Top 102 Albums. No 67. I Just Can't Stop It - The Beat
Monday morning. Time for something 'up' to listen too, Back to the music of my teens, then. Maybe a Two Tone band. Danceable and 'conscious' surely the ska revival was one of the great moments in pop and whenever it is played many men of my age wind up red faced and breathless as they try to recreate the steps of their youth. The Beat's own label was called Go-Feet and, as the ad's say, it did what it said on the tin. Still does. Go Feet!
"I asked the second in command, 'What's this place called?' He told me and, on the instant, it was as though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessantly, fatuously, for days beyond number, had been suddenly cut short; an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long forgotten sounds: for he had spoken a name that was so familiar to me, a conjuror's name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantom's of those haunted late years began to take flight."
This passage is the gateway from the mess of wartime England into the narrator's youth between the wars, bathed in nostalgia. The prologue and epilogue are set in the narrator's (Charles Ryder's) present but we spend the majority of the time in the past, a past that is in danger of disappearing altogether.
Top 102 Albums. No 68. Down By the Jetty - Dr Feelgood.
The bad news has just circulated over the net that one of the most distinctive guitarists in rock is playing his final outro. Wilko Johnson, guitarist with the first incarnation of Dr Feelgood and a charismatic eccentric has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and is, rather than pursue treatment, going out with a farewell tour and recording a final album.
Top 102 Albums. No 69 Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
I was inspired to select this by its selection over at The Vinyl Villain's as part of his Top 50. This was a huge album in the circles I moved in. It seemed that everybody had it and the songs were huge crowd pleasers at student discos.
The band were a kind of skeletal country folk punk, so danceable as to be an inspiration for Gnarls Barkley - who cover Gone Daddy Gone from this album. Think the Velvet Underground playing Hank Williams Ramblin' Man, on the viagra of puberty. But the icing on the cake of this musical stew (Who the f*** puts icing on a stew? Listen, just listen and you'll hear) were the anguished vocals of Gordon Gano, son of an evangelical preacher. It was illegal for a long time to talk about Gano without mentioning this fact.
"Or rather, there had been something like a great burst of laughter and that's what they called History."
This is my first post on Hopscotch, having finished the first of the 'books' within this book. In his introduction Cortazar suggests two ways of reading the book. The first is to simply read chapters 1-56 and ignore chapters 57 to 155 which are called the expendable chapters.
The second way is to read the book out of numerical order but in a specific order which is indicated in the introduction. Each chapter ends with the number of the chapter to be read next. I am going to read a book or two before returning for my second bite at the apple.
I would like to thank Richard at Caravana de Recuerdos for bringing this book to my attention. I read it with the intention of contributing to his Argentinian Literature of Doom reading event but as seems to be the case continually, I am late.
When David Bowie called The Human League 'the future of pop music' I don't think he envisaged Dare. At the time the League were at the arty side of the music spectrum and included Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, who created their own slices of pop history with Heaven 17 and the British Electric Foundation.
Indeed Ware and Craig Marsh were seen as the creative core of the band and my memory is that there was a lot more excitement about what they would do than about what Phil Oakey and Philip Adrian Wright would do. Wright's role in the original League had been as director of visuals rather than musician. And much was made of Phil Oakey's own visuals, mainly his haircuts. But determination and ambition can take you a long way, if you dare.
Top 102 Albums. No 71. Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five & Hot Seven
One of the first records I bought was an album by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five & His Hot Seven. I was aware of Wonderful World and Mack the Knife but what really attracted me to this album was the dates on the cover. 1926 and 1927 sounded impossibly early for recorded music. (I was young and naive - the fifties were ancient history.)
I am including this period of Louis' work in honour of the lesson I learned from these recordings. Music changes, like all art, but change ain't progress and some of the songs here, despite the primitive recordings are as good as anything else in my collection.
My resolution for 2012 was to get through À la recherche du temps perdu and a shelf of books that I had set aside. After reading 85 books in 2011 I set a target of around 50, thinking that that would be realisable and taking the size of the Proust into account, and the fact that I was targeting a number of the longer books on my shelves. However I ended up only reading about thirty one books and apart from the Proust, skirting the longer books. (See my edited Resolutions 2012 post) I guess having a slightly crazed two year old (& four & ten year olds) in the house allowed less reading time. She will be slightly more self reliant this year but I'm not going to take it for granted. I've also found myself dozing off in the evenings and spending more time writing, on blog and off.
Top 102 Albums. No. 72 Nancy & Lee - Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood Some velvet morning when I'm straight I'm gonna open up your gate
Lee Hazlewood has one of the most recognisable voices in popular music. We enter this album, with Lee singing You've Lost That Loving Feeling from somewhere lower than the Mariana Trench. He also has one of the most skewed visions. On this album his deep baritone is perfectly counterpointed by Nancy Sinatra's breathy, innocent yet knowing voice.
Top 102 Albums. No 73. Sweetheart of the Rodeo - The Byrds
Here we have the first but certainly not the last appearance of Mr Gram Parsons, who, in his brief life, was responsible for an inordinate amount of the music that soundtracks my life.
Many years ago I used to go to The Johnny Cash Appreciation Society, a monthly open mike session where members of various alternative bands in Dublin played hommage to country music. I learnt The Christian Life off this record with a view to singing it but it was already taken. I always thought it was dripping with irony. Such an event, the hipsters acknowledging the rooted vitality of country music owes a debt to this album, where Gram Parsons' brief membership of The Byrds pulled the psychedelic torchbearers down a country road.
Some Limericks
I've been having a stab at writing Limericks elsewhere in my virtual universe and I thought I'd share them here.
They're not as absurd nor transgressive as really good limericks but clearly I've got a compulsion to share (cf this whole blog). I find that once I start thinking of limericks it can be hard to stop. Hopefully this post will put an end to that habit before I start talking in limericks.
Having won a copy of Kevin Barry's second book of short stories and enjoyed it I put this, his first collection on my Christmas wish list and it turned out to be the one I received.
As predicted by a couple of people I found this a stronger collection than the second. The odd final line seems to be grasping for something it doesn't quite achieve, like a gymnast who takes a couple of steps after a dismount. But phrases are coined that sound both original and like the argot of a group you half belong to.
'Think of me as fetal Think of me as the fifth Beatle"
In which Nick Cave rings The Stylistics who are in an apartment block called Watergate. He whispers secrets in code down the phone while they tune up. In the apartment above them an orchestra translates the phone messages into strings.
The collision sounds like the bar scene in The Shining played straight by the Marx Brothers. You're not sure whether to laugh or shiver. "It's really just pretend."
Top 102 Albums. No 75. Moanin' in the Moonlight - Howlin' Wolf
"Ah, oh, smokestack lightning Shinin', just like gold Why don't ya hear me cryin'?"
This was Howlin' Wolf's first album and it collects some of the stupendous singles he recorded for Chess Records in the fifties. These ain't no re-recordings but the genuine article. A fragment of the one true chord. Although these records somewhat define the Chicago Blues sound it is worth noting that the first two songs were not recorded by the Chess brothers but by Mr Sam Philips in the Sun Recording Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Wolf already had twenty years of playing behind him. And here's what Sam thought - (or so Wikipedia says) - "When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.'" You can't have a halfway decent record collection without the (Burnette) name in the credits of a number of songs. He's been imitated, borrowed from and lionised by so many there's no point trying to list them. Here's That Petrol Emotion's paean to this extraordinary bluesman.
This year has been a far slower book year for me than 2011. A sort of general tiredness seems to settle over me, particularly towards the end of the year and at times it was a real struggle to write. I hope that I have a more energetic 2013 and read more, and write more.
At the beginning of the year my main target was to read Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. I had thought a couple of months would do it but it took me a lot longer. It's hard to compare it to anything else but it is an experience as much as a book. The most positive thing about it was that it gave me the impetus to tackle my second target of the year, which was to finish a short story.
The albums you hear when you are an impressionable adolescent always hold a particular place in your affections, don't they? There is a real excitement when a current band seems to sit easily with the best of the music you have to catch up on. I couldn't decide whether this or Reckoning would be my R.E.M. choice as both are firmly ensconced on my favourites list and I return to both often.
Given the day that's in it and the fact that this album has the magic '77 attached to it I thought I'd try to link both. At first I was trying to think of early punk with a christmas twist but then I thought of this and it then seemed like the perfect fit. And then I realised that this is almost a Christmas concept album as I will now show in a track by track exploration.
In bed with the winter vomiting bug I feel the need for something comforting, relaxing and perhaps restorative. I have plumped for Carole King's Tapestry. The other advantage is that there is not much that needs to be said about this album. It is part of our aural DNA.
Long before she finally hit the heights as a performer with Tapestry King had written numerous hits, most famously as part of the Goffin/King partnership, including "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" for The Shirelles which was the first U.S. No.1 by a girl group and makes an appearance on Tapestry, as does (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, made famous by Aretha Franklin.
I've been thinking a lot about the connection between memory and music as I pick the albums that appear in this list. It's impossible to separate memory from 'critical evaluation'. I have also got a fairly clear idea of what I'm going to include. This, however, is a complete outlier. I hadn't really been thinking about including a Slade album but then I heard Mama Were all Crazee Now and my hypothalamus was immediately injected with a rush of adrenaline and my skin tingled with remembered excitement. And not just remembered excitement. Slade may come perilously close to descending into pub rock boogie but they also ascend the adrenaline crackling heights. The opening bars of Mama could almost be The Stooges for chrissake!
But whatever they do they own some of my life. In 1972 there was only one band to chant along to in the playground. Songs about going crazee, with a blatant disregard for spelling. How I wished I was so free. The swagger is irresistible.
The hatforms, suits, glitter and extraordinary success often gets in the way of recognising how great a band Slade were. But you know The Ramones were listening, and so were the Pistols and so, I guess, was Jimmy Pursey. I have always had a sneaking regard for the terrace chant with crashing guitars and its Slade and The Sweet who gave me that taste and Slade are far the greater.
I never saw Slade live but when I listen to Slade Alive I wish I had. I did see The Sweet in the '90's, long after their heyday and including an unknown number of original members probably > zero but not including singer Brian Connolly. They were godawful until the last few songs when they played Fox on the Run, Blockbuster and the immortal (in my mind) Ballroom Blitz. They then encored with Ballroom Blitz (again) and the concert ended with seats been torn up and some kind of mayhem. I went back to the dressing room afterwards to find the band released from the leather suits a few sizes too small for them and in a state of some shock, having not experienced a reaction like that in decades. Sweat dripping from and into places I don't want to describe, or even think about, they told us to take all the beer we wanted as they bemoaned the fact that their bottle of Jack Daniels was only 750 mls, "and that's not a litre, is it?" TAP! They also asked us where the girls were. Frightening thought.
The point of this digression, if there has to be one, is that most of the album tracks on Slayed would rouse the dead. They were a great singles band but they were in flames at this time and could have released every track as a single if the practices of the eighties had been in place. Noddy was a great vocalist with enough rasp to file through the bars of any jail. And you don't hav t spel - freeeedumb!
The Youtube video below is part of a playlist of the whole album complete with crackles, hisses and skips from the vinyl. The only way to listen.
C'mon, Mama Weer All Crazee Now. And BBC4 have a Slade night tonight! See those TOTP performances in full technicolour. I don't think it's ever been so much fun since.
Top 102 Albums. No 80. Teenage Snuff Film. Rowland S. Howard.
*Albums not presented in any particular order.*
Here's a distressed jewel of a record, the first of a few in this list to feature Rowland S. Howard "crown prince of the crying jag". That crying white (Fender) Jaguar is one of rocks signature guitar sounds, and the dry humour of the line a snippet of Howard's desertified wit. He may not be for everyone but if you acquire a taste for him his work is consistently rewarding and unique.
