brought punk to the mainstream. I bought the <i>Use Your Illusion</i> albums because I as a big fan of <i>Appetite for Destruction </i>(my top hard rock album of the ‘80s), but I bought <i>Achtung Baby</i> because I was a long term afficionado of U2 and, though not necessarily contemporaneously all the time, owned all of the preceding records, starting with <i>October</i>, then <i>Boy</i>, before moving forwards with <i>War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree</i> and<i> Rattle and Hum</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The last two albums were the absolute pinnacle of the first phase of the patented U2 sound of ringing guitar and impassioned, inspiring vocals, emanating from the post punk sound of the late ‘70s and very early ‘80s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">With <i>Achtung Baby</i>, amongst other things, inspired by die fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and time spent in the pre-reconstructed city, if no longer physically divided, still very much psychologically divided, the band abandoned it’s by then almost cliched melodic approach and embraced tough, industrial-style, danceable riffing and beats. It’s as if The Edge decided to unlearn all musical expertise he’d acquired up to then, and to start afresh as if he were a guitar novice learning to play the only songs he knew, the songs he wrote in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">From opening track “Zoo Station” to “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” “The Fly” and “Mysterious Ways,” this album is almost intolerably exciting and builds and builds, even taking account the quieter moody songs, all of them with a suppler, groovier rhythm section, to a crescendo of frenzy and exuberance. This record was meant for being played loudly and I guess it’s no accident that so many club mixes were made of the various tracks, those mixes serving as bonus materials on the 30<sup>th</sup> anniversary edition of the album, because almost the entire record is just made for blasting out at high volume in a relatively small space for the delight of a drunken, wasted crowd.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Like <i>Searching for the Young Soul Rebels</i> 10 years before, I played <i>Achtung Baby</i> at least once a day for a very long time. Truth be told, this was the first U2 record I experienced viscerally, in my heart and mind, and not just as mostly an appreciation of the musical values and lyrical stance, as was the case with most of the songs on the earlier records. <i>Achtung Baby</i> was big fun. The other records were closer to intellectual discussions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Perhaps because <i>Achtung Baby </i>was so hugely wonderful that I was mildly obsessed by it, it also meant the end of the road for me as U2 fan. Apart from a greatest hits set, covering the band’s ‘80s output, I never bought another U2 album again. I just suddenly had enough and what I’ve heard of their subsequent releases reinforces my lack of interest. Like Prince, U2 is an act I remember fondly for their ‘80s music, and still have a high regard for what they achieved in that decade, and yet have never been able to persuade myself to investigate what they did next. Achtung Baby is not an ‘80s album but it so completely puts the capstone on that era that there’s no need to investigate further. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15102331.post-46109612005467664842021-11-28T08:12:00.003-08:002021-11-28T08:12:32.776-08:00Albert Frost and his Sacred Sound make believers of us all<p> <b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">FROST, ALBERT </span></b><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">SACRED SOUND</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> (2021)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sacred Sound </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">is Albert Frost’s 4<sup>th</sup> solo album and his best since <i>Angels & Demons</i>. It rocks hard and is a positive progression from its predecessor.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Wake Up</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">, apparently a project he had wanted to do for a long time, a proper, grownup rock album with big, important themes, was critically acclaimed and won a SAMA but, on reflection, it was a confection that exhilarated when I first heard it, but soon lost its lustre. The big, AOR rock production, regardless of how intricate and sophisticated the arrangements were and how much effort Frost put into showcasing his skills, and the meaningful, philosophic lyrics, however earnestly meant, were evidence of ambition yet did not deliver a sustainable attraction. The record quickly bored me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On this new album, Frost amps up the guitar power with ampfli4ifers and effects pedals and invests in voice distorting software to give us a hard rock album, with the usual gentle contrasts, sung in his natural voice, that crackles with energy and rocks with power. I’m reminded of the dense guitar sound of Arno Carstens’ (who is a guest vocalist on “Storms are breaking”) New Porn project for which Frost supplied guitar parts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Neil Sandilands, a South African actor making the rounds in Hollywood nowadays, does a bar room philosopher spoken word piece on “Ecce Homo.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In its way <i>Sacred Sound</i> is more ambitious than <i>The Wake Up</i>, which, on reflection, is simply Frost testing the waters so to speak. The earlier album, in contrast, sounds very tentative and somewhat prissily fussy now while <i>Sacred Sound</i> is assertive, not least in the powerful guitar sound, and looser in general approach and conceptual feel. It’s a considerably more entertaining consumer experience, for sure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The opening tracks, the heavy riffing title track and the more streamlined power modern rock approach of “I’m Still Here” simply blast off into the stratosphere with an umcompromising statement of intent and after that the intensity never lets up, even on the more reflective tracks. The lyrics have had a satisfactory upgrade too. Frost has left the blues behind in no uncertain terms and the almost prissy arrangements and production of <i>The Wake Up</i> truly pales in comparison.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This record is almost ridiculously enjoyable to listen to at maximum volume. There isn’t a bad song on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Neels van Rooyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01980336135935959974noreply@blogger.com0