Music

People who liked the John Martyn song I posted, or who are just mourning his loss, might want to listen to this loving tribute to the great man on Mike Harding’s show.[1] So many great songs it seems a shame to pick one out, but listen to the end, and hear him do “Singing in the Rain”. Sorry, I only noticed this today; it’ll go offline in about 24 hours.

[1] One of the great irritations of later life, more confirming evidence in this broadcast, is the dawning realisation that Phil Collins might be a nice chap —and one with real discernment.

I like their new cover of “Comfortably Numb”. What do you think?

I guess Anthem is finally in public beta, under the guise of Microsoft SongSmith.

In the fall of 1981, while living in a squat in Kentish Town and working at some disused church in Hampstead making an absurd number of placards for the upcoming CND demonstration in order to distract attention from the ubiquitous SWP banners, I listened to Solid Air nearly every day. My much older friends all said that it was best listened to while stoned but they may just have been teasing me for my notorious abstemiousness. A couple of years later I rode my rickety old bike from Oxford to Aylesbury (and back) to watch him (one of the few musicians I’ve bothered to see live). He was exquisite. Seeing that documentary about him a couple of years ago, it was clear he didn’t have long to live. BBC obit here. The youtube clips of his recent performances, though badly recorded, make it seem that he remained a great performer till the end. But this is the one:

BBC Radio 2 has a fascinating interview with Bruce Springsteen about songwriting (and other stuff, including a nice sampling from the new album) here. (It starts about a minute in.)

Toward the end of the Miner’s Strike in 1985 I was accompanying some student march to County Hall, shaking a collecting tin, when I was confronted by a balding middle aged man in, I kid you not, a bowler hat and pin stripe suit:
(Angrily) “What are you complaining about now? I’m not going to give money to bloody students, the state already pays for you”
(Cheerfully) “Oh no, I’m not complaining about anything.” (I didn’t go into what I suspected was our agreement on the immorality of the state subsidizing the passage of the most privileged children in society into its elite, but I conveyed that complex message with a grin). “I’m collecting for the striking miners”.
(Surprised) “Oh”. He looked me straight in the eye, with genuine sympathy. “They can’t win you know. But..” he produced a 20 quid note and placed it in my tin “at least they might give this bloody shower in charge a run for their money”. (One of the lessons of collecting for the miners was never to judge a person by the way they dressed.)

Memory triggered by:

from Randy Newman’s wonderful Harps & Angels. You have just a few days left to hear it in its proper context. I hope.

Unless there’s some heroic parenting, on the other hand, my daughters have their entire lives to hear this in its proper context (particularly recommended for Laura).

Russell Davies played Mark Steyn’s latest single last Sunday (you have about 18 hours to hear it). Yes, that Mark Steyn. Davies says that when Steyn wrote about music he found him to be right about just about everything, but that when he turned to politics “I was going to have to look a lot harder to find any political common ground with him”. This comment perhaps explains even more than the music he plays why I never miss Davies’s show; it’s the music that explains why I am always careful to do so when no-one else is around (my wife and daughters ridicule me for listening to “show tunes” which is how they carelessly refer to it; let’s hope that the little lad has better taste).

I’m going to go out on a limb: Joni Mitchell is a great singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist.

Pursuant of this theme, a pair of YouTube videos – really just song tracks. The first, a sweet and mournful heavy-orchestration-makes-it-good track, “Down To You”, from Court and Spark (1973). Especially the French horn bits. That was the album that gave us “Free Man In Paris”, “Help Me”, and the (slightly annoying) “Raised On Robbery”; but if you ask me: “Down To You” is the drop-dead achingly beautiful one. Right. That’s settled.

Next, “The Jungle Line”, from The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975). She’s getting into all the fusion-y jazz stuff which, for me, is mostly hit but sometimes miss. But “Jungle Line” has this crazy thumpy blatt-y bass-y bassoon-y oboe-y, synth-y stuff over the sampled African drums. Is it the long lost Brian Eno-produced Björk album from 1975? I think a few bars from this one would be great for baffling your friends/incorporating into some oddly unplaceable mash-up. What do you think?

Speaking of dubious mash-up projects, I have a very bad idea: a mash-up of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” with Randy Newman’s “Little Criminals“. Obviously you would have to call it “Smooth Little Criminals”. Can you sort of hear it? (Perhaps not. But I think you will agree that the original Jackson video is a stronger effort than the middle-school action figure Newman offering.)

My son Alex, who plays under the name Alexander Thomas (myspace page) , plays the theremin (and then puts the output through various electronic boxes). As well as playing various gigs round the country, he’s also just had a session on BBC Radio Bristol’s BBC Bristol Introducing programme . He plays three pieces as well as talking a little bit about the instrument (the first is just after 30 minutes in). The session should be available for the next seven days.

To Bristol’s Victoria Rooms last night for a fine performance of Mahler 6 by the University Orchestra. The moments when the hammer strikes in the final movement were visually, as well as musically, dramatic. Chatting afterwards, I learnt that the conductor had made a special trip to west London, to collect the hammer and its accompanying table. It is a great big mallet like-thing with a very long shaft. It turns out that there’s a special Mahler 6 hammer, there’s only one in the country, and orchestras hire it as necessary. So you couldn’t perform two Mahler 6s on the same evening in different parts of the UK, at least not with the hammer. Does each country have a dedicated Mahler 6 hammer as the UK seems to?

My free music posts have been generally well-received, so here’s another. First, if you don’t know, the new Guns N’ Roses album is now streaming on MySpace. I shall listen while writing this post. [UPDATE: it sounds like Guns N’ Roses.]

Right. Other free stuff. If you don’t know, Stereogum is a great source for music news and free mp3 downloads. They have whole albums and lots of individual tracks. You can download old archive sets in convenient zips. Here, for your delectation, a free fix of mostly recent, mostly Stereogum-derived freebies. Just right-click and download. Report back later, praising my good taste. [click to continue…]

It’s boring for me to keep linking to Amazon stuff, but, damnit, they have adopted the strategy of giving away good stuff for free. This time it’s This is Daptone Records…, a fantastic sampler. The Daptone sound is a perfect retro funk soul affair. They release 45’s, just to fool people into thinking the stuff is decades old. You’ve heard the Dap-Kings backing up Amy Winehouse about that whole ‘not going to rehab’ thing, among other issues. They’re all over her Back To Black album, a big reason why it sounds so sharp. The three Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings tracks on the sampler are as good as any Winehouse stuff. But the best track is “Make The Road By Walking”, from the Menahan Street Band. You can listen on YouTube.

Shortly after the Republican convention, I received the following complaint about CT:

How is it possible that the Housemartins have NEVER been mentioned on Crooked Timber?

A mystery indeed. My correspondent was reminded of the Housemartins by the people who were grinning themselves to death. in St Paul. But why complain to me?:

I know, I know, Holbo is random pop culture guy, but you seem to be the best candidate for CTer with (at least prior) affection for “Take Marx… Take Jesus… Take Hope.”

That’s probably right (and I like the gentle suggestion that I am the not-popular culture guy, or, as one of our readers said to me, the “archaic lower-middle-brow British culture” guy). I even saw the Housemartins once, which given my record of attending live popular music events demonstrates remarkable affection (none for 15 years, and only about 10 which didn’t involve Loudon Wainwright III or Richard Thompson before that). I’ve even got all their albums (well, both of them).

But, I thought, is there a song for today? Sitting on a Fence?; Get up off our knees?; Heaven Help Us All (introduced by Peely)?; We’re Not Going Back? (The Christians among you are bound to recognise the sentiments in Sunday isn’t Sunday—I have a “Antidisestablishmentarians for Obama” button, which I got because I figured it announced my membership of a vanishingly small minority group.. My friend told me I was being elitist. “Why, antidisestablishmentarianism is a non-elite view, here”; “Yes, but only elitists know what it means”. What can you do?)

Take your pick. And, sure, the world will be a little bit better tomorrow, but not enough better that you can’t make it better still.

Update: Doug K nominates Caravan of Love. I could go with that.

Amazon is giving away a a free ‘sampler’ album from Light In the Attic records. It’s drop dead fantastic, I say. It’s got “Katie Cruel”, by Karen Dalton [wikipedia]. Such an amazing song, and an amazing voice – like Billie Holiday decided to sing a perfect contribution to the soundtrack for “Deadwood”. Dalton’s In My Own Time was released in 1970, then only made it to CD a couple years ago. Then there is “An Elegy”, some kind of champagne trip soul hop remix of a Free Design track. Then another Free Design track, “Make The Madness Stop”. (Either you like Free Design or you don’t. It’s totally ridiculous stuff.) Then there’s a crazy great Betty Davis track, “He Was A Real Freak”. A fun ringer, “Sugar Man”, from someone named Rodriguez. The brief bio from the label is interesting. His 1970 album is “one of the lost classics of the ‘60s, a psychedelic masterpiece drenched in colour and inspired by life, love, poverty, rebellion, and, of course, “jumpers, coke, sweet mary jane”. The album is Cold Fact, and what’s more intriguing is that its maker – a shadowy figure known as Rodriguez – was, for many years, lost too. A decade ago, he was rediscovered working on a Detroit building site, unaware that his defining album had become not only a cult classic, but for the people of South Africa, a beacon of revolution.” Also on the sampler are a couple of solid reggae/r&b tracks – especially “Chips – Chicken – Banana Split”, by Jo Jo and the Fugitives. The tracks by The Black Angels and the Saturday Knights are solid, too. Like I said: great album, and free.

I see that the Black Angels just played a Halloween gig with Roky Erikson. That reminds me of another free mp3 to pass along. A great cover of Erikson’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet”. I know about that one because I really enjoyed Jonathan Lethem’s novel – same title – which didn’t get much attention. It’s kinda like Philip K. Dick wrote an episode of “Friends”. But in a good way. No, that’s not what it’s like, except for the names. What can I say? It’s a slight work, evoking aimlessly attractive youth. There are comic couplings and decouplings, and very nicely written it is.

I know what day it is. But every post can’t be about the election.