Owed t'Alex

"I like the blues..... but I like aqua marine just as much."


I got myself an addiction.

For the last month, i've played pretty much nothing but Captain Beefheart.

A cursory look at my last.fm page will confirm this. 359 plays in the last three months - and they're just the ones that have been 'scrobbled' (further investigation will uncover that I've played Del Shannon even more, but the truth of it is that i accidentally left Spotify playing his tracks over night after a little too much whiskey).

Now dont get me wrong, i bought Trout Mask Replica in my late teens and played it through maybe 3 times before deciding that it was a little too obtuse even for me. But what's happened i guess over the years is that listening to artists influenced by Beefheart has softened me up to him. The snake-y, yet jagged non-sequitur guitar motifs of  the likes of Fire Engines, Pere Ubu and That Petrol Emotion that entranced me with their originalities were actually direct copies of the great man. See below:



However it wasn't 'Trout Mask Replica' that opened the door for me, but rather a relatively obscure album he made with the Magic Band (mk 1) in the mid 70's called Clear Spot.



Sorry to be all musicianly and everything but the production and the playing on this record are simply in another world, everything is dry and in your face, there's no escape from any of it and that's before the Captain smears his personality over the whole thing. The bit of information that blew my mind (especially as somebody who was only a poxy vocalist who wrote just words and melodies) was that Captain Beefheart composed every single note of these architectures of sound (" I play the drums - I play the guitar - I play the piano. I want it exactly the way I want it - exactly. Any composer, I would think, would want it that way and I don’t deviate at all. Don’t you think that somebody like Stravinsky, for instance, don’t you think that it would annoy him if somebody bent a note the wrong way? Or used a purple bow on a violin, when you want a red bow, or a green bow").



This sort of control over songcraft (apparently he taught the band via piano, sometimes it took him days to convey a guitar line for a section of one song) whilst not only being rare led to some highly combustible scenes between him and the Magic Band. Leading to them leaving in the mid 70's and eventually being replaced by another shit hot ensemble.

The song that is on constant repeat at the moment for me is Tropical Hot Dog Night, where Beefheart (seemingly) has a bit of fun with his encroaching middle-age whilst simultaneously reacting to accusations of him dumbing down his avant-garde leanings for a more accessible sound. Some lines sound so much better when sang by the great man, but ("Tropical Hot Dog Night / I'm playing this song for all the girls to come and meet the monster tonight/ How would you like to be the lucky one to be the monster tonight? / Everything that is wrong at the same time is right / You get to be with me")



Right, I'm off to listen to more Beefheart. I might be some time...



For those with Spotify check this playlist out:
beefheart

That's The Story Of My Life

 

So as mid-winter takes its final bow, here at MA towers there's a palpable sense of what's ahead.

Musically the last few months saw a personal battle come to a head, i.e how can you be so involved in music, both on the business and creative sides and yet not buy more than a few CD's or downloads a year. Now, admittedly, over my life i've bought more music on various formats than quite possibly the whole of South East Asia has in its whole existence, but still the nagging guilt remained.

So, thank god for Spotify. Now those of you outside Europe may bemoan its none-existence (but fear not, it's coming your way) but for me right now, i'm quite happy to pay the £9.99 a month premium subscription with the knowledge that i'm getting lots of great music wherever i want (even on my phone) and the artists are getting money too. It feels like the future. 

Now right now, Spotify isn't perfect, there's no Beatles on it, or Pink Floyd for that matter, or the rather wonderful Real Estate.Real Estate have really struck a chord with me over the last month. I came across them via a last.fm recommendation and boy am i glad. Their debut album makes me think of The Stone Roses, but without all the bagg(y)age that came with them. It sounds like four people in a room playing music that they really feel, which means something in this day and age. The masters of playing music of timeless grace and feel, were of course, The Feelies (our drummer, Johnny Mac's favourite band ever) who you should probably check out right now here. Gotta love that guitar solo baby.

before checking out the wonderful Real Estate here:

One album that i have been playing over and over on Spotify is Del Shannon's little known baroque masterpiece 'Home & Away'. Now most people know Del Shannon from his few hits in the early 60's (Runaway, Hat's Off To Larry, etc), but what most people don't know is that Del continued to make relevant music right through until the 80's 'Home & Away' was recorded with Andrew Loog Oldham which should've added some commercial clout to what he was doing, but didn't, Loog did however add some rather beautiful baroque flourishes to some of Shannon's prettiest melodies. I first came across these recordings via Pilooski's reinterpretation of Gemini which you can check here:

or get a taster from 'Home & Away' an album which to my mind should be revered in the same way as the likes of The Zombie's Odyssey & Oracle or  The Kinks 'Something Else' here

I was asked by my friend Danielle a few weeks back to put together a wedding play-list for her upcoming nuptials, with the brief that it should include lots of classics from the 80's and 90's and lots of Northern Soul. This was like a red rag to a bull. Spotify might have a few gaps in its catalogue but it's got a stellar selection of Northern Soul tunes. I know this because on a number of occasions, me and the wife on a Friday night when the kids are safely tucked up have built up a playlist, slipped the shoes off and had a good old frug. Amazing, uplifting spiritual tunes by the likes of R Dean Taylor (great name!) Archie Bell & The Drells and this monster from Dobie Gray

For those of you who have Spotify, check out this compilation which me and the missus really got a groove on to a few weeks back. For those of you who haven't, i'm about this close (puts finger and thumb together) to starting a Northern Soul night up here in Manchester.

Laters Taters.

353JVXFRT3UP

Reelin' In TheYear

Back in 1990 when John S went down to London to make his fortune we used to write to each other about once a month. At the end of these letters we'd include our current top 20 songs and albums and in December we'd create our own end of year lists, commemorated with a C90.

The funniest thing was looking back at these tapes and wishing some revisionism could take place. ("look, there's no fucking way that i really meant that Moose were number 2", etc) The magazines end of years meant a lot to us, we'd get very angry with the mainstream press for the lack of inclusion for Julian Cope (and looking back, in hindsight, actually we were right...)

We dont make these Tapes (or cd's) anymore but maybe technology has made a way of making this relevant. John - it's your turn next....

Top 10 Tracks of 2009

10) 'Feel It All Around' - Washed Out : Those semi observant readers may have noticed this song was in my last blog and nothings happened in the interim to change my mind that this is 2009's ultimate blissed out 3 minutes.



9) 'Laura' - Girls When at the age of about 15 i was devouring music and developing lifelong obsessions with the likes of Television, Big Star and The Velvet Underground - i was forever looking for the next musical high. Occasionally an artist would crop up that despite a widespread reverence i just couldn't enjoy. Elvis Costello is a great example - back in the 80's every journalist worth his or her salt would bang on about EC with a zeal beyond my comprehension. Anyway, the Girls album this year was, to me, like a whitewashing of all the annoying nasal vocal tics and pseudo intellectualism that Costello possessed, leaving us with a great 'classic rock' album full of warm, heartfelt pop tunes like this one...
 

8) 'Bicycle' - Memory Tapes - Bicycle by Memory Tapes is a song thats been played a LOT this year, a song that's happy to to exist, perfectly in the background. A song that even Betty my two year old was moved to comment 'I like that one!'




7) 'All The Kings Men' - Wild Beasts. I bloody love The Wild Beasts - reminiscent of the spindly, inventive, giddy pop of the early 80's (The Associates, Wild Swans, Bunnymen). Swooning, hyper-romantic and otherworldly. Get involved via Spotify now.



6) 'Deadbeat Summer' - Neon Indian. A cursory glance at my last.fm page tells me that over the last 12 months this has been my most played song. A song that makes me feels queasy, want to dance and one that i know all the words too - says a track of the year from my album of the year.


5) 'Bluish' - Animal Collective. Now whether this song really is about cunnilingus or whether it's just a simple ode - i dont think there was a more romantic 3 minutes released this year. Animal Collective have been almost annoyingly brilliant now for about 5 years.



4) 'Stillness Is The Move' - The Dirty Projectors. Since Magic Alex DJ's went into hiatus. I often daydream of our (glorious) return. And i stockpile records in my head that will go straight to the turntable - this being one of them. R&B meets Luscious Jackson 2009 style. Nice.


3) 'Heart In Home' - Kwes. When i heard this in January '09 - it blew me away. Like nothing else around, it made me feel a bit like when i first heard the cocteau twins. I've waited all year for a follow up, but nothing. There's no video for this track either, so get your ears round it here http://open.spotify.com/track/56zPIzc9izdDX1nfKOASB7

2) 1901 - Phoenix. I've seen people recoil in horror when i've put this on the stereo in social situations. But that just makes me love it even more. to my mind, when i hear this song i'm back in 1985, great trainers, hazy sunshine and life bursting with possibilities


1) 'Start/Stop/Synchro' - Rose Elinor Dougall. Cheat! Fix!! Con!!! But quite simply, how could my track of the year NOT be this? Ok, for those who don't know for the last 18 months i've been helping RED, amongst other things, get an album together. But, fuck it, i've lived and breathed this song for almost all of that time and i still think it's a thing of wondrous beauty. It still stops me in my tracks when the chorus comes in (just like it did the first time i heard the demo). There'll be an album next year and a sort of closure for three people who worked very hard on this, until then this is still the air i breathe.

Top 10 Albums of 2009 

10) True Romance - Golden Silvers

9) 'Wilco (The Album)' - Wilco

8) 'Life Of Leisure'  -Washed Out

7) 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix' - Phoenix

6) 'Bitte Orca' - Dirty Projectors

 5) Two Dancers - Wild Beasts

4)  Seek Magic - Memory Tapes

3) Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective

2) 'Album' Girls

1) Psychic Chasms - Neon Indian

See you in the new year pop kids

xx

Isn't Anything

• Chillwave
• Synth-Computer-Pop-Atmospheric-Wave
• GazeWave
• WaveWave
• ShoeWave
• Chillgaze
• Pitchforkwavegaze
• No-gaze
• Blowgaze
• GazeStep

Whatever the hell it's called, for the first time for bloody ages there's a recognisable genre of music seeping out that i feel a connection to. Or, do i feel an affintiy with this amorphous pop music precisely because it requires no connection?

This is music that blurs the edges of connection, that exists outside the rational and the physical, looking beyond the palpable, somwehere in memory, somewhere out of time.

and I've been here before.

Anybody who's ever spent time with me will no doubt have had to endure at some point listening to My Bloody Valentine at deafening volume. They will also have had to listen to A.R Kane's '69' with me wittering in their ear about how this group were the unhearalded fore bearers of ambient rock, oceanic rock, shoegaze and countless other genres that possibly don't exist. And members of Magic Alex certainly had to listen to cries of, "Can we have more distortion on this track and make it sound more like Spaceman 3 please".

Shoegaze, the coalition of bands circa 1989-1992 was one of those movements that sounded stupid almost as soon as it was invented. Named after the artists (MBV, Ride, Pale Saints, Moose, Chapterhouse etc) propensity for gazing down at their shoes during performance, it seemed to me as obvious a progression for popular music as abstract expressionism was for fine art, but, perhaps, wasn't the sort of music that your Dad wanted to listen on a long car journey together (Me: "No Dad, it's supposed to sound like the casette's broken", Dad: "Can we have Tina Turner back on now please"). By 1994 any band claiming to be influenced by shoegaze were laughed out of town.


But, this recent glut of bands who's musical aesthetics mirror those of my shoegazing heroes didn't come out of nowhere though. Over the last few years, a band who I was fortunate to sign to Memphis Industries, The Russian Futurists were, in my opinion a kind of trailblazer for introducing a post modern 'un' sheen to pop music. Taking a lo-fi approach to electronic pop and creating (maybe by accident or by design) a thick mist of noise which rendered the music a slightly woozy quality, like it almost wasn't there. A sound akin to when in the old days you'd tape a record before taping it again for a friend (and perhaps again and again) until the hisses and pops accumulated became synonymous with the music.

But perhaps the artist that really spearheaded this current (chill)wave of artists is Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear, who's 2007 album Person Pitch raised the bar for nu-gaze (sorry, i'll stop in a minute). Sounding like a Brian Wilson crooning from beneath the waves, it perfectly married what is essentially avant-garde form with beautful blissed out pop music. A day spent without this album truly is a poorer one.

Anyway, here's a chance to get your lugholes around some choice tunes that have been popping up over the last months and that seem to exist within the same space.


    02 - Deadbeat Summer.mp3


Deadbeat Summer by Neon Indian is to my mind the kind of music that Daft Punk should have made post 'Discovery' - here Neon Indian take the analogue-y, squelchy dance beats and robotic melodies and turn them inside out, creating a dance song that sounds like you're on the waltzers spinning round, feeling sick but deliriously happy. Their album 'Psychic Chasms' is pretty much on repeat round my house these days.











    Memory Tapes - 02 - Bicycle.mp3



  Bicycle by Memory Tapes veers more towards the New Order side of things (check the ripped off Barney guitar break half throught the track for proof of that!) - it reminds me of the Beloved remix album 'Blissed Out' a little too (a very underrated album that).

    04 - Feel It All Around.mp3


Feel It All Around by Washed Out to these ears sounds like a failed remix of 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love'  by Jam & Lewis circa 1987 that got consigned to the dusty vaults and has only been discovered and reinterpreted now. Which obviously means that it sounds pretty great.

Finally, for those of you who never heard it here's the final track from Panda Bear's masterpiece, 'Ponytail'

    07 Ponytail.mp3



Next time i'll be writing about my favourite tunes and albums of the year, till then, stay dreamy...

Blonde on Blonde

"One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz." Lou Reed

Once when me and John S were sat in a hotel room with Ian McCulloch in the early hours, apropos of nothing, Mac suddenly declared that there were only three bands that mattered, The Bunnymen, The Velvet Underground and Magic Alex. Now if some random bloke in an internet forum had said that it would have made my day, but the fact that one of my teenage idols (a man who at the age of 14 had inspired me to coat my hair in orange juice so that it would get the correct amount of 'lift') was saying it, to my face was, shall we say, rather special...

The fact that he was wrong didn't matter, what was more important was that we'd reached a place musically that we'd been aiming for, a place that was identifiable.

Y'see when me and bass player Simon first put an advert in the (now defunct) Melody Maker for musicians wanted we listed our influences as The Beatles, Sly & The Family Stone, Roxy Music & Can. Which basically meant, look how ace our influences are, but gave potential members absolutely no idea as to what we wanted to sound like. This reflected itself in the first few years of Magic Alex's existence. We'd go from playing a cute pop song to a noisy dub monster to a slow jazzy ballad in the blink of an eye, thinking we were being eclectic when really we just sounded confused.

And then one day, we were listening to The Velvet Underground's 'What Goes On' and it all became clear. Less is more. Enough of trying to cram obscure suspended 7th chords into tracks, enough of me trying to prove how clever lyrically i could be. The results were immediate. We wrote our first good song 'Chica Chica' and with every song we wrote after we distilled what we wanted more and more until we became a (pretty) well oiled rock and roll band.

As you can see from the photographic evidence above, last weekend was a bit of a get together for us. In an attempted age-defying scam we toyed with the idea of doing a gig as Magic Alex Jr's and get our collective kids up on stage miming to our songs. We also looked into the possibility of blonde hair implants. Neither look as likely on this wet Tuesday afternoon.

One thing you should keep your eyes peeled for though is the London gig listings this coming Autumn.

Till next time

02 What Goes On By The Velvet Underground.m4a

07 Chica Chica by Magic Alex.mp3

111-echo_and_the_bunnymen-the_puppet.mp3

Live And Let Live

When i used to work at Memphis Industries ploughing through the awful demo's I used to bemoan, why don't we get a demo from somebody as wildly inventive, as fully formed, as jaw-droppingly brilliant as Roxy Music circa their first album? Imagine how bloody brilliant it must of been the day Ivo Watts-Russell got The Pixies Come on Pilgrim demo's on his desk? But it dawned on me slowly but surely that band's that special don't come round every day, or in fact very often at all. Last night i went to see a band that might just be that special.

White Denim kicked my ass for an hour solid last night. This, i thought as the drummer stood up and casually played the greatest drumming i've ever seen, with one hand, must have been a bit like when Jimi Hendrix strode into London town in 1967 and casually blew Eric Clapton off his self-imposed perch. Don't get me wrong, there's no point rushing to the bands myspace expecting the finished article, but if the age of the bass player (he looked about 13) who sold me the t-shirt is anything to go by (yes, i bought a t-shirt at a gig, the first time for about 15 years) there's every chance that when they do become the 'article', they'll deserve to be mentioned among the greats. This song was one of the main ass-kicking perpetrators last night Mess Your Hair Up . If you get the chance GO AND FUCKING SEE THEM.

This morning me and the wife were discussing which bands we'd seen in the past that equalled the mind-blowing qualities of last night, for her Atari-Teenage Riot in the mid nineties was a contender, for me there were lots, but one we could agree on was My Bloody Valentine, last year at the Manchester Apollo.

Now back in 1992 there was a tour put together by The Jesus & Mary Chain called the 'Roller coaster' tour, it featured JAMC headlining plus MBV, Dinosaur Jr and the then, little known Blur. I remember quite distinctly not being able to afford the ticket because it was £17.50 which was beyond my student budget. Obviously in retrospect i should have mugged a granny, but instead i had to sit and listen to friends regaling me about how amazing the night was, especially My Bloody Valentine and especially the 20 minute 'noise' section at the end of You Made Me Realise.

As a result in my head, I'd always built up a mythical status for them as a live entity, especially as Kevin Shields seemed more likely to announce himself as my long-lost real father as he was was to produce a new record or play MBV material again. So, when i held the ticket for that show in my hand, I was, shall we say, just a little excited. And let me tell you I was not disappointed. From the moment they came on stage i was nearly wetting myself with excitement (or the fact that it was packed and the toilets were on the other side of the venue, but I digress...) Bathed in beautiful hues of electric blue and crimson red they proceeded to play almost every song in their catalogue. By the time the 'noise' section came we all thought we were prepared (earplugs had been given as we entered the venue), but nothing on earth can prepare you for that. Imagine standing underneath Concorde as it took off and you're maybe 3/4 of the way there. For 5 minutes, it's rock and roll, then it becomes annoying, then you go to a place where time, space & rational thought doesn't really exist (i remember remarking afterwards that it had been living proof that you can feel bored and exhilarated at the same time.) I'm not posting 'You Made Me Realise' here, but another song, a B-Side, Off Your Face' which has always been my favourite MBV song and which i was beside myself with untrammelled joy when they began 04 - My Bloody Valentine - Off Your Face.mp3

I've thought long and hard as to which other gig to mention here, maybe The Stone Roses at the Empress Ballroom in 1989 (me to my sister, "why is everybody smiling and grimacing at the same time?") or the Throwing Muses at Manchester University 1992 (I fainted, got stood on the face by a lady in stilettos, before getting back to find the car had been broken into and the windows smashed, driving home on the motorway with the wind rushing against my bleeding, bruised face) why not The Mock Turtles at the Blackpool Station in 1990 (at the end of the gig a part of the Turtles entourage informed me that the female keyboard player requested my presence at her hotel bar - i politely declined).

But no, the last gig worthy of mention is Love with Arthur Lee at the Garage Islington in 1996. Like most music-obsessed boys I'd discovered Forever Changes and had my mind altered forever, but the thought that Arthur could come to my local (at the time) venue and play the whole damned thing note perfect was beyond my expectations. Myself and John S went to this in the perfect mind-altered state and watched in awe as a real genius showed us mere mortals how it's done. Every song oozed class, but this one Love - 06 - She Comes In Colors.mp3 sticks in my mind as perfection...

Ok, some quick 'me' facts before i leave you.

My first gig - Kids From Fame at the Winter Gardens Blackpool 1982 ( i wore white leg-warmers fact fans) - i could've lied and said The Police but that was three weeks later. Don't remember much about it apart from Shorofsky, which went off like a mutherfucker.

Artist seen the most times - Black Lace - no shit, when i collected glasses during the summer of 1987 Black Lace were the house band they played three times a night (consummate professionals) which by my reckoning means i've seen their live show over 200 times.

And finally, my favourite gig of all time was The Pixies at Preston Guildhall in 1990 from which I'm still speechless.

See ya soon

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Did indie become alternative or did alternative become indie? Is Spotify going to kill iTunes? Were Duran Duran a better pop band than The Kaiser Chiefs (Does anybody care?) What kind of album would Buddy Holly have produced in the mid-sixties? Was the demise of Top Of The Pops a victim of digital tv or noughties pop? Why couldn't have Otis Redding missed that plane?

Why hasn't everybody heard of Benny Profane?

Seriously, if there's a better, more overlooked band, like ever, i'll eat my stetson hat. The first song i heard by Benny Profane (on the John Peel show, summer of '89 - see previous post), "Stitch That" blew my head off and i immediately checked out it's parent album, "Trapdoor Swing". What an amazing hybrid. Musically i could hear shades of The Fall, Johnny Cash, The Velvets, Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra and loads of old cowboy tunes , whilst lyrically it was referencing or alluding to pretty heavyweight writers such as Pynchon, Pinter, Vonnegut and Heller, not just for a pose, but actually following their attempts of decomposition, or blurring of high and low culture into a three minute pop song. Pretty mind blowing stuff for a 17 year old. I naively thought that it was only a matter of time before they were massive, that's what happens when somebody writes music good as this right? But they split up one year after i discovered them (not however before i'd snaggled a support slot for my first band The Cherrydales
at their final gig at Blackpool Jenks...)disillusioned with a lack of success.

My favourite Profane tune is probably one called 'Here Comes The Floor' which is rich with dazzling imagery, but here's that first track i heard, "Stitch That", excuse the slightly leaden 80's production and dig those lyrics and delivery. stitchthat.mp3

"and now the sounds of the limitations of our existence from the maddening crowd"

The Squire Of Somerton. i could write a book about The Squire, or Toby Jenkins as he's known to his friends, of whom, happily, i'm one. Out of all the artists i've worked with over the years, nobody who's deserved such success has achieved so little. This is a man who, when on the top of his form (and excuse me if i gush), has the melodic range of Brian Wilson, the abilty to out 'tap' Joe Santriani and can make Elton John's piano paying sound like Les Dawson. Whether as a member of Fort Lauderdale, Zan Pan or solo, The Squire has been knocking out twisted, top notch, proto-psychedelia for the last decade with absolutely no due recognition. The last i heard Toby was writing a ballet based on Mikhail Bulgakov's Master & Margarita, which will no doubt be exasperating, exhilarating and completely ignored.

Listen to this track (on which The Squire plays everything), the various interweaving themes and melodies the way the words and music are there for an absolute reason, the sheer joy a musical journey can take you on if you allow it and then gasp at the guitar solo which Toby once described to me as a mere mortal reaching for the stars... Squire of Somerton - Transverberrations.mp3

I find as i get older, i dance less often, but enjoy it more and more. I think this could be partly because i've learned which music gets me going and there's nothing that gets me going more-so than Lee Dorsey's Yes We Can (Part 1). Now, if you hadn't guessed already the general theme for this post was to write about artists who i think have been unfairly neglected and as a result it was touch and go whether to include Lee, as here is a man who hit the charts both here and in the USA, but my point is... Why the hell is Yes We Can and Lee Dorsey himself for that matter not an absolute unmitigated, respected part of the Rock/Pop/Soul cannon in the same way that Otis, Sam Cooke or Issac Hayes are? Why did i have to wait until i was in my early thirties before i heard this monster?

Download this and keep it kids, keep it for those night when you push the sofa back and kick your shoes off... lee dorsey - 01 - yes we can part i.mp3

Be good now...